How Do You Make A Living From Music?

Since the beginning of August, I’ve been supporting myself solely from creative income for the first time in my life. It has been and continues to be a wild ride, and one I am continually learning from. Some days I’m consumed with anxiety about my financial stability and the toll on my mental and physical health from the demands of a music/art career, and some days I feel like I won the lottery and I’m finally getting to do what I want, what I’m good at, and what I care about. Often these feelings are simultaneous!

One thing I have noticed from over a decade working in and around the creative arts in Durham is a widespread opacity about the economic realities of being an artist. Culturally, many people consider it rude or tacky to speak frankly about money, and asking direct questions about fees and contracts has often been met with annoyance, shock, or silence. But for every time I’ve been left on read for asking questions, I’ve had someone generously share their time, perspective and wisdom about the economics of art. This post is dedicated to those people, the ones who recognize that we are not independent creators competing in a meritocracy, but rather an interconnected, interdependent compound eye of consciousnesses perceiving and creating itself. I believe that hoarding, distorting and gatekeeping basic knowledge about what it means to “make it” economically as an artist is short-sighted, individualistic, and destructive behavior. In an attempt to put my money where my mouth is (please don’t actually do this, money tastes terrible), I want to share what I’ve made playing gigs in the last few months.

In thinking about writing this post, I notice many emotions arising. While I strive for greater transparency in my creative practice, I’m also very aware that on a deep level I still feel that money is taboo and should not be discussed. If I talk about what I’ve made from playing gigs, I feel like I’m either bragging or I’m revealing myself to be a rube who doesn’t know how to value his work, or both. The absurdity of this is not lost on me. To me it reveals the fingerprints of capitalism as it operates and reproduces itself in my own consciousness. Knowledge of my work’s value is something that should be hoarded and guarded, a voice tells me. However, the times that someone else has been honest with me about budgets and fees, I’ve learned more about how to value my work, how the market operates, and that information has helped me immeasurably. So I’d like to open things up and reveal what several months of surviving almost entirely off gig income has looked like for me.

Me, on a stage, turning a knob. (Photo by Jen Varani)

Me, on a stage, turning a knob. (Photo by Jen Varani)

I played my first post-vax gig at the beginning of June, and since then I’ve played a total of 14 gigs up to October 5th. These have ranged from large sold out shows with big name artists to small bar gigs. In an effort to not put any venues or promoters on blast, I will list just the fees, in ascending order, without listing what the gig was. I realize that this runs counter to my goal of transparency, but these fees and contracts are collaborative agreements and I don’t want to unilaterally decide to share information that the people who booked me haven’t consented to share. That said, if you read this and are someone who has or wants to book me, and you’re OK with me making the details of that agreement public, please shoot me an email and let me know! We are trying to move at the speed of trust over here.

First I’ll just list amounts, then crunch a few numbers, and then share a few thoughts.

PERFORMANCE FEES - June 6 - October 5 (in ascending order of amount)

  • $50.00

  • $60.00

  • $80.00

  • $150.00

  • $150.00

  • $150.00

  • $170.00

  • $190.00

  • $200.00

  • $250.00

  • $300.00

  • $405.00

  • $500.00

  • $500.00

  • $750.00

The hourly breakdown for these fees varies widely, from $20/hr to $500/hr. Average hourly pay worked out to $167.44, average set length was just over 2 hours, and average fee for a gig was $260.33. I played one gig in June, one in July, four gigs in August, five gigs in September, and so far have played three in October, with three more scheduled for later this month. In general, festival gigs paid better than one-off gigs, which paid better than bar gigs.

For most of these gigs, I’ve either brought USBs and used CDJs provided by the venue or promoter, or I’ve brought my controller and laptop. For one gig, I played an all vinyl set. By far, the easiest and most preferable method for me is bringing a couple USBs and headphones and playing off CDJs. However, CDJs are prohibitively expensive, and few venues in the Triangle have them. To me this is a bottleneck that needs to be addressed - more access to CDJs would give more local DJs practice on industry standard equipment that they would need to be fluent with in order to play most festivals or clubs. Personally I feel like there’s a lot of unnecessary gatekeeping around controller vs. CDJs vs. vinyl and I think it matters a lot more what you play and how you play it than what you’re playing on, but also the reality is that learning to confidently spin on CDJs has made things a lot easier for me as an artist and opened up new opportunities.

