General Music Chat

"Hey, Phil. It's Luke at Moods. I hear you're playing out again. Wanna play here this Sat nite?"

"Hi, Phil. I was wondering if you'd play at my party on the 22nd. I saw your name up on the sign at the Roads. Are you playing solo again?"

Two calls last night. One this morning. Makes me feel almost popular. Guess I'm working the solo stuff again. Damn but that's some hard work! Still, I need the bucks in a bad way, so wtf...I guess I'm doing solo stuff again.

If this keeps up I'm gonna hafta buy my own PA. So far Dddonnie's pretty cool about my borrowing his when he isn't using it. Wish I hadn't sold mine, but if wishes were horses...right?

I'm off to practice the ol' 6-string.

Oh! Almost forgot! Had practice yesterday. It went okay, & the drummer made me take this Hammond organ home. It ain't no B3, thank the stars, or I'd have needed lots of help getting it in here! Still, it's a pretty cool thingie, & Jace seems to love it. LOL

I might end up taking that Leslie out of it & using it with my guitars...

Phil a lot of the solo guy's down here do the solo thing and they make more money solo than playing in a band. Especially if they have a good p.a. and backing tracks. A friend makes $250.00 min. and usally makes $300.00 a night and sometimes makes $500.00 a night.

Congrats on the work coming your way Phil!

I was going to ask what you charge as solo, and then I saw JH post about that. Which is in line with what I am going to be asking. Starting out at $200 to $250 for a 3 set night, and as I gain a following, increasing this to $300 to $350.

I need the work too!

Struggling financially in a BIG WAY!

Awesome Phil! I'll be going back to work part time in October. Will still play part time. The biggest hold up for me is that I don't play bars.

Hummm, my own solo act? NAW....... Go get em Phil, you the man.

Hell, around here they bitch cuz I won't take less than $150 for a weekend nite, & $100 for a weekday, as a rule...

The one I'm doing Sat is one of my charity nites, though. I feel kinda sorry for Luke. He's been trying to get a liquor license for about 9 months while his place was open & losing money. Told him I'd do it for $50, which is still bound to hurt him a little. This place is really pretty small. I don't expect a big crowd or anything, esp since I've been out of the scene for so long...

I charge $200 & up for private parties, cuz, as I see it, there's a bigger liability for me & my equipment at those. Bigger chance of ppl getting out of hand at a party than at a bar. Plus, they nearly always have me playing longer. I charge extra for that, of course, but it's always exhausting to do private parties for me.

Yeah, you're right, JH. I've always made more playing solo than in bands, but it's really harder on ya than band work. I've got a lot of work to do before I'll feel comfortable with it again, esp considering this hand thing. I have noticed a new lil possible problem - my left thumb's been dancing around all on its own for 2 days. Every time I try to relax, it starts up. I think I have "RTS" - that's Restless Thumb Syndrome...LOL...Makes me nervous as sh*t, though, & it's hard to sleep, too, of course. At 1st I thought it was a lil twitch, but this don't feel like any twitch I ever felt before. If it keeps up, I suppose I'll hafta go to another damned doctor to see what's up with it. It hasn't bothered my playing or anything, cuz it only occurs during inactivity, but it's still kinda scary to watch your thumb wriggle around all on its own like it's trying to grab something, all with no help from your conscious mind...

Good to see you're sticking with it, Paul! You're too good to quit.

Craig - yeah, try it. You might make more in your area than I can in mine, & there's nobody stealing your material or arguing with ya like you can get in a band.

Hell, around here they bitch cuz I won't take less than $150 for a weekend nite, & $100 for a weekday, as a rule...

I don't blame you Philby. I think its fine to do charity stuff from time to time, but not all the time. We're musicians, not ragamuffins. We're not playing for scraps here!

Good luck on your gig Phil. All the best!!

Just got another. Some rich guy's son died. Ex-military. They want me to set up a PA for some sort of memorial, & sing two songs - "Country Roads," by John Denver, & "Please Remember," by Tim McGraw (which I don't know). Shouldn't be too tough to pull off after Sat nite's gig, but it will be outside in the heat...ICK!

