But Then Again, Who’s Keeping an Account?
Well, I did manage to get around the notion of accountability in the last post, so I guess I’ll address that now. To a degree, some of what has happened has been my fault. I did take less money than I know me, my time and certainly my studio is worth trying to find a win-win situatation with artists that at least claimed they didn’t have much money to begin with. It may actually be true that they couldn’t afford to pay me more, which at this point is irrelevant. The bottomline is a lot of time was pissed away with me making less money off of a five figure studio than I make selling chapbooks at gigs.
So, with that lesson in mind and moving forward, I’m done with the “deals” to help get artists recorded. If they can’t afford my $50/hour fee for the studio, they can go elsewhere and then I’m either getting paid what I consider a fair fee or I don’t waste my time.
The other area of accountability was again, a notion of trying to be win-win where I reserved beats for artists that basically squated on them even as other artists showed interest in them. Never again with that one as well. Beats are reserved once paid for with a signed contract. Until then, if I’m willing to part with it, it is first paid, first served. So in retrospect, my latest dismissal freed me up from a philosophy that was giving people a hand that wasn’t being reciprocated in the least. And for that, I guess I owe them.
