I drove my mid-priced car to a spot about twenty miles from where Eugene Levy was born to see my good, old friend singing. She told me, “Music died.” Well, maybe it’s not dead. But it’s sure up Schitt’s Creek.
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My good, old friend is Kiran Ahluwalia. A bond trader turned award-winning singer. She was the first person I met on my first day of grad school. One time, when I had an unrelenting cold, she brought me soup. She’s that kind of person and that kind of friend.
She quit the corporate rat race so fast she hadn’t learned to use her prehensile tail. Music was in her soul and she needed to release it.
Kiran has been writing music, performing it, and running a business around her music for twenty years.
Her eight albums and two Juno awards — that’s a Canadian Grammy, even though she lives in New York. Canada is a complicated country when it comes to supporting its creative types. Canadians who find success south of the 49th parallel are shunned. Anonymous Canadians anywhere in the world are embraced. It’s all pretty political — testify to her staying power and success.
Still, there she was singing to a mostly empty 400-seat house. I picked up my day-of ticket for about twenty bucks and sat front and center, second row. I was closer to her than I would have been if I was watching her video for Dil on YouTube from my living room couch.
And, her band crushed it. Like Steely Dan crossed with Youssou N’Dour sung in Punjabi or Hindi or whatever the hell language she sings in. Hindi. Atmospheric and jazzy. But accessible. With a subtle but unmistakable tabla influence that produced a unique groove the way Ray Manzerek’s left hand and fender bass separated the Doors from other west coast psychedelia. Lester Bangs. Cameron Crowe. David Fricke. I get it now.
After the show, I saw her in the lobby of this multipurpose municipal building near a plaque pointing upstairs to the courts surrounded by her ones of fans. She had one of those recycled bags governments force you to buy at grocery stores almost brimming with CDs. No jewel boxes. Just the sleeve in a cellophane wrapper. “Radio stations won’t play you unless you send them a CD,” she explained. So, she ran about three hundred copies. No one there had a CD player. Almost everyone there bought one. She signed each one and chatted with her fans. No. She reveled in being among friends, fans, and family. She was doing what she loved and brimmed with more pride than her yellow, No Frills bag.
I got her first hello and a big hug, then, moved away to let her receiving line receive her. After the thin crowd got anorexic, we had a chance to really catch up. I hadn’t seen in her months. When we get together, we never talk about music. We talk about parents and family and life. Over carb-free, vegan food, music is work. Bleh.
“I love your music. This album is your best — ever.”
“I had no idea you listened to my music. You listen to world music?” Thirty-three years I’ve known her.
“Yuck. No.” I chose my next words carefully. “If it weren’t for your singing,… [pause] your music… [pause] this band.. [pause] could be one of the greatest jazz bands around.”
She wasn’t offended. Whew. She called her husband and lead guitarist over. “Rez. You have to hear this…” I repeated my best jazz bands line along with more confidence and tossed in Steely Dan to give it atmosphere. Rez was thrilled.
That’s when Kiran told me, “Music is dead.” Unless you’re big, you can’t make a living.
“What were there? 80 people in there?” My superpower is sizing up revenue based on seats. Theaters. Barbershops. Dentist’s chairs. Show me a business based on butts in seats and I’ll tell you how much it makes.
“Yep. Exactly 80.”
80 x $20 = $1600. The ushers were volunteers. I started to wonder if she got a cut, all of it, or if the venue paid her, and hoped to make it back on box office. Either way, $1600 doesn’t stretch very far for her and her wildly talented five-piece band.
“There’s no money in shows.”
“Spotify?”
“They revamped their payouts in January.”
I saw the stories but hadn’t given them much thought. I was in my how was pretending to depreciate cookies going to affect endemic publisher advertising phase. Spotify was so Labor Day.
To the victors go the spoils. Which makes pipe and drum corps a core music business learning. At Spotify, artist compensation goes to big artists. If you’re in fewer than 1000 streams you get zilch. Only about 20% of artists on Spotify leap over that incredibly low limbo stick. If you stream a million songs,… [pause here for dramatic effect, A MILLION SONGS] you make between $4000 and $7000. Below that, the math is pretty dicey.
We’ve completely devalued creative arts. Unless you transcend art and become celebrity, you get scraps and you’re asked to fight for them every day. It’s like you’re a dog in Michael Vick’s world.
Two weeks AFTER Spotify reduced payouts to artists like Kiran, the Wall Street Journal ran this story: Why Spotify Is Struggling to Make Money… “The cost of content is really expensive.” Against the risk of stock sales, investor types want Spotify to wring even more juice out of the artists.
I drove my mid-priced car home from near the birthplace of Eugene Levy but it was dry. Maybe this was the day music died.