• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Local Live Music Is Dead

#221
Will Kelly said:
I ended up taking a gig playing bass with the US military. Playing bass for Uncle Sam is making me far more money and the benefits are far better than I ever had before. If you are young enough and want to play full time, this may be the only option left to make a real living playing music.
Click to expand...

I auditioned for an army soul/jazz band last year, which i had the skills for but i ended up passing on it because of the time i'd have to devote to it. But man, the benefits were amazing!

As for local live music, it will never die. You may have to work in a store or clean bogs for a living, but if you have the passion and dare I say it, obsession, there's always a gig to get to. There's a really active live local scene here in my home town and a decent crowd of supporters who always show up. We all have day jobs but love music.
 
#222
fingerbun said:
But you need to define what constitutes taking advantage.

Is a bar taking advantage of someone by getting them to play for free, or providing a service?

Is a musician taking advantage of a bar getting them to pay the musician, effectively subsidising their hobby and not necessarily making a profit in the process?

I have faith in supply and demand. I decide what I want to do then I negotiate the best deal I can get in prevailing conditions. If necessary, I might change what I do to get into something with more demand, which is what I think you also did when going from originals to covers.

But I don't think there is any natural or moral law that says art should be profitable, nor do I think the profit motive necessarily or consistently leads to better art. In fact quite the opposite when I look at a lot of what charts.
Click to expand...

If the bar is packed and alcohol sales are up and the owner is happy and making a profit and your band brought in paying patrons that are dancing and being entertained and I am not being paid. Then I am being taken advantage of.
 
#223
fingerbun said:
I have faith in supply and demand. I decide what I want to do then I negotiate the best deal I can get in prevailing conditions. If necessary, I might change what I do to get into something with more demand, which is what I think you also did when going from originals to covers
Click to expand...

Good point, and accurate.
 
#224
bluewine said:
If the bar is packed and alcohol sales are up and the owner is happy and making a profit and your band brought in paying patrons that are dancing and being entertained and I am not being paid. Then I am being taken advantage of.
Click to expand...

My point is simple and not self serving. I really do not like to see musicians being taken advantage of.

Sure, I love performing and I do it for the love and passion I have for it. But club owners don't have to know that.
 
#225
Spaldo said:
I auditioned for an army soul/jazz band last year, which i had the skills for but i ended up passing on it because of the time i'd have to devote to it. But man, the benefits were amazing!

As for local live music, it will never die. You may have to work in a store or clean bogs for a living, but if you have the passion and dare I say it, obsession, there's always a gig to get to. There's a really active live local scene here in my home town and a decent crowd of supporters who always show up. We all have day jobs but love music.
Click to expand...

Gigs like that are rare. I looked at one but passed on it. In my case the police band. The money was ordinary, though better than I could make from clubs I admit, and if I needed to change jobs there was nowhere to go really.
 
#226
WJGreer said:
As a popular form of entertainment, the time of local live music has passed. Society is no longer interested on any sustainable level.
Click to expand...
I don't find that to be the case. Is it as good as it used to be? No. Is it dead? No, its just adjusting. It's not hard to get gigs in my neck of the woods, just hard to get paid a lot to play (unless you build an A-list cover band which has its own special rules that have to be met)
 
#228
plankspanker13 said:
Live music is "dead" to an entire generation, for the most part, because of what they know. We've had a decade and a half of the boy bands and prefab teen poppers, beatbox auto-tuners and noise doctors pumping out pop music that is not "live" in style. It's not conducive to being played live with a high degree of visual entertainment value. It's music built for the moment; the dance; sonic toilet paper. The college crowd has been raised on this crap. At a recent live band karaoke gig on an ASU campus, the "track tunes" took over in the final hour, as the coeds Britneygagadelled out. Poor guitar player had to fake it, and I just tried to learn the songs for next time with my volume pedal down, and ramped it back up for chorus parts that I knew were easy enough. Keys played along at no volume, as well, and drummer played with. It seemed to work quite well, but you could understand that the experience really brought home the feeling of being pushed out that is at the heart of what so many have written, here.
Click to expand...


grand slam post....great stuff man thx
 
#229
I am at the point in my life where I don't try to focus on what is not happening or trying to make it hapen. To me local live music is almost dead in my neck of the woods so I focus on what is alive and enjoy it.
I will continue to play to the people who come out to support live music and original music, I will also go out and support myself. I don't care what other bars are doing... Dj's ,karaoke... that's not my bag.

