Open letter from bar owner to musicians

[SquierJazz72]

While I don't consider a pure cover band to be overly artistic, there's no shame in it, either. Not everyone has to have big musical ambitions. Some people just want to get together with others and play music they love. Some of those people form bands to go make some money doing it. Again, fine. But it's more business than art at that point.

But even original bands have to think about the business aspects of what they do, if they want to make it. It's called the music BUSINESS, and not the music playground, for a reason.

[jungleheat]

Freakin wow. I think some people on TB make a sport over who can miss the point more.

I didn't bring up "art" because I'm saying cover bands are profound, deep artists making grand revolutionary high brow statements on society and nature, and nothing in my previous posts even implied anything of the sort. It's also telling that all the weekend warriors seem to look on art as if it's a dirty word.

What I was getting at (which I expected would be pretty much self evident for anyone not trying to purposely miss the point) is that the audience comes to hear MUSIC (aka art). Not listen to beer commercials. For those who aren't good with nuance in language, just pretend I said "don't get your commerce in my ENTERTAINMENT", ok? Art means almost exactly the same thing in this context, is shorter, and should have been easily understood by anyone who wasn't trying to obfuscate what I was saying.

The fault that so many make on this issue, is not realizing it's a 3 way relationship, not 2 way. You have the bar, the band, and the audience. Each has to get what they need out of the other 2 for things to optimal. Is that really that hard to understand?

The bar, from the band needs good entertainment that will bring/keep people there. From the audience he needs them to spend money and come back again and again.

The band, from the bar needs a good paycheck, and a place to be able to do their thing, so they can give the bar and the audience what they want. From the audience, they mainly need them to show up and satisfy what the bar needs, but it's also preferable if they are into the music as well.

The audience, from the bar needs a great place to drink/eat/relax so that they enjoy going there and want to go back, and from the band need some good songs played well and with decent sound, or at the very least to be inoffensive background sound.

Obviously there is more to it than this, but that's the basic triangle. So if you can figure out how to maximize those 6 "deliverables", you should be pretty successful.

[TRCat]

Originally Posted by jungleheat

Freakin wow. I think some people on TB make a sport over who can miss the point more.

I didn't bring up "art" because I'm saying cover bands are profound, deep artists making grand revolutionary high brow statements on society and nature, and nothing in my previous posts even implied anything of the sort. It's also telling that all the weekend warriors seem to look on art as if it's a dirty word.

What I was getting at (which I expected would be pretty much self evident for anyone not trying to purposely miss the point) is that the audience comes to hear MUSIC (aka art). Not listen to beer commercials. For those who aren't good with nuance in language, just pretend I said "don't get your commerce in my ENTERTAINMENT", ok? Art means almost exactly the same thing in this context, is shorter, and should have been easily understood by anyone who wasn't trying to obfuscate what I was saying.

The fault that so many make on this issue, is not realizing it's a 3 way relationship, not 2 way. You have the bar, the band, and the audience. Each has to get what they need out of the other 2 for things to optimal. Is that really that hard to understand?

The bar, from the band needs good entertainment that will bring/keep people there. From the audience he needs them to spend money and come back again and again.

The band, from the bar needs a good paycheck, and a place to be able to do their thing, so they can give the bar and the audience what they want. From the audience, they mainly need them to show up and satisfy what the bar needs, but it's also preferable if they are into the music as well.

The audience, from the bar needs a great place to drink/eat/relax so that they enjoy going there and want to go back, and from the band need some good songs played well and with decent sound, or at the very least to be inoffensive background sound.

Obviously there is more to it than this, but that's the basic triangle. So if you can figure out how to maximize those 6 "deliverables", you should be pretty successful.

Ur spot on about the 3-way, or shall we say "Trilogy"

[SquierJazz72]

Freakin wow. I think some people on TB make a sport over who can miss the point more.

