Welcome one and all to episode 388 of Signals from Mars.
I'm your host Victor.
And for this episode, I welcome Ed Ferguson, long time listener, long time patron, long
time friend to the show to talk about economics and music in 2024.
Yeah, there's a lot of things that are going on within the actual industry when it comes
to tickets, when it comes to streaming and other things.
Give me an ed talk about it next.
I'm ready.
Let's get started.
I recorded this episode before the chat I had with the lips from Anvil.
That gives you a further dive into the whole economics and music and hard rock and metal
and everything that we talk about here on this episode.
Obviously with lips, that's somebody who's in the middle of things.
This episode is very much opinion piece and very much based on what information is sent
to us or given to us via, you know, sites like blabbermouth and brave words and metal
hammer and stuff like that.
And others, because this is affecting bands beyond hard rock and metal or economics, especially
post pandemic, it is affecting every type of music for the most part.
And not only that, but it also couples with a trend where kids are being priced out of
a lot of things I feel.
And I'm not only saying this because I'm a father, I'm lucky enough that we do have
streaming services and that my kids do like collecting CDs and listening to music, listening
to all types of music and going to shows and stuff.
And yeah, we can afford to go to some shows and pick some stuff up, but nowhere near what
we could back in the day.
I mean, I don't want to sound like the old fart in the room here, but people question
why.
You know, you're not a music fan if you're streaming.
If you're a kid and a CD costs $22, this goes back to the whole tower records thing.
Now that bugs me when people say, oh, poor tower records.
Well, tower records and the wall and all these other big chains always had CDs on sale for
$22.99, $18.99.
And then you would go to other places.
You would go to a Target or a Walmart or even mom and pop shops.
Maybe at a mom and pop, it was 12 bucks and Walmart and Target was seven or eight bucks
with some added bonus tracks or a t-shirt or a sticker or something like that.
Or Best Buy did similar as well.
There isn't that anymore.
There's nothing to entice kids or people to pick CDs up.
My kids, as we're about to travel to the US, they're looking forward to picking up CDs
while we're there, going record shopping with me.
And I know that we're an anomaly when it comes to all of this.
At the same time, I don't blame the kids.
If this is the only way that I'm going to be able to listen to something, if it's through
streaming, if it's through YouTube, I would do the same thing.
We all recorded tapes from one another and yeah, the industry got all bent out of shape
and oh, you know, that was Napster back in the day.
It wasn't as bad as Napster, obviously, but get what I'm saying.
There's always a way around it and it sucks.
We all have to change with the times and we wish that bands could be making more money.
But at the same time, prices for everything are jacked up and out of whack.
So I don't blame, again, I don't blame kids for doing streaming.
Prices for instruments, prices for all types of things.
They're just crazy.
But anyway, I don't want to give too much away because I want you guys to check out
the rest of this episode, which is great.
Was a fun chat with Ed.
Hope you guys enjoy.
Send me your comments.
Signals from Mars at signalsfrommars.com.
All right, let's get on with it.
Welcome one and all to the latest edition of Signals from Mars.
We are pre-recording this episode to help fill in for some of these summer episodes
so that you guys aren't left hanging.
Joining me today is the one and only metalhead, Ed Ferguson.
How are you, sir?
Doing good.
How are you?
Doing well myself.
So we've got a few topics we're going to talk about today.
Mainly we're going to start to talk about the state of hard rock and metal in 2024.
We talk about this from time to time with bands and economics.
Bands, new followers, us old farts that are still following bands, stuff like that, being
priced out for things.
So first, let's talk about there.
There was recent news where big name artists, I mean, Jennifer Lopez is a big name artist
across the board.
She's a pop artist.
She's in movies.
I mean, huger than most metal acts.
She's out to cancel a tour.
The Black Keys, who are a fairly well known rock band, same thing.
They've canceled an entire arena tour.
I know that a lot of these bands are talking about, well, it's COVID, it's what's come
after COVID and the price has gone up and so on and so forth.
And I'm not saying that's not true.
But how much does the reality of the state of some of these bands come into play?
I mean, we've seen it with hard rock and metal.
We've talked about this at length.
You have bands like a Motley Crue and a Def Leppard, which are big bands, but they can't
sell out arenas or stadiums unless Def Leppard, for example, is going out with Journey.
And they've got a third band playing with them, which slips my mind right now.
A lot of these bands are going out.
Judas Priest is going out with Saxon and Uriah Heap.
So it's not them headlining on their own.
Do you think that some of these bands are kind of biting off more than they can chew
and maybe them or their management are kind of lost in what the reality or the interests
for these bands are in 2024?
