This “music should be free” movement is really stupid. It’s really just a justification for people to not feel bad about stealing from musicians.
Sure you can have my music for free if: you find free professional equipment including the accessories needed, free rehearsal space that includes all the utilities, an engineer who is paid, or is also ‘doing it only because (s)he loves it’, a free place to record it (meaning a real studio with sound dampening rooms that are separated and wired up correctly, free recording equipment, free tape (I want real tape), free distribution and physical cd’s if needed and finally free coffee for the engineer (100% needed, and they drink A LOT of coffee).
If you meet those small, meager demands, you sir, may have a free copy of the music that we took hours and hours of our lives to write, practice and record because we love to do it.
Oh, and the T-Shirt you want for free too because you’ll “wear it and therefore give us promo”, EAT IT! If you want a free shirt, go MAKE ONE! If you love our band and want to promote us get a friggin’ sharpie and an old pit-stained shirt and write our name on it with “IS AWESOME” underneath mmmmkay? Here’s a hint, WE PAY FOR THOSE TOO! The $1.50 profit we make on each shirt will help to pay for some gas to get to the gig so we can play!
Not to mention, (excluding good benefits) we will NOT play for free for the exposure only to be asked to give away t-shirts, music and every other product we can produce.
Hey, free promo items are stickers and buttons. End of story.
haha……I read something that irritated me, so I had to get on a tangent.
preach it brotha!