what next for Chris ott?

in the selling of that brand

Really doubt Ryan sat in his mom's basement in 1996 saying "TIME TO BUILD A BRAND" but w/e

https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9cINH9yob4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9cINH9yob4

xpost i didn't say he was. i was describing the scenario in which the million-dollar sale of a brand would be inspirational. david geffen selling his stake in asylum records for millions in the 70s was certainly impressive, but it's inspirational only if your goal is to build something and then sell it for a large amount of money.

but it's inspirational only if your goal is to build something and then sell it for a large amount of money.

who in the world would not want to do this?

for instance, someone may want to create an business and maintain independent control

...forever?

it's possible that some people would be more inspired by, say, epitaph records continuing and thriving independently after its 90s success, than by Mammoth Records selling to Disney in 1997 after the success of the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

to be clear, i'm not saying it's wrong to sell your company for a lot of money. i'm merely explaining why that "big paycheck" in and of itself may not be be inspiring to all trying to follow their passion

ian mackaye is worth $25 million

sometimes selling can just mean that you don't have to work as hard? i dunno, there are a million reasons to sell a business.

or it can give you more time to do other stuff. or start another business! or retire.

who are you responding to

i forget.

curious how whatever website came up with that 25m number for mackaye. I'd be surprised if his stake of the dischord catalogue is worth THAT much in 2015, and i think he makes most of his green through "ethical" investing anyway.

one thing i will say in conde nast's favor is that the websites for their print mags don't tend to suck. which is definitely not true of a lot of print mag sites. they are very readable for the most part. and not ugly. pitchfork is very readable as well. (i hate a lot of media/culture/music/arts website design...)

there are non-conde-nast print mags?

The New Yorker's website has sucked for years!

why? front page is a bit of a mess but the article pages are attractive, uncluttered imo

i don't mind the new yorker site. they're just trying to make it look like the new yorker. whate are ya gonna do?

that qn only for chris itt

to be clear, i'm not saying it's wrong to sell your company for a lot of money. i'm merely explaining why that "big paycheck" in and of itself may not be be inspiring to all trying to follow their passion

― da croupier, Saturday, October 17, 2015 4:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I followed my passion for maybe 17 years and love my profession and live comfortably enough, but now the only thing I want to do MORE than that is fart around and do NOTHING, and Ryan or Yancey or whoever never has to work another day in their life and that's really a dream that I'm sure I share with Brett Guerowitz and the Squirrel Nut Zippers and maybe 95% of the population

i think the people croups is saying wouldn't be inspired by that are like, idealistic young people. which is technically true i guess

i was young once

I can think of one not young person uninspired

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/47/I_Don%27t_Like_Shit%2C_I_Don%27t_Go_Outside_An_Album_by_Earl_Sweatshirt.jpg

yeah i was trying to find net work for brett gurewitz as another likely candidate for someone who got rich off of indie rock. dexter holland is worth $65 million fwiw but they jumped to the majors earlier than i remembered. liz phair is worth $3 million but who knows what the various pathways for that income stream are.

outside of america oasis are indie, how much of noel gallagher's $60 million are due to the states idk (beyond "too much").

I followed my passion for maybe 17 years and love my profession and live comfortably enough, but now the only thing I want to do MORE than that is fart around and do NOTHING, and Ryan or Yancey or whoever never has to work another day in their life and that's really a dream that I'm sure I share with Brett Guerowitz and the Squirrel Nut Zippers and maybe 95% of the population

that's cool and fine and i don't know why you'd think I need the urge to fart around and do nothing explained to me, but if that's really brett g's dream why does he still run epitaph and stand on stage with bad religion - i mean they have TWO other guitarists

confused if people really don't understand what i'm saying ("selling control of your indie venture for $$$ isn't necessarily the goal for all") or are just defensively leaping around to pretend i'm saying something else

honestly as far as necessary checks on capitalist impulses in the music industry go i think i'm taking a relatively diplomatic tack

following your passion < bennies

i was describing the scenario in which the million-dollar sale of a brand would be inspirational. david geffen selling his stake in asylum records for millions in the 70s was certainly impressive, but it's inspirational only if your goal is to build something and then sell it for a large amount of money.

