Yeah, and that's one reason that we're seeing a lot of bigger names streaming successfully right now. When this first started I thought maybe my band could do something but, based on what I'm seeing, I don't know if it would have been worth doing. A friend of mine scheduled a live stream a couple of weeks ago and a couple of days later Willie Nelson scheduled one for the same time. So now local bands are competing for attention with many more bigger names than just whoever is playing in town. Money and fame always win.
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is live music dead
- Thread starter Ric5
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- live music
People have gathered around people who’ve cut a groove since the days of cavemen. The primal urge to entertain and as equally be entertained, has survived dinosaurs, ice ages, plague, pestilence and wars.
This will not blight the might of live music one iota.
It’s gonna hit the poopie out of the struggling circuit bands but when the dust settles, it’ll get blown away soon enough.
This will not blight the might of live music one iota.
It’s gonna hit the poopie out of the struggling circuit bands but when the dust settles, it’ll get blown away soon enough.
I agree completely. I was in Austin from junior high through college and spent enough time playing in that scene to draw a comparison. I assume Nashville is on another level yet.
As I recall, the pay at Three Kings Tavern, which does have a nice stage and a game home crowd, is time in a large band greenroom with a cooler full of PBR. Good times.
We did a show at Oriental Theater once. I thought their model was very pure. We took the door and merch, they took food and beverage. There might have been a nominal fee to reserve the night. Obviously that's a junior version of how the touring bands do it at the basketball arena in each town, but I don't see why it can't work for local original bands too. If you accept that you have to draw your own crowd, which every original band does, the split worked well and we even got use of their FOH guy.
That's the ticket. Plenty of PBR and someone occasionally sends a tray of Jameson shots to the band for good measure. I've spent lots of similar quality time at Three Kings, Star Bar, Hi Dive, Walnut Room, Moe's BBQ, and a couple of others in that area that I have mercifully forgotten since. It's a cool scene, you meet the most interesting people, really diverse demographics, just about every slice of life. It's a fun surprise when you actually entertain, connect, and win the hearts and minds of such a diverse crowd. Just not much in the way of coin.
For sure, you play originals and accept the ups and downs of that scene because you're in it for different reasons. And the rewards can be just as great.
You pretty much took the words out of my mouth. There will still be live music if we have to go back to hollow logs and conch shells.People have gathered around people who’ve cut a groove since the days of cavemen. The primal urge to entertain and as equally be entertained, has survived dinosaurs, ice ages, plague, pestilence and wars.
This will not blight the might of live music one iota.
It’s gonna hit the poopie out of the struggling circuit bands but when the dust settles, it’ll get blown away soon enough.
Oh dear, how will those pay-to-play venues ever survive this? I mean, they're on such a knife-edge of profitability already?
/sarcasm
Seriously, I don't know what's going to happen to live music in LA. Bars in general are really going to suffer in the medium-term. When the public gathering bans are lifted and they are permitted to reopen, I suspect a lot of people who used to go out will just stop. Venues will use this excuse to offer lower pay ("we have to get back on our feet") or to require P2P if they didn't before. A lot of venues may follow the lead of breweries and just have trivia nights. One thing's for sure: karaoke with shared mics is probably done for.
/sarcasm
Seriously, I don't know what's going to happen to live music in LA. Bars in general are really going to suffer in the medium-term. When the public gathering bans are lifted and they are permitted to reopen, I suspect a lot of people who used to go out will just stop. Venues will use this excuse to offer lower pay ("we have to get back on our feet") or to require P2P if they didn't before. A lot of venues may follow the lead of breweries and just have trivia nights. One thing's for sure: karaoke with shared mics is probably done for.
Not dead, but not what it used to be either. There are a few factors. There are more avenues for disposable entertainment money, than just music. There's gaming and home theater. The sound that we get at home now is exponentially better than what it used to be. Back in the day of tinny radios, cassette players and "hi-fi"record players, if you wanted good sound, you had to go out and get it live. That's not the case anymore. Then there's the fact that most live music happens in bars, and we now have much stricter DUI laws. It all adds up to less interest in live music.
