10A
Wednesday, April 26, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Mike Dillon, lead singer of the band Billy Goat, powers his way through another night at The Bottleneck. Sweat and energy define live rock 'n' roll. Those who don't have the passion generally don't have the audience.
Mike Dillon sorts out Billy Goat's share of the night's talk. Says Steve Ozark, owner of Ozark Talent, a Lawrence booking agency, "Musicians are the last ones to get paid. It is not an attractive financial picture until you are Bruce Springsteen."
When the music stops Continued from Page 1A.
Louis and Denver, I can't think of a cooler music town."
After Lawrence's Paw and later Stick hit the big time, musicians and entire bands started descending on the town because it's the place to be.
However, an MTV generation chasing the elusive dream of rock stardom is finding out it isn't as easy or glamorous as the scenes flitting across the boob tube.
"Don't quit your day job," means musicians, too.
★★★
Means to an End's first album has put J.D. Warnock's voice in record stores from coast to coast.
That same voice asks, "What would you like on your sandwich?" He stands behind the Subway counter in Lawrence taking orders. His green, mustard-stained Polo shirt proclaims him a "Subway sandwich artist."
"I have a record, and I make subs all day," he said. "It is very humbling. You can't be Mr. Rock Artist when you put on a sandwich art shirt."
Warnock is not alone is his down-to-earth attitude.
★★★
From his side of the business in the small-time confines of a live music venue, Mosiman doesn't deal with the big hair, leather, glitter and hair spray of mega rock.
"The rock diva doesn't play well in Lawrence," he said. "This is the incubation stage of the rock world. It is still real."
"I sleep in a sleeping bag on wood floors across America," said Zac Baird, keyboardist and singer for Billy Goat.
At the end of the night, the lights come on in a deserted Bottleneck. Bottles, crushed cups and cigarettes litter the wet floor. Billy Goat, tired and hungry, lugs their equipment out the back door into a cold van. About 250 nights a year, all they can look forward to is Taco Bell, a generous fan's floor and moving on to the next town in the morning.
The band's representative gets a handful of whiskey-soaked bills for the night, barely enough to pay rent, keep the band alive and buy smokes. Mike Dillon, lead singer, sorts the crumpled bills into piles on the floor. They have rent, van payments, a manager, an agent, lawyers and a host of other bills. Each of the six members takes about $60 of the more than $1,200 payout. On the West Coast, where they are less known and therefore on a lower level, Billy Gloe makes as little as $200 a show. It is the same $200 bands were being paid in 1970. Bar
owners don't acknowledge inflation.
Music is a business, and musicians are on the production line. While their peers further careers, they struggle to keep body and soul together.
Even if a band gets signed to a major label, it is a long way from the money. When all the managers, agents, lawyers and production people are paid, bands may get 4 percent of 85 percent of the retail sales. At that rate, an album would have to sell 1.3 million copies a year for each member of a four-member band to make $20,000 a year before taxes. There is no negotiating because bands have no power. That's just the way things are.
"The musicians are the last ones to get paid," said Steve Ozark, owner of Ozark Talent, a Lawrence booking agency. "It is not an attractive financial picture until you are Bruce Springsteen. After Aerosmith, everybody on the label is getting fucked."
Tiger Marion of Red House Studios sees his share of serious musicians and kid rockers dreaming of money. Several hundred bands a year pass through the studio, but only a few dozen are ever
good enough to even get out of Lawrence. Much less get signed.
Those who get signed come in to the studio with a pile of money the label gave them to make a record. They forget that it is only a loan. If the record doesn't sell, they are $50,000 in debt.
"So many bands get signed to a label, and they think they are there, and they are not," Marion said. "Once you get signed, that is when your financial problems start. Too many forget the whole goal of a label is to make money."
★★★
Band members find rewards other than money. The life outside of conventional mores is part of the bait and hook for some musicians.
Before Ozark was a booking agent, he was a bass player for the Backsliders. He knows the wild life of a band.
"All you have to do is stand on stage with an instrument, and you don't pay for booze or for dates," he said. "Musicians generally don't need money."
"It's the '90s, and there is a lot of suit like AIDS," Wes said. "Used to be a shot in the butt, and it was gone. Not no more. Sex can kill you."
While men still join bands to get chicks, AIDS strikes fear even in the heartland's Seattle.
Thanks to bands like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, drugs are as linked to rock as easy sex. Once, drugs were considered a necessary component of the creative process. Now, substance abuse has become more of a hindrance to success. When labels have so many bands to choose from, they don't have to mess with a group that doesn't have their heads screwed on straight.
Ray Pollard, Billy Goat drummer, also is his own roadie. More time is devoted to the work of the band than playing the music.
