JAIMIE VERNON – AN OPEN LETTER TO MUSICAL NEWBIES Part 2

A friend of mine in the entertainment business once nailed the real truth of the matter, “It’s not selling OUT…it’s just SELLING”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHJBO3eWQm0

So what if you’ve got street cred? In the end it won’t buy you a sandwich or get you on the bus when you’re destitute from starving for your art. Ah, yes…the old sawhorse debate about commerce versus art. We artistic types spend a disproportionate amount of time protecting our creations. They’re our babies and can’t be nursed by anyone but us. In music, that means slaving over the writing and producing process until every last drop of ‘inspiration’ can be sweat out of the muse.

JAIMIE VERNON – AN OPEN LETTER TO MUSICAL NEWBIES

[Jaimie is currently exhausted and unable to form a cogent original thought…so here’s a rerun of a fan favourite blog from 2011]

I used to run a lucrative record label full-time. I now run it occasionally when I find artists who have the desire and drive to help themselves and who only lean on me to sort out mindless applications for grants, pointers on increasing their social media exposure or answering manufacturing queries. I charge a fee to do this because my 30 years of experience deserves more than a ‘let’s go out for lunch so I can pick your brain’ remuneration. It’s like asking a prostitute to give you a happy ending in exchange for a coffee. And, yes, I do equate being in the music business with prostitution.