Mrs.1952 and I quit going out if I wasn't playing a looooong time ago, so that won't change. The 5 or 6 festival/fair type gigs that I had scheduled are all cancelled for the foreseeable future. Can't even play at church, but our worship band got together (with social distance being observed) and recorded a video to put out for our members. Four songs, and one has nearly 500 views (our congregation on a normal Sunday is under 100).
The wave of the future...
The wave of the future...
Spot on, this is going to give everyone a massive desire to celebrate still being alive and able to go out as and when.
Look at all of the big events in history and theres a party to celebrate.
As to long term, the world will be changed, especially live "art". We (Royal We) have survived disco, drink drive laws, smoking bans, some "DJ" bod churning out garbage called dance music.
Live performance has a magic, an atmosphere, an uplifting of spirit. Ive sat through what I know is an OK performance but still get a buzz out of it being, live - real - people making my feet tap.
Yes the world will change but humans like what thry like, are comfortable with same.
All of you keep safe and keep making music.
It won’t be the same.
Just like 911 did for travelling ... there will be new laws regarding sanitation and gatherings.
Just like 911 did for travelling ... there will be new laws regarding sanitation and gatherings.
Like most, I think this is a phase. Once a cure and a vaccine come out, folks will love to get back out and have a beer or cocktail listening to good live music with friends.
Music has changed a LOT since I started performing back in 1966. It was weekends in high school and college, and then toured with a nightclub group playing 5-night a week gigs for 3-years. We typically played 2-weeks at each venue. We did that for 50-weeks a year.This was early 70's and I made a very good living doing that.
After touring, I still played weekends (what we called casual gigs) until 1976 when our house was burglarized and all my gear stolen. Then in 1977, "Saturday Night Fever" came out and DJ's playing Disco started supplanting music by live musicians. The 5-night a week gigs pretty well disappeared and the weekend gigs even became hard to find. Weddings started using DJ's as a default supply of music, but some wedding gigs could still be had. "Disco" overtook everything and we all thought it was a death knell for live music.
Meanwhile concerts of major Artists just skyrocketed along with their ticket pricing. CD's became the medium because they were so quiet between tracks, clear, and consistent in quality. CD's have a signal to noise ratio of 100:1 (100db of signal to 1db of noise), whereas vinyl "high-fidelity" (not K-Tel records) had a 50:1 ratio. And unlike vinyl, the sound quality was consistent throughout. With vinyl, the longer the stamper is used making the record, the more the quality suffers because it wears out. Imports only used stampers half as long as US companies, and that's why they were more expensive and usually better quality. With CD's it's just 1's and 0's and not how discrete the record groove is or how deep the needle tracks in the grooves. So sound quality was definitely a step up.
Live music slowly started making a comeback as we got away from Disco. but it never made it back to where you could really be a touring nightclub group again...at least, not that I know of. Still the music goes on and I was able to use my gig money to upgrade my gear to that professional level once again. And now...there's nothing.
Solo acts and duo's can still do well online. When they get enough followers, they can monetize You Tube, so they are probably going to just skate right along or even improve their income during this time. The good news about You Tube and online music in general is that anyone can give it a try. Many won't be successful, but some will. And there's no A&R guy deciding what you can listen too driven by his or her personal preferences. A lot more music is available now because anyone with a computer, a camera, and some skill can make a You Tube video.
This period really hurts the big acts though. Record contracts were good at getting you recorded and getting airplay, but the huge chunks of money came from the concert tours. Those tours depended upon sold-out stadiums and of course, there are none now.
One of the groups I play with is trying to get together on JamKazam to rehearse together online so that when the time comes, we can pickup where we left off. The other group is just basically marking time. My guess would be that it will start getting better once this pandemic is done and vaccines are the norm. About the time that everyone has been vaccinated, live music will explode again and perhaps even be better than it was for a while before calming down to "pre-pandemic" levels. So I firmly believe it will come back...may be different when it gets here, but I think it will come back.
