Island bands and musicians, don’t forget that you can promote your events free of charge by adding them to the Events On The Wight listings site.
As someone who makes music and grew up on a remote part of an already cut-off Island I have noticed an on-going theme. Bands, DJs and MCs are “not being paid enough”. This has been quoted by nearly all the working artists in this area at different times.
For starters we know that the Island is a low wage area, so we have to except we won’t get as much pay as an inner city artist.
Thriving music scene?
Never the less, you would think that with two major festivals here and a few micro-festivals springing up there would be some kind of thriving music scene?
WRONG! There is a ridiculous amount of creative talent here, just no REAL live venues of any capacity. This is due to strict council laws, which to me seem crazy – as they let over 50,000 people converge on the capital in one weekend – but licensing a live venue has some kind of red tape area that only a council could dream up.
Some venues make it hard
Many venues that do host bands, not only have no in-house P.A system (of any use) but some of them make it so hard to put on a show – expecting bands to do everything from sound engineering to promoting.
This seems a real shame considering the quality live acts we have, hence the lack in a music scene.
As a song writer myself, I feel this is a massive injustice to music! By devaluing an artist like they have, also makes the artist doubt and devalue themselves.
We are talking about an area that has produced bands like The Bees and Level 42 and hosted the legendary 1970 pop festival.
Inevitably Island artists will have to move to bigger populated areas to really succeed, but they also need to believe in themselves to make those kind of moves.
We’re all to blame
Now I am going to randomly point the finger, without mentioning names, because in this case we all are to blame.
The festivals and venues for expecting artists to keep playing “for the love of it” year- in, year-out. The artists for agreeing to keep going out for little, to no money and the punters for always wanting a free ride.
I have even heard rumours of Island bands being taught to undercut other bands just to get stage time!
Stronger together
Which brings me to my next subject “competition”. There is nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, every musical movement has it, but you need to have access to the stage to showcase a movement don’t you?
Not just two major festivals a year and the other 363 days spent waiting!
Us artists have to set goals and work towards them, nothing happens overnight and if you think some major label A&R is going stumble across you playing your local pub and sign you, you’re in a deep sleep, dreaming!
What I would like to see is the independence we’ve all learnt as rejected artists put to good use. Host your own events, don’t see the next band, DJ or MC as competition, but as equals, who love and want the same things you do – then the real evaluation begins.
Respect starts within
We would all like to be paid to do what we love, if I loved my day job I wouldn’t be writing this! But to get paid, you have to be respected and respect is not earned by being a ‘yes man’ or feeding off scraps.
Respect starts within. If you were asked to work your day job for less money than last week, you’d feel demoralised, so why play for the glory of a cheer from a crowd that may not be as loud as you hoped, only to walk away out of pocket?
We have to draw a line in the sand and personally I’d rather freestyle with others into the same music as me, than play for scraps and watch others profit off our backs!
Should you confuse me for some capitalist driven sell-out who should do it for the love and not the money “fair play”, but love won’t pay the bills will it?
Image: © Zinzi Graham