Me, on a different stage, turning a knob. (Photo by Brian Livingstone)

Me, on a different stage, turning a knob. (Photo by Brian Livingstone)

Also worth addressing is my positionality and how that has affected my career. I’m a white cisgender male who has lived in Durham and been active in the art and music scene here for almost my whole life. My family is middle class and I grew up in the suburbs with a lot of support from an early age for whatever creative endeavors I was interested in at the time. That includes not only emotional support but also music lessons, equipment, and financial support. I attended Durham School of the Arts for middle and high school, which is a public arts magnet school with a lottery application system where I was given access to instruction, facilities and equipment that were vital in growing my interest and skill in creative work. All these factors taken together have meant that I have been able to pursue a creative career with a lot of structural advantages, and next to no disadvantages due to race, class, or gender. I work very hard at my creative projects but it would be disingenuous to assume that my success (or lack thereof) is solely due to my performance in a pure meritocracy.

I’d like to wrap up with a few thoughts on how this experiment of creative self-employment has gone so far, and then touch on some upcoming projects and ways you can get involved. First, from booking and playing 14 gigs, one of my biggest takeaways has been that artists and DJs should be asking for more money. Nearly every time I have negotiated for a higher fee, I have gotten something, even if it wasn’t exactly what I was asking for, and often being frank about how I need to be valued for my time has resulted in better relationships with promoters. Of course that’s not always the case, and many artists don’t feel comfortable negotiating for fees, and sometimes venues and promoters either can’t or won’t budge on the budget. I’ve definitely had times where I’ve taken less than I know I’m worth for a gig because I don’t think I’m ready, or deserve it, or whatever self-defeating narrative I’ve got going at the time. But I do think that the contract and fee negotiation phase of booking is the main place where you have leverage as an artist, and it’s often the place where we get robbed—or rob ourselves.

A note about rates: in my experience, the going rate for a DJ (or live) set has hovered between $50-$100 for an hour since I started playing out in the area in 2009. This has varied based on venue, promoter, and show, but $100 still seems to be about the cap for an hour set even in 2021 (although I do see this shifting somewhat). This has not really changed in over a decade, despite inflation and the rising cost of living (especially housing) in Durham. I’d like to propose that standard be raised to at least $150 for an hour. The Triangle (and Durham in particular) has an unusually high number of really talented artists and DJs and I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect the hourly rate for performance to rise along with the cost of living in the area. I’d also throw out $300-$500 as a starting range for headliner slots or festival gigs, and $200 as a range for bar gigs (typically around 4 hours - bar gigs are kind of their own beast which I won’t dive into in this piece).

Of course this extra money has to come from somewhere, and with almost 2 years of ongoing COVID pandemic everyone is struggling right now - artists, venues, promoters, attendees, everyone. I’d like to see more events raise ticket prices, while adopting a sliding scale system where patrons who can afford to pay more can help subsidize lower ticket prices for others. For example, instead of a $10 ticket, do a $15 ticket with sliding scale $10-20, so that the event doesn’t become economically inaccessible for people who can only afford $10, and more affluent guests can support at a higher level. I know it’s easy for me as an artist to say “just pay artists more” and I recognize it’s a complex ecosystem and every player in it has their own concerns and bottom line. I’d like it to be more of a conversation, and I’d like to see more venues, artists, promoters and patrons talking openly about what would need to happen for our music scene to be economically viable for all participants.

Finally, a couple notes about what I’m working on currently and where you could fit into it, if you’d like. Access to these posts is always free, as I want any value from my work and writings to be as accessible as possible. To support this work, I’m launching subscriptions for those of you who care enough about what I’m doing that you want to give me money for it! These are Stripe subscriptions that auto-charge monthly - you can cancel any time, just shoot me an email to treeecity [at] gmail [dot] com if you want to cease payments. This isn’t a Patreon (at least not yet) - you’re not paying for access, or special tiers or whatever. You could think of your subscription as microfunding that enables me to spend more of my time each day working on the problem of how to make a living from creative work, within capitalism, while building something to make capitalism obsolete. As I continue to evolve this practice, I’ll be getting more explicit about the exact work that I am asking to be funded. This initial subscription offering is for the real ride-or-die members of the Treeehive (how do we feel about “Treeehive?”) who trust that I am going to do what needs to be done. It’s a leap of faith, and I plan to build in some special treats for subscribers who sign up for this first beta test soft launch.

