"How bad do you want it...how bad do you want it...not bad enough."

Jesus, you know things are dire when I quote Don Henley lyrics.

Then again, the music biz IS dire. People who actually have a label deal know that they get chump change with Spotify. "Gold Record" status has warped into a mix of sales (very few in this era of routine piracy) AND STREAMING (which hardly makes much money).

If you're starting out, yeah, pay-for-play, Tweeting, selling your soul to have a download deal, paying publicists or having idiots do it for you and... pestering your Farcebook friends.

If you've made it up the ladder a bit...guess what. You STILL have to be on Twatter and Farcebook. You still have to tour little idiotic venues. You're probably self-pressing CDs or on a minor label that has no publicist with any power so you come up with sad ways of getting attention. You go to CD Baby conventions. You sit around networking everywhere you can. You play schools for nothing. You be like Windy James and buy colored vinyl limited edition pressings and try to sell 'em to 100 ardent fans.

You "check out" every new miracle website from Bandcamp to...uh, what's THIS...Tunespeak.

Tunespeak? Oh, and what do THEY do for you? "We'll help you get attention by running a CONTEST for you!"

Oooh, Roland, a CONTEST. The winner, if you jump through ALL the hoops, gets two tickets and a signed CD.

Huh? What?

Gee, Miss T, why don't you simply be like Saskia Basket-Case and brag on Twitter about how you play a tiny club in Bristol? Be like Shauna and raise an eyebrow and tell a few dozen GooTube idiots "Hi, here's my new Taylor Swift cover..." PS, Shauna, Miss T is what YOU aspire to be...someone kinda cute with a unique baby-sexy voice who can actually write a song.

Here's someone in the "middle class." She's not superstar enough to make money off huge stadium gigs, nor is she such an amateur she has a day job and is content to play locally and be the big fish in the small pond.

She's one of the "middle class" still wanting to make a living doing what she enjoys, while pointing out some triumphs in the past...the past that gets more and more distant. For some, it's very distant: "I had a hit 30 years ago which was on MTV" or "I had several albums on major labels but hell, now I like the freedom of self-pressing and doing exactly what I like. Stop by after the show and I'll autograph one at the sales table..." or "I had a hit 40 years ago which was on FM radio and people still whooop it up when I play it for my encore at any club within driving distance of Boston."

For others, the 20-somethings and 30-somethings,why, it was only a few years ago that they could point to a magazine review saying "a rising star." Maybe a quote from a website you actually heard of. But Rolling Stone has a new one of those in every issue.

EVERYBODY...singer/songwriter, actor/actress, writer...is now expected to NETWORK, spend endless hours suffering fools on Farcebook or Twatter and...uh, finding idiot websites that will Bandcamp your songs for a few pennies, or help you run some fucking inane contest.

OK, what if you actually live in Kansas City, and know where the obscure Knuckleheads club is, and aren't too worn out from work, or too spaced out on drugs, or too sick with an illness of some kind, that you'd want to sit with a bunch of KNUCKLHEADS and be pestered every five minutes by a waitress figuring you should be buying more drinks and nachos?

Sad you asked:

Ooof, You have to sign in with your Farcebook account, so this website can get your personal data, sell it a thousand times, and find ways to pester you AND to help you become a victim of identity theft. All to get two free tickets (not including drink and food and transportation) to a show.

Another reason this is a bad idea: it alienates all the people who LOSE. When you're a LOSER, you get angry. You figure, ok, I won't see the show at all, now. I spent ALL THAT TIME, I did SO MUCH HARD WORK in entering the contest, and now I'm gonna have to PAY to see it? FUCK and OFF!

I do remember a time when you went to a record store and got the album. When rock mags were plentiful. When the RADIO and a trusted DJ helped shape your collection. When you could afford to go to a lot of shows. When the audience had some respect for the artist and didn't blab through every song and take videos and photos. When at best, a contest on the radio or in a magazine was for some promo item you could brag about and NOT sell on Ebay.

NOW? Go on Farcebook and tell people to go to a website so they'll know about an obscure gig in some small club, and...and...and...how bad do you want it...how bad do you want it..."

Did I enter the contest?

"...how bad do you want it...NOT BAD ENOUGH."

Kansas City, here I don't come.