Thoughts on How the Music Business Sucks

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today about a PlayStation game called Guitar Hero. The game is sort of a karaoke approach to guitar playing where the player presses buttons on a little guitar to hit the notes of a song. The WSJ piece talks about how musicians such as Korn, My Chemical Romance, Incubus and other crappy bands play the game so much that they miss recording sessions and sound checks. If these guys were really into music, if they were really musicians and not manufactured celebrities, they'd spend their time furthering their craft, not playing a PlayStation game.

Also speaking of the music business, The Register ran an interesting interview with Peter Jenner, former manager of the Clash and Pink Floyd, where he talks about the stupidity of the current major labels and his ideas for new ways to make money making music in the new era.

And in this interview Ian Mackaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens) share some interesting thoughts on the business of establishing ticket prices for shows and why playing shows in bars (or seeing shows in bars) is such a drag.