I don't know what this guy does for a living, but his dark ambient music is as good as any out there. http://www.backyardghost.com/ I don't have all of his stuff, but I have close to half of it. Mostly free downloads, though I've paid him $5 plus shipping for a couple of CDs.
Thanks davis. I find this whole conversation (and others on similar topics here at Progressive Ears) fascinating for many reasons. First, let me say that I myself have been recording and performing all sorts of music since the 1970's, and I have never fooled myself that I could make much of a living doing it, certainly not enough to feed a family. The only time I was able to stay above water as a performer was when I was employed for a year as a singing messenger for Eastern Onion during the early 1980's, working 14 hour shifts five days a week, sacrificing my personal health and my automobile to extreme wear and tear the entire time. But I had a lot of fun during that year, so I kept it up until I couldn't take it any more.Originally Posted by davis
During that same period I was performing in night clubs in the SF Bay Area in a duo that did live Frippertronics shows (called -Ing). There was definitely no money to be made there, the night club owners seldom paid much, but we were breaking some boundaries in the music world and audiences were loving it (as were we). Also during this time I began exchanging cassette tapes of our music with other artists, sending them to college and community radio stations, etc. We got a good response. This was our real reward, and it was very satisfying.
I never really tried to make money as a musician after doing the singing telegram gig, but I continued making recordings and doing performances (continuing to this very day in fact). I simply have to; it's in my genes. My work is not for everybody, but I dabble in so many different approaches that every once in a while I score a "hit" with listeners who happen to be in the right mood for whatever I'm doing at the time. Yes, I've sold some tapes and CDs over the years -- but I've never recouped all the investments that went into making those productions, and I've never expected to. Live gigs that came close to breaking even on expenses have always been considered successes.
But what's really important to me, is that for many years now I've been a member of a world wide community of independent artists, all of whom doing all this sort of not-for-profit art. The goal is generally to make original music, stretch boundaries, ignore the constraints of "the music industry," go where no one has gone before sonically. I have collaborated with artists from all over the USA, Europe (including the Eastern Bloc before the Wall came down), Canada, Japan, Australia, South America. This simply would not be possible if my goals had been limited to just making music for money.
For Davis and anyone else interested, there's a huge website out there that's been around at least since the early 1990's that harbors BILLIONS of very interesting, genuinely unique, recordings that can be used in radio shows or personal mp3 players or whatever without any royalties being involved whatsoever. It's "archive.org". It's like a library, not a marketplace. There are no advertisements on this site. There are lots of artists represented there, however, who are interested in sharing their work with the world -- no purchase necessary.
I've used the Live archive for years, dlg shows from favorite artists. Never knew there was all the rest of that on there. thanks! kudos to Taped Rugs
You make me with I'd never given up clarinet, but now the low notes really bother my teeth. I've saving up for a chromatic harmonica. I just want to play what I want to play and make lots of weird noises with it.
I've never done any internet radio and have no plans to, but I listen to a lot of the live, DJ'd shows on House of Prog, and I've bought a load of albums while listening to the shows, and I know others who listen and are in the chat rooms do too.
But I agree none of the Prog shows have that many listeners. So unless you're playing complete albums, I think these shows can't really do any harm, but can certainly generate a few sales, and also some awareness.
I've decided to go with Podbean. and it's NOT free. It's just free for the trial period.
In case anyone is interested, my show will commence very soon. The Underground Attic on Podbean. I have one podcast together and of course will be doing more.
Did you used to use a name like Silvershoes on PE? I may well be wrong - just wondering what music we might hear...
Now I'm thinking Silvershoes is GuitarGeek... I'm bad with names.
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