Should Have Booked The Audience...

There's a lot of mithering out there in the music industry. Record sales are a bit rubbish, but there's been some consolation to the bands who had steadily hiked up the ticket prices. Now that option is in retreat as gig revenue is falling and the venues are sounding panicked.

You can read two fairly similar accounts in today's papers, firstly in The Guardian, and then in the Irish Times. Both versions of the story are rather cheerless. We're all concluding that 2009 will see a fairly severe sloughing off period, as the casual promoters, the grim venues and the lacklustre acts are retired. Ultimately it may not be the worst thing that's ever occurred.