A great critical analysis of the Pomplamoose article (from an indie rock perspective) is here:
FTA you posted, the very first sentence:
The obnoxious indie-rock duo and YouTube sensation Pomplamoose first turned my stomach during this holly-jolly time of year back in 2010,
Yes, I read past that sentence, though it clearly establishes the bias of the article. Its not critical in the sense that its analyzing anything. Its critical of the bands music in the first place and then extends that to the bands business practices.
But I read all the way through and my two word reply is this:
So what?
I’m not a fan of Pomplamoose, but it was a nice article about what they did and why they did it.
If ever I go on tour I’ll take this into consideration and avoid some of the things I don’t agree with here.
If anybody really wanted to help out Pomplamoose, they’d email them directly and offer advice, as it turns out, they’re just hijacking the haters for more clicks.
Anybody angry about what they did should go ahead and do it better and post about it. I’ll read their article, won’t guarantee I’ll listen to their music though.
It seems to me, that the only people complaining about this are people who actually want the curtain in the first place.
Is the corollary to this “…and not make money”?
There’s your curtain right there, the one you want where everything is hidden from you. Some people see the curtain half open, others half closed.
As for me, I was already very much aware of the high costs of putting yourself out there, in more than one sense of the word. No curtain was pulled open, for me it was just a rundown of their spending on the tour. Awesome.
Oh, they have an extra income that will offset their losses? Awesome, no wonder they could pull off what they did! And its right there in the article too! If I ever try it myself I’ll make sure to take this into consideration
I’ll go out of my way to say that might be a good thing, if anybody gets discouraged because of this, they’re not ready to go out on the road. A lot of people’s dreams get crushed when the plans they make don’t match up to reality. Some survive by readjusting their expectations, or planning around what doesn’t work. Some just give up. Others still persevere no matter what.
I think the answer the detractors would give is that they should quit making music.
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Sorry about the intro in that article, tachin1. Originally, I was directed to the analysis of Pomplamoose’s touring practices in the middle section and I glossed over the top section.
Right, but the classical world and pop, even indie pop world, really are different. There are different expectations, and the pop world hasn’t had unions for decades. it’s kind of apples and oranges, except where you get people who play classical music or classical instruments working in the pop world.
Although, that’s awesome for her. Does she have a website or something?
Also, I think this is different too, right? Trying to make it as a pop star is different than someone who works as a session musician, backing musician for touring, and as a consultant? I’d suspect that the vast majority of people who make it in the music business do so in these sorts of jobs, as opposed to being a pop/rock musician. In a way, the whole pop/rock star narrative obscures the fact that the bulk of people in the music industry aren’t celebrity pop stars/ rock stars, but artists and craftsman whose names we generally don’t know, but who make the business actually run.
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I don’t know if he’s a millionaire, but he ain’t hurting these days. I think his work deserves as much attention as it can get, though.
Well, that’s only like 22 library visits a year: http://bentcorner.com/neil-gaiman-charges-a-public-library-45000-for-a-four-hour-appearance/
I came here expecting to see the usual bagging on AFP by “community” members here. I was not disappointed in this.
Get a life, folks.
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You said she mad a million dollars profit a year. When asked for any proof whatsoever, you posted a long personal anecdote instead of offering a citation proving what you had said…
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It looks like you’re confusing the idea of “income” and “profit” or was your ex making $300K of profit a year (which would imply more than $500K of income, at the very least)?
I’m assuming you really want to know, so let me break down what I can.
A really high quality video camera is going to be in the $4,000-6,000 range, and you can get something very good for under $2,000. That’s for 4k- I can tell you they’re not shooting in that kind of quality, but we can pretend they’re buying high end stuff, so figure $15,000 for cameras. We’ve already established that Lenovo gave them $9,000 in cash and computers, but let’s say they spent $13,700 on a Mac Pro and $3600 on a MacBook- Both fully loaded with Final Cut preinstalled. You can get a very high quality video projector for around $25,000. That’s a total one-time cost equal to 15% of their annual gross for everything.
The thing is, though, it’s unlikely they spent that much, because that kind of system is more than enough to do a scripted network TV series, and they have a much more low budget look- Some of the gear they use is clearly visible, so we don’t have to guess. The video projector they use in their Happy mashup video looks like an Epson EX3210- around $600. The rest of that video was done with foamcore, shop lights, and a bedsheet. In a video from a month ago, they’re using a Novation Impulse 61 ($400), and a Fender Rhodes- I can’t get a decent look at what model, but it’s vintage and probably around $3500. She plays a Cort Artisan series bass- Can’t tell what model, but they’re in the $500-$800 range.
So we know for a fact they’re using low to midrange pro-sumer gear. I’m going to make an educated guess and put their total investment at $6000 for video and $10,000 for instruments and recording gear. Throw in cables, hard drives, lights and duct tape, we can generously round up to $20,000. That’s a one-time investment- Not ongoing expenses.
The rest is all time. Time to write, shoot, edit- Not to mention coming up with ideas. It’s not like woodworking or cooking where you constantly need to buy new materials for every project- Once you have a studio and instruments, you can record music for years without any other investment. Your only consumables are cheap- picks, strings, blank CDs. They don’t seem to be hiring actors or session players, building sets, or anything else that points to ongoing expenses.