While excessive talent can still outweigh destructive addictions in the '90s, more rockers, from big time to no time, are driving out.
The new attitude has trickled all the way down to rock's roots.
"Everyone is waking up: Music is not about drugs," Wes said. "I used to like drugs a lot, but now they take a toll on me. I don't want to die."
Big Fish Ensemble, traveling with the much-more famous Indigo Girls, has the best the road can offer. Their dressing room at the Lied Center is clean, and they have a catered meal. A full cooler of Pale Ale and Cuervo is at their disposal. Yet the Indigo Girls' roads make more money than Big Fish Ensemble.
Like Renaissance troubadours, they must travel the countryside to earn their livelihood, accepting wine, food and hospitality for a song. No home, no insurance, no ties, a band on the road needs little other than gas money.
★★★
"I had a great job, and I made a lot of money," he said. "Giving it up was a scary thing."
Musicians don't have to snort coke or bed women to be legitimate anymore, but they still have to pay their dues.
Billy Goat has put nearly 300,000 miles on their Dodge van. They have put four transmissions in it and worn the trailer hook off.
Big Fish Ensemble had reached as far as they could go
Leigh Finlayson, swinging in his hammock strung between two clothes racks, contemplates what he has done. He has had a lot of time to think in his hammock since he quit his job as a federal defense attorney to tour with Big Fish Ensemble.
They leaped.
While traveling severs ties, it is its own reward. Bands see America — not from a tourist bus but from a wandering walk on a Tuesday afternoon with nothing to do.
as a weekend band in Georgia. Members faced the acid test of bands — stay with the security of jobs and familiar territory or leap into the uncertainty of "full-time band."
Relationships are rare and difficult for traveling musicians. A serious commitment has been the death of more than one band.
While the road life has its romantic, adventurous appeal, bands quickly learn the pitfalls.
It paid off to a certain degree. They are putting out their third album and traveling with the Indigo Girls, but they are still just a check above starvation. They are not far from the days of being stuck in a motel room for two in Bloomington, Ill., for three days, playing on the street corner for pizza money and watching HBO for 48 straight hours.
Gypsies with no bed, no bath and no facilities except those offered to them, personalities in the bands are changed by the hardships. After an extended road trip, Stick's drummer, Tim Mohn, left.
"Just try to find a place to shit or something to eat after playing," said Mark Smirl, singer for Stick, one of the several full-time bands in Lawrence.
"Road life will take its toll on any band," said Darrel Brannock, bass player for Stick. "You get very close, or you want to kill one another. Living that lifestyle gets old."
Like sports, music holds out the hope of a bright future inside the spotlights for those who have no other skills.
"I don't really have a choice," said Matt Gilhousen of Mountain Clyde. "I'm not satisfied when I'm not involved with music. I don't want to be a mechanic for the rest of my life."
"There is always the possibility we have fucked up our lives," said Dave Clair, a member whose wife has trouble dealing with his long absences and lack of income.
Tiger Marion manager of Red House Studios
"I was never any good at anything else," said Ken Anderson, Kill Creek drummer. "I always seem to fall back on playing drums - loud."
So why do they come to Lawrence, prolonging their adolescence and possibly wasting their lives?
★★★
And there is always the attention factor.
"I don't want to do the dreaded job thing." Baird said. "I can wear a T-shirt to work and not take a shower for three days. My hair can be four colors in a year."
There is also the avoidance of everyday, mundane life.
"An average guy like you doesn't get noticed when he walks from the pool room to the bathroom in The Bottleneck," said Nick Kounas, a Lawrence musician. "When you are in a band, you can stumble into any conversation, and they will accept you."
"So many bands get signed to a label, and they think they are there, and they are not."
When it comes right down to it, a musi-
cian's life is about his music. It is inside, and it must come out.
"I experience moments of incredi-
Each song, each sound is an individual's statement. The pain, the anguish, the self-revelation, the joy all come crashing together in one elevated area—the stage.
"I will always do music; it is my outlet," said Kim Czarnops, singer and guitar player for Amputätoe. "It's my therapy."
Wes knows the change as he possesses his side of The Bottleneck stage.
ex bhl exhalation," said Clair about live performances. The other members of Big Fish nodded in agreement. "There are times it is a perfect state of being."
He becomes an entirely different person, going from enraged, to sad to playful as the music envelopes him.
When the last note is lost on the frantic crowd, Wes steps down from the stage, but the aura of it stays with him. He is somebody.
Fans crowd around him, touching him, reveling in his presence, wanting to be his friend. He has been somewhere they can't go, and they know it.
Wes and others can't picture their lives without music.
If you let go,you are back on the other side.