Yeah, it kind of sounds like it.
Everything seems kind of up in the air right now and everyone's trying to figure it out.
And there seems to be a lot of backlash, too, like with the Jennifer Lopez case, because
you have things like TikTok where people are sharing things more than ever.
And just all of the hatred that people have had towards her is just easily displayed all
day, every day on platforms like TikTok.
You can tell it's changing society's feelings about her as a whole, almost, to the point
to where she's kind of ruined it for herself.
And now people aren't buying tickets.
Yeah, everything is different right now.
A lot of people probably don't know what they're doing or what to do about it.
Now, the Black Keys, they had an excuse that sounded pretty good.
Do you remember reading their response to that?
They were claiming it wasn't because of ticket sales.
They said they were going to take those resources and put it towards something else.
But they could be making that up to save face, too.
Did you hear them say that?
I did not.
I mean, I'm not a close follower of theirs.
But I mean, we've seen bands like Anthrax do this in the UK, for example.
And I mean, a lot of it, I think, is them wanting to not upset their fans.
In the case of, say, an Anthrax or maybe a Judas Priest, who in the past, I've talked
to Mark Striegel about this, how maybe they had oversaturated the market.
And under the fact that if you're playing the same exact setlist, you need something
else to get people to come out.
Especially for metal fans.
Right.
Who are diehard fans that enjoy deep album cuts.
And that Anthrax said, well, you know, you don't understand we played Among the Living.
And when we got to some of the deeper tracks, people weren't into them into those tracks
as well.
OK, I get that.
But that doesn't mean, for example, that skeleton in the closet is going to get the same reaction
as, I don't know, playing Medusa or playing Dangerous.
That's right.
Yeah.
Because even if it's a band that you love, if they're just playing the same stuff year
after year, you don't really care to see them, you know, every 10 years, maybe.
Right.
It's for me, you know, like even with Slayer, if they're playing the same stuff all the
time, I just wouldn't want to go and stand there and watch the same songs all the time.
Right.
Be like every five to 10 years, I'd be good to go see it.
And that's about it.
Yeah, I agree with you.
And the thing is, the tickets aren't cheap.
I mean, if we're talking about which is something that I intended on discussing the prices of
tickets, if we're talking about this being a $35 ticket, then you say, all right, well,
maybe.
But if you're if you're paying $180 per ticket, then you say, well, look at that.
They've only switched out one song.
And the only song that they've switched out is the one off of the new album for one off
the previous album, and you're like, OK, that's not enough to get me to see them.
Yeah.
And that's likely not been as big of a problem for me because I don't really care to see
shows in arenas anyway.
I've always much preferred the club setting.
And so far, I haven't had to pay super big ticket prices at the clubs downtown.
Or if you go to Cincinnati to Bogart or Louisville, you know, you can pay probably more like 30
bucks to go to a show.
OK.
When I went to see The Last in Line, I can't remember what I paid, but it wasn't so much
that I remember it.
It was a good price.
Right.
But you know, they're just playing that one of our clubs downtown, too.
Nothing, nothing too big.
Yeah, the the other thing with that is, for example, is the discussion in my household
this week where I mentioned, hey, we just saw Markie Ramone in May.
He's coming back in November.
It's thirty five bucks to see him.
We paid thirty five bucks this time.
And I said, is that a price point where it makes sense to see him again?
I know it's going to be more or less the same setlist.
You know, was it fun enough that we want to experience that again?
And the discussion was going back and forth with that.
Now we're heading over to the States.
And while we're there, there are a few shows, there are some at amphitheaters and there
are some at stadiums.
And for example, I priced out going to see Green Day.
I'm not the hugest Green Day fan, but I figured, OK, while we're there to, you know, give my
kids that experience, let's see what it costs.
So I checked out the price at Citi Field in New York.
And it was one hundred and eighty bucks for the last row of a 70,000 seat stadium.
Yeah, that's even what Blink 182 were charging for seats.
And they're not even as big as Green Day.
Yeah, yeah.
And the thing, too, is we had an option.
We could see them at Hershey Stadium, which is about three hours south.
Yeah.
And it was a hundred and it was one hundred thirty five dollars.
And it's all the way in the back of of that old stadium that they have there.
And I'm thinking.
I thought about it and I'm like, you know, I like them.
I think they would be cool to see live once, probably.
Yeah.
Does the price point make me want to go?
Yeah.
Def Leppard and what are they doing for that extra 80 bucks you're spending over what it's
probably really worth?
I mean, they're not putting on shows like Kiss, are they?
They are playing rock and roll all night now in their in their Green Day.
