Not trying to be snarky.
Just making observations. Time wounds all heels. I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing at 50. Still playing dive bars, maybe. Possibly different ones. If I live that long. I'm not optimistic.
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Age Discrimination
- Thread starter Biggbass
- Start date
Just making observations. Time wounds all heels. I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing at 50. Still playing dive bars, maybe. Possibly different ones. If I live that long. I'm not optimistic.
Not directed to you, chum. Didn't actually fully read all your posts. I was speaking to the old timers like myself!
I'm young for TB at 31, but I'm now past the point where I've been playing bass for most of my life... also I'm bald. So I'm old in some ways I guess.Not directed to you, chum. Didn't actually fully read all your posts. I was speaking to the old timers like myself!
One band I play with has been around since the mid-80's. We have a regular New York City club gig that the band has been doing once a month for 17 years. We pretty much pack the place every time. We get a few older people but most of our audience is early to mid-20's. We also have a weekly summer gig at the Jersey Show that has been going for 18 years. Same situation there. The thing we do that seems to hold young short attention spans is play each set non-stop connecting all the songs and incorporating a few short mash-up medleys into the mix. Our set list is heavy on light-weight pop and novelty songs from the 50's, 60's and 70's with nothing much beyond mid-80's. We also play several older songs that were re-made and featured in movies that were popular with younger audiences. We often get private party and wedding gigs from the young people that come to see us. I can't explain why but with this band age doesn't seem to matter to our audience or club owners.
I'm all for looking presentable, but might say skip on the hair dye. There's no reason to be ashamed of growing old. Some old, leathery dude with jet black hair from a Grecian Formula isn't fooling anyone.
Anybody who has seen my gig reports knows that I'm older than dirt. My take is that there are always new opportunities for your band, especially given that you did a great job keeping this venue's receipts up. Just find a new place to do the same thing. If your band is better than the ones that they are replacing yours with, then you'll get new bookings at other venues. Lets' face it - venues change constantly; it's the nature of their business. Bands simply need to adapt to the opportunities thrown at them.
I actually think that's a good look. Between the hat, the holes in the jeans, the sunglasses, and the converse all stars... I'm convinced you're a bass player.
First off sorry that happened, you could probably sue, but not sure what it would accomplish, other than publicly admonishing that venue which they totally deserve. But, you might do that more effectively through the internet.
But more over, if that bar owner wants 20 somethings he'd better be prepared to be blasting EDM all hours and turn his bar into a night club.
I'm 30, you get much more than 5 years younger than me and there is a lot of electronic music being listened to. Not saying totally but that is where that demographic trends today.
Bar owner may have shot himself in the foot as far as I can tell.
But more over, if that bar owner wants 20 somethings he'd better be prepared to be blasting EDM all hours and turn his bar into a night club.
I'm 30, you get much more than 5 years younger than me and there is a lot of electronic music being listened to. Not saying totally but that is where that demographic trends today.
Bar owner may have shot himself in the foot as far as I can tell.
Eh, I dunno, I remember electronic music being pretty popular when I was 20, too.
In my 20's I was fortunate enough to see John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Bo Diddley, Albert King, BB King and probably many other 60-70 year old performers that I may never be able to recall. JLH sat in a chair center stage for the whole show and still had the whole place at his command, Robert Cray even came out and played one or two songs with him but that old guy in the chair never relinquished his rightful position as the center of attention. If people that like music like what you're doing, they won't care how old you are, just that you can keep on doing it.
In my early 20s I THOUGHT I understood music. As I got older, I actually began to appreciate what I now better understand about what music actually is.
Me now to me then........in my best Red Foreman Voice.....
"Dumbass!"
I'm imbibing in the parking lot anyway. Northampton is a Massachusetts place where homeless hippies of Portland Or. are still wandering the downtown (which is filled with local art and gift stores) and the average demographic is a degree'd professional divorced woman who escaped her career and city (Boston or NY) and bought a renovated farm and became an artist, all quite successful."More frugal..." They don't have any discretionary income. When you're playing at a place that gets $11 for a vodka and tonic, the younger portion of the audience imbibes in the parking lot. Whatever. We get paid to get the crowd to stay and enjoy themselves. I know we're good at it, because toward the end of the last set, a squadron of Ubers pull up in front.
They even have a geriatric choir that is freekin world famous.
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I didn't say it wasn't. In fact I would argue generational musical tastes are cyclical and over time they'll change again.
Some genres are more open to FOG bands than others - bluegrass, country. And there's always gigs for a brown eyed Sally band - nobody wants to see a FOG band playing deep cuts
I am getting older (
), and my friends in bands seem to be doing well in folk, world, and electronic weirdness (not all at once - I wish I could combine them, though...)
I play in a band that's been around since 1976. We do 60's-70's with an emphasis on the Beatles. We even went through a Beatles tribute phase. Good money but not a lot of gigs.
We play one bar on a pretty consistent basis. This is in a college town with a good crowd of older people too. The older crowd sits in the bar with us enjoying the tunes while the "youngsters" hang in the game room. They are connected with a low wall in between. We've changed our start time to earlier to accommodate the older people that don't like to stay out as late any more. Funny thing is, at the end of the night as we're packing up, the youngsters will walk by and sort of mumble under their breath: "you guys are great..." It's pretty funny really...we're an underground success!
We play one bar on a pretty consistent basis. This is in a college town with a good crowd of older people too. The older crowd sits in the bar with us enjoying the tunes while the "youngsters" hang in the game room. They are connected with a low wall in between. We've changed our start time to earlier to accommodate the older people that don't like to stay out as late any more. Funny thing is, at the end of the night as we're packing up, the youngsters will walk by and sort of mumble under their breath: "you guys are great..." It's pretty funny really...we're an underground success!
Used to do something similar to save cash when I was younger! The pre game may or may not have been booze though
Great... thanks to this thread I’ve now learned not only am I too old, I’m too fat!
And I don’t even own any linen pants!
And I don’t even own any linen pants!
Incremental profit not overall profit should be looked at in this situation. Overall profit includes overhead and fixed costs like rent, insurance, etc that are the same whether the place is packed or empty.
I think overall bar profit is less than 25%. Margins on booze are approx 75%-80% ($1 - $1.25 cost selling for $5) and in this situation what added expenses did the bar owner incur? Did they hire extra staff for this night? Was it summer and they needed to run more a/c? (or if winter, did they save b/c they could run LESS heat?) Electricity for the stage would be what, $50? ...and that would be incurred with any band so I'll call that an overhead cost since it can't be avoided with a cheapo band.
So... If they literally did nothing more than pay the band $600 and get $2000 of sales in return, with a liquor cost of $500, and maybe a performer tab of $100, then they still beat the 25% margin by having $800 of profit on $2000 of extra sales.
