Big Moves

Frogs Gone Fishin' leaves on a three month journey today: two weeks of tour followed by a springtime residence in my favorite city in the world, New Orleans. It will still be very much a journey living in New Orleans, even after establishing ourselves in (yet another) 3-month sub-lease. Making a living playing music in New Orleans will be slightly different than in our favorite state in the world, Colorado. Gigs have been plentiful in the mountains and the front-range area where clubs are not necessarily saturated with live talent year-round like clubs in New Orleans are.

Club owners in NOLA are particularly opposed to technology it seems, oftentimes rejecting the internet and even voice-mail as means of booking acts, leaving you the sole option of patronizing the club over and over until contact with the elusive owner has been made.

That said, certain elements of the New Orleans music scene are much more accessible to the average musician. For example, I've opened for artists like Rebirth Brass Band, Talib Kweli and Juvenile in NOLA, whereas we struggle to find opening spots in Denver, due in large part to the fact that many major artists who come to Denver are controlled by large corporate entities ie; Live Nation (more on some big moves there in a bit). It is the accessibility to bigger acts and better musicians that makes NOLA an attractive place to spend our spring. We love the Denver/Boulder/Mountain region and plan to return, but the funky knowledge we will gain, just by inhaling the swampy musical molecules floating around The Gulf Coast, will benefit our Colorado friends in the long run.

Between packing up my limited personal belongings before the move, finishing the Lay It Out So You Can Play It Out series, and all the other band and For/Sure Productions business going on, I've still had some time to stay analytical about the music business at large.

I read an article on Forbes.com the other day, titled "The Microsoft of the Entertainment Industry". The piece analyzed a potential merger between two music industry behemoths: Live Nation and Ticketmaster. You already know these companies well. The last time you went to see Madonna or Jay-Z at your local sports arena, you probably bought the tickets from Ticketmaster and noticed the tiny text on the top of the stub that says "Live Nation Presents...". These large conglomerate companies have been one of the few ticketing/promoting options in the business for several years now.

It seems that last year Ticketmaster starting buying up stake in promotion companies, while Live Nation was busy trying to start its own ticketing entity. Now it looks as though the individual companies have found a better way to reduce competition: a high-level merger! This news is particularly interesting after the jam community went abuzz last week when Live Nation bungled ticket sales for the highly anticipated return of jam-giant Phish.

We've all heard about monopolies and how bad they are for the marketplace. In the case of companies like Wal-Mart and Starbucks, the consumer can sometimes benefit from increased accessibility and lowered costs, despite limited market diversity.

Music is not a commodity, however. It is an art. True, some music serves a functional purpose, like a military march or some folk songs which help to transmit cultural information. But, Madonna is not a necessity for the transmission of cultural ideals! She is a luxury, a recreation that deserves fair market competition, or the consumer ends up losing, hard.

Concert prices are high enough as it is. I know that within our promotion company, For/Sure Productions, we debate a lot about how to keep ticket prices down. We could care less about a ticketing agency's break-even point. With a TicketNation merger, all that would go out the window.

Sometimes Big Moves hurt the Little Guy.