RafaelFajardo

There is an issue with some aspiring musicians, the ones who continue long into adulthood without steady employment dreaming of a career if only they can expose enough people to their music. I suspect these are the musicians you are referring to in your question. I like to call this ‘friend rock’. Their audiences are friends the band has asked to come, not people who have requested to be there. These aspirants constantly ‘ask’ everyone they know to come to their shows and please ‘bring your other friends too’. Social network event pages are flooded every month with their invitations. There is no discrimination in location, it doesn’t make a difference to them if they are playing a pub in Ipswich and you are in Reykjavik. All publicity is good publicity. Shows are listed as birthday parties or pub nights, and then they mention that if you say ‘baba booey’ at the door you can get in for free. Even if you go a few times, it’s not enough. It seems like every human interaction becomes a marketing opportunity. At shows, they ask people to stand closer to the stage and complain that people at the bar are not listening to them. Eventually the friend rocker morphs from forcing copies of CDs in your hand to asking you to go to their Kickstarter page to purchase a limited-edition MP3 or give money for privileges such as having them play in your living room, or having them send you a ‘signed framed photo’ so they can fundraise for a European tour.