Yeah, Green Day is.
Oh, no, I don't want to hear that.
Surprisingly enough.
Billy Billy Joe Armstrong has a cover band.
Yeah.
And he covered who did he just cover?
It was it was a.
It was a song by Rat or it wasn't rat, but it was somewhere along those lines.
It was an 80s hard rock metal song.
And he and he pulled the solo off.
He actually did it.
Yeah.
And I was surprised.
I'm like, holy shit, this is wasn't what I expected.
Cool.
I figured he'd just play like a few bar chords or whatnot.
But yeah, and I've seen interviews with him talk about how he's an overall music junkie
of all different types of genres.
So yeah, yeah.
Kind of cool.
I know.
You know what it was?
He played a Van Halen song and he played the.
Well, that's cool.
It was shit.
And it was that's coming back to me.
It's slowly in my old man brain.
It's coming back.
It was with Michael Anthony.
I think they did somebody get me a doctor or one of these tracks where or Michael Anthony
did heavy backing vocals and is done live with Van Halen in the past.
And Billy Joe did the did the solo note for note.
The Van Halen.
So yeah, he's definitely a talented guy.
Yeah.
And can write some good songs.
Yeah.
So he's got what it takes.
So it's been that kind of money to watch a punk band whose songs you hear all the time.
Yeah, that's I don't know unless I just if I had a grandchild that was just dying to
have that experience.
You know, this granddaughter that I have, I'd probably spend all the money in the world
on her and she asked me to take her.
Right.
But that'd be the only reason I would.
Yeah.
Well, same same boat.
I'm in taking my son to see Limp Bizkit.
But but yeah, still with Limp Bizkit, there were tickets ranging from three hundred something
going all the way down to like twenty five for lawn seats.
We paid we paid around two hundred for two tickets because I wanted to get something
that was I could have gone cheaper, but we had an obstructed view.
Yeah, you don't want that.
I don't want that.
Especially when you come all the way over here to see it.
Yeah, exactly.
So I figured, all right, this may be the only show we see.
So I'll pay a little more than what I want to pay for it.
Yeah, makes sense.
Yeah.
And you'll share with your kids, too.
Right.
And that's that's the whole thing.
There are other shows that we looked at.
We looked at Def Leppard and Journey, which were similar prices to Green Day.
I looked at Bush, Jerry Cantrell and Candle Block and Candle Box are coming around as
a package deal.
Same amphitheater and the tickets are slightly less than the than the Limp Bizkit package.
It's only three bands versus I think it's five for Limp Bizkit.
Wow.
See, that's that's another problem I have with going to shows, especially with a lot
of the bands that I like in the metal core, hardcore, other metal bands.
When they come around, there'll be three to five bands.
Right.
And yeah, I just I have a hard time with that.
Number one, it's just it's hard for me to sit through all of that or stand through all
of that on a concrete floor.
Right.
But you know, you also it's I don't know, it's just too much changing going on.
I'd rather just have a couple of bands like there always was when we were younger so that,
you know, you can dig into their music a little better, especially when they have more than
three bands and they're just they're also busy trying to get up there and play a few
songs, change your equipment and do it over again with another band.
It's just yeah, it's just not for me.
Yeah.
Well, here's here's another thing that that I wanted to discuss is some of these festivals
where you have a lot of bands playing on on a specific day.
And it reminds me a lot of these memes that you see online where it says, OK, you have
twenty five dollars and you can pick four bands.
And at each tier, this is what each band is worth.
And for some of the festivals that I've been seeing, it's almost it's almost like they
spend those twenty five on on two bands that are that are worth, you know, ten and then
everything else are one dollar bands.
So yeah, I'm going to give you an example here.
So this is the.
This is this is a festival that is close to me.
This is about two hours away.
And.
All right.
So they've got some known commodities here.
OK, so the headliner of night one is Jane's Addiction.
Second band on on the tier is Ty Sewell.
I don't know who that is.
Third is a is a Spanish band, fourth, fourth and fifth are bona fide and whispering sons.
Then Brigade Loco.
And a bunch of local bands.
The following day, it's Queens of the Stone Age with L7.
That'd be a bigger show.
Red Cross is there.
There's another Spanish band that I know, but I only know of them because they're signed
to Century Media.
It's a female duo.
And I don't know any of the other one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen bands that day.
That's a lot.
Three bands, four bands out of out of twenty.
I assume they're playing simultaneously in different spots, right?
Correct.
They've got three different stages going on.
The third night.
Band of Horses is headlining Band of Horses played a small bar.
That's an indie band, right?
What's that?
That's an indie rock band, right?
