Your art should be free.

You may or may not be aware that I play guitar and sing in a band called Annoying Customer. You also may or may not be aware that we recently completed an eight song piece of work entitled "Mongoose." (We don't know whether to call it an lp or an ep. It is eight songs and clocks in at about fifteen minutes. It is really a conundrum.)

In any event, we as a band wanted to make a quality product for the handful of people who have heard of us to enjoy. At first we struggled with the choice to self-publish or pay someone for pressing. In the end we went for self-publishing, and I am very glad we did. The final product is something all three of us are extremely proud of and we can say every copy was hand-made.

Though certain parts of recording and publishing were extremely stressful, we made it. One of the last minute decisions we made was how much to charge for a cd copy of "Mongoose." When all was said and done, it cost us ninety dollars to make 100 copies of a cd that, if I may say, looks pretty damn professional. In the end we decided to give our cd away free of charge. But we didn't come to that decision instantly. I'd like to discuss the actual concept of paying money for a piece of art, specificallly in the context of the band I am in and the cd we just made.

There are two schools of thought that come to mind for me when "this business of art" is brought up. The first comes courtesy of Joe Barbiere, the brilliant father of two former bandmates of mine. When faced with the "give it away or charge money" question in regards to a demo we had made, Joe offered these words of wisdom: When you give something away, there is a perception of worthlessness.

The second take comes from one of my favorite tv shows, Six Feet Under, in which one of Claire's art school professors proclaims "All artists should want to give away their work for free!"

Of these two ideas, I am lately leaning towards the latter.

We as a band have almost never made money for playing music in our near-decade together. It has never been our business to be in business. When we were in high school, we were happy to have gigs. Now we all have full-time careers, and are happy to have gigs in this hobby of ours. We are, and have always been, in the frame of mind that we are delighted that anyone would want to spend some of their valuable time listening to us. For that, you can have our cd.

What price can one put on a good album? With huge profit margains on cds and the industry leading to internet/digital publishing, what band can honsestly say they deserve money for you to listen to the work they did? I am leaning towards a rant so I'll wrap in up right here. I'll just say if you make art, consider the fact that you could be (or maybe are being) completely ignored. Someone's interest in your work is priceless. We should be grateful for anyone who shows interest in soemthing we created. Artists should want to give away their work.