Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

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In the Philadelphia New Jersey Areas you have musicians wanting to start New Bands and they have no Idea where they will work if they ever get their New Band off of the ground. Most Musicians are not business minded and they are not concerned about the reality of what kind of songs that your group has to play in order to get Paid Work in your Local Community. The audience in any Club determines what kind of Entertainment they want in any establislment. If you want to work in a specific Club or if you want to play any Private Event you as the band better know what venue of music to play for that Club or Event that you will be performing at to please their audience or you will Bomb Big Time and never be called back. Most Musicians when they are young do not understand that Money Makes this World Go Around. If you want to make money you have to play the game and give the Owners and Audience what they want or you won't make any money you will just be a Hit in your own mind in your Basement.

Amen Carl, but i will take a cut so I dont have to wear the tux! LOL

Welcome

LOL

I love to ignore the lounge singers while they perform. But when you start to get drunk, if they are decent, you sing along..

Faq the tux though and you wear the cumber-bun on your head, like the rest of us deviants.

Just curious, you cover any Richard Cheese?

Carl Anthony wrote:
In the Philadelphia New Jersey Areas you have musicians wanting to start New Bands and they have no Idea where they will work if they ever get their New Band off of the ground. Most Musicians are not business minded and they are not concerned about the reality of what kind of songs that your group has to play in order to get Paid Work in your Local Community. The audience in any Club determines what kind of Entertainment they want in any establislment. If you want to work in a specific Club or if you want to play any Private Event you as the band better know what venue of music to play for that Club or Event that you will be performing at to please their audience or you will Bomb Big Time and never be called back. Most Musicians when they are young do not understand that Money Makes this World Go Around. If you want to make money you have to play the game and give the Owners and Audience what they want or you won't make any money you will just be a Hit in your own mind in your Basement.

I suppose money needs to be a consideration, but it doesn't have to be the first one.

Most musicians are so because they have a passion, and music is the artform of their expression. They have a different purpose than your average lounge singer or Top 40 band. That doesn't make them "wrong" anymore than someone who sold their soul to Frank Sinatra.

But your assumptions are as wrong as theirs, Carl. Singing someone else's compositions has a low ceiling. As a lounge singer, you might become the next Celine Dion if you marry right...and it's more likely you'll have a career singing in bars with nicer upholstery than someone who plays original music once every other month. So what?

There are different ideas about what "success" is and everyone will take a different path to get there. I'm happy that your are satisfied to entertain for dollars...but I took that approach for about 6 months before I started losing my self-respect.

Those who take the risk of creating something new have a higher chance of failure, but they also have a higher ceiling of earning potential if they were to succeed. That might start with less chances of making money in the short run, but every business needs an initial investment to get off the ground.




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Come on Capt you know your jealous of his looks!

I would wear a tux ... I'd have to dust it off first Seriously, aside from having grown up with Sinatra, Martin, & those guys, Robert Palmer made it cool to dress the part.

I know what you're saying about the bands. Here in Arizona they will put together shows of 5 or 6 original bands in a 4 or 5 hour time span. You spend more time waiting for them to tear down & set up than actually listening to them. As a result, the clubs are pretty much empty... people come to hear their friends play then leave instead of making a night of it.

Personally, I want a club to be full - everyone has a lot more fun that way. My advice to those bands - and it works for me - is to surround yourself with cover bands. People come to hear music they are familiar with, the night is covered with just one or two bands, and you as an original artist become the main event.

Out here, people just don't get it. No one gets paid. Philly has always been a mecca for innovation - I enjoy playing there (and everywhere in that region for that matter). There are so many clubs out there desperate for decent bands its almost sad.

I dunno... I think there's music...and then there's entertainment. If you want to make money in music, you have transpose that to entertainment. Carl is right... You gotta have a business mind about the entertainment..

But as Yod would suggest... If yo have to transpose the music, don't sacrifice the music just to make it on that stage...
The theory is quite simple... You wouldn't perform Sinatra songs if you knew you were gonna mutilate them... The same principle would apply to original music...
So, in the entertainment world, I guess it helps to be a master of cover or a damn good song writer... Either way the bar is pretty high with John Q public

I'm going to play my music even if I'm the only one listening.

Right on George.

I certainly played in my share of cover outfits- in one we even wore matching shirts which made me puke.