Want to become a subscriber? Sign up at whatever level of giving you prefer:

$5/month

$10/month

$20/month

#BlendsWithFriends at Quarter Horse Bar and Arcade (Photo by Lisa Williams)

#BlendsWithFriends at Quarter Horse Bar and Arcade (Photo by Lisa Williams)

Currently I’m hosting #BlendsWithFriends, a biweekly (as in, every two weeks) event at Quarter Horse Bar and Arcade in downtown Durham. It happens every other Tuesday, the next one is October 19th and then November 2nd after that. Think one part meetup, one part skill share, one part open decks. It’s a fun, chill, low-pressure way to get into DJing if you have never touched decks before, or are a DJ who wants more practice in a somewhat-social setting, or are a producer who wants to try out new tracks on a nice sounding system for an intimate crowd, or are an electronic music fan who wants to meet other people who are into the music. We’ve done two of them so far and the turnout and vibes have been better than anything I could have imagined. It’s free to attend, and all the arcade games and pinball at Quarter Horse are currently free to play, however you do need to be vaccinated to enter the venue.

I’m also working on a project I’m tentatively calling Watershed, which is a microgranting platform for artists that aims to make arts granting more accessible, transparent, and equitable. I see arts funding as a huge opportunity for the rapid growth and expansion of Durham to channel resources to the creative community that makes Durham a desirable place to live. If you’d like to talk about this, if you have experience with the granting process, if you’re interested in funding something like this, drop me a line.

Thanks for taking the time to read these thoughts! If you have thoughts of your own, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. If you’d like to get email updates from me, you can sign up at the very bottom of this page.

Until next time,

Patrick / Treee City



Some Thoughts on Artist Support

(transcribed from IG stories)

When I recently quit my job I started looking at way to make a living doing creative work. Lots of people use Patreon and and that’s an option I’m considering but there are a few things I don’t like about it: 1) They control the platform, meaning they can change the terms and creator fees as they see fit - consider how Facebook let people build page followings just to turn around and sell creators access to their own audiences through limiting page reach and pushing ads; 2) the goal for me is to be able to do the work that I think needs to be done, not to spend my time making cute perks for people who support. So I’m looking at other options but I have some questions - thats where you come in.

What I want is for all the work I make to be pay-as-you-can. I don’t want someone who gives me $1 a month to have any less access to my work than someone who gives $100 a month. When I realized this I also realized that 99% of what Patreon offers is various audience management tools (blogging, email, etc.) that I already do elsewhere. At the end of the day the service they provide is a payment processor. So I kept looking and found that Stripe will do subscriptions for a 2.9% fee plus .30 per transaction. For reference, the lowest fee Patreon charges is 5% plus a per transaction fee. So now we get to the questions.

  1. Do you already give reguarly to creators using Patreon (or if you use another way, what is it)? If yes, why do you do it? If no, why not?

  2. How important is it to you that donations/gifts you make to creators be transactional? I.e. do you want to get a service or product in return?

  3. How important to you is equity in access to art? Do you think people who make larger gifts should get more in return?

  4. Do you think what I do (based on what you know of me and my work) is valuable enough that you would give me money every month to keep doing it? If yes, what $ range would you consider? If not, why not?

Whatever happens, I’m going to continue working on the problems that interest me creatively right now:

  1. How to reimagine artist funding models so that creators can support themselves within capitalism while building alternative structures

  2. How to transfer what skills and resources I (and others) have to people who want to learn and grow

  3. Making timeless hits

  4. Simply vibing and enjoying this life

These are all collaborative goals! If you share any of them, holler at me and let’s work on them together.

Indy Week Features Rainforest Café Episode 07

The interstellar casual fine dining experience known as the Rainforest Café has returned with a new mix of seasonal favorites! Thanks to Brian Howe and the Indy Week for the shoutout. On May 1st, for the second month in a row, Bandcamp was giving 100% of sales to artists , so I knew it was time to bring back the Café. Lots of new and unreleased NC-flavored music ranging from 70’s acid freakout to quarantine acid freakout, and more! Plus I snuck a little bootleg of a 90’s gem in here. The first Rainforest Café released during a pandemic, but assuredly not the last.

Check out the article.

Listen to the mix.

Buy the music.