Music has changed a LOT since I started performing back in 1966. It was weekends in high school and college, and then toured with a nightclub group playing 5-night a week gigs for 3-years. We typically played 2-weeks at each venue. We did that for 50-weeks a year.This was early 70's and I made a very good living doing that.
After touring, I still played weekends (what we called casual gigs) until 1976 when our house was burglarized and all my gear stolen. Then in 1977, "Saturday Night Fever" came out and DJ's playing Disco started supplanting music by live musicians. The 5-night a week gigs pretty well disappeared and the weekend gigs even became hard to find. Weddings started using DJ's as a default supply of music, but some wedding gigs could still be had. "Disco" overtook everything and we all thought it was a death knell for live music.
Meanwhile concerts of major Artists just skyrocketed along with their ticket pricing. CD's became the medium because they were so quiet between tracks, clear, and consistent in quality. CD's have a signal to noise ratio of 100:1 (100db of signal to 1db of noise), whereas vinyl "high-fidelity" (not K-Tel records) had a 50:1 ratio. And unlike vinyl, the sound quality was consistent throughout. With vinyl, the longer the stamper is used making the record, the more the quality suffers because it wears out. Imports only used stampers half as long as US companies, and that's why they were more expensive and usually better quality. With CD's it's just 1's and 0's and not how discrete the record groove is or how deep the needle tracks in the grooves. So sound quality was definitely a step up.
Live music slowly started making a comeback as we got away from Disco. but it never made it back to where you could really be a touring nightclub group again...at least, not that I know of. Still the music goes on and I was able to use my gig money to upgrade my gear to that professional level once again. And now...there's nothing.
Solo acts and duo's can still do well online. When they get enough followers, they can monetize You Tube, so they are probably going to just skate right along or even improve their income during this time. The good news about You Tube and online music in general is that anyone can give it a try. Many won't be successful, but some will. And there's no A&R guy deciding what you can listen too driven by his or her personal preferences. A lot more music is available now because anyone with a computer, a camera, and some skill can make a You Tube video.
This period really hurts the big acts though. Record contracts were good at getting you recorded and getting airplay, but the huge chunks of money came from the concert tours. Those tours depended upon sold-out stadiums and of course, there are none now.
One of the groups I play with is trying to get together on JamKazam to rehearse together online so that when the time comes, we can pickup where we left off. The other group is just basically marking time. My guess would be that it will start getting better once this pandemic is done and vaccines are the norm. About the time that everyone has been vaccinated, live music will explode again and perhaps even be better than it was for a while before calming down to "pre-pandemic" levels. So I firmly believe it will come back...may be different when it gets here, but I think it will come back.
Oh! You must play on 6th street in AustinAfter playing to my cat the past two weeks, I'd pay to play.
I think it will take a while to get back to good but I don't believe live music will die.
I do believe it will change and take time before the crowds are back. I just know as a performer and fan and just not gonna be in a hurry to be part of a large gathering until there is some assurance for safety.
I will just keep on practicing and tb'n.
I do believe it will change and take time before the crowds are back. I just know as a performer and fan and just not gonna be in a hurry to be part of a large gathering until there is some assurance for safety.
I will just keep on practicing and tb'n.
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It was your typical suburban club packed with college age kids and they were loving that tune...for me it was time to leave...
Freebird and AC/DC tunes are tired as well..........
But some here say that original bands have no chance... then I guess that unless your band is well connected, you better play those cover tunes your low music IQ audience wants to hear while they rot their liver, or your band aint playing there any more...and it goes round and round and round... and what I get from that is rock is dead...if you cannot preset original music to anyone out of fear that booties won't be shaking on the dance floor and beer sales wont be as strong as when you play Sweet Home Alabama for the billionth time....
Forget ever expecting to play what inspired you to play unless it sells booze...
Again...typical bar patron.. non musician...doesn't care...wants his FM radio background noise music...
The bar scene is a cesspool.
The people don't want any more original bands because the bands have been whipped into submission by lazy bar owners and their demands for alcohol sales and patrons that don't know and don't give a rat's dingleberry about bands that care about more than alcohol sales and bullcrap top 40 garbage.
