With the election a month away and another debate to crash on Wednesday, it's probably about time I take a break for a few days from all the Courser-bashing I do in this space normally. And since the Lions have already killed all hope for the year, I figured I'd touch on another subject rather near and dear to me.
As most of you who've stumbled across my little corner of the internet know by now, when I'm not ranting into my computer for hours on end, I'm a professional musician, in the sense that I subject people to my singing and playing on a regular basis, and occasionally somebody will throw a couple bucks at me for doing so. And I've also worked at a couple different live music venues over the years, one a fairly respectable theatre, and one dive bar that tried to get out of paying anybody they could, band or employee. (Hence why I'm no longer doing either there, and why they are no longer in business.) So I've seen both sides of the coin as far as that goes. Which brings me to a couple "open letters" floating around musician circles that I can't help but comment on.
The first is one originally posted on Craigslist by a Tampa area bar owner. The point of which is basically: you're here to sell booze, and that's it. Some of his advice is pretty basic stuff (respect the venue, engage the crowd, act like you give a damn), and you'd be surprised at how many bands disregard it, but there's also a lot of kvetching about bands being too loud, not dressing 'professionally' enough, not playing the right kind of music, etc. And part of that should be on the venue to book acts that are right for that venue. If your place has more on an acoustic/folk vibe, book bands that fit that style. My main band won't be playing any coffeehouses anytime soon, but my drummer and his wife's acoustic duo might. If you're a country bar, rock bar, whatever, book the kind of music that won't chase your regulars away, but might bring more people in. If we don't fit what you're looking for, look elsewhere instead of getting pissed when we're not what you wanted. Our band's not gonna bust out "Friends In Low Places," no matter how many drunks request it or whose birthday it is. And then there's the condescending bit about "I'm not gonna listen to your demo or check your band out at all, but there's a way to get booked, but I'm not gonna tell you what it is!"
Then there's a musician's rebuttal to said letter, and I can't help but agree with a lot, though not all, of his points, which are bolded as follows.
Upgrade your crappy sound and light gear... or buy some if you don't have any.
I get the feeling that the author is a guy who's not exactly been slogging through the bar circuit. Unless you're playing an established concert venue (as opposed to a bar that just happens to host live music) where you're one of several bands playing that night, I wouldn't count on that. Damn near every band I've ever played with has their own PA and lighting rig, and I can count on two fingers the venues I've played that asked us to supply nothing more than our own amps, mics and instruments. Truth be told, I prefer it that way; those were also the least-paying gigs we did.
Acknowledge that the reason those people are in the bar in the first place is probably to see me play AND drink your booze.
Now, I'm all about promoting alcoholism as much as the next guy. There's a reason the night we played a venue always happened to be "Buy The Band A Shot Night": Because that shit fucking works. And there's a reason I pretty much never play a request without a drink in hand: I'm nothing if not proficient at drinking on some other drunk's dime. But there's a reason I'm a musician and not an alcohol salesman for a living, the Guinness jersey I proudly rep at gigs aside. I'm here to help put asses in your seats so they'll drink your booze or order your food, but I'm not about to go into a damn Fireball commercial on stage.
Pay me better. Failing better pay, don't try to stiff me at 3 a.m.
It's not as though I really expected to pay my bills doing this, but damn, some places can be downright insulting when it comes to paying their talent. We played a gig a good 40 miles out of the city we all live in, that wanted to pay us (a 4-piece) $150 for the evening. We got them to agree to $250, plus "set drinks," which traditionally means one drink per set, which we usually do 3 or 4 sets. Imagine my surprise when I got my tab at the end of the night, and somehow owed damn near all of my pay because not only was their definition of set drink "one for the night," but the band was also getting charged marked up prices for drinks! ($3 for a pint of Natty Light and $6 for Michelob Amber Bock, the closest thing to a drinkable beer here. That says it all.)