For myself, I didn't mean to perhaps imply that providing music(which is still art, in and of itself) and being entertaining isn't artful. It is, if done right.

What I'm getting at is there are different levels at which people play and different reasons why they do. Which leads to different sets of expectations.
Which leads back to what you say. As long as all expectations, for everyone, are met it's all good. Otherwise, someone's coming out on the short end.

[nortonrider]

Originally Posted by jungleheat

obfuscate

Good Word!
(I had to google it)

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by jungleheat

I didn't bring up "art" because I'm saying cover bands are profound, deep artists making grand revolutionary high brow statements.

Snipped, mercifully.

Dude, I'm not going to mince words with you or get into a semantic battle of wits.

If you are copying other peoples' music you are not an artist, I don't give a damn how good of a musician you are in reality or in your own mind. And if you try to put on airs and portend to be an artist, you're only going to have people chuckling at you behind your back, or perhaps to your face, like I am right now.

I'm in a cover band. I'm a very competent bass player. I could never call myself an artist, in ANY connotation, in ANY sense of the word, with a straight face.

Get over yourself.

You might qualify as an entertainer. And if you are hired by a venue owner, you are most certainly an employee of the venue. Please the owner, keep your job. Cut corners because you think your form of entertainment approaches some higher form of expression or "art," risk losing your job.

/thread

[jungleheat]

Gotcha, so music does or doesn't qualify as art depending on who's playing it.

So to an audience member that is hearing their favorite song, it stops being art just because it's not the original band playing it? By that logic, if you look at a jpeg of a Van Gogh painting on the internet, does it become not art because you aren't seeing the original canvas and paint in person?

Since you seem to be an expert, can you give the less intelligent of us a checklist so we can tell what is and isn't art and what makes it so?

I'll throw out some examples so you can explain each one in detail...

Miles Davis playing My Funny Valentine, art or not art?

Jeff Buckley performing Hallelujah, art or not art?

Jimi Hendrix playing Hey Joe, art or not art?

A very well done paint on canvas copy of a Van Gogh, art or not art?

A digital image of the Mona Lisa on your computer, art or not art?

A picture of a Rodan sculpture in a coffee table book, art or not art?

A movie based on a play not using the original cast, art or not art?

An mp3 on your ipod of Live at Leeds, art or not art?

A band playing a great version of a song they did not write, live on stage at the bar you're at, art or not art?

Please explain which of these are art or not art, and explain why for each one, so that we can put such a tertiary issue aside and actually discuss the main topic of this thread. kthxbai.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by jungleheat

Gotcha, so music does or doesn't qualify as art depending on who's playing it.

If you think a bar owner gives a dump about your proselytizing, you are sadly mistaken.

[nortonrider]

Originally Posted by electracoyote

proselytizing

And........ another Good Word!

[TRichardsbass]

Jungleheat, most of us said it in context to those who posted they didnt want to "compromise their art" by mentioning a drink special. The use of art in this case is exactly like the example given earlier about paint by numbers. Are you a painter? Probably. Are you an artist? PROBABLY NOT. Is the paintibg art? That is subjective.

I consider my self a performer or entertainer. Not an artist as that term is too diluted.

No Buckley isnt an artist doing Hallelujia. He is a performer interpreting Cohen's art. Semantics but matters.

The fact remains that if you are a coverband playing the loval dive bar and you wont do things like be a little MC like or remind the crowd Genee Cream and a shot is only $6 because you dont want to degrade your "art" you are kidding yourself and are IMHO delusional.

One of my former lead singers looked like Jesus and could move well onstage. It may have impressed the ladies but he wasnt creating art.

[pkstone]

Originally Posted by TRichardsbass

Jungleheat, most of us said it in context to those who posted they didnt want to "compromise their art" by mentioning a drink special.

