The economics of popular are, to put it mildly, a baffling thang. No health insurance, no pension, no unemployment… it is a good way to spend your life in borderline poverty.
Recently, JT Samson of Men and Le Tigre wrote about having no money and being unable to rent an apartment. Benefits for out of luck musicians occur all the time. And it gets harder and harder for working musicians to pursue anything remotely close to the American dream, let alone the rock and roll dream.
UB40 -a band that have had FIFTY top 10 hits in the UK.
According to contactmusic.com, a spokesperson said: ""It is ironic that the very week they celebrate their first gig they have been declared bankrupt, after administration began in 2006, vindicating both Ali and Mickey Virtue's decision to leave UB40."
It is a tricky story to do with the record label they own. Apparently, UB40's record labe couldn't pay their bills, the IRS (a goverment insititution you do not want to fuck with) are considering the members of the band personally liable, and so to stop losing everything they have to declare personal bakruptsy, though how a company with a back catalog like that goes belly up is beyond me.