There is a loyal following in my scene although it is small and we will continue to support our scene and forget the rest..we have to. I played last Saturday to a packed small venue and had a blast and only made $30.00.
I play a really cool live music venue this Weekend that is only a music room, no pinball, tv's, games, pool tables, just a small bar. You go there to play a couple odf sets and they pass the hat for the bands. I will only make $30-40 again but the crowd will be attentive and there to see us play and be there to support the music. I can dig it and enjoy it with no worries.
 
#230
There is a pretty good music scene in my area, Brevard County, Fl. There are alot of venues and alot of bands. You can see and hear live music just about every night and weekend days around here. There is every thing from acoustic single's and duo's to originals bands to cover bands. From there it's pick your poison, do you want classic rock? how 'bout country or maybe folk? What about 80's hair band music or straight up dance music? Wanna hear original music? Or you can go hear bands that play a mix of stuff. I know of 3 different bands of the top of my head that play out Friday, Saturday and Sunday one of them picks up gigs during the week too. Moreover there are more venues adding live music all the time. I can think of a half dozen that opened or started having bands last year around Melbourne alone and 1 more opened in the last couple of weeks.
 
#231
I played Saturday at the "Chase Away the Blues" program at the Tryon Fine Arts Center in Tryon, NC, along with many other local acts (all GREAT bands, including Zataban, The Jim Peterman Quartet, and the Shane Pruitt Band). Many of these guys have played with national acts (Jim Peterman of the Steve Miller band, Franklin Wilke of the Marshall Tucker Band, for instance). I was reminded while watching the bands play just how much is gained by seeing a band play live. These guys are GOOD! All of them. And great guys, too. I talked to Peterman and Wilke for awhile, off and on. The gig was Peterman's idea, so I hear, and it was a big success. But, there's something about the area, the NW area of SC and SW area of NC. Tons of music going on. This gig would've never gotten off the ground in the midlands of SC where I live. Maybe Charleston, but not Columbia. I don't know why some areas are different about what can get accomplished. Anyway, as I listened to Zataban's CD on the way home I was remembering how the guys appeared as I watched them live. It added another dimension to the music. All the facial expressions, the characters, and the different sound. It's good to hear AND SEE live music. So, it's sad to hear of it dying out in some places.

We gotta do something about that.
 
#232
Russell L said:
I played Saturday at the "Chase Away the Blues" program at the Tryon Fine Arts Center in Tryon, NC, along with many other local acts (all GREAT bands, including Zataban, The Jim Peterman Quartet, and the Shane Pruitt Band). Many of these guys have played with national acts (Jim Peterman of the Steve Miller band, Franklin Wilke of the Marshall Tucker Band, for instance). I was reminded while watching the bands play just how much is gained by seeing a band play live. These guys are GOOD! All of them. And great guys, too. I talked to Peterman and Wilke for awhile, off and on. The gig was Peterman's idea, so I hear, and it was a big success. But, there's something about the area, the NW area of SC and SW area of NC. Tons of music going on. This gig would've never gotten off the ground in the midlands of SC where I live. Maybe Charleston, but not Columbia. I don't know why some areas are different about what can get accomplished. Anyway, as I listened to Zataban's CD on the way home I was remembering how the guys appeared as I watched them live. It added another dimension to the music. All the facial expressions, the characters, and the different sound. It's good to hear AND SEE live music. So, it's sad to hear of it dying out in some places.

We gotta do something about that.
Click to expand...

It is good to hear other Tbers that have a good scene. It helps those who don't to keep the faith and maybe times will change. So much of this is demograpics, the local economy, if you in a tourist area, weather etc.
 
#233
I was telling my body about how people are no longer interested in live music or bands

"Dude cuz everyone is lazy and can download it. I love live music.

He loves live music, so I say to him:

When was the last time you saw a live band?

His response:

"You made your point"
 
#234
bassbully said:
It is good to hear other Tbers that have a good scene. It helps those who don't to keep the faith and maybe times will change. So much of this is demograpics, the local economy, if you in a tourist area, weather etc.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have played 6 straight weekends with the new band ( covers blues/ rock) And the bars are always packed.

Understand these are small biker bars, but packed is packed anyway you call it.
 
#237
davidgoldman said:
Live music is dying in part because it does not start untile 10:00. Look around any place with a live band and you will see an older croud. Times have changed and so has your audience. Older people do not want to stay out untile 2 AM.
Click to expand...

I do, I rarely get home from a gig before 3AM.
 
#240
It's not in dead Seattle:

Link Removed

And that's the crowd during the opening band's set. The night had two all original bands with a Waylon Jennings tribute batting clean-up.

(and I was SO PISSED to miss this show with the Swearengens, my other band booked the night first so I played with them instead)
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back