Show Biz Kids.....
 

It's a line from a Steely Dan track:

Show biz kids making movies of themselves
You know they don't give a f**k about anybody else

I was reminded of it by Chula's recent championing of Taxman, and elphenor's reply:-

The Taxman lyrics are a bit snarky, and the song was inspired by GH learning that some Beatles income was being taxed at 95 pence in the pound. They came out with 5 pence in their own pocket, so his annoyance is understandable, but ultimately I agree with elphenor; don't bleat to me about your hard life, show biz kids.

I wonder who are the biggest ingrates, who let their discontent about stardom spill over into their songs - and how sympathetic do you feel towards their complaints?

Prince sure did bitch a lot about being a rockstar and then his music got boring.

Metallica war against downloading and their music has sucked for a long time

Neil Young with this bud's for you or whatever that was. He keeps making good music.

^ Thanks, Occult H. I didn't know that Prince was a grumbler too.

Van Morrison has a reputation as a rather unhappy soul, and on this album he berates us across a couple of songs about his hard deal as a musician:-

......

How much sympathy do I have? Quite a lot, because the songs are so good, and in the first one at least, he ties his rock-star disenchantment back to a general existential malaise that any of us might feel. The stinging invective about the music business is saved for the second song...

Roger Waters spit on fans and then made the wall about how alienating life as a rockstar is

I had another damnit

Rush kind of bitches about it in limelight

Lol yeah kind of Wizard of Oz level disillusionment there.

^ Yeah, he's a good example. I saw him once doing Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking and he obviously felt obliged to do at least some old Floyd classics. One slow song started up, (maybe Fat Old Sun ) and the audience started clapping along, until Big Bad Rodge suddenly stopped the song dead. There was this weird silence as he walked to the mike and said, "You know, it would really be much nicer if you didn't do that." Then he started the song over, while we all sat there like schoolboys who'd been told off. You could've heard a pin drop, as they say!

That's so odd that you have first-hand experience of that, cos I read a review of another concert (or maybe the same one, though I doubt it) where the reviewer said that during the song "If" (I don't know it, unless it's the Bread classic?) a guy started whistling and Waters said "Don't whistle, mate. It'd be better without the whistling." Jesus. Come to a Roger Waters concert but do not under any circumstances show that you enjoy it and for Christ's sake do not participate in any way! Hard to see him doing a Freddy Mercury "way-hay-hay-hay" singalong thing, isn't it?

On another note, this song from Fish of Marillion, from his fourth solo album, whining about fame and its hollowness, always kind of pissed me off.

I went to see him on that same tour. It was pretty amazing. Fortunately, he kept his mouth shut and just played the songs.

The entire second half were Floyd songs opening with Set the Controls... long time ago ... iirc ... great show though

Amazing he would chastise paying fans for clapping along. Lol - astonishingly pretentious even for him. That might even surpass Art Blakey. I love Waters but good god is he a pretentious prick. The fact that he thinks he could write that horrible horrible horrible opera that's easily the worst record mentioned on that other thread shows what a ****ed up narcissistic prick he is. I've seen GG Allin in concert but I actually think what Waters did at your concert is far more offensive. He's in such a power position. You're thinking like this guy wrote The Wall and then he uses all that clout to make you feel bad for clapping along. I know I take these guys too seriously but that would really hurt my feelings. He's lucky y'all were chill and didn't bum rush him and give him the ass kicking he deserved.

Clapping along to songs is seriously the ****ing worst though, especially when it's a pack of crackers with no sense of rhythm or cadence and half of the audience is clapping on the upbeat and the other half is clapping on the downbeat. Halting a song because of it is majorly dickish though, should have just kept on and said it before the next song.

What's up with Art Blakey?

Dude he's a professional musician in front of a live crowd. I get it could throw him off or **** up the song but it's his ****ing JOB to make it work. It's live. He's not in a studio. He's expected to be able to modify things or improvise a touch to deal with the audience. No matter how seriously he takes himself people go to concerts to have a good time. I don't clap or sing along even when asked. I'm like **** you I'm not your monkey you're mine. I paid the ticket price and went out instead of watching HBO. Bitch, you're working for me. If you can't handle people clapping along don't tour bitch.