Correct.
Band of Horses.
Yeah, them.
OK, Cheryl Crowe is playing that night.
Wow.
The music has changed here.
Yeah.
Mavis Staples, who I believe is kind of like a soul throwback singer.
The Warren Haynes band.
Let's see.
Who else do I know here?
I've heard of the Detroit Cobras, but I couldn't tell you one of their songs.
And there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen,
fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, seventeen other bands that I have no idea who they are.
So it comes back to.
They've got one huge band, one medium sized band, maybe because I mean, L7 was.
Was known.
I mean, they were never huge.
So.
And that's that's what's driving tickets that day.
Queens of the Stone Age L7.
The previous night, I would say is Jane's Addiction.
And that final night, Band of Horses and Cheryl Crowe have even even billing there.
So yeah, that is I didn't go to a lot of festivals, but when I did, I feel like I mean, they would
have a main stage with the bigger bands, of course, but the other bands that were there
were still.
You know, they had their audiences, their fans, they were pretty well known.
And when you went to the festival, there was so many bands, good bands that you wanted
to see, you can't get to see them all.
Sometimes you have to choose between one or the other or run back and forth between tents.
I don't remember ever going to a festival and being like that to where there's so many
bands you just haven't heard of.
Now, of course, they're always sometimes we'll have like a new band stage and people can
sign up with their bands to go and play so people can hear them.
But right now it sounds like you have a whole festival with a bunch of new band stages.
OK, so this is the biggest metal festival in Spain.
This is taking place next week.
So let me go from the smallest stage all the way up to the headlining stage because they
have one, two, three, four stages going on.
All right, let me just go by bands that I know here.
So on the smallest stage, you've got Bokassa, who I posted within Patreon, and you've got
Nashville Pussy, who's recently towards Spain.
The second stage has Biohazard with the original lineup plus Comeback Kid, who I know of, and
then a bunch of bands that I'm not sure of.
The next to biggest stage has Sum 41 on their final tour, and that's the only band that
I know there.
The big stage for Wednesday is Alice Cooper, Machine Head, Bad Omens and Kerry King.
Nice.
So that at least you know what's going on there.
All right, second day.
This is a four day festival.
You have small stages.
It's called the desert stage.
It's high on fire.
Royal Thunder, the Lizards, who's a local stoner band.
Oh, no, that's not the Lizards.
That's the Wizards.
I'm sorry.
The chaos stage.
You have no one that I know of.
Ritual stage has Ishan, Earn, Crypta, a death metal band whose name is like 14 letters long
and I've never been able to.
And then the main stage is Bring Me the Horizon, Bruce Dickinson and Delane.
And then a few other bands that I've never heard of.
I'd like to see Earn.
Those videos you posted turned me on to a couple of their records.
They have one or two, can't remember, but very good band.
Cool.
I hope they'll gain some more fans playing there.
Let's hope.
That's the reason they go, I'm sure.
Desert stage.
I've never really heard of any of those bands.
Chaos stage.
There's a Spanish band that I've heard of who's actually playing on that other festival that
I mentioned, Death Before Dishonor, which is, I believe, they're a hardcore band out
of Boston.
The ritual stage has Accept on it.
That's the only thing that I really know of there.
And then the main stage has The Offspring and Corey Taylor.
And then the rest are national bands from here.
Saturday, the last day of the festival, the desert stage has Empire State Bastard, which
has Dave Lombardo.
Yeah, that's a good band.
Green Lung, who I've recently featured on Patreon, and Chemis, who's a band that I have
on vinyl and who I've featured on Patreon in the past.
The chaos stage has Chromags, Zulu, and I don't recognize any of the others.
Ritual stage has Fear Factory and Fintroll, who's a...
I get bombarded with their stuff, but they're more of a pagan band, which for the most part
never goes over well on Patreon.
And the headliners are Avenged Sevenfold, Megadeth, Electric Callboy, and Babymetal.
And actually Slaughter to Prevail is actually playing that day as well.
So this is a flat out metal festival.
The names are bigger.
But I'm assuming that a lot of these bands, the price point to get them to play is probably
not all that much.
Nashville Pussy recently played the same place where I saw Markey Ramone and they were charging
30 bucks to see them.
Except I can't imagine that except is asking for a whole heck of a lot.
And in these states, they're playing theaters.
They're not playing, you know, if they're playing an amphitheater, they're packaged
with somebody else.
Beer Factory at this point is that.
Biohazard at this point is that.
So I mean, yeah, more bang for your buck with this.
But again, it comes down to money, I think, to bring some of these bands on board.
