yes good points. if you are trying to make a living in the music biz you need to make money to pay the bills and what ever it takes is what you have to do.
As far as steely dan goes that was one reason they made great music, another was they were very musically talented, educated and hired great accent, studio guys to be on their albums. I am sure most of the people on their albums were thrilled to go and collaborate with such highly skilled people. It pushed, challenged, gave great pleasure, to them to be better musicians.
Their are bands that are in it as a job, $$$, and their are bands, musicians that are in it for arts sake and the monetary gains are not as important. Now I bet many of them started off thinking they were in it for arts sake but eventually they get sucked in, reality hits. This is a job, be it either they had to pay bills or really liked all the $$$, and or they were pushed by the companies they signed up with to get to work. It is a very tough biz to be in plus you have to find people that are interested in what you are doing. Lots of casualties in that biz. I am glad I got the easy side , listening.
