Finally getting paid to play

[father of fires]

Sorry for the long post but this is sort of a stream-of-conscience.

I have played original music all my life. I can only play a handful of covers so I have resigned myself to a lifetime of playing shows for fun.

Recently, my band got approached to play at a bar we've never heard of. We played and found out it's a mexican bar that specializes in punk bands. We're not punk.

I've played these types of shows before and made barely enough to cover gas. We weren't expecting much but, that night we got paid more than we've ever made at a show. We went back about a month later and the promoter paid us almost twice what we got the first time. Now he wants us to play again and he gave us a guarantee of 2 1/2 times what we made the first show.

At first, I couldn't figure out he can afford to do all of this but, then it came to me.

My bandmates are all in thier mid-twenties. Our fans and friends are in their 20's and 30's and everyone drinks thier faces off at our shows.

We're making him loads of cash so thats why he keeps paying us more and more money.

I never figured this out when I was younger but it makes sense.

So I'm gonna start using this info to get better pay at clubs. I may even ask for a portion of the bar.

All this while playing stoner rock.

Who knew?

[shackled]

Stoners like beer.

Congrats on the gig!

[J-Bassist]

Congratulations man! That's great news, I'm happy for you guys.
I'm still looking forward to getting paid to play haha
I have the feeling you guys are only just getting started

[father of fires]

Thanks for the kind words. It's not enough to pay the bills but I can now shut my wife up when she complains about how much money I put it to my music. A few more gigs like this and we can finish our e.p. and finance a mini tour.

Things are looking up.

[jwbassman]

Cool. Congrats. Yeah if you can work out a deal with a bar on a percentage of what they sell and you bring a lot of heavy drinkers in, you'll do well. Just make sure that if that is the case they show you the cash out from the register at the end of the night!

Funny story, a band that I was playing with back in the late 90's that was a psychedelic / Stoner rock cover band (a lot of Grateful Dead, Hendix, etc.), mad out big time at a gig. It was out first gig at the bar and they didn't want to pay us what we were asking. We only wanted $375, 3 piece, so $125 each, not at all unreasonable. Well the bar decides that 33% of the take would be a fairer deal for them. They figured we show up and play to an empty house. We were already playing around the are and had a bit of a local following. So we ended up packing the place with lots of people and luckily most of them were young twenty somethings that like to drink. At the end of the night we checked in with the bar and ended up pulling down over $1000, so we made far more than we even wanted. Needless to say the bar was happy, but didn't want to give us the same deal again. We all agreed on $600. That way if no one showed we still got paid.

[chaosMK]

The way I originally read it was "Finally getting laid to play."

[Soverntear]

the bar sounds kinda like a local place called sneaky dee's

[xgator4u]

Originally Posted by chaosMK

The way I originally read it was "Finally getting laid to play."

This also is an added bonus. Perhaps what with the O.P's friends and crowd " drinking their faces off " that could be in the works as well. As long as it ain't a sausage fest.

[father of fires]

Originally Posted by xgator4u

This also is an added bonus. Perhaps what with the O.P's friends and crowd " drinking their faces off " that could be in the works as well. As long as it ain't a sausage fest.

I'm married so I miss all the fun. But, I think my singer benefits from all of this.