How Are Gas Prices Affecting Your Musical Habits This Summer?
Yesterday, the Associated Press released a poll saying that 9 out of 10 Americans were hit hard by gas prices, with people giving up on luxuries like eating out and fancy soaps and pizza places raising their prices in order to compensate for higher delivery costs. While living in public-transportation-heavy New York (and not having a license) (I know, I know) makes the pain of higher gas prices a little less of a direct burden for me, I have noticed other ways that the musical economy at large might be affected.
• Touring is becoming more prohibitive. We’ve covered this in the past, but an item on the Velvet Rope about the California band the Exies allegedly canceling its tour because it couldn’t afford the gas it needed to travel has sparked a discussion worth reading, particularly the posts about smaller bands being resigned to losing money on their road jaunts. [Velvet Rope]
• Touring might also become more regional. Again, this is something I wouldn’t really notice as much given the relative smooshed-togetherness of the East Coast, but that AP story from last week noted that cities in the West aren’t as lucky: “”It does screw up a lot of bands on the West Coast, ’cause … there are very few cities to play in under seven-hour stretches, which can be costly,” LoveLikeFire singer Ann Yu told AP. Also, given that airline travel is becoming more inconvenient and expensive, could the idea of the foreign jaunt become more, well, foreign as well? [AP]
• The gas-price-precipitated decline in cruising is the real reason there’s no definitive summer jam for ’08. Over the weekend The New York Times ran a piece on how fewer teens were going out cruising this summer, and the rich girls are weeping noted that as a result, the normal “car radio test” for definitive summer jams would take a big hit, thus depriving the world of a song to rally our collective summer around. While I’d argue that the increased fragmentation of the musical landscape is just as much to blame, (seriously, some of the songs that made it to the second round of our poll had no chance in blaring from cars owned by people outside the music-blog-reading world), this is a theory worth entertaining. [NYT / the rich girls are weeping take notes]
What have you noticed? If you live in an automobile-required area, are you less likely to go to shows because of the added expense of driving? Have higher mail-order prices resulted in more people buying digital albums? Are abandoned McMansions going to become the new rock club-slash-squats?