Actually, that's a bit of a strawman. The first mention of "art" in this thread was by someone mocking those who disagreed with the primacy of being salesmen on stage. Now you're using it as a club on anybody who disagrees with you.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by pkstone

Actually, that's a bit of a strawman. The first mention of "art" in this thread was by someone mocking those who disagreed with the primacy of being salesmen on stage. Now you're using it as a club on anybody who disagrees with you.

You know, I appreciate you attempting to put some objectivity to this, but however the concept of "art" got injected into this conversation regarding cover bands helping the barkeep out and, in doing so, assuring the success of the venue and the band's repeated bookings in the venue, it's just really hard to take that "art" angle seriously, no matter how innocently or benignly it may have been presented.

It's just not a credible talking point in terms of real world, real business, real dollars. As an entertainer hoping to advance your goals and form a symbiotic relationship with the very venues upon which you depend (far more than they depend on you), it makes no sense. Very romantic notion, but not a smart or realistic business notion.

[Slowgypsy]

There's art. And then there's the business of art.

[jungleheat]

Actually, I believe I was the first person to mention "art" but I was mentioning it FROM THE AUDIENCE PERSPECTIVE. But that nuance seems to have been completely lost on these professional arguers who seem to think that you absolutely must bend over to the club owner at all costs. So now a handful of people for whom "balance" must clearly be an alien concept attack the "art" component, thinking it was brought up in terms of precious and pretentious cover bands labeling themselves as such. It was not and never was. To the audience, the music remains "art". If you refuse to call a cover band "artists", fine, but at the very least they are curators (I guess actors in a play are also not artists, and just "curators"?).

But it IS a strawman either way. Can we put it to bed now please? The intellectual dishonesty (or maybe just straight up laiziness) by a few people in this thread is kind of nauseating.

[SquierJazz72]

I'm still going to say entertainment is the primary purpose of the band. Without that, nothing else matters for long. People start leaving. And absent people are definitely not drinking people!

I'm still not sure I think shilling alcohol is my direct responsibility. But I am willing to find a happy medium.

It's the owners place, his floor, his dime. If he wants to arrange set times for himself or one of his staff to take the mic and promote sales, fine.
If he puts someone there during breaks, again, fine by me.

But this is something I would want to work out in advance. Even before money, work out and agree on everyone's expectations and responsibilities before hand. Find that balance that makes sure everyone gets what they need from the actual night.

Maybe part of the problem is that sometimes bands and owners jump in too quickly, without these considerations, and it only lead to trouble somewhere.

[nortonrider]

I think that if you really want to work, you'll do what it takes to get (and keep) the job.

[SquierJazz72]

I think that if you really want to work, you'll do what it takes to get (and keep) the job.

Perhaps, but if either side expects something the other side is just not happy with, the band still taking the gig likely does a disservice to both.

And I've personally seen the system I describe work just fine in the past. Why shouldn't it be able to now?

[RitchS]

Originally Posted by nortonrider

And........ another Good Word!

Don't forget to look up tertiary!

[nortonrider]

Originally Posted by SquierJazz72

And I've personally seen the system I describe work just fine in the past. Why shouldn't it be able to now?

I think that times have changed.
The game has changed.

Adapt (evolve) or die, that's just the nature of things.

[MarkMgibson]

Originally Posted by jungleheat

Actually, I believe I was the first person to mention "art" but I was mentioning it FROM THE AUDIENCE PERSPECTIVE. But that nuance seems to have been completely lost on these professional arguers who seem to think that you absolutely must bend over to the club owner at all costs. So now a handful of people for whom "balance" must clearly be an alien concept attack the "art" component, thinking it was brought up in terms of precious and pretentious cover bands labeling themselves as such. It was not and never was. To the audience, the music remains "art". If you refuse to call a cover band "artists", fine, but at the very least they are curators (I guess actors in a play are also not artists, and just "curators"?).

But it IS a strawman either way. Can we put it to bed now please? The intellectual dishonesty (or maybe just straight up laiziness) by a few people in this thread is kind of nauseating.

+1