Never took much pride in it. Never got that good at it. Just didn't care. The moments I cherished were all about original music. It gives you a pride in yourself that covers can't. And while this is anecdotal I'd say that the original bands I've been in were all much better than the cover bands.

Disclaimer - I played in several original acts that would in a pinch - quickly learn a bunch of rock tunes and play some gigs in search of peanut butter and beer. And once to get our kit out of hock.

That said, I'm at a point in my life where I'd play covers if I could make a living at it. Mainly because it is after all, kinda fun - but most importantly, I have come to dispise working as a straw boss (proj mgr) for those slime dripping psuedo people that one finds in corporate America these days.

And now back to work. I'm writing a bridge for a new tune we're working up!

Talbot

While you may have to play what remotely sells. You do not have to entirely sell out to the idea. True, I am new to music and bands. However, I've worked as a commercial artist and programmer for many years. No one likes a complete sellout. You can have a flair that appeals to others, but try to maintain your own unique "you". Otherwise you will end up just being something easily passed on. And THAT I can say is 100% true as a artist and a programmer, and I am more than certain true for a musician as well.

jw123 wrote:Come on Capt you know your jealous of his looks!

LOL You are an evil man, JW, but funny..

I used to play a little with this one cat who you remind me of.
He used to crack jokes right before a serious tune and I'd be trying not to laugh.

I don't mind playing cover songs, it's just
nobody wants to hear Hungry Freaks Daddy,
by the Mothers and I loe to play it. Now the
tuxedo it'll have to go I always do better with
the bar flies when I just wear a pair of cutoff
shorts.

Carl

My barber (Vinnie) is about sixty and does a gig like yours I think - Dinner Jackets, oldies. He is one very cool fellow, plays drums, books the gigs. He figured out that I'm a player pretty quick despite the corporate disguise.

He treats me like a king because we are both players. I feel like a celebrity when I walk in his shop. And he comes across as the grand man of it all and I always feel like I'm in the presence of someone special. Even though he does Italian weddings, parties and such, and I'm pushing out pretty noisy stuff these days that makes no diff.

Vinnie is cool and I'm so damn glad everybody isn't like me. How boring would that be?

cheers

Talbot

You people on here who know me a little knew I HAD to respond to this post. Carl, I don't mean any disrespect, but the combination of your picture and the substance of your post made me immediately think of an organ-grinder and monkey all dressed up playing for tips on a street corner. I'm sorry but I can't possibly lower myself to play "the kind of songs" my group has to play "in order to get work in the local community." I really don't give a sh*t what "kind of song" has to be played in order to make money. Whether it's a cover tune or an original song I play "the kind of songs" I like to play. No venue owner tells me what songs to play. I'm NOT a live jukebox. I don't take requests. I consider myself an original artist, although we do mainly perform covers OUR WAY. This is the one topic I've had the most heated arguments about with other musicians. I've filled in for bass players at classic rock gigs, done a handful of wedding gigs where we did nothing but covers, and that's okay once in a while, but if you hire any band I'm in you're going to get US, not organ-grinders and monkeys.

fisherman bob wrote: I really don't give a sh*t what "kind of song" has to be played in order to make money. Whether it's a cover tune or an original song I play "the kind of songs" I like to play. No venue owner tells me what songs to play. I'm NOT a live jukebox. I don't take requests.

Well said Bob.

"We don't need no stinkin' badges" - Treasure of the Sierra Madre

I always say I don't know whatever tune(s) people request, truth is I hope you fall down and bump your head for having the nerve to ask.

Some woman asked me if I knew like 4 different tunes in a row and after telling her nicely no 4x, she turned to me and said real snotty like, "so what is it you do know then?"

I had to stand on my tongue to avoid telling her and the bass player I was jamming with was saying softly in the background "whoa boy, easy, go easy on it".

I was going to say "well I noticed you are a little drunk and I know that your husband hasn't noticed you flirting heavily with that guy at the end of the bar". lol

I mean, do we all look like fleshy jukeboxes to them?

"The Rock" said it well enough, "Know your role and shut yer hole".
The only thing that would have been more entertaining is if I got to give her "the rock bottom" over a table or part of the bar.

Grrr, lady go shove another drink in that yap of yours..you aren't puking, YET.