General Music Chat

Every week I have someone in my band that is either moving out of state or has a gig with another band. My wife is the manager and she's getting a lot of flack for booking gigs and then having to cancel them! One minute my bassist is leaving for Fla. Next minute he's staying... then he's leaving...only to change his mind that he's staying. I'm at my wits end not knowing when our agents ask if we can do gigs months away....Don't know what to say... On top of all this, we get paid by the amount of people who show up mentioning our bands name.... In other words, we can have a packed house but if only 5 people mention our name, we only get paid for 5 people! We get booked some nights with 4-6 other bands which means serious rush-rush setting up and breaking down! I don't have a roadie. I've got to lug 2 cabinets, one combo, 3 guitars, 3 stands and my case for all my effects and cables all on my own. Some of these places have no where to park which means me having to lug this crap a pretty far distance from the club. There are no band rooms anymore in these places like there used to be and it sucks having to sit at the bar until we're ready to go on and rush like a lunatic setting up all my crap and doing a 2 second sound check.. They love us...they keep booking us more and more and are asking us to do other gigs further out east and in Manhattan..... No set salary though... still getting paid only by those who mention "PanikAtack".

I started playing for just the hell of it again... only to get more gigs than I ever did and not getting really any monetary compensation for it! It's seriously turning me off and I'm getting exhausted and tired of working 8 hour days and then going to the clubs and staying for practically 6 to 8 hours..... I'm 48... I stopped clubbing years ago... I'm spent... I'm depressed... It's turning me off ..... This was supposed to be gratifying ..... Sorry guys.... seriously needed to vent.... I'm the oldest in the band... the other guys are just turning 30 and we blow away all the younger bands out there and I seriously don't want to let them down by closing my project down but it's seriously taking it's toll on my sanity!

My band is going through some of this. Different levels of committment or sometimes just legitimate scheduling issues, but that don't work well for a band trying to make a name for themselves.

I feel ya bro!

That sucks, cause you were so damn excited about getting back into it.

Don't give up. Find the right people.

Crip, I can relate. Ive been contacted by a couple of bands about playing pretty much what you play. There are people who want to hear it. But I always tell them to show me the money, thats when it stops. Its a real bitch when you are the leader.

Personally Im stepping back away from covers and working on originals. Im going to do a CD of fresh material and take it from there. If some showcase gigs come up I think I can put together a band to perform even if I have to pay them out of my pocket. This way the thing I have in the public eye is mine.

Good Luck I hope you get over your blues and keep rockin...................

Perhaps its time for you to draw a line in the sand with the club managment. Tell em flat out, these are the problems we face, we can bring in the patrons for you. This is what we must have to get us on stage or no deal.
Just a thought, perhaps a cut and dry approch will help with the vassilating band members as well.
Even if I could wail like you do I would not do clubs, may be a few good folk out to have a little fun but most of them are just full time losers.
I,m sure they could stand to hear about Jesus, but I doubt if any drunken fool looking to land a case of AIDS will pay to hear my band anyway.
Friend of mine stated in a written contract that his band was out to make a profit, and had his members put up a deposit that the band kept if the member dropped without a thirty day notice.

Thanks to technology, anyone can make music with few if any other human beings. This is changing the dynamics of how music is made and delivered to the customer. I see more and more one and two man bands these days, because it's too difficult to keep four or five people together as a band. Strip it down and fill in the gaps with technology.

I feel for you.

In past bands, I've had the same issues, to a point. Sounds like you need a new bass player. I'm sure there is tons of history that we don't know about, but at face value, he's exactly the kind of person that really $%#^ me off. I have a low tolerance for flakes (as you may have seen in my recent "ARGH" post lol). IMO, a person is either committed or they are not. If they start flaking like that, it tells me that they are not that committed and looking for an excuse to bail.

On the gigs part, yeah... It sucks in many ways to have to cancel gigs, you lost the gig, for one, but the club manager also remembers, and will be much less likely to book you in the future. Club owners are very weary and often hostile about booking bands to begin with. I would address the gig problems as the #1 priority, which brings you back to the bass player...

All my opinion, of course, but I wish you the best, and hope you don't give up. I hate to see musicians give up in defeat, for all I know, you may write the next great song that inspires me to write my next great song.

Experiencing similar stuff in a band I'm in. We just quit booking for now.

Told the band leader I won't play with a drunk guitarist who can't show up consistently, & that's that...so we're on hiatus until we find someone new, but at least I don't have to be embarassed by a jerk that may or may not tune his axe, remember what effin' key we're playing in, show up on time, or show up at all.

Kinda hard to replace a lead player with technology & pull it off.

But I won't have anyone ruin my rep cuz he's a twit. I don't care how good he may be.

Besides, if you can't tune, or play in key, or be there on time, etc., you aren't good enough to play with me no matter how many hot licks you think you know.

Bitter? You bet yer @$$ I'm BITTER!!!!

I'll get over it...I don't think he'll get over being a drunken bum, though.

Bar owners all over the United States are coming up with more ingenius ways NOT to pay musicians. I hope that someday there is a national musician's union where EVERY band is required to join and EVERY bar owner MUST hire a union band PERIOD. These people are getting away with murder. You only get paid if someone mentions your band's name? Who's keeping track of who mentions your band's name? One of the bar's employees or one of your band's roadies? How do you know for sure you're geting credit for each person mentioning your band's name? That's the most INSANE thing I ever heard of. It's too bad you're going through this crap, but I think this is commonplace these days in the music industry. We're lucky to make the same money we made 25 years ago. Has anybody checked the price of gas lately? the price of band equipment? etc.? This music stuff COSTS MONEY, it's time we get reimbursed a reasonable fee for our services. Later...

