INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES
Musician NOVEMBER 1980 - by Robert Fripp
TOURING: THE TROUBADOR, PART ONE
In short, a wholly wretched affair. Twenty-eight airports in thirty-one days; depressing hotels in depressing cities; plastic food, plastic people; mental, physical and emotional exhaustion; dope, sex, cheap thrills and losing money to boot. There's got to be a better way.
Here are two tenets of conventional music business wisdom:
1. Touring is necessary to promote records;
2. Records are necessary to underwrite touring.
The background to the first proposition is the empirically established fact that the appearance of the artist sells records; television most of all, radio next and live performance thirdly. Since the politics of television and radio pay are complex and for most artists inseparable, live performances are the most readily available form of promotion.
However, there are drawbacks to touring: with the exception of the elite (and often even among the elite) it loses money. At the time that King Crimson ceased to exist (last gig July 1, 1974) the average cost of one gig was $5,000. This covered the wages of road managers, hotel bills and travel, light and p.a. hire and equipment maintenance. The average income from playing to audiences of 2,000-3,000 a night was $5,000. Only one King Crimson tour made money: the Earthbound tour of America in the Spring of 1972. This tour was conducted in the knowledge that the group would disband afterwards and consequently booked in a way which catered little for a group maintaining its self-respect: in a word, cheaply. Because this was logistically an intermediate level tour it earned each musician $3,000 for three months work. This is the only King Crimson tour which made a profit.
The provision of music is expensive.
Current figures for a band at the same level, i.e, four musicians praying in theatres of 2-3,000 people, are a cost per date of $10,000-$12,000 and an income of $8,000-$10,000. This means a successful group with a sell-out five-week tour of America would consider their tour a triumph if it lost $50,000 and a success if it lost $100,000.
Should any reader consider this elliptical logic the product of irrationality cultivated by having my brain scraped along the roads of two continents over a period of eleven years, I write from having access to hard information near to home. Where the personal conceits of the artists exceed the excessive it is even possible to lose $2 million on a three-month tour (information one step from home). Whereas costs to modest performers have more than doubled since 1975 (notably in travel), ticket prices have not inflated proportionately while concert-going has fallen.
The shortfall was met in the early 1970's by the artist, from record advances; i.e. from record sales presumed to be about-to-be generated by the promotional aspect of touring. The real income of the artist was considered to be from writing royalties. In the second half of the '70s, with increasing road losses but also increasing record sales, record companies were approached for tour support, a form of advance which was rot recuperable from record sales itself (although taken into account as part of the overall terms of contract). This meant that if Megabucks Records wanted an artist to tour and move product it would have to at least contribute to the cost of that promotion. The current position is that record companies are increasingly wary of tour support commitments, especially those made two years ago when the paralysingly obvious changes needed within the industry were obvious to everyone except executives within the industry. For their part, successful artists, whose record sales might seem to be guaranteed, often refuse to tour except when minimum tour (promotion) requirements have been made contractually, a recent example being Pink Floyd. To this question of artist reluctance to tour we will shortly return.
There is clearly, then, a connection between touring and recording. It could be added that this connection is reinforced by the media tending to support performers more when a tour is organized around a record: There is a "peg" on which to hang an article. But the obvious implication to me seems to be missed: if as conventionally assumed touring is to support records and records to support touring, any intrinsic value in either recording or performing is obviated.
During the period of time I have spent on the road the most obvious assumption shared by virtually all Big Movers is that touring is a wholly wretched affair. The only three exceptions which spring to mind as supporters of the road lifestyle were all desperately busy avoiding a quiet moment in which they would have to be with themselves. It is difficult to convey to anyone who has not experienced the strain involved in touring for, say. a continuous period of two years, how dangerous the process can be. Twenty-eight airports in thirty-one days, yet another hotel in a depressing industrial city, poor diet, incessant emotional, mental and physical exhaustion with only one's will as driving force; no continuity other than pressure, impermanence and movement. What can be a remarkable education in moderation becomes crippling, sometimes permanently and occasionally with finality. In this state the artist becomes prone to manipulation. The obvious resorts to chemical enthusiasm and alcohol may be taken advantage of by the more calculating; I have seen a Big Dealer involved in group affairs pulling out a polythene bag to tickle the other musicians while - with a look of resignation in my direction - he gives up trying to find the particular string to make me jump. Touring, as generally conceived and executed by the industry, places greater strains upon the performer than can honorably be borne. The physical, mental and emotional fatigue in the touring musician is a major contributing factor to the control of artists by the industry and the psychological distortion evident in so many artists: rock and roll keeps you young and kills you early.
There are three major assumptions I have seen quite clearly for myself to be held by the bureaucracy responsible for shaping tours:
1. Tours will lose money;
2. The only possible satisfaction is from sex, drugs and alcohol;
3. Touring, like war to General Sherman, is hell.
I have further noticed that people who hold these assumptions about touring will arrange tours that:
1. Lose money;
2. Only provide satisfaction from sex, drugs and alcohol;
3. Are hell.
Yet the pressures in the field are rarely experienced by the bureaucracy, rather like the Allied Generals during the Great War sending their own troops to drown in mud. The psychological principle that nothing is really understood unless experienced by the organism holds true. There are few managers, agents or record personnel who commit themselves to perceiving the full results of their labour alongside the artist. Generally one can expect an appearance at a capital city, although the choice visitor might well be staying in a more luxurious hotel than the group. And, of course, business arises elsewhere when secondary markets appear, perhaps even requiring a three-month absence during a particularly pressured three-month tour. I have toured for two months staying in hotels of a class I could not afford, and specifically asked to avoid, so that a record/managerial person accompanying me for one week would be comfortable. Going on the road with the artist can be fun for a few days, especially when business demands expensive dining. When I complained that the recent League of Gentlemen tour was wretched, a close personal and professional acquaintance replied that it was no worse than any other tour I had done. Presumably, one should not scream from the rack if one has been tortured before. And my complaints have been described as "irrational".
So why would one tour? Simply, for the reasons anyone might work. I suggest:
1. To earn a living;
2. To grow as a human being; i.e. the process is a continuous education;
3. To enjoy the intrinsic qualities of one's work.
And one could add a fourth, from Schumacher:
4. To integrate oneself socially.
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