And the other thing too is that this is a homegrown festival that grew from nothing,
basically.
One is the biggest metal festival in Spain, whereas the other festival is born out of
a corporation who I see other festivals from, which aren't run well.
The grounds always suck.
And they're never friendly with anyone.
I mean, I just don't get it.
So OK, so so for.
Four day tickets to this festival is two hundred dollars, so it's fifty dollars a day.
If you buy individual tickets, it's seventy nine.
It's it's excuse me.
It's seventy dollars, more or less, except Saturday is eighty dollars.
Right.
Yeah, that's going to make more sense going to a festival for a day.
Yeah.
So let's get back to what what we're talking about with the economics and and bands maybe
realizing that.
I mean, a festival, I get it.
If a festival, I've always said this.
There's so much money to throw around with some of them that for.
A band like a Motley Crue, like a Twisted Sister to say, oh, we're never playing again,
I think is asinine because the festival promoter comes along ten years after you stop playing
and said, says, here's a million dollars to play my festival.
Yeah.
And you're playing the festival.
The case for touring, though, with these bands playing theaters, playing big theaters and
not selling well or going to arenas and having to.
You know, tie off areas of of the of the arena.
I mean, do bands just not understand their worth in 2024?
Because I would think that before planning a tour.
And this is just out of complete ignorance that I'm throwing this out there.
You have to know the expenses involved.
You know, does a manager say, hey, you know, last album was five years ago.
It sold this much ticket sold this much.
We did.
We did all penthouse hotels.
It cost us this much.
OK, this album isn't selling as much.
It isn't being streamed as much.
So instead of the penthouse, we're going to have to look at really nice five star hotels.
Yeah, we're going to have to cut back.
And instead of playing stadiums with huge pockets being cordoned off, we're going to
play large theaters now.
OK, we're going to play a five thousand seat theater, which we're going to fill as a.
Exactly.
Yeah.
As opposed to what they should do.
Yeah.
Which is which is what I think what some of these bands aren't doing.
And again, I can have members of bands who know this better than I do say, no, you know,
that's it's not that simple.
But I've also talked to people in the past.
I've talked to Tommy Victor from Prong, who told me that they tour basically based on
the statistics that they receive from Spotify and based on those statistics, they see where
people are listening and where they should be playing as opposed to just routing through
Decatur, Illinois, when when nobody's listening to them out there.
Yeah, that is a good idea.
So although some bands may not come through a town like Lexington, if they all did that,
because we can you know, we're starting to have more of a metal scene than we did growing
up and bands like Anvil came through.
But yeah, not a lot of people show up.
So yeah, you can see a lot of bands, you know, skipping over even towns like mine.
If they did that too much.
But I can also see why they would.
Yeah, I think that a lot of the past two has been kind of shoehorning into certain places
just because they were on the way.
And again, this is just me speaking out of ignorance.
Maybe that's costing them more money than it is just to drive on through a town and
get to someplace elsewhere instead of just selling 50 tickets in a certain city.
Well, maybe they drive an hour or two more and they can sell 200.
And maybe that's not where that they want.
You're right.
That's exactly probably what they sold at that Anvil show that I went to here in Lexington.
It seemed like there was about 50 people there.
You know, I felt bad for them, but they all still, you know, they had a good attitude
and put on a good show.
But if they had just gone an hour further north to Cincinnati, like Bogarts or even
in northern Kentucky, they would have had at least twice the size of that crowd, probably,
if not more.
Well, you know, thank you for giving us a shot and coming to see us.
Here's another thing, too, and maybe their last few tours, they have played Bogarts and
maybe playing there gives them less of a cut than them playing in Lexington.
So maybe that would.
Maybe paying for or playing in front of 50 people actually gets them more money than
playing in front of.
I keep that's a good point.
We got Bogarts, they have to pay more to rent that venue.
That's right.
Show up there.
Yeah.
If you only get another 50 people, you might spend all that money on Bogarts.
Yeah.
And that's that's one of the things that Gene Simmons recently discussed was.
Him having getting more money out of doing solo dates and when he was playing with Kiss
and he said, you know, well, I'm not taking a 60 member crew out.
I'm not renting eight semi trucks.
I'm not paying hotels for this.
We're not taking this gear.
We're you know, we're playing rented gear everywhere.
We're just flying in and and they're paying for our hotel and airplane.
And we're making.
Yeah.
So, again, that's why for a lot of these bands to say, oh, well, we're never going to play
again, is asinine because at a festival, they're you know, they can make a lot more money out
of it as a result because of being able to make those kind of deals.
Yeah, sure.
Pricing kids pricing kids out of shows.
