I just got finished reading the article posted by Von Babasin and the response by Indiemonkey, and I started to think. (I do this from time to time).
Von Babasin must've been doin' this for a while! I'm from New York, so I've never heard of ONOFFON, but I'm feeling his pain all the way over here on the East Coast. Let's take a look at this:
It's true what was written in the response. You do have to have a technical know how, and do a lot of promoting before you can expect to be recognized, but then again, what is it that you're doing? I'm not trying to throw rocks, but jazz-rock fusion isn't too popular from what I can tell. I'm sure it has it's own secluded following, but you could probably have a conversation with most of them right now by visiting a chat room. Having mentioned that, live music in general doesn't seem to be popular anymore!
In fact, just from asking around for public opinion, most people between the ages of 19-25 would rather go to a club with a DJ, than go see a band. Check this out:
The vocalist from my band (The Liqwid Friday Show), and I were exploring the idea of putting ourselves in an enormous amount of debt to open up a bar in Queens. (Stay with me on this, it gets better, or worse depending on how you look at it). To confirm the decision of what type of bar we would make it, we went to NYU and conducted a survey of 200 people between the ages of 19 and 25. One of the questions on the survey was:
"Would you be more inclined to go to an establishment that had booked a well known band, singer, or other means of live music entertainment?"
The overwhelming majority, which was 94%, answered "No". (Although 67% said they would be if there were a stand up comedian instead). This response, coupled with the annoying amount of Ricky Martin and Britney Spears songs constantly playing on the radio stations has lead me to believe that it's more important to have a nice ass than well tuned artistic talent in today's music industry.
With the onset of digital synthesizers, sampling devices, and rhythm machines, nobody seems interested in live jazz, rock, folk, metal, fusion, blusian, protrusion, or anything else that required more than a couple of good sub-woofers and some whining. It reminds me of that nightmare we had about ten years ago when the New Kids on the Block took over. It's the same thing. Only now they've got tattoos and they call themselves "N' Sync" or "The Back Street Boys". (Just imagine saying that with a lisp).
Von Babasin, I hear you bro. It doesn't help to promo when nobody cares who you are. If it makes you feel any better, my band was turned down for a show last weekend when we told the owner we didn't do any covers of Mark Anthony. This is the sad part, we wound up going to the club anyway, and they found someone who did!
You're probably wondering what my point is after all that incessant rambling (If anyone's still reading this at all). So I'm just gonna say it out loud. In my opinion, we all need to start doing things differently, and I don't mean conforming to the popular world of breast implants, and vocal droning.
What we need is a musical revolution. (Not like the one Limeygit was describing), but something to take all this in a different direction. This Matchbox 20 crap ain't gonna cut it either. Let's face it, the best work of Rob Thomas's life was done with Santana. We need to go somewhere different. I'm sure Chuck Berry was thinking the same thing when he wrote 'Johnny B. Goode' back in the day. It had better happen soon too, I'm getting really bored! The best things I've heard recently were such inferior acts as Godsmack and Korn. Let's get crackin' baby!