I was sent this article by an old friend who is a fellow guitarist and vocalist.  His name is Shawn Stanley, and he has an original band with his wife Shannon that can be found here.  Shawn and I have known each other for 20 years, and we have always shared music talk.  He occasionally asks me my opinion on music business matters, and his latest inquiry was on what I thought of what Amanda Palmer was doing in the aforementioned article.  Here goes:

Re: AMANDA PALMER / GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA

Okay, here are some responses I have, in no particular order

• I am a union member. And although many gigs are not union gigs, there is still a “scale” and a “contract” for that type of performance that musicians should always get, no different than if you hired plumbers to work on a Saturday night. This is why we have professional organizations, guilds, and the like
• I am not an original artist, and I don't understand what it means to be one. I think that Amanda Palmer is awfully arrogant if she thinks that this many musicians would want to play with her “just for the priveledge” of doing so. You're not that important, sweetheart, sorry
• She CAN afford it, she's just choosing not to pay for it. If she had any balls at all, she'd just put it all on the sweetener track and not worry about the logistics of dealing with that many fucking people. That's what all the artists she is trying to “be like” do anyway.
• Neither me, nor any of my friends (who are nationally-known professional full-time musicians) need Amanda Palmer's gig to make a living. So, we choose not to play with her. Beyond that, we can simply choose not to buy her record and not to pay the cover charge to see her. The other thing we don't need is her music in our collection.
• If we're lucky, both of these organizations will just go away, much like the rest have.
• She's not doing her own career any favors by pulling this. She may have money now, but she's deliberately alienating a lot of her fans, and inhibiting herself when it comes to gaining new ones.
• Both of these organizations are not doing US any favors either, they are deliberately lowering our price point, which hurts our business, and consequently, hurts the all-around level of entertainment that the public pays to see, by lowering the standard of excellence required to entertain and perform music.
• Everyone likes to dangle the “exposure” vibe at musicians, like it's something we need like we need air to breathe. Recording artists, producers, bandleaders, business owners, they all think they're doing musicians some huge fucking “favor” by giving us a place to play that we so desperately need. Again, the ARROGANCE! Do you really feel like you're that important to us? You're not. We're good. We'll find somewhere or something else.
  
  
  
  
  WHEN IT'S OKAY TO PLAY FOR FREE:
  
  
  
  
  1. An audition for multiple potential gigs
  2. For a charity that you really believe in
  3. Because you have to pay your guys, and can't pay yourself
  4. Sitting in with close friends, or getting a chance to play with one of your heroes. If Amanda Palmer is your close friend or hero, so be it.
  5. Read this article from my friend Dave in NYC/San Francisco.