We talked a little bit about this a few days ago.
I don't remember if we did it during a podcast or kind of behind the scenes when we were
growing up, you could have a twenty dollar ticket night where there were a bunch of bands
that you didn't know who they were.
You kind of knew the headliner.
You at least heard the band's name.
There was maybe a local act and then two to three other bands that were coming around
touring.
But it was 20 bucks or if not, you had five dollar ticket night where it was Discover
a New Band.
It was for bucks.
So when we were kids, you were able to see shows based on your allowance or based on
it not making you go out of your way or paying two hundred dollars for it.
That's right.
Yeah I could mow two yards for ten dollars a piece.
Remember this is back in the 80s.
So that's all you're going to get.
Ten dollars if you're lucky.
Five for sure.
But maybe ten.
You can you can mow two yards and then go see Slayer in Cincinnati on the south of Heaven
Tour for eighteen fifty.
In the early 90s when I saw bands like Agnostic Front and Abituary and some things like that,
it probably was in the low 20s, you know, twenty one fifty or something.
So yeah, big, big difference.
Yeah.
And that to me has to affect once again the music going audience.
It has to affect kids getting involved and wanting to check out bands.
It has to involve older people like us that are that are thinking, well, hell, in my case,
I'm buying five tickets or I'm buying four tickets.
Excuse me.
There's a big difference between paying again 20 bucks for four tickets and paying four
to five hundred dollars for four tickets.
Yeah.
I don't see how any middle class or less kid pays for shows like that.
Right.
And I think that there's there's a lot that's being pointed at the streaming services, for
example, and they say, well, you know, we're not making money off of this.
So so we have to make up money somewhere else.
I don't doubt that.
But at the same time, it seems like fans are being gouged to an extent.
Yeah.
I mean, I couldn't even ask for that as a Christmas gift because my parents wouldn't
even spend that much money, you know, on Christmas.
They wouldn't have spent over one hundred dollars for each of his kids or something.
Yeah.
That's just yeah, it's just amazing that it costs that much for a kid to have to see some
of these bands beyond an arena.
I mean, thank goodness they can still go to clubs, maybe.
Although a lot of clubs you may not be able to get into unless it's all ages, too.
Right.
You know, if we're talking about teenagers here.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very unfortunate.
And also, you know, media, you know, albums.
I feel like I'm paying another five or ten dollars per album these days.
You know, I've always felt like I've never paid more than.
You know, I like to pay about twenty five bucks maybe.
That's including tax.
Right now, I'm probably going to pay more like thirty.
And of course, if you buy, you know, something like the new Megadeth album, that's a double
record.
It might be 50 bucks or more.
And man, it's just that's that's a big chunk of money, especially for teenagers.
Right.
And that's exactly what my next point was going to be seeing bands releasing vinyl once
again, seeing bands releasing now cassettes.
Again, something that we talked about a few days ago.
Iron Maiden re-releasing Number of the Beast on cassette.
And it be mentioned that.
Twenty five dollars.
Yeah.
And and thinking that I wouldn't have paid that much for a CD, thinking that I was running
out and making sure that I was buying the CD first week it came out because it was going
to be nine ninety nine previous to that cassette tapes and vinyls back in the day.
You know, five ninety nine jumped to seven ninety nine jumped to nine ninety nine.
And then it just went to the upper stratosphere.
After that, I remember seeing CDs that were on sale at Tower Records for twenty two ninety
nine and thinking that's not a sale and thinking that they were complaining about, oh, well,
we're now going to Wal-Mart and Target and buying this and thinking, yeah, sure.
Shit.
Am because I'm going to get that CD first week it comes out for seven ninety nine with
two bonus tracks or with a sticker or with a shirt.
I'm not paying twenty two ninety nine.
So when a Tower Records went out of business with those prices, I didn't feel bad about
it at all because I thought I'm going to go with the place that's giving me something
that I can afford.
And there are there are there are a few record shops that I'm going to visit when I'm back
in the States.
But I think that they've maintained they've maintained their legacy, being able to stay
alive because they've been able to compete in the market and offer some certain things
that other places couldn't and still keep reasonable prices for new things.
Yeah.
Most of the record stores seem to be a mix of new and selling used stuff.
You can sell so much used vinyl now that that almost helps drive the newer sales, too, I
think, because people are coming in there to buy like me.
I go by look at all the used records every week and then.
When a new record comes out like that Kerry King album, I'll let them know to order me
a copy of that, pick that up here and there.
Right.
Yeah.
I spend most of my money on the used stuff or have been I've almost bought everything
that I need by now.
Yeah.