Bar owners all over the United States are coming up with more ingenius ways NOT to pay musicians. I hope that someday there is a national musician's union where EVERY band is required to join and EVERY bar owner MUST hire a union band PERIOD. These people are getting away with murder. You only get paid if someone mentions your band's name? Who's keeping track of who mentions your band's name? One of the bar's employees or one of your band's roadies? How do you know for sure you're geting credit for each person mentioning your band's name? That's the most INSANE thing I ever heard of. It's too bad you're going through this crap, but I think this is commonplace these days in the music industry. We're lucky to make the same money we made 25 years ago. Has anybody checked the price of gas lately? the price of band equipment? etc.? This music stuff COSTS MONEY, it's time we get reimbursed a reasonable fee for our services. Later...

Bob there is a huge dust up on this very topic on our local craigslist "musicans" forum. While it gets really nasty, and we have more than our share of musicians here who possess the "abused wife syndrome" ('please Mr. bar owner don't pay us! We love you and will defend your abuse to our last breath!), I sense a turning of the tide a bit because more and more musicians are either changing their tune here or were already in full battle gear to change this awful dynamic with live venues. Something is changing, and it's being done through dialogue and enlightment.

I'm constantly amazed at the ability and willingness of so many musicians to change their minds when given more (and better information) on the topic. So keep it alive, I think this era of ridiculous live venue greed and laziness may be seeing it's Gotterdaemurung ("Twilight of The Gods" if you aren't a Wagner fan).

Thats a rip in the fabric man. I detest unions yet I see at times a need for organization. Its like at the onset the "union" is a good thing that enables a groop to overcome some sort of neglect or abuse and in short order it devolves to be the problem and not the cure. Case in point Auto workers abused under paid poor work environment "union" helped change a lot of that then greed, organized crime "union" became a hidding place for halfassed workers turning out the worst products in the world.
Second case in point. Oil Chem and Atomic Workers the division I worked for under Mobil at the time I got laid off was so corrupt they only protected the company from the employees not the other way around.
the saviour may well be electronic communication such as this not a formal union that will invite corruption.

Well... we booked even more gigs now! ....I seriously hope the bassist stays or eventually we're gonna get black-balled if we continue with the sporadic cancellations! Hopefully by the end of the summer we can build a loyal fanbase so we can be in the position to command a set salary after a while.... we've just gotta prove ourselves as every other band has to in my neck-o-the woods!

Prove yourselves? You load all your equipment, haul it to the gig, play your ass off, break down the equipment, haul it back home, etc. THIS IS HARD WORK. WE'VE GOT TALENT THAT FEW OTHER PEOPLE HAVE. WE DESERVE A PAY SCALE THAT ACTUALLY IS HIGHER THAN MINIMUM WAGE. You don't have to prove anything to anybody if you've done what you promised the bar owner. It doesn't matter whether five people show up or 500 people show up. The risk is up to the barowners. The problem around here is that for every band that wants to get paid a fair wage there's two dozen bands that will play for free or next to free bacause they are desperate to play in front of people. The barowners have it too good right now. They hold all the cards. If there's a STRONG national union established then there will be a fairer deal for us hard working musicians. I don't necessarily believe in unions but SOMETHING DIFFERENT has to start happening. As it stands right now it's not worth even bothering to try and get gigs. Later...

I agree Bob but how does one Given we have this "organization of musicians" go about inforcing the no union no play rules. Most labor unions whom are in force today got there via violence. And there will be scabs= the ones who will play for nothing to cut the "organized players" out of jobs.
Here is a key element to the whole problem that must be solved first.
What do we use for leverage besides violence?

At this point, bar owners really don't give a rats ass if you play at their clubs or not! Believe me when I say 3 of our booking agents have thousands of bands ready to take your slot if you cancel. They don't care anymore if you suck or not. The one's that are really thriving in this type of venue are kids just getting out of High school. They get their whole school of friends to come down and watch them which, in turn, makes the bar owners very happy! I've actually seen the owners and workers with earplugs in their ears due to the fact that some of these bands are horrific but they still bring down a healthy crowd! It's no longer about talent in a live venue... it's all about the draw. Luckily, we're playing the right tunes so even the people that didn't come to see us are cheering for us and constantly asking for an encore! It still doesn't pay the bills! One of our gigs in April have us playing with a band that have the same fanbase as ours! We are all mutual friends. Hmmmmm... I wonder what band these people are going to say they came to see. It's gonna be a packed house but the other band has been together for 6 years and I have a feeling that we're gonna be on the short end of the stick on this one! God, I miss the days where our Agents negotiated a price for our gigs waay b4 we even agreed to play there. They treated us with dignity, drinks were on the house and we had our own little band room in the back of all these clubs so we could gather our thoughts and sit down and gather our thoughts b4 we went onstage.. Now, they feel that they are doing us a favor by allowing us to play at their establishment to gain exposure! Sometimes I wanna bash their freakin heads in! Last week, the freakin' bartender wouldn't even give me a cup of tap-water for free!

Here's how i play the game. "I ABSOLUITLY REFUSE" to put my sh*t in the truck for nothing less than a 100$ bill. Unless it's a benifit!

I can stay home and save gas and pratice's and be much more productive..But i know some of the bar owners are hurting because of the police are cracking down so hard on drunk driving.But yet they will still pay 3 or 4 hundred for KeryPucky or a D.J.