I think the myspace you are referring to is their "fan" site.
but regardless, I've made my point
What....that a "suck" band can be entertaining?
Well, sure.....when everyone's in on the joke.
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I'll Never Play for Free Again
- Thread starter tapehead
- Start date
What....that a "suck" band can be entertaining?
Well, sure.....when everyone's in on the joke.
And the bars will consistently bemoan how the music scene sucks and won't draw a crowd when they consistently bring in bands they get for free.
The bands won't hustle to pack the place...less people in the door, less drinks sold, and that means a crap night at the bar.
The bottom line is that they're worth every penny they've paid for them; they won't draw a crowd, the regulars won't stick around and they won't sell any booze.
If the band gets paid $300 then they're signing on for the financial responsibility of getting folks in the door and them buying $300 worth of booze. I've been in bands that had a small draw but the fans drank a boatload. Guess what? We got the return gig every time. Even if ONE person came in the door and tore through $300 of booze plus an acceptable ROI over that a band would likely get asked back as long as they knew that one guy would come back again.
This isn't aesthetics as it is knowing a quality product and the economics of it.
Because they were willing to work for free. I wouldn't do it - but apparently they came to what they believed was a mutually beneficial exchange with the club.
The band apparently valued whatever they were getting other than pay (exposure, free beer, a chance to play on a stage) equivalently to their performance - and that is their right.
What you negotiate is what they're willing to pay. If you go beyond what they're willing to pay, they won't hire you. If they hired you, by definition, you're accepting what they're willing to pay.
I'm not sure I'd agree with their being "things" of value you can't purchase - because to me "thing" implies tangible. Certainly there are non-tangible things of value one cannot buy.
Sure - but what if selling out all the seats and selling all the drinks you can manage doesn't turn you a profit after paying the artist? There is certainly a "horses for courses" argument to be made.
I never said there was no market for quality - just a much smaller one. People buy Armani suits. People buy sweatpants at Target. Armani suits are a LOT higher quality. How do you think their sales numbers compare to Targets sweatpants?
...and live music performance is becoming a more niche market due to: karaoke, jukeboxes, guitar hero contests, sports bars, video games, 700 channels of cable TV, and on and on and on...
Well - I've been playing upright bass for 24 years, and electric for 20. I've put in countless hours becoming an Electrical Engineer... and yet the only value those skills have outside what I personally place on it is what someone is willing to exchange for it.
Music isn't the only "hobby" business I've ever been around. I knew a couple brothers who made a significant amount of money running numerous delivery pizza franchises. One of the brothers was a big sports card/comic book freak. So he opened the best comic book/sport card store in town.
Spent most his time there. Sold tons of merchandise. Lost money every day it was open.
Me either... To paraphrase someone - Capitalism is the worst economic system there is, except for all the others.
Some people grasp logic, simple economics, and that you can make more money with pro quality than with amateur hackery, and some don't.
I can't remeber the last time I played for free, and I gig a fair bit. That said, I am under no delusion that anyone gigging for free is taking any employment opportunities away from me, just like people who work for less (the vast majority) in my profession aren't taking any work at all away from me.
Unless you want free gigs, nobody playing for free is taking any gigs from you. Even then, they're gigs that you can earn if you want them.
Even if getting laid is a "hobby", you still have overhead to contend with - cologne, clothes, rubbers, covers at clubs, gym memberships, free drinks for the ladies, gas to get to and from - not to mention that the TIME you have put into it to be able to get out and pick up chicks in a public establishment that is making money due to your patronage. You know, personal practice time, working out, your time driving yourself to and from clubs and booty calls.
I don't know about you, but I figure my time to be worth about $200/hr based on my income. I could easily make that kind of money in a gigolo situation, so I'll be damned if I ever go out for less than $100/night.
I'm no longer a "pro", just a "semi-pro" at this point, it isn't my primary income. However, my time and my lovin' technique is still worth something, and anything or anyone that devalues my work is not worth the effort it will take me to tell them to go **** themselves for expecting me to work for no return (as with many others, there are pity ##### that I will consider, that is a totally different issue). ANY HORNDOG THAT WILL GO TAKE THAT SAME WORK FOR NO MONEY, BECAUSE HE IS REMOVING THAT COMPENSATION NOT ONLY FROM MY POCKETS, BUT FROM EVERY OTHER ESCORT THAT WILL FOLLOW HIM IN THE DOOR.
Yes, this means YOU, if you go pick up girls in a club and then bone 'em for free, for any reason.
The only way to stop this rip off act is to as a group, ALL red-blooded males, refuse to give your time, talents, and efforts away for less than you deserve to receive for them.
If you think it's "art" and you shouldn't be compensated, fine, either STAY HOME, or take the money and donate it to whatever you consider a worthy cause, but keep your hands out of my and every other sensible escort's wallet.
I won't do gigs for less than a hundred bucks, OK? Period. So I turn some work down. Guess what? Invariably it's like, 20-30 bucks they're trying to beat me up over. And they always relent. I get what I demand, or I STAY HOME.