this is a narrow view imo. it's inspirational in the sense that nobody in the whole world gave a shit about ryan's opinions when pitchfork was just some dude from MN spouting off about indie rock on the internet, and most of the stuff he cared about was lol forever to most people. using your comparison, only some insiders gave a shit about David Geffen's opinions when he worked at William Morris. (Geffen, by the time he started at Asylum, was in much better shape than Ryan when he started pitchfork, obviously.) But both of them built something that a whole lot of people cared a whole lot about after a while; so much so, in fact, that people ended up paying millions of dollars for it. it is at least a little inspirational to know that people can translate "I give a shit about this and believe it's worthy of people's attention" into loads of money, and it's a little puzzling that you'd be arguing "nah bullshit this is money, money can in no way be inspiring"

otm

and it's a little puzzling that you'd be arguing "nah bullshit this is money, money can in no way be inspiring"

ffs. i'll repeat.

confused if people really don't understand what i'm saying ("selling control of your indie venture for $$$ isn't necessarily the goal for all") or are just defensively leaping around to pretend i'm saying something else

seriously embarrassed by how hard it seems to be for some people not to dramatically overstate what i'm saying into some cartoonish "money bad, indie good" stance, esp when i've underlined that i'm not engaging in that kind of kneejerk haterade.

whiney said the fact that Ryan took a fanzine from "shit, cat" to a $15m paycheck -- aka probably the most money ANY human being has made w indie rock and would wager that includes anyone involved with the Sub Pop/Geffen deal -- should actually be an inspiring story that you can do anything if you follow your passion. I pointed out that Walking Away From Indie With The Most Moolah Ever is not inherently inspiring.

if you have to bend that into "OH SORRY MR FUGAZI SOME OF US HAVE TO EAT" or "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? BEING APPRECIATED IS BAD?", all I can see is please don't put your bullshit on me and/or read more carefully.

all i can say, rather

since i'm gonna be treated like i've jumped on a high horse anyway, i'll note that when your indie venture has struggled with diversity and representation in content over the years, and the person who spearheaded your purchase outright says they did it to acquire you're "millennial male" audience, i can see that also diminishing the inspiration potentially caused by your payday.

his indie venture hasn't struggled w/ diversity and representation nearly as much as indie rock as a whole though. also not to defend some pr flack's tossed off release but pforks readership is between 80-90% male, if they didn't acquire pfork to target that demo then why the fuck would they buy it?

his indie venture hasn't struggled w/ diversity and representation nearly as much as indie rock as a whole though.

never said otherwise.

also not to defend some pr flack's tossed off release but pforks readership is between 80-90% male, if they didn't acquire pfork to target that demo then why the fuck would they buy it?

never even hated on conde nast's motivations. merely noted it's a factor in this potentially not being An Inspirational Tale For All.

considering all it takes is what $15 on squarespace to set up a website and non-white millenial males is apparently an underserved market for music crit as is insisted upon time and time again by professionals in the field seems like some random schmuck setting up a website for an overserved market and still managing to turn that into $$$$ or even just a steady living should be professional. i could be wrong though and there could be plenty of jobs (and bennies) in music criticism in which case potentially having to face that anguish filled dilemma of 'selling out' that their gen x parents might have faced once upon a time might indeed be more a nightmare than an inspiration. i think i smell the next noah baumbach movie!

lol should be inspirational instead of professional. or maybe not.

the only person who should have beef with what i'm saying is someone who thinks there is no reason why any soul would not be lifted by a guy creating the biggest indie music culture website and then selling it to a large publishing company whose goal is cornering the market on young male readers. if you dream of sitting on a pale of money, you dont have beef with me on this. if you think the pitchfork is neat, you dont have beef with me on this. if you think there are worse things in the world, you don't have beef with me on this.

lol i meant "pile of money" and "the pitchfork story is neat" - must confess frustration doesn't improve my proofreading

arguing about what is conceivably inspirational or not is maybe not interesting

rocky I, III, IV, VI - inspirational

rocky II, V - not inspirational

that would be awesome if people are defending pfork from straw arguments out of boredom with the actual one, easily the most sympathetic explanation i can imagine

"there plausibly exists someone in the world who believes rocky V is inspirational, you do not disagree with me" - da croupier

"siri - is tommy morrison still alive?"

no btw