Rainforest Café Episode 05

The latest installment of your friendly local music roundup. Recorded before a live studio audience on April 6th, 2019, at Quarter Horse, Durham NC. Listen to Episode 05 below and send music to rainforestcafenc at gmail if you are an NC artist.

https://www.mixcloud.com/treee-city/rainforest-café-episode-05/

Tracklist:

FLLS - Bank C @fllsgood

Gappa - One for the Gone @gappamighty

Streetiebaby - Clapper @streetiebaby

Mamba - Chocolate @mamba.wav

Rowdy - Unlocking Neo @rowdylife

TheDeeepEnd - Sleep @thedeeepend

Musashi Xero - Strawberry Fields @xerodreamsofsushi

PAT Junior - Got It Good @iampatjunior

Lord Fess - Scared @lxrdfess

Q Beanz - All The Time @qbeanz

Kayman - That’s the Drink Talking ft. Tiny TwoTimez @kayman3 @tinytwotimez

dutchess - nowonder

Triple X Snaxxx - OTTTE @3xsnax

HUMAN_FLESH_SEARCH_ENGINE - MARTIN_SHKRELIS_TEARS

GRRL - Ape Dub ‘93 @grrlmusic

The IZM - Beat It (VSPRTN Remix) @the_IZM3000 @vespertine_

Fruit Snack - Um, Hi @fruitsnacknc

rainforest cafe ep 05 tracklist.jpg

Rainforest Café Episode 04 Out Now

1 hour biodynamic North Carolina produce. Recorded before a live studio artist first Saturday of every month at Quarter Horse, Durham NC. Listen to Episode 04 below and send music to rainforestcafenc at gmail if you are an NC artist.

https://www.mixcloud.com/treee-city/rainforest-café-episode-04/

Tracklist:

a n c e s t r a l . m e m o r i e s - hidden love 隠された愛 @ancestral_memories

Axnt - cosmos redux @_axnt

Jumba - lalala @anderson.rashad

Mo. Three - ROSES @mostlythree

dutchess - source @dutch355

Lofidel - Saturday Night Leanin’ @lofidel

Sunset Palette - Just You @sunsetpalette_

sl0wgl0w - drop @slowglowtunes

Marley Carroll - Shiver @marleycarroll

BANGZZ - Pretty is a Trap @bangzzband

Trandle - yeh 2 @randletrandle

The Real Laww - The Monk @l_a_a_w

Grizzy Grind - I See You @grizzygrind919

Alex Aff - Good TIme @thehomiealexaff

Kayo Bracey - Round N Round ft. DJ Luke Nasty & Brandon Pierre @kayobracey

PlayPlay - Tragic Dream ft. tOOth and rOOt @playplayyy

FootRocket - Stop That Man @footrocketman

Marcel the Lion - Don't Lose Control @marcelthelionmusic

Calapse - VELVET UMBRELLAS @calapse_music

away msg - seventeen @awaymsg

rainforest cafe ep 04 tracklist.jpg

Rainforest Café Lives in 2019

Every first Saturday in 2019 the Rainforest Café comes to Quarter Horse Arcade in Durham with a mix of fresh NC music. Listen to Episode 03 below and send music to rainforestcafenc at gmail if you are an NC artist.

https://www.mixcloud.com/treee-city/rainforest-café-episode-03/

Tracklist:

FFFOOLERY - FOOLERY IS WAYYY TOO HIGH @fffoolery

Ronnie Flash - Holy Shit @_ronnie_flash_

Axnt - Ritual Strut @_axnt

C.R.I.S.T.E.N. - You @cristenisreal

Trandle - Glassface @randletrandle

Oak City Slums - Joogs @oakcityslums

Tin Foil Hat - Late Bloomer @tinfoilhatmusic

Marco Luka - 2 AM @15ygo

Gabriel Davis - L0VESTONED @__loveangel_

Brio - No Bad Days @brioislife

Qvan Le Don - Back in the Days @qvanledon

Prince P - In The City @pjs_pjs

Big Kid - No Looking Back @juanitob12

Steezie - Math @iamsteezie

babyboijodi - fo for fo (prod. icytwat) @campaignjodi700

FFFOOLERY - $DEATH @fffoolery

Crystal Bright - Go Outside (Quilla Remix) @crystalbrightmusic @quillamusic

GRRL - Rush @grrlmusic

PlayPlay - Flesh (James Bangura Remix) @playplayyy @_timo_teo

Treee City - Tidal Wave (FootRocket Remix) @treeecity @footrocketman

N.C.C.U. - Bull City Party

pale blue - through films of each other @cigarettesushi

Kayman - Broad Street Cafe @kayman3

Chainletter - not spiraling -@chain_letter

rainforest cafe ep 03 tracklist.jpg