This and Patreon seem to be their full-time jobs, so there’s that. I have no idea about taxes, and they haven’t disclosed that information. Again, I’m just going by what I can actually cite sources for.
So now that you mention it, that $2500 a month bothers me, because it doesn’t add up. They’re pulling in $350K a year, spending far less than $20k, and living off $60k- So what is happening to the other $270,000? I honestly don’t see where they could possibly be reinvesting into the business at that rate. Are they not counting money put into a retirement fund as “income”? Are they dumping everything into an LLC and paying themselves in stock? I really don’t know what’s going on with that, but something’s way off.
Just so you understand where I’m coming from, I’m a musician myself and worked in technical theater for quite a few years, including as Technical Director for a Las Vegas show. I’ve run million+ dollar lighting rigs and worked with indie filmmakers and a whole bunch of small bands from both ends of the stage. When I wasn’t doing that, I managed retail stores, ran a small business, and worked as a hotel night auditor (which requires bookkeeping). I’m not exactly an expert, but I’m not completely talking out of my ass either.
Where can I get a house set up like this? My heating and electrical bills are killing me, not to mention food, internet and phone.
Or do “real” artists not need any of these things?
You build an earth-sheltered monolithic dome house with active and passive solar, composing system, well, and enough space to have a roommate that pays you enough to cover taxes and internet.
A one-time investment of a few hundred thousand, and you’ve got something with no utility costs and practically zero maintenance.
To survive, yes. To make art, no. But like I said, more hours devoted to survival equal fewer hours to make art.
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I just wanted to quote this section because I think that’s the perfect way to approach these things.
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Well, I am often surprised by how much/little money well-known people earned, but I’d be really surprised if he hasn’t netted several millions dollars over his career. (Which isn’t absurd. $100K over 30 years is $3 million).
The key to being successful is being (1) egotistical enough to continue plowing on when any sane person would quit because somehow you know you’ll succeed and (2) be humble enough to realize it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll manage to ride the train forever, and you’d better be saving every penny for a few years hence when people’s interest has passed on.
(Still, it’s not as bad as for actors, who need to look financially successful enough to be considered for parts. That’s a catch-22 that seldom has a happy ending.)
Anyway, since Gaiman’s in the top 0.01% of writers, he’d better be earning a decent living. After all, when he started, there was a 99.99% chance he’d make a whole heck of a lot less…
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Thank you.
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Well, the thing about figuring out how much artists of any stripe (also, by and large, athletes) take home is that people fail to take into account three important things:
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How little education they get on handling their money.
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What sort of expenses they have.
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The financial ecosystem in whatever industry they’re in, specifically relating to parasites.
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The first should be pretty obvious, but I think that quite a few people consciously or subconsciously equate successful artists with successful businesspeople. There are certainly people who fall into both categories, but an awful lot who do not. (Even Mick Jagger, who famously attended the London School of Economics, wasn’t canny enough to keep former manager Allen Klein from acquiring practically the Stones’ entire catalog before the seventies, although he was a fast learner.) Steve Albini has written before about the reality of the music business; again, while there are exceptions to the scenario he lays out, they’re exceptions. Further, the label of “successful” seems to be extended to people who are Internet-famous, but haven’t necessarily sold a lot of concert tickets or albums. I’d put AFP in that category.
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Almost no one really gets this. Albini’s post breaks it down pretty well, although the numbers will vary depending on the individual artist. Elvis Presley, for example, gave half of all his earnings to his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, with nothing more than a handshake for a contract. That’s another exception, but when you consider that you’ve not only got taxes (which themselves can vary hugely depending on where they’re earned and whether your country taxes income not earned there), but also fees that go to your manager, your agent, your publicist, your entourage, etc., which may be a cut of the gross. It adds up.
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Then there are people who do nothing who strive to find ways to part rich fools from their money; in addition to Col. Parker (who was quickly cut off after Elvis’ death, which made his daughter Lisa Marie considerably richer than her dad ever was), you’ve got whoever managed to suck away the $300 million or so that Mike Tyson was estimated to have made during his boxing career (the same for numerous other sports stars), the people who gave Willie Nelson and Wesley Snipes really bad tax advice (Nelson recovered; Snipes went to jail), etc. As Willie “The Actor” Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, these people go where the money is.
I don’t know if any of that applies to AFP or Gaiman. It’s based on stuff that I’ve read by and about various successful or formerly-successful artists. There’s a bit early in the epic Stephen King novel The Stand in which a friend of Larry Underwood, who has just had a hit single, lays it out for him, including the likely trajectory of his career; I imagine that a lot of that came from King’s own startling success, since the book was written not long after he’d been living in a trailer without a phone because they couldn’t afford the bill.
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Thanks for the pointer. I found it quite illuminating.
Certainly $50K for an appearance doesn’t sound out of line for a writer of his stature, so it wouldn’t ruffle any of my feathers, but it was interesting to see his “defense”. To be honest, if he’s netting $1M a year (and he may be doing better than that), then that’s about $5K/day. If he loses four days of writing time, the opportunity cost of an appearance might easily exceed $20K alone (never discount losing writing time for jet-lag).
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