News: Touring Bands are Getting Screwed at the Pump
May 27th, 2008 - by Eddie
It’s true. High gas prices have inspired people to bike, bring car pooling back in the mix and have forced touring bands to wonder if they will ever make it in the music industry.
According to the Chicago Tribune, bands are finding their gas bills doubling and making it almost impossible to make a living as an unknown to medium-sized band on the road (panhandling and whoring are still acceptable ways to make a living in rock).
How do you offset this? Higher ticket prices? Traveling festivals. With Donkey rides. More exposure on 52shows. Dancing monkeys. Taco night (huh?).
In the end, it’s the musicians and fans who will suffer the most (and probably the dancing monkey who is unlucky enough to have a horrible agent and suggest they go on tour with a band).
I’m on the verge of biking it to a show this summer. I’ve only done it once before and it was when I lived in Arizona. My editor and i were trashed after a Distillers show and rammed our bikes into trees. Hilarious.
So that’s what we have to look forward to…and maybe it’ll mean a better world, one where Vinyl outsells the CD and where people crash into each other’s bikes instead of each other’s cars, all the while with that drunken ringing in their ears from the show they just saw.
