Why do people think they’re the ones that’s gonna Kill John Wick??? He killer 4 guys in a bar with a pencil, don’t they know they’re just gonna die???
Why do people think they can kill James Bond? (well, now they can) Or Superman? Or Son Goku? Because the studio wishes to milk the franchise and make more money. Although logically there's always people who think they can make a name for themselves by taking out the biggest and the strongest Mofo out there.
Yeah, I never go to shows that cost more than $30. I figure that no later how much I want to see a particular band I don’t generally like shows in big venues. Plus I fell like there are plenty of good bands to be seen in small venues for way less money.
I'll still go to a large concert, I went to Muse twice in 2019. But getting GA tickets for Muse was still doable. Unlike U2 which basically requires you to sell your firstborn and pledge allegiance to Satan. But yeah, smaller bands and venues are more enjoyable, if only because you can still interact with the band before or after the gig.
I think I've lost the "don't be on FB" war and it blows.
I found out that some of my best musical friends put out an album ... in November 2019. I've shared multiple gigs with them, recorded them and produced songs for them, and I had no idea. They're not the only ones. I actually missed the release of another album I played on for basically the same reason: I think it really is so difficult to be a musician without Facebook that most musicians don't use anything else to communicate with people. I lose a subscriber every time I send a mailing list e-mail, and the online stuff I do use like forums aren't exactly a way to keep in touch with too many people I know near home.
There is at least one local venue (that I've played several times) that won't use anything else to book shows. Can't call, can't e-mail, can't talk in person. Have to use FB.
It was kind of easy to ignore this problem when I was in school and couldn't play shows or even most of the time find time to go to any, and during the pandemic when no one could play shows and I wasn't going anywhere and didn't get frequent reminders that I didn't have any clue what was going on.
I'd ditch FB in a heartbeat if I could. I need it for work. Which on the plus side has kept me from sperging on political issues and stuff like so many others seem to do. Gotta keep my account free of politics. If only I keep my FB friends from doing so. I'm fed up with their 'I am pro/anti-vax and here's why those I disagree with are stupid'. As somebody said, I think it was youtuber Razorfist, FB is like having that crazy uncle you only met at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and now having to hear what he says ALL THE TIME!
It's not just the shows and albums, it's indicative of how hard it is from both sides to keep up with people who are sort of locked into FB as a primary way of communicating. Another friend and bandmate (not like some random acquaintance), who I've had text conversations with several times during the pandemic just had their second baby and I found about it a month afterward. I'm not some super social person, but I feel like the nature of communication about friendship has fundamentally changed, to the point where it wouldn't even occur to one of my close friends to mention his family's second baby on a text, because of course everyone's already known for a while. I'm completely disconnected from community in a very fundamental way now. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and it's very different from the last time I reactivated my account, at the worst possible time, for about a year. I originally ditched the account in 2013, then reactivated it in like 2015 or 2016. I have actual data from that experiment about how disconnected I became from the music community in Baltimore, because I had almost no gigs for two years (at least not my own -- I was playing guitar and mandolin for people at the time though) and then I had lots of gigs in 2016 many of which came just from responding to a Facebook post. If I needed to rely on this to put food on the table, I would probably starve if I didn't use it, so it's no wonder to me that most musicians I know are on there and heavily invested. (By the way, when I got rid of my account in 2013 or whenever, I actually nuked the account: I deleted all my posts and removed everyone from my friends list. This time I just deactivated it.)
I also never understood why people do all their communications via FB. Its messaging system sucks ass compared to whatsapp, or the old MSN messenger it replaced. And for keeping track of your friends the algorithm keeps track of which friends you check on the most, so it stops showing you what your friends you keep less track off are doing after a while. And never never never use FB as a news source. Even without the censorship the algorithm will only feed you what you think you want to hear. Hello bubble!
But yeah, I get what you're saying that you need FB as a means to stay in contact with other musicians and as a means to get gigs or jobs. Only reaso I keep it basically.
