I've been putting together my new CD in the past weeks. This will be my 3rd release. It'll be here soon. I'm looking forward to it. It'll be fun.
I can't help acknowledging, however, what I know to be true: the record business is a sucker's game! It always was in a way. Artists historically have never gotten rich from record companies. But now? Forget it! Even record companies aren't getting rich off of record companies!
So why do we do it? I've been surveying all of my artist friends with CDs out. It's an endless money pit: recording expenses, mixing, mastering, artwork, manufacturing, publicity, promotion, etc, etc, etc.
The consensus seems to be that apparently we do it because we don't have a choice. It's the same reason I basically became a musician in the first place. Being a musician is a sucker's game! You want to be rich? Be a (bailed out) banker. You want to be famous? Maybe being a serial killer is a quicker route to that. But if you feel, as I do, that you would rather play music in a smoky bar for tips than sit at a desk for one second longer, rent payments and light bills be damned, then by all means jump right in.
There are ways to be smart about it, pragmatic, practical; music school and things like that. But it's still a sucker's game. I can't recommend it as a lifestyle unless you have NO other choice. The amount of work and dedication it takes to get from the smoky bar to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is staggering.
Don't get me wrong. Playing the big stages is the greatest thing ever. But you don't walk straight from the music store buying your first instrument onto the concert stage. It's a long hard slog.
Putting out a CD is almost akin to buying a lottery ticket, albeit a very expensive one. The chances of me putting out a "hit" record are staggeringly against. One has a better chance of getting hit by lightning...twice...than winning the lottery. But instead of allowing this information to convince me against buying an occasional lottery ticket, I'm now afraid of lightning. Such is the tortured internal calculus of the artist's lifestyle.
My CD is coming out whether I like it or not. I may sell tens of copies. I may be heard by literally a dozen people on the radio. But I don't have a choice. I'm compelled to document my work. I'm forced to make my material available to the world. If the world chooses to ignore it, that's fine. I have to put it out there.
For me the journey is the reward, as it is in so many other aspects of life. I'm having a blast being a musician, touring the world, playing with talented and/or famous people, occasionally creating art or at least some unified purpose of spirit within a room of like-minded musicians and audience members. If my CD turns out to be little more than a musical photo album of some of my experiences, so be it. I'm a richer person for being able to look back at the keepsake of some work I've immensely proud of....
Ivan Bodley
Brooklyn, NY
Check out my website: www.funkboy.net
Visit me on MySpace: www.myspace.com/funkboynyc
Follow my blog at: http://funkboynyc.blogspot.
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