Explanation:

When I was young, I too was filled with the American idea that if you find something you love to do and work really hard at it, you’ll never work a day in your life. Problem was, I never met anybody for whom that was actually true. We Americans are very efficient at making excuses to not follow our dreams, instead believing that the hilariously-dubbed “reality” of Modern America dictated that you either a) hated your job but never worried about money or b) loved your job but never made enough money to adequately provide for a family. This contradiction continues to unnerve me – that we believe we can be happy but so infrequently ever are.

For me, my happiness is making music. To actually move people using nothing more than a few instruments and some words, to blow your lungs all over the stage, to get a bunch of strangers to dance and think and feel and love is a fascinating, honorable, and timeless craft, at which I am humbled to get the opportunity to try my hand. But given the strange business practices of the last sixty years, the specific craft of songwriting has the potential to gain fame and fortune – nothing with which, say, a local carpenter needs to concern himself. Because of this curious notion, it may seem that those with a passion for music instead just have a passion for fame and fortune. Fame sucks, and I’ve already had fortune. I just want to play music.

But this is Modern America, where your degree of “freedom” (communes excluded) is directly proportional to how well you operate within the mold of The Almighty Business Model. When in fucking Rome. A musician, then, does not choose to enter the music business, but finds himself already in it and curious of how to proceed. Reject it, and your craft is confined to your bedroom in between work shifts. Run with it, and find yourself knee-deep in the sad muck of marketing and promotion and pop and style and everything else that couldn’t be a more distant departure from the art of music. Accept it as a curious Modern American truth, and one can begin to honestly analyze the potential of generating a modest, sustainable income from that timeless, joyous act of Creating Music.

But the times are a-changing. No longer does one need thousands of dollars to pay for studio time or the ceremonious (and costly) blessing of major-label A&R reps. Recording has never been cheaper and distribution has never been easier. Everything I’ve ever recorded has been with my laptop, about a hundred and fifty bucks of gear, and whatever instruments I could get my hands on. One music blog review (free) and a few tweets (free) later and anybody can become a bonified member of the music community, a chance to be one more link in the chain of songwriters. All it seems I need now is the time to hone my craft, and the basic necessities: food, rent, whisky, and travel. These are the new operating costs of a musician. The business models of major labels were created in a different time – new models are needed, and nobody’s quite sure yet of how to create those.

So, in the name of science and business and art and the improbable chance for somebody to live their life as they see fit, I volunteer my own personal experience as a case study for how to operate as a musician in modern times. Previously, if you liked an artist, you bought their CD at a record store and paid for tickets to see them live. The internet has brought along a number of new ethical quandries for music fans: Do I steal their music? Do they really need that money? Aren’t they just blowing it all on coke? Should I buy a ton of merch at the show so they stay afloat, or can I just buy a sticker?

Of course, I don’t know the answer to any of these questions (though I’ve yet to develop my coke habit), but I think it might be fun for us all to try answer them together. Maybe offering everything for free is a terrible idea, maybe it’s the future. But for right now, everything I’m creating with my time (words, music, film, etc) is available for free, and we’ll all together see if that magical line can be successfully drawn whereby art remains free and artists get paid.

Since quitting your job (“choosing self-employment?” “retiring?” which phrasing depresses my parents the least?) gives you a unexpected crash course in both macro and microeconomics, and this education, for me, comes at a rather interesting time, I think one of many wise steps I can take is to insulte myself from the comedic fluctuations of The Almighty American Dollar. So I think it’s high time we brought the barter system back and in a big way. So, the following objects are hereby declared acceptable forms of payment for a compact disc or digital downloads:

-lunch (anytime, anywhere)
-hummus
-pita bread
-pasta, pasta sauce
-one tank of gasoline
-new notebook
-whisky
-Boss RC-2 loop pedal
-your album, if that’s your style
-a book
-one month of web hosting
-one month’s rent (worth a shot…)
-a nine volt battery
-toothpaste

Or, if you trust me to wisely spend actual money (travel is rather difficult without it), you can directly invest in an artist’s future (though I’m the first to admit there are around six billion people on the planet who need your money more desperately than I do):