I was big on that with CDs.
I would go from one used CD shop to another because I didn't care it was used if it still
sounded and even still, I would remember there was a place close to where I lived that had
a bin that had CDs for two ninety nine.
Well, what's wrong with this?
It was David Lee Rothseedam and smile.
Well, the CDs fine, but the jewel case is broken.
Oh, I can use the jewel case.
Yeah.
Or I remember getting Downs Nola on CD for the first time.
They said, well, it's got two scratches on it.
I go, does it play?
Yeah, it plays fine.
OK, I don't give a shit.
It's got a scratch on the bottom.
I'm not looking at it.
You know, so it plays.
That's what I want.
That's right.
So, yeah, I think that's the way some of these record stores like you're mentioning, that's
how they get along.
A lot of their sales are coming from selling used stuff.
Right.
Not just vinyl.
It can be used clothing and buttons and posters and every little trinket you can think of.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
When it comes to streaming services, so I know you've got a lot of physical content.
Do you use any streaming service?
Yeah, I use the Apple Music.
OK.
Which is, you know, eleven or ten ninety nine a month, I guess.
Now, I started using the iTunes match.
Do you remember that?
Yes.
What that was?
That would allow you to upload your collection into their cloud service for twenty five dollars
a month.
And then that was merged in with Apple Music and went to that monthly subscription.
And so that's kind of how I check out all the new stuff without having to, you know,
work too hard to hear it.
So you know, you can plug it into the car and, you know, with your iPhone, have it everywhere
you go.
So and then anything that I want to.
So it's like a mix.
It's a combination of the iTunes match and Apple Music.
You know, you can listen to anything in their library and then you can also upload your
own CDs there.
Now, I had my own home media server.
I use that flex media program.
You've probably heard of that.
And so I've got all my movies and CDs, you know, ripped uncompressed to a Linux server
in my closet.
And then I can listen to, you know, anything I want to anywhere I go.
And then I use the Apple Music to hear all the new stuff.
So that keeps me, you know, that keeps me abreast of everything that's new.
Lets me know what I might like to buy.
Okay, cool.
And I know they're not getting much, but at least I'm paying something for it.
You know, right.
Yeah.
And I like you.
If there's something that I find that I really enjoy, I go out of my way to pick it up.
And that's the way that I try to support the art.
Yeah, I did plenty of that.
We're talking about spending all that money.
And so I've got, you know, my old bands that I grown up with, like Believer here, you know,
I told you I went and bought all these new versions of these.
That probably cost $100.
And then one of my other favorite bands, Living Sacrifice, you know, they were in the 90s
and had no vinyl, but now they've got everything.
So I probably spent, you know, two to $300 and all of that.
But you know, that'll be with me until I die.
Right.
It's with especially my old age, I start to forget the shows that I've seen.
But at least I've got that that album that I can keep with me forever.
So that's it.
That feels like a better investment, even though it's a big chunk of money.
Right.
Well, my next question is, what what do you think about kids sticking to streaming and
not wanting physical media?
Do you feel that the prices are pricing kids out of wanting to pick up physical media?
And that's why they're going with streaming.
Also, I mean, sure, the streaming is whatever 1099, 999, whatever it is, depending on the
service.
Yeah.
It still ends up being a lot cheaper than them going out and picking up an album a week
or a month, you know, based on that.
Although that has been changing, I am I frequently, especially if I go to the local record store
that I go to on Saturdays or any time on the weekends, it's very frequent now.
I'll see teenagers in there.
OK.
A lot of times coming in with their parents.
And I saw a girl there last year buying, you know, Too Fast for Love and things like that,
that she had found in the news bin.
Right.
And I have a niece who's she's 16 now, but she's got a record player and some albums.
And I bought her an album for Christmas by TV Girl.
Have you heard of them before?
But you know, they a lot of the kids that I'm coming across are appreciating not only
the music, but the mediums that we use and are starting to collect and and just understand
the value of having that.
Right.
Of course, it's streaming is always going to be the thing that most people do.
And it really is unfortunate that the artist gets so little money from that.
I think that I wish that could change.
Yeah, I agree with all of that.
I mean, we've talked that nauseam about my kids and how they're into for the most part,
they like rock music, they like other stuff as well.
But for them, they enjoy collecting CDs.
And one of the things that this year was whenever they got a beer above, they got a CD for getting
a good grade.
And there were a pile of CDs that I'd bought.
I mean, I didn't spend a whole heck of a lot on them.
And they were thrilled.
You know, my my youngest son got 72 seasons by Metallica this way.
And it's his go to album to listen to every night before he goes to sleep.
