Yeah, that's the thing that is so odd with this post/diatribe/whatever you want to call it. I've lived in L.A. my entire life, I've been gigging around here for 15 years now. Outside of the Baked Potato, I cannot think of a SIGNLE venue for live music that actually has a coherent scene, that is patronized by a consistent crowd, coming to see whatever band just happens to be playing.
There is a handful of folks that you see like daily in the Sunset clubs, but those are folks that are either promoting for a living, are promoting for their own bands, and Lemmy. They're not there to see the band usually, they're not paying, they're they to work.
Your average crowd at the Whisky-A-Go-Go is made up of the friends/family/actual crowd of the pay to play folks, not regulars that show up at the Whisky because they like the music.
All that being said, I'm not sure how the club owners are necessarily to blame.
Here's why; 40 years ago clubs/bars served a function in our society that they honestly no longer serve. In 1973 drunk driving laws were minimal, as were penalties. The internet did not exist in a consumer accessible form. Folks went to their local bar 3-7 times a week to just socialize, be part of a crowd and because it was a welcome alternative to watching paint dry. If there was a band playing that did some interesting originals, that was just a bonus.
Now the socialization piece has been pre-empted, mostly, by the internet/face time/texting/cell phones. It has become potentially dangerous to actually go out and drink, due to drunk driving penalties, and unlike 1973, folks now have millions of entertainment options available to them, for free, instantly. Your local bar no longer is competing with pain drying; it now competes with Candy Crush, that Zeppelin reunion Blu-ray, and that series you keep meaning to finish on Netflix/Amazon streaming.
With all that in mind is the problem the way bar owners/club owners are dealing with this, or is the problem the simple fact that folks are just less likely to go out now, by a drastic margin, as there are more entertaining, free, effort-less options.
To put it more simply, these club owners are fighting a war they are clearly going to lose in the long term, so all of them are just trying to do anything they can do to avoid their eventual, inevitable, bankruptcy. They know they cannot bring folks in because there is nothing to distinguish them, in real terms, from the other 10 bars/clubs in a 20 mile radius (or a 2 mile radius, if you're talking about Hollywood.) As a result they lean on the bands to provide the bodies, as that is their only option. At the same time, they're not making a lot of money so they cannot afford to pay for bands that do not bring people. Hence the prevalence of pay to play.
Years ago, I worked very closely with a very passionate promoter that did a lot of work with the Whisky. At the time he had 2-4 shows a week, minimum, on Sunset and was generally booking really heavy acts in the early 00s. He did a lot of Chimera and BTBAM shows, back when BTBAM was small enough to just do the Whisky. His promotion company ran this way due to his love of music and some connections he had that allowed him that freedom.
Now, from what I understand they've had to completely change their model in the last 7 years and they mostly book nostalgia and novelty acts (e.g. they booked the Average Homeboy, from YouTube a few years ago, for example.) That guy tried to make it about the bands, tried to make a scene, had advantages and connections that average folks do not, and is still now in a position where he promotes shows that put butts in seats, not shows he likes.
Again, in L.A., which last time I checked was a fairly big "entertainment" city, the only club I've ever found that could just book bands they liked and expect results, was the Baked Potato.
That place is literally a one in a million type venue, so you cannot even pretend its success could be replicated. I mean, Danny Carey plays there with his side band monthly; any club where you can see a guy that headlines arenas, from 5 feet away, playing his ass off on material he loves, for $25 and a 2 drink minimum can call its own shots, and in this case, redefine the model.
I do find this discussion a bit odd to begin with; seems like there have been a lot of threads here recently where people bash the industry instead of taking a second to understand the ecosystem that caused the issues with said industry. Club owners did not invent video games, streaming video, and cell phones. As a result the corresponding decline of their industry, due to those technologies, cannot be attributed to them.
Yeah they do stuff that as musicians we do not like, but we are not the ones paying their bills. Punters buying beer are.
The old saw "You get what you pay for" may hold true here. Of course, if you suck, well, there goes all the aforementioned hard work - which you did, right? Finally, bands who wish to play out and earn those serious $$ need to be playing the kind of music people will pay serious $$ to hear. Think about it. I'm gonna love your take on "All Along The Watchtower" and the tune you and your drummer wrote in 7/8, but Joe Beerbelly may not.
