Suede live at Hollywood Palladium back in November 2022
In case you haven’t already heard, there’s talk about raising visa fees for musicians, amongst others. It’s a significant increase too. Resident Advisor reported that the P visa, which is for touring artists, would skyrocket from $460 to $1615, while the O visa would go from $460 to $1655.
I sent in a comment expressing my concerns over this fee hike. If you’re opposed to this, you should do the same and have until March 6 to submit one.
This isn’t the comment that I submitted, but it’s why I’m opposed to the fee hike. Feel free to adapt the info as you wish when you submit yours.
Obtaining a visa to tour in the United States has long been a complicated and expensive process. Those of you who go to a lot of shows can probably recall at least a few instances where a band dropped off the bill at the last minute citing visa issues. On top of that, touring has grown increasingly expensive for everyone. Raising the visa fees is going to create a barrier of entry so great that only those artists with major financial backing will be able to do it.
U.S. artists benefit international artists touring here. It’s often U.S. artists who are the support acts on the road, plus local bands and DJs open at specific shows. These can be amazing opportunities to raise the profile of lesser-known or emerging artists here.
International touring artists are often big draws for local venues. Particularly in the case of indie clubs, these shows can both provide necessary revenue and raise the overall profile of the venue. This is all very important given that nightlife is still struggling to recover from the pandemic shutdown of 2020/21.
A rise in visa fees means a rise in the costs related to international artists playing any gig in the U.S., which could mean that corporate behemoths Ticketmaster/Live Nation and AEG will be the only ones who can afford to support international artists in the States. Do you really want to support anything that will help strengthen their stranglehold on live music?
Recently, I wrote about how and why you should support your local music scene. Part of that is supporting the touring artists who stop through our cities as well. If we want our hometown music scenes to survive, we need to make sure that bands from outside of the U.S. can play here too.
Catch Los Angeles-based DJ Liz O. at one of her upcoming gigs.
Last Tuesday, I played a last minute, fill-in set at Dolce Vita and recorded the full two-hours that I played. Then I chopped the set down to a more reasonable one hour and ten minutes, which you can now hear on Mixcloud.
I’ll be back at Dolce Vita on Tuesday, February 21 to play from 9 p.m. until last call. There’s no cover and it’s 21+. Hope to see you there.
I asked ChatGPT if AI can DJ. This is the response.
One of the reasons I started blogging like it’s 2003 again is because of AI. I’m not an alarmist, but I’m not naive either. It’s obvious that writers and DJs both fall under the category of jobs-AI-might-eliminate. They’re jobs that people assume require less time, skill and creativity than they do. Neither writers nor DJs are particularly well-appreciated by the masses, although both have their small communities of supporters. Plus, AI has already made inroads in both media and the DJ booth.
With that in mind, I figured I should carve out my space online now, while I’m still working, just in case a time comes when I’m unemployable and some people are starved for “content” that’s not generated by AI.
To be honest, I’m not anti-AI at all. It’s been around for a long while and, like everyone who has ever asked Siri to name that tune, it’s already a part of my life and work.
Plus, I know that there is real potential for using AI in creative work. In 2019, I talked to YACHT for Los Angelenoabout how they used it in the process of making Chain Tripping, an album that would go on to earn a Grammy nomination and is a really good example of how the technology can be used. This is my favorite line from the story:
“AI is like any technology,” [Claire L.] Evans says. “It’s what we do with it that’s good or bad.”
I’m less concerned about AI than I am about humans because, frankly, we suck. We will take advantage of every opportunity to fuck each other over, to cut someone else out of the equation so that we can horde the cash or the clout or both. We turn our eyes away from injustices over and over again just so we can accumulate more crap for less money. Then we blame systems as if those weren’t built by humans and as if their continued existence doesn’t depend on us enabling them.
So, no, I don’t trust humans to employ AI wisely. I know that both my jobs— writing and DJing— will be on the line as a result. Human intelligence and creativity won’t matter if it means not having to pay a writer or a DJ to do what was their job. And I honestly don’t think that general audiences will care. People accept low standards for writing (see: most stories that fall under the category of “click bait”) and are accustomed to getting music recommendations from an algorithm. We already set the stage for this, whether or not we want to admit it.