Blakey was always throwing fits if there was the slightest noise. People buying drinks or whatever. I would like it quiet during a Blakey concert and I would probably prefer people didn't clap along during Fat Old Sun. But goddamn I don't want to feel like I'm in middle school. At a Swans concert I was at Gira tried to play some of his acoustic folk songs and nobody would shut up and he spazzed out. That's a fully retarded audience though. But it was in a bar. He should have just crushed the place with unmerciful pre Children of God stuff. Hell Waters would have been cooler if he just directed his band to do some old school free form improv psychedelia.

It's douchey for sure. Almost as douchey as thinking people want to hear an audience amateurishly clapping while one of their favourite artists plays. Save that **** for your summer camp singalongs.

I actually agree with that.

You mean Ca Ira? Oh god yes, that was gar-bage and a huge disappointment. Talk about ****ing pretentious to the max!
Or he could have gone "You! Yes you! Stand still laddie!" or something else from The Wall, to make a point. Or, preferably, just shut the **** up and remembered that without millions of people like the guy who was clapping/whistling, he'd still be cutting crappy demos hoping to be a star some day.

It's not the wisest business decision, but I'm concerned about the implications of musical populism that you guys are talking about here.

I think most of us are saying that as an artist, if you become even moderately successful, you do owe something back to your fans, and you need to remember that without them you'd be nothing. I mean, you can make the greatest music in the world but how much use is that to you if nobody ever hears it? So when your fans go to see you, cut them a little slack. Even if you don't like what they're doing, as long as it's reasonable and expected, keep your snark to yourself, Roger. Or anyone else who does this.

It's useful to a musician as a point of personal growth. Not everything goes back to capitalistic goals, Waters would be the first to tell you that.

Yeah but the point being made here, kind of the point of the thread, is if you get rich and famous - and you only get that way if people buy your stuff, let's be honest - don't moan about it and start being a prick. Any musician can jam or record for hours or days and get great stuff he or she never uses, just likes for itself, and that's fine. But when it gets to commercial success, remember how you got there and who put you there. That's the point.

That's a step away from having to bend to the will of your fans even if you don't enjoy it. That's the point I'm making here.

It's up to the musician. I saw Bob Dylan and he played really dorky rockabilly versions of every song he played. I've had a few more chances to see him again and passed. Obviously, he doesn't need my business. But like anything else, if I'm unhappy with the experience I'm not likely to return. Some musicians don't care. Some are good enough not to care. Some are worse because they do care. As a fan, I don't really feel like I'm imposing my will on anyone. From a starting point, they play music for money. It's going to be a long time before I care about professional musicians as people who suffer because of their jobs. I doubt the garbage man is really deeply inclined to collect my trash and my heart actually goes out to him. I try to put out the garbage so it's easy for them to get to. Am I concerned for Roger Waters that his fans are clapping to Fat Old Sun? Uh, no. Nor did I feel bad for Gira. I'm a fan. From where I sit these people are living a dream life.

Then you have Van Morrison, who often plays with his back to the audience. I think this is a really ignorant thing to do, but whatever. If I pay the - increasingly exorbitant - price of a ticket though, I'm not going to be told by the artist what I can and can't do at his/her/their gig. I paid. **** you if you don't like it. I'm paying, in part, for the lavish lifestyle you're (probably) leading, and I will never lead that life, so let me enjoy myself.

I don't get where it's "imposing your will on the artist", Frown: if the tickets carried a warning NO SINGING, DANCING, CLAPPING OR WHISTLING then maybe it might be like NO CAMERAS OR RECORDING DEVICES: you've been warned. But to turn around in the middle of a performance that I have paid to get into, and tell me I can't bloody clap or whistle? **** that.

Just want to drop this in here, to compliment Lisna on a pretty excellent and original thread, by a guy who tends not to make many. But when he does, they're usually winners. :clap:

Never said it wasnt douchey. I still think its an entitled way to look at concerts.