That's cool, man.
Yeah, it's all very exciting to me.
Every time I see these kids, I always have to bug them and talk to them a bit to find
out how is it they're interested in these same things that you and I are.
And you can see that you can see the joy on their parents faces, too.
They're having those moments with their kids, buying those records for them.
It's neat to see.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, speaking from my own personal experience, it's always a thrill to go to these places
and the different record shops and seeing them want to pick stuff out.
That's right.
Yeah, it's fun.
The last thing that I wanted to bring up on this topic, we've talked about instruments.
You've got a few guitars behind you.
Could you imagine as a kid being told that if you wanted to get a decent guitar, that
you had to pay three thousand dollars for a Les Paul, let's say?
No.
Man, can you imagine how long on my first job, Kentucky Fried Chicken, three dollars
and fifteen cents.
At some point, I got a raise, a ten cent raise.
And how many hours would I have to work to buy a three thousand dollar guitar?
Yeah, that's crazy.
My first guitar was an Odessa or Odessa.
I don't know how to say that properly, but it was a Les Paul copy, you know, with like
an orange burst paint job.
Right.
I paid for a hundred dollars from some guy locally.
But then after that, I started eyeing a J.B. player.
Do you remember those guitars?
I remember them.
Yeah, they were all the ones I saw were white and they're really cool looking guitar.
And that was probably more like three hundred dollars.
And I remember saving up the money to buy that.
And then I had to buy an amplifier, which I went and got a stupid, super high interest
loan to buy a crate amplifier for like seven hundred dollars.
And I was a stupid kid, had no clue what I was doing.
And I probably paid for that three or four times over, maybe an interest payments.
But right.
And actually, my very first amp was a tiny little fender amp with like a small, who knows,
one inch speaker in there that my mom got for twenty five dollars.
Right.
But yeah, I mean, you could still buy some expensive guitars back then.
But gosh, boy, they've gone way up now.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
What's what's the most expensive one you have there in your room?
Most expensive that I have cost me about a thousand.
Yeah.
And what is it?
It's a Paul Gilbert fire fireman.
It's the first one that he released, which is the finish is reminiscent of your classic
SG finish.
That's the most expensive I've I have a few other Ibanez that I've paid seven something
for an hour base that I paid about seven for the other fireman that I bought after that,
after paying import fees and everything was about seven hundred.
That's about the most expensive electronic drum set I have next to me.
That was about thirteen hundred.
That's probably the most expensive piece of musical equipment that I've purchased.
Yeah.
But it's a similar deal.
I remember somebody seeing the drum set and saying, oh, I got to pick one of those up
for my kid.
I'm like, they're not cheap.
Yeah, that's right.
You got one of those for like a hundred and something like, no, like this is this is thirteen
hundred.
It sounds like a real drum set.
It sounds like an acoustic drum set.
Yeah, that's something else I would much rather buy used.
I don't need to pay for retail for something like that.
Right.
So I think to summarize this discussion, economics, I mean, economics play a big part in I think
keeping hard rock and metal alive, music in general alive, because we talked about Black
Keys and Jennifer Lopez as well.
Do you ever think we talk about Jennifer Lopez on your show?
No, not at all.
But it was the it was the biggest example.
So in the perfect.
Yeah.
And and the thing there, too, is that you still have big other big pop artists that
are going out and I haven't problems selling tours.
You know, Taylor Swift, of course, Beyonce.
You have Madonna, who's playing smaller venues, not playing big stadiums like some like the
other two that I mentioned.
JLo just.
It's just it's just not what it used to be.
And I've even seen members of, for example, I think it was Redmond from Wu Tang Clan,
who said that they're having a hard time connecting with younger kids.
And that's why they feel that a lot of their tickets aren't selling as well.
So, yeah, I think money ultimately comes into that as if a kid can afford to buy your music.
It's going to be more likely that they give it a shot.
That's right.
That's one of the big problems I think they're going to have.
It's yeah.
I mean, how are they going to grow those audiences at those prices?
Yeah.
Agreed.
A good way to sum that up, I think.
Yeah.
Cool.
So what we're going to do, I didn't think this discussion would go this long, but we've
we've kind of done like an hour with this.
Yeah, we sure have.
Yeah.
So what we're going to do is we're going to put this discussion to bed and we may have
another discussion in the future.
Ed and myself want to thank Ed for hopping on here and joining me and discussing this.
And I enjoyed it.
Awesome.
So on that note, thank you to everyone who is watching the replay of this or listening
to the audio version.
Appreciate your support and we'll see you next time right here on Signals from Mars.
See you folks.