Oughta be good for a few extra bucks. They've been frantically looking for someone to do it for the last cpl days...I hate pricing this sorta thing, though, cuz I'm a softee for the sad stuff, ya know?

If it doesn't take much more than an hour, I'll charge him $50, I guess. I feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot, no matter what I charge for this sorta thing. It's only 6 niles away, though, so it ain't like it's a big hassle for me...

Yeah, I'd do that one for free. But you have every right to charge. He solicited you as a professional, after all. If you decide to do it for free, tell the family you are doing this out of your heart for free, but you would appreciate their recommendation for less painful events in the future. It may be that you get a future gig for much more? A full night of music for someone's company party or something.

But consider this:

Country Roads actually has a beautiful melody, and I'm sure you considered this, but just in case...

Play it really slowly (pick the chords slowly if you do handpicking) and sing it bluesy and meaningfully. It would actually make a great and moving memorial song.

Just to add...

I've done funerals and weddings for free for people I knew, and they end up slipping me $50 to $100 bucks anyway. Chances are that happens for you too.

We have also been given gifts. Seems so much sweeter when unexpected.

About 2 minutes after I posted, they called me back & changed the "Please Remember Me" song to another Tim McGraw - "Live Like You Were Dying."

Plus I'm gonna hafta work these 2 tunes into some sorta big thingie with the VFW doing a military drill of some sort, & a preacher doing a preachy thing, & heaven knows what all...yeah, I'm gonna charge 'em $50 for it, but considering it's prolly gonna be a long drawn-out affair, it'll be a huge bargain.

I've played "Country Roads" since it was new on the radio. Hell, I've played it so long I made it into a comedy thing, where I sing the whole 1st verse & chorus way off-key (think Lucy Ricardo), & then I tell 'em that if they don't join in I'll sing the whole damned song like that. They always join in! heh heh heh

Never did "Live Like..." but it's a song that I appreciate. Hope I can pull it off without choking up, cuz it's sure to choke up lotsa others at something like this... This will be a bit of a challenge, I think, considering the production I'm hearing on it, & it's just gonna be me on a 6-string, but I feel a bit confident about it, as long as I can get my hand to cooperate...

I've played "Country Roads" since it was new on the radio. Hell, I've played it so long I made it into a comedy thing, where I sing the whole 1st verse & chorus way off-key (think Lucy Ricardo), & then I tell 'em that if they don't join in I'll sing the whole damned song like that. They always join in! heh heh heh

LOL - That's genius! Not only gets them participating, but they are probably cracking up about the whole thing.

Reminds me of when I was touring with my mom's band. We were famous for playing ANYTHING that was requested. And one song requested from time to time, was Clapton's "Cocaine". But my mom did not want to sing the word "cocaine" and so she told the crowd she would do the song, but she was changing the lyric to "Chocolate Cake" and if they wanted the song, they would have to scream out "Chocolate Cake" with her! Amazingly it worked, and people would crack themselves up, screaming... "She don't lie, She don't lie, She don't lie... CHOCOLATE CAKE!"

LOL

It sure would be nice if I could actually work on this damned song. Between the lil kid & the wife I have had NO TIME YET! I usually take a good solid week before I'll introduce new material into my act, cuz I want it perfect. This is a frikken rush job already, but I can't seem to get any time or space to do my duty for this guy.

Went out to his place. This "rich guy" lives in a dbl wide in a fairly run-down area, but he's got one fine customized Honda Goldwing! It's a trike. Sweet ride, man! He was a county sheriff for awhile, & seems like a real nice fellah. I dunno about "rich," but I'm looking forward to this gig, for some reason, IF I can learn this tune, that is...

When I have to learn song for the worship band I play in on Sundays, they send me a list of the songs and I look them up on Youtube and learn them from there. I found this acoustic version of that song for you here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdknB0_5s0
Might help a bit.