Another one that always got under my skin was the venue that expects a band to play for free "for the exposure." Which couldn't possibly be a more asinine statement. Tell ya what: next time you need to order a large quantity of food, call up a restaurant and see if they'll cater your event for free "for the exposure." If you don't get laughed off the phone or hung up on right there, I'll be shocked. We need to make a living as much as you do. Charity events are always an exception, of course. But when the charity is a bar owner who wants to pack his place without spending so much as a dime or a drop of booze to do it (hell, my first gig out of high school, I played for dinner and that was it), that's a different story.
Worse still are the venues and promoters that expect bands to go sell tickets for them, and give them little to nothing in return. I'm thankful that as a band that could always get steady bar gigs, we never had to lower ourselves to that, but too many musician friends of mine who do originals find themselves in these no-win deals, usually staged as a "battle of the bands" with some ridiculous prize that nobody actually wins. One I saw promised a cash prize, studio time, and that a record label A&R guy would be at the venue the night of. Guess how many of those actually happened.
The idea that it's entirely on the band to promote a gig is beyond stale as well. I'm all willing to print up flyers and bomb the hell out of my Facebook page to get asses in the seats, and most of the venues we play are damn good about putting our shows out there ahead of time. Then you have the bar I worked at, which put absolutely zero effort into promoting their venue, much less the bands that played it, and compounding that was the fact that they were located three miles north of town, a good quarter mile off the actual road, with a sign you stood a good chance of not catching until you were passing it by, that usually didn't get updated til the night of a show. Despite all this, the owner regularly bitched that he didn't get any business when bands or DJ's played there, which usually led to him trying to undercut what he promised the entertainment. (No joke, I saw this guy try and hand a karaoke DJ $15 for a 4-hour set, and bitch at him for not bringing a following with him. How many of those guys do you know that have a "following" of any sort?)
Another thing I've noticed is the disdain for the "open mic night" because it's somehow cheapening live music. Now, I got lucky and fell into a well-established gig of this sort, and I'll be honest: that's some of the easiest money I make all week, and I play usually all of two sets a night! Some people seem to think that's the cheap way out for a venue to go, but that's not always the case. For one, someone has to run the damn thing, and provide entertainment when nobody shows up to jam, and that somebody has to get paid. You can't just plug a microphone into an amplifier, leave it there, not tell anybody, and call it an open mic night. (And yes, I've been to one place that did exactly that.) And in my experience, if there isn't a full band hosting (which there usually is), and sometimes even when there is, it's usually on a night that you wouldn't normally expect to see people packing the bar, usually sometime in the middle of the week when most places would otherwise offer karaoke, if anything at all. So in a lot of cases, it's not taking away from what would be somebody else's paying gig, it's a gig that otherwise wouldn't exist at all; in fact, our most recent gig of that sort came at a bar that didn't offer live entertainment of any sort on that particular night until we showed up.
And from a musician's standpoint, I'm a big proponent of the open jam, and not just because my band happens to host one. For one, I found it to be a great place to get better at what I do; nothing builds your chops quite like getting thrown on stage with a bunch of people you've never jammed with before, playing songs you've never heard before. And in my case, it directly led to my meeting my current bandmates, and after jamming a few open mics, we started booking paying gigs from there. If you're treating it as the means to an end, instead of the end itself, open jams can be some productive and valuable stage time, and open a lot of doors that might not have been available before. Sure, you can jam in the basement for hours at a time (and I have), but there's some things you just can't work out til you're actually on stage.
As I said earlier, I'm under no illusion that I'm going to make much of a living doing this, and that isn't why I do what I do. But if there's two things that just irritate me to no end about the music scene (apart from "bands" that sing to backing tracks, but that's another rant for another day), it's the guys who cut down other cats trying to make a few bucks hosting jam nights and open mics, and the venues and promoters that legitimately try to cheap out on live entertainment or screw performers over; if they're bringing in customers, bands should be able to get the money they deserve for what they do, or at the very least, the money they agreed to with the venue; and venues to still make money on drinks. And I'd like to think there's plenty of room for the open mic guys, the cover bands doing 4-hour sets on a Saturday night, and the bands that come out and do an hour of their originals, to all go out and get theirs, and be compensated fairly for it. It doesn't have to be an either-or proposition; hell, I do all of the above, depending on the day! As a smarter musician than myself once told me, "Music isn't supposed to be a competition."
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