Marco Legal

i would whore myself to Aselin Debison for a couple of hours a day before i would whore myself to eds or the summer job lottery.

- rory compares playing for a pop star to working for a call center (Posted on CBLocals board: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:45 am)

I hate (the) sense of exclusivity and, like, bands being better than other bands for reasons of their attitude. And for reasons of...if you say no to making money off of your band, that means that you're upholding some sort of moral high ground or something…making a matter of personal preference into moral right or wrong issues.

- An interviewee and musician defends professional aspirations

This chapter reveals that conversations about selling out are sometimes rooted in concise discussion about dependence— specifically what means musicians depend upon funding and/or sustaining their projects. They are also sometimes rooted in issues of aesthetics—specifically whether or not bands aspire to an "indie" aesthetic or whether or not their sound is determined by commercial rather than personal interests.

I recognize that "selling out" is a continually negotiated term between artists, artists and their fans and art communities in general. This chapter reveals the tensions that rise to the surface in the process of negotiating authenticity, rather than making proclamations on what does or does not constitute selling out. As Michael Newman (2009) argues in his assessment of indie film and music, those who attempt such analyses "(crucially misrecognize) the relation of indie culture to commercial culture as one of actual autonomy—as if such a thing were possible" (p. 33). Regardless of whether or not such autonomy is possible, the term "indie" reveals a struggle for authenticity:

The dynamics of mainstream and alternative cultures are more complex, relational, and fluid than the brand-bully position allows. As I have argued, the key notions of autonomy and authenticity are hardly absolutes. They are mobilized when expedient by producers and consumers eager to distinguish their culture from the Other of the mainstream. We might also see these terms as ideals toward which some strive rather than qualities inherent in a particular practice or product (p. 33).

However, with no clear terms established on what constitutes selling out, authenticity lives as a continuing negotiation process rather than an absolute. Few people that I interviewed were able to articulate specifically what actions constituted ―selling out‖ and what actions did not. The universal agreement was that ―it‘s not what you do, but why you do it.‖ If you played music you loved hoping to get paid, that was fine. If you played music to get paid regardless of whether or not you liked it, that was not fine. As one CBLocals singer declared:

When you think of money over spending time working on your music and traveling and playing to live audiences and y‘know, really doing what you want

to, that’s selling out. When you‘re just writing music because it‘s going to be

radio-friendly and you‘re going to get paid.

If you stopped playing Slipknot because you lost interest, this was fine. If you lost interest in Slipknot because they were no longer popular, that was not fine. Moreover, if you were aping a popular band like Alexisonfire while losing interest, this was even worse. This musician

expressed irritation at a fellow local for this:

What gets me is when people regurgitate Alexisonfire and say it‘s what they‘ve been doing for years and years and years when six years ago they were playing

Slipknot covers…I know someone that used to play in a nu-metal band when nu- metal was the biggest thing. Now he denounces it completely.

―Selling out‖ is an issue of authenticity. Few could articulate what it meant, but most interviewees valued some degree of ―earnestness‖ in artists as opposed to those deemed

insufficiently interested in the quality of art. This became contentious in the mid-2000s when the House of Rock (HOR) began to emerge as the most popular collective of bands within the scene. The HOR applied to the provincial government for grants to fund music recording. Popular all- ages (AA) bands such as Richmond Hill and Drowning Shakespeare followed suit. HOR bands also played at venues that many CBLocals users loathed and garnered audiences much larger than other CBLocals bands. Both their government funding and appearances at ―popular bars‖ were points of discussion during my interviews that raise issues surrounding the dialog of ―selling out.‖

The Cape Breton area and its sociopolitical dimensions present a unique context for such discussions and debate. I frame varying philosophies within the discourse of amateurism and professionalism and Adorno‘s development of Marxist theory surrounding art. The CBLocals music scene provides examples of musicians and opinions not accounted for by conventional discourse on either professionalism or alienation. I believe this is because we have too often looked at selling out and authenticity from a global or national perspective, rather than isolating what may constitute these values from location to location.

I begin this chapter by discussing the concept of ―selling out‖ and how it is related to the concept of alienation. I then lay out a theoretical survey of professionalism and amateurism as it relates to music. I argue that the CBLocals scene provides a very specific context for discussions about selling out, based on the history of national government involvement in the arts and local

distrust towards provincial intervention. I recount a variety of conversations within the scene both on and offline to demonstrate this. These conversations touch upon both practical and aesthetic issues, as well as consequences, of differing attitudes towards professionalism.