This is a moot discussion -- probably of little interest to most
IDM'ers.
You can get good results on cheap equipment. But cheap equipment only
goes so far. At a certain point, musician look to get the proper
tools to more efficiently realize their ideas. And it doesn't have
anything to do with the money -- it has to do with the commitment.
You can be making $15K and if you eat cheap, and share a rathole
apartment with friends, you can shake loose $2K or $3K a year to spend
on gear.
And all this 'keep it underground' stuff isn't just 'keep it within
the clique.' Techno has artists, labels, distributors, and promoters
that all are working outside the regular music industry, and by NOT
being tied to the old hierarchy they can break the rules. To people
who manage to cross over somehow, more power to them. But there
is, and I hope there will always be, economic free zones like
the underground techno industry. Things founded on person to person
cooperation will always, to my way of thinking, be more real than things
constructed by corporate entities operating in a consumer economy.
What if it happened that in the US people stopped hanging out in bars
and started going to parties and dancing? That's what has happened
in the UK, and the pubs are hurting. And like the UK this will mean
more cheesy dance clubs in malls, just like in the 70's. Most people
want their entertainment packaged for them, and so will not seek out
the independent operators on the margins. But that doesn't mean
the independent scene won't thrive.
History lesson -- before Disco was disco, the dance clubs, gay and straight,
were doing their thing. Disco hit, and what had been a gay/black/puerto rican
thing became part of the mass culture. When the wave crashed, people
didn't stop dancing -- they went back underground. There is an uninterrupted
line going back to the early 70's of independent labels pressing 12"s for
DJs. If techno breaks big, and then fizzles, the same people will keep
doing their thing, regardless of the larger culture, because it's what they
love.
So don't worry about the underground. The street will survive when the
major labels and the posers they hire to capitalize on the street move
on again.
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"I read Keyboard, but it's like staring at a book with pictures
of simple looking but expensive machines." -- Michael Lazarev
NEW CD Comp Electronic Music Project
http://soli.inav.net/~kent/emp.html
Kent Williams kent@inav.net
CADSI 2651 Crosspark Road Coralville IA 52241
(319) 338 6053 (home)
(319) 626 6700 x 219 (work)
(319) 626 3489 (fax)