Musicians are way down the bill in these budgets,
playing support to the expenses of the £500-a- day wallahs
who think a P.A. is a Personal Assistant and an MD is a Managing Director.
Musicians are now calling once-prized British Council tours 'function
work,'
as only 'nice' music' gets taken out, such is the charade and bureaucratic
indifference.
Tours are known as 'two-ers' where they only contain two gigs.
One-offs are all the rage. Less work, more money.
One national touring body asked whether they had any van drivers on
their database, said "'No, we haven't. People don't really tour these days..."
And further down the food chain it's more work and less money for the
musician
who may spend months in preparation for that single event.
Those who pursue a trade in the practising arts are forced to go begging.
The creative supplicants of ten years ago formed a semi-orderly queue
to an Arts Council under demolition. These days they're offered training.
To speak another language, to communicate by form-filling, to negotiate
the various compartments of the gravy train
and to learn how to beg properly.
And so it goes on.
See Vox Pop for a compilation of
replies.
See also Billy's advice for bureaucrats (written in 1999
having been so disturbed after meeting a distraught Lucy Bailey, director
of the gogmagogs, only hours after funding for a tour had been rejected)
in Take that pen ...