As IF Times

link Live-music industry hits sour note.

Nothing is impervious to economics.  The entertainment business has cruised along for years somewhat detached from the realities of the real world’s economic vicissitudes, apparently immune to negative payday shock.

Even as people were losing jobs and incomes fell in aggregate all over North America, touring acts could still command big dollar tickets for their engagements. It was as if entertainers were immune from the financial concerns of the plain folk.  Certainly some factors were in play which served to work to the benefit of a particular niche of the touring community.  There always seemed to be an appetite to see the old classic groups from the younger days of the baby boom generation.  Such well worn acts as Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones etc., still commanded big audiences and even bigger ticket prices from those reaching back to memories of their youth. 

The top echelons of entertainers will always get the big demand.  Elton John can probably still draw a big ticket crowd.  However, when farewell tours 2 and 3  of some second tier 70’s group comes along, the scarcity and novelty factors wears off.  Is it really a lifetime event to see somebody belting out youthful standards at 60 to 70 years of age?  Do people really care to see Cher or Tina Turner on stage  in support hose?  Not that the music’s not good, in fact, it’s hard to imagine that what passes as popular music today will have the longevity to attract audiences 40 years down the road.  It’s just that everything has its time.  If this were not the case, we’d be listening to flapper music on the oldies’ stations.

The other issue of course is price.  You may be able to command premium prices for the first few tours, but who wants to pay $200, $500, or $1000 to see Sir Paul or Sir Mick?  For $30 bucks, you can buy the live DVD and not have to put up with the lousy PA systems at most venues.  And that’s for the top tier acts. 

Nowadays, everyone who can hold a guitar in one hand is pushed by the marketing and PR machines as the next great sensation.  As if.  The Jonas Brothers may be a sensation to their promoters, but they’re no Donny Osmond in his time.  It’s all the same biddy bop stuff.  People are forced to be more discriminating with their entertainment dollars.  Make it $20 bucks to see a concert, then you’ve got something.  Of course at those levels, singers won’t get paid wheelbarrows of money to croon their tunes, but the pay scale for all entertainers is overdue for a serious reckoning.  As noted earlier, people will pay for what they perceive to be a worthwhile experience, but most stuff out there these days is filler at best.

According to Pollster, www.pollster.com  the top draws for 2009 were:

Pollstar Top 50 Tours of North America:

Rank              Total Gross*              Artist
1                   123.0                       U2
2                   94.5                         Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
3                   88.0                         Elton John / Billy Joel
4                   82.5                         Britney Spears
5                   77.9                         AC/DC
6                   71.1                         Kenny Chesney
7                   69.8                         Jonas Brothers
8                   56.9                         Dave Matthews Band
9                   54.5                         Fleetwood Mac
10                 53.4                         Metallica

Looking at this list, you can see that at least half can be considered nostalgia acts, at least a couple are about to expire pop acts and at least 2 catering to specific music genres, ie country or metal which don’t necessarily count on recent material.  

When you look at the bottom top 50 acts:

42                 21.9                         Eric Clapton / Steve Winwood
43                 21.8                         Kings Of Leon
44                 21.3                         Leonard Cohen
45                 20.4                         Bob Dylan
46                 19.7                         “So You Think You Can Dance”
47                 19.1                         Barry Manilow
48                 18.8                         Journey
49                 18.7                         Jimmy Buffett
50                 18.5                         Luis Miguel

we can see that most of these are nostalgia gigs.  I say that’s all good for them and bravo.  Heck, I’d still go see Eric Clapton, but not in a stadium of 60,000 and not for $200 a throw.  His CD’s are just fine.  This may all work out for the better for small indie artists.  People may find an appreciation for unhyped talent.

Next on the austerity program…sports.

link German fans want revenge grilling of oracle octopus | Reuters.

As my occasionally sober friend who crystal ball gazes for a living pointed out to me about this story, “tough crowd!”  The poor octopus presciently picks all of the winners in the recent World Cup soccer matches and the reward for picking eventual winner Spain over the octopus’  hometown Germans qualifies him for what treatment?

“…Throw him in the frying pan,” wrote the Berliner Kurier newspaper, and

“…Nothing beats grilled octopus,” said Dolores Lusch, a Germany fan who works on a Berlin fish stall. “Cut him up in thin slices and grill him on all sides with a dash of lemon juice, olive oil and garlic on it. Delicious!…”

Talk about your tough crowd as well as shooting, or in this case, grilling the messenger.  According to people who would know these things, octopi are among the most intelligent of invertebrates.  If in fact this particular one is representative of the entire species, it would make more sense to harvest them and turn them into bookies.  With marginally more training, they can be harnessed to become stock market forecasters or even weathermen. 

They can even be brought into the legal process, quickly assigning guilt or innocence without the protracted legal shenanigans in place today.  If this poor creature, Paul, is destined for a fiery end, what message will that send to other aspiring invertebrates who yearn to evolve out of the sea?  What right do humans have to impede the path of evolution? Sure they may be slimy with as many arms as Warren Beatty on a date, but if spotted owls can be saved, so can octopi. 

Imagine if a dog were able to spell or recite verse.  Would we rush to throw it onto a spit because he started throwing out political opinions?  Okay, bad example, but you get the point.  There should be no glass ceilings for animals or inverterbrates.  Where is PETA when you need them?  This is all about harnessing green solutions to the world’s problems.

Not only that, but there would be enormous financial benefits  If octopi came into common use; the cost is only a few clams, snails or miscellaneous small fish, far below the rate charged by any union to perform the same task. 

On the other hand, grilling the messenger if applied to those humans involved in the prediction business could vastly improve the records of those in that racket, or at the very least, thin them out.  Next time your broker gives you a stock pick, you can literally hold his feet to the fire.