3 more staple venues closed in the last month in my city

It is sad. Eugene used to be a pretty great live scene...in the 80's, unfortunately. There are still a few places, but they all seem to kinda cater to a specific crowd, rather than just say "We're gonna have live music here" & then rotate different types of music.

The only thing more sad is when you see a sign that says "Live Music", you go in, & it's...oh...a DJ...great...

 

Fact is, with stricter DWI enforcement, people are just not spending their full nights out in bars. That only adds to it.

 

i think sometimes part of the problem where i am is landlord greed. the sam ash in torrance had to move because their landlord literally doubled their rent, and rent in the l.a. area is already quite high. the same thing happened with a few of the large bookstores in our area - one had their rent tripled and it was already market rate for the area. it didn't have a replacement store for well over a year after they dropped their rent price, but in the meantime we lost a bookstore. and we lost a soup plantation recently from another landlord doubling the rent.

 

I don't get out much. What's a soup plantation?

 

What he said.

 

soup plantation - called sweet tomatoes in some states - is an all-you-cat eat, self-serve restaurant with a soup bar, potato bar, pasta bar, salad ingredients, desserts, etc. they swap out dishes every couple weeks so there's a lot of variety.

this is the salad bar, the only part that's before the cash registers. they have prepared salads as well as ingredients.

 

For pre-digital and pre-cellphone generations, music was a relatively scarce resource, other entertainment options were limited, and communicating with a wide circle of friends was harder if you had to catch everyone at their home phone #s.

Even for folks who weren't going to spend their whole night in bars, bars were important places to meet for an hour or two, run into your larger circle of friends, and figure out what the night's options were. In the U.S., add in the lowered drinking age and crackdown on DUI, and live music at small bars probably peaked no later than the early 1980s.

Eras change, and that one's long gone.

 

I have never heard of Soup Plantation but Sweet Tomatoes is my jam! They don’t serve meat so I sneak my own chicken in for my salad... My girlfriend hates it because last time I snuck it in via her purse. I asked and she said no. So I snuck it into her purse to sneak it in to Sweet Tomatoes. Sorry for the random story.

 

Little to no decent paying bars in my area anymore. The casinos have taken over as the entertainment spots and have pretty much taken everyones expendable income.

I have a 5 piece and a trio that I book only at casinos. The pay is good, the load ins a breeze , since the casino provides sound and lighting, the fun factor,.....not so great . I sometimes miss the fun of playing the "A" clubs, 300-500 seat rooms that were rockin and ready to party. But I manage to console myself with a very respectable paycheck with very little manual labor put into it. Saturday nights gig finished at midnight with the 5 piece, and we were loaded and starting our cars at 12:15.

We tried finding some decent clubs to play, but between the low pay and all of them being just a hair above "dive" status, it just isn't worth it. Your other alternative these days seem to be open air/patio restaurant type gigs. The pay is better than the clubs but you're at the mercy of the weather. Cancellations are pretty frequent with these venues. It's tough trying to hustle a buck making music these days unless you're a solo or duo acoustic act. My outlook on it is, have a great product, do the leg work, and hopefully you'll find a way to market yourself in a dwindling entertainment economy.

 

It's the same in my town, and I live in a beachy tourist town . Live music has become quite scarce , and so have the available musicians.
Used to have 4 big music stores , now have 2 tiny ones, both carry the same starter gear.

My last gig is in 2 weeks because half my band is moving away ( they are brothers) because work is scarce , since the DJs beat down the pricing so bad around here . They play for 100$ a night .

I've been trying to put another band together for 2 months. No luck.

I've noticed one man acts popping up everywhere , but most people ignore them . Dont even clap at the end of a song... just crickets. It's kind of sad really , it's like most live acts are just background noise now.

I see people heavily distracted by their phones quite often , entire groups all staring like zombies , ...

So hey ... at look east you still got guys to jam with

 

I tend to play for a lot of motorcycle enthusiasts. That's a group that still frequents watering holes, and likes classic rock.

 

I’d like to go out more, but bands start at 9:00 or 9:30 so it’s too late to eat and I’m not going to down beer after beer for a few hours and then drive home. Add to it that I know that other people will do that. College days when you could just walk to places? Bring it on!

 

I'm lucky in that Buffalo and the surrounding areas seem to have no shortage of places to play. The pay rate is still reflective of the 70's though.

It wasn't that way when I started playing out back in the early/mid 90's though. We've had a nice resurgence from the rust belt days here.

Things tend to be cyclical like that.

 

Looking back at just the last two to three years, the gigs with the best fun-factor I've played in that time have still all had the venue packed, dance floor filled, and great positive vibes all night.

Of those, just one was with an originals band playing a very well promoted event at a packed club. The rest have been weddings.

 

My “favorite” sign outside of a club—
LIVE DJ TONIGHT

 

people are quite glued to their phones. the other day, i watched a driver make a left turn in very heavy traffic, and the driver never looked up from his phone as far as i could tell. scary because it was dangerous, but also because it seems like some people use their phones for entertainment while others seem to be trying to replace their daily experiences (like driving) and social life with their phones (including eating with others while they're all texting, surfing and posting to insta and twitter rather than talking to each other).

and that couldn't be good for movie theaters, clubs or anything that involves entertainment.

sweet tomatoes and soup plantation aren't vegetarian - i'm especially aware of this because i am vegetarian. this month's sweet tomatoes menu includes clam chowder and chicken noodle soup, a tuna salad, a salad with bacon in it, Shrimp Bisque, Chicken Orecchiette Soup, and depending on the menu at the time, they serve chicken pot pie soup (this one often appears in fall), and often one of the pasta options offers chicken, although not this period. i have seen an Asian chicken salad, there, as well as some other non-veggie salads.
Sweet Tomatoes Menu | Soup, Salad & More | Salad Bar Restaurant

oops! sorry all - i got crazy there for a minute...

 

See, you have to sell the beer to get a return gig but that is what is thinning out the crowds.....
Booze ruins everything. Just look at the pathetic, typical bar band set for the last half a century...
gets old....

If "over-saturation" is bad for bands, why does everyone all play pretty much the same crap and not think it's "over-saturation" ?? How is that NOT boring ?

Drink up.

 

No. Bars/clubs/venues have to make money. Unless it it a club that charges a stiff cover, there is only one way - they have tell sell enough food and drink to pay you,and be netting more than it would have without having you in the first play. It may be a hobby for you - it's their livelihood.

If your bar is not selling booze, how do they stay in business? That goes back more than "the last half a century".

 

I like live music, but not in a bar / restaurant setting where I'm having a conversation with friends or my wife. Music usually is too loud for me.