Maybe the warehouse DJs won’t have to worry about AI.
I also don’t buy any of the bs that AI will cut out the boring work and give us more time to be creative. The boring work often is essential to the creative process. There’s a reason why you typically don’t see photos of writers in the midst of writing on Instagram. It’s boring as hell. You spend half the time staring at a blank screen wondering what you’ll write and the other half staring at a bunch of words while fighting the urge to delete the whole thing.
Now that I think about it, most of what a DJ does is pretty boring too. Sifting through your music collection can take more time than the actual DJ set. It’s tedious, yet it’s something that you should do, even if you can automate that part of the process now. Going through your music over and over again helps you select the best songs for specific moments and fit them together in the most impactful way.
In fact, when people say “boring,” it sounds to me more like they mean less glamorous or less prestigious. But, as I’m certain many freelancers will tell you, those are often the gigs that make the exciting ones possible. The copywriting and content marketing jobs can help a writer afford to work on portfolio pieces that will inevitably sell for less money than the labor involved warrants. The DJ gigs where you’re tasked with playing the hits, like private parties and weddings, can allow you fill your calendar with more low-pay gigs where you can play whatever you want.
I’m suspicious of anyone who who argues that UBI is the answer, especially in a country where universal healthcare is not a thing and educating oneself frequently requires taking on staggering amounts of debt. It’s more likely we’ll end up fighting for whatever jobs technology hasn’t replaced.
Looks like ChatGPT knows the goth clubs well.
All this sounds extremely cynical, because that’s my nature, but I don’t think the situation is hopeless. If it were, I would spend my downtime looking for a job that won’t disappear instead of writing an essay for which I won’t be paid. I know I’m not unique. General audiences might not care whether or not the news was written by AI or they’re dancing in a club to set mixed by a streaming platform, but niche groups will.
There are people out there, maybe (hopefully) more than I think, who will want to continue reading words typed into a computer by a human and hear music selected and mixed by a human. After all, people who are too young to remember life before Napster are shopping at record stores. If that can happen, then maybe tech’s pull isn’t as strong as we like to think it is.
Catch Los Angeles-based DJ Liz O. at one of her upcoming gigs.
This Friday, February 3, tune in to The Lunar Saloon on KLBP 99.1 FM in Long Beach or klbp.org online to hear a very special mix that I made for the show.
The second episode of Beatique, my monthly podcast/mix series, is ready for you now. Listen on Mixcloud or via the embed below. Keep reading for the full tracklisting with links to where you can purchase these tunes.
The all-vinyl edition of Disco Heat is back at Lost But Found on February 9. This month, our special guest is Summer Rose of Vida Sound System, who you might recognize from the DJ collective’s residency at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.
French Disko is Thursday, January 26 at The Stowaway
On Thursday, January 26, I’ll join DJ Pierrot at The Stowaway for French Disko. The French pop party starts at 9 p.m. and there’s no cover. It is 21+. The Stowaway is located at 416 S. Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Flyer for Disco Heat on February 2 at Songbird with DJs Liz O. and Jus’ B
Disco Heat is back at Songbird on Thursday, February 2, 2023 with Jus’ B and I playing classic and nu-disco jams from 9 p.m. until last call.
There’s no cover for Disco Heat, but we do recommend that you RSVP on Eventbrite. (And, if you want to know why RSVPs are important, read my last post.)
Now, more than ever, it’s important to support your local music scene. Here in Los Angeles, venues were shuttered for over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Musicians and DJs went largely without gigs for that same amount of time. Even though nightlife in my hometown returned in June of 2021, it’s naive to think that things are back to normal.
Rose Knows and I paying tribute to Giorgio Moroder at The Lash
There are a lot of venues in Los Angeles, but one like The Lash, where I DJed a lot over the years, is rare. That’s why I’m saddened to learn that the downtown venue has closed.
I’m grateful to Ross, KB and everyone with the venue for providing a home for a cross-section of niche scenes in the city for so long. The club was most closely associated with the darkwave/goth world, but, really, you could hear anything from techno to city pop there. The club boasted a truly eclectic line-up of parties, which is part of what made it unique.