To a point. I'm just not sure the level people demand for a $5 door (or free) cover band at your local 200 seat dive is especially high though.
That's part of the problem, right there. 200 seat dive-500 seat club, whatever. If the cover is 5 bucks now, it was five bucks ten years ago, betcha. So I was making a hundred bucks then, as now. Meanwhile, costs have gone up but the clubs won't charge for it, afraid of losing bar business. So they ask me to take a pay cut, and I refuse. Get it from someplace else.
...and then they hire the cheaper band. Everyone is happy. You've decided the transaction wasn't mutually beneficial to you - so you didn't engage in it. The cheaper band decided the transaction was mutually beneficial to them - so they did. Sounds like a win, win, win to me. Capitalism operating exactly as intended.
AMEN, brother!!! PREACH IT!!!
I play for love, and for passion, and because a musician is what I am down to my DNA.
I practice my scales, set up, tear down, drive across town, play in the cold and the heat, go without sleep, and put up with drunks who just wanna hear Mustang Sally, for money.
And I don't much care to see what I do devalued by someone who thinks it should be all for free.
Cherie
Good post!
NEWSFLASH: Most club owners don't care what a great musician you are. They don't care whether you can sight read or improvise a bass line from a chord chart. They don't care that you can play almost any style on electric or upright bass with little or no rehearsal time. Your band leader probably does, but the promoters/club owners don't. They care that you make them money! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you shouldn't strive to be the best you can at your craft, but in the end it's all about the draw!
Work on building a dedicated fan base who routinely attend your gigs and you'll be able to charge appropriately for it.
- Ugly.
Sure! We can start at a bar for $150 or $200, and when we draw people and do well, they raise us to $250 or $300, etc. The owner/manager doesn't care nearly as much about our musicianship as they do about how much scratch we are making for them.
But when you play for free, over and over, your local venues come to expect it. You are drawing that fan base, but you can't get the bar to pay you, because you've been doing it for free.
This happened to me, and I learned a lasting lesson from it. Those chickens came home to roost for me when I stood facing a crowd of 700 people, all there to hear that band play, and we were getting nothing. Freezing our butts off at a packed-to-capacity outdoor biergarten. Not one dime. Because half our band thought all this should be for free.
Never again. Never, ever again.
Benefits are for free, now. Everyone else has to pay.
Cherie
one venue here i remember from my younger days,a 200 or so seater that used to have bands 6 days a week,then 3 found it more profitable to wall off and shut down the entire room and convert the former coffee shop into a vlt lounge......one waitroid sold beer,made change,cashed out winners etc....everyone else got the pink slip and the place made money........
its great that some guys can take the position that they wont get out of bed for less than x amount of dollars ,and as long as clubs are willing to pay,cool......but when those clubs decide that their bottom line can be maintained or enhanced by play/pay, karaoke,slots,or whatever they may find those positions untenable and their price reduced.
ive seen lots of similar posturing in other lines of work but when it comes down to losing the house the same guys will either find another line of work or work for less......
dumping on the hobbyists and pay/ play crowd will change none of the market forces affecting musicians..........maybe convincing audiences that are willing to drop 200 bucks on stones tickets to instead spread their cash around smaller local live venues might be more productive,but i doubt it
its great that some guys can take the position that they wont get out of bed for less than x amount of dollars ,and as long as clubs are willing to pay,cool......but when those clubs decide that their bottom line can be maintained or enhanced by play/pay, karaoke,slots,or whatever they may find those positions untenable and their price reduced.
ive seen lots of similar posturing in other lines of work but when it comes down to losing the house the same guys will either find another line of work or work for less......
dumping on the hobbyists and pay/ play crowd will change none of the market forces affecting musicians..........maybe convincing audiences that are willing to drop 200 bucks on stones tickets to instead spread their cash around smaller local live venues might be more productive,but i doubt it
Don't take this personally, but shame on you guys
for not using that crowd as a bargaining chip. I'm curious, how did those other band members justify playing for free when the crowd was there to see you and the establishment was clearly making a nice profit from your performance?Don't be so bloody soft!
Yeah, the money is ace, but it aint about that!
I'd rather watch young lads having the time of there life than Fully grown blokes moan cos they aint got paid! to me, that says that the love for it has died for you. get a job with a wage if you want paying!
Yeah, the money is ace, but it aint about that!
I'd rather watch young lads having the time of there life than Fully grown blokes moan cos they aint got paid! to me, that says that the love for it has died for you. get a job with a wage if you want paying!
Don't take this personally, but shame on you guys
Oh, it chapped my hide to no end!!! It was one of the reasons that band broke up. I think I preached a sermon on that gig at practice the following week, I was so angry.
Three of us actually needed the money. The rest didn't care. Every time I booked an actual paying gig for us, they REFUSED TO PLAY IT!!! "Oh, we just want to play around here close to home, and we don't need the money."
Well, speak for yourselves, ladies, and find yourself a new drummer, a new bassist, and a new lead guitarist!!! Us trailer-trash chicks need some bread for our work!
Cherie