For the fan or the artist?

Yes.

As opposed to treating the fans as walking ATMs? Cuts both ways dude: give your fans a modicum of respect and you'll get it back. Treat them like **** and you may lose some, or all of them.

And I don't care what way you cut it: not facing your audience is ignorant. I wonder would Mark E wotsit be "particularly interested" in refunding all the money these fans have spent on his music, huh? The air must be pretty rareified up there on his high horse. If he's not interested in them, why the **** is he playing live?

This isn't really different from treating the fans as your boss from where I'm sitting.

Most definitely.

They paid to see him play. They saw him play. No refund, bitches. Should've come to the show with less expectations.

Sorry but that's just bollox. The price of tickets these days, the least I should be able to expect is to see the guy's face and have some interaction with him. I don't want to be staring at his arse for an hour!
Now Kylie, well, that's a different matter... ;)

Of course it's a business transaction. What else can it be? The artist produces a product that is then consumed by his or her fans. A novellist does the same, a film star, anyone else. It's basic. Unless it's a free concert, in which case fine. But the back-turning thing is only part of it: mostly, don't try to tell me how to behave at your concert. Do I tell YOU not to make us all sing "Hey-hey-oh!" or whatever, or slow clap a ****ing drum solo? I paid for the right to enjoy myself, and as long as it's legal, I'm gonna do it. Clap, whistle, jump up and down, sing every lyric, dance, whatever.

To all that I say: tough titties. If the concert isn't to your liking, don't see them when they come back around.

Yup. And enough people do that, they start to wonder why they can't sell tickets any more. I continue to listen to their live albums. Everybody wins. Except them.

Whammo! That's what I've been saying this whole time. There are no rules of the proper performance, but you can help keep douchey artists at bay with your dollar.

I saw PiL for $40. What about that huh.

I suppose I should really qualify that I haven't seen a band live since probably the end of the twentieth century. Don't have that option no more, things being as they are, y'know. So I guess much of what I'm talking about is kind of vicarious, or at least harking back to my youth, when yes, you could see Mamas Boys or Rory Gallagher for a fiver at The Stadium, but no more. Nevertheless, they always faced the audience and were a joy to watch perform.

I obviously never had any interest in seeing Morrison.

Edit: Also, I think we've become hung up on live performances, when the original topic was just about entitled rock stars. It's all good though, but there are other aspects to this than just gigs. Prince is definitely a good example of the latter: bitching about every instance of his music used even in YouTube videos in the background? I mean, really?

There's no reason why they can't do both. Springsteen does a three hour gig and gives it all he's got. There's no watering down of his performance. Same with Queen, when Freddie was alive. Same with a huge - I would even say the larger - percentage of artists. Most of them get as much of a kick out of playing live as the fans do. What about Iron Maiden?

You're never gonna sell him on that idea using Springsteen as an example.

I can smell the backsweat just reading about it.

**** him. I saw Springsteen on the Born in the USA tour at Slane and he killed it. But he's just one example. The fact is that as I said, the larger percentage of live acts WANT to interact with the audience and for them to interact with the band. Do you think Maiden would stop people clapping? Or Slayer? Or Zu? Zorn? This Heat? Robbie Williams? You-****ing-two? ;) Talk to most bands after/before a gig and they're buzzing, they're psyched, they're hyped up to give a great show. Waters is a prick, plain and simple, and Morrison is an dour, ignorant ****, but I hate his music anyway so that really means nothing coming from me.

Whether you enjoyed it or not is your problem. I guarantee you almost everyone else who went to that gig did enjoy it. But the point is, did Bruce stop playing Number of the Beast and say "Guys, please don't sing SIX SIX SIX: it would be better without that"????
At least, you hope that's what you can smell! :laughing:

No they probably have a very firm "audience is the boss" philosophy.

Clapping at one of those concerts would be weird. If they did I wouldn't care though, those clappers are likely drunk jackasses ruining the show for everyone.