Nelly Furtado played for Muammar. Well, maybe not Muammar. She played for the clan. In Italy. Perhaps she played and the Gaddafi family sang along and they threw each other in the air and then the concert ended and Nelly cashed her cheque. Maybe she bought some gold-plated bathroom fixtures and maybe a racehorse named Like A Bird and she probably even donated some of the money to the Dovercourt Boys and Girls Club, which is just around the corner from me in Toronto, and where Nelly learned how to swim when she was a pre-teen. But then, Tunisia fell. And then Egypt fell. And now, it looks like maybe Libya might fall. Because it might fall, Nelly has decided to give back the money. A million dollars. Because it once belonged to Muammar - or more accurately, the people of Libya - she doesn't need it and she doesn't want it and, besides, there are other ways to earn a million dollars. Nelly Furtado is available for bookings. Maybe Sarah Ferguson needs her for lunch. Hyundai might want her to sing while their new hatchback rotates on the stage of Houston Convention Centre. And possibly, the leader of Chad is turning 47 and the like-a-bird song is his wife's favourite tune. Nelly could ask her manager whether the leader of Chad might become another Muammar. Nelly's manager is uncertain, but he wonders whether or not playing for the leader of Chad is any different than playing for Coca-Cola or Nike, which Nelly and countless popular Canadian bands will continue to do for the rest of their recording lifetimes. Corporate shows. They are the dirty little secret of the music business.
Corporate shows aren't about fans, great art or one's soul ringing clear into the long great night. No. Corporate shows are about one thing: money. The money is grotesque. Which is to say it is good. Very good. I have a friend, a garment wholesaler, who once attended the Guess Jeans convention in Las Vegas. When he arrived at the hotel, he found a schedule of the weekend's activities, which included a private Saturday concert featuring Bob Dylan and Neil Young. History shows that these two songwriters have been among the most socially conscious musicians of their time, but it didn't preclude them from stumping for a company that, at the time, relied on sweatshop labour and was fined in the U.S. for failing to pay minimum wage or overtime.
My friend says that Dylan and Neil got a million dollars to play at the convention. More gleaming bathroom fixtures. More horses.
I have another friend, an excellent musician who, for the past few years, has dined out on these sorts of shows. When I first asked him if he could live with playing for dodgy mega-corps, he laughed and said that it really wasn't any trouble at all. He recounted being picked up by a limousine in the morning, driven through private security to a runway at Pearson Airport, flown to a West Coast city, and limousined to a club where he was wined and dined before fulfilling his 60-minute commitment, at which point he was loaded into the car, driven to the airport, and flown and limousined home. He was in his bed by 9 p.m., having earned $75,000 while playing for a crowd of drunk executives toasting a record third-quarter profit earned on the backs of South American farmers whose sons and daughters will never own an iPod. One night, I said that last part aloud to him, and he told me, "Nothing is ever cut and dry. Do you know where the Post invests their money? C'mon. Life is complicated."
I told him that, yes, life is indeed complicated. Take Egypt. 85% of kids under the age of 24 are unemployed, and, despite the recent uprising, you can't stretch ideology into three square meals and shelter. As a result, thousands of people are homeless and without enough income to buy basic foodstuffs, the cost of which has increased by 70% over the last handful of years. I told my friend that, yes, these kinds of things are indeed complicated, but deciding whether to play for union-busting corporations or North African dictators is not. I told him about another friend, another excellent musician, who does not do corporate gigs. His name is David Watts and he lives in the Canary Islands. He is the turntablist for Fun-Da-Mental, the trenchant and righteous U.K. electronic dance collective, and, unlike my other friend, I can identify him by name because he doesn't have to be coy about the gigs he plays.
At one point in Dave's life he decided that he would say 'No' should the corporations come calling. He would not play for Muammar and he would not play for Nike. Eventually, he found a band that believed in the same things. Dave's island home has no gold bathroom fixtures and he owns no racehorses, but it's not as if he isn't busy or in demand. Even though Dave has never earned a million dollars playing for Gaddafi or won't ever ride past airport security in a limousine, last week a promoter called to say that he wanted Fun-Da-Mental to come and play in his city. He said that the time was right and the mood was perfect and that his band had the right attitude for what was happening in his country. The gig might happen, it might not. But while one musician feels guilty for playing at the behest of one of Africa's worst men, another gets his bags ready. He will fly from Tenerife straight to Cairo. Not complicated at all.
