Jason, I think that you are confusing posts from two different people. It was Floyd Eye who made that comment and some of the others you mention in your post, not Fergie Fulton.
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Original bands playing for free: a chronic problem
- Thread starter behemecoytl
- Start date
Jason, I think that you are confusing posts from two different people. It was Floyd Eye who made that comment and some of the others you mention in your post, not Fergie Fulton.
Sure. So short of denying others the opportunities you and I had, what do you suggest we do about it?
love it, and agree 100%.
Well this is the whole point....understanding the local trend for an area and exploiting it. Each town, area, County, State, Country has its own set of problems. So if anyone can understand the problem and find a solution that all involved can afford then business and demand will take care of that.
On the subject of not being paid, any band or artist that does this, if playing on my level playing field makes money from their time. if that time is recording CDs to sell or coming up with merchandise to sell, publicity for the shows or music etc, it all comes down to time, and for me i want paying for it.
For me it is finding a way to market what i do so i can get paid for it. Music is a big wide open market with many complex layers.
At bar level, local law and trading comes into it..some bars just cannot afford to have live music, so it becomes a legislation problem ( here in the UK it was the three in a bar law). Now in the UK with the playing field being un-level towards the bars it is sliding back to music being the way to get customers in.
In the last 5 years or so big national supermarket chains started to sell alcohol aggressively in cut price ways, because they can recover any loss of profit on alcohol sales from other products that are needed. So just now a case of 24 beers is £10., buy 2 for £15 or 2 for £20, mix and match the brands and the drinks (2 beer 1 cider if you want). Sit in your house and drink with your mates,( because of the smoking ban you can smoke and drink and listen to what you want) then go out and finish off the nightwith a couple of beers somewhere and listen to a band or chat up some girls. That is your right and the law supports it.
But the bars are not getting that revenue now, but they still have to pay staff, door staff, licences, bills, rates etc. To cap it off if there is trouble in the bar, the bar owner, his staff, and dorr staff have to deal with it. because it is an incident it goes on their record and if they have to many they can be fined or closed down......but they have not supplied the alcohol, the supermark has. But what can the supermarket not supply....the atmosphere, and that is the way to market live music, the experience of live music. That means getting into schools, youth clubs etc.. and exposing the up and coming customers to it. Teach them that in life you have to pay for things, and if you offer a service you want paying for it.
Like i said it is complicated and very layered, but music involves life, it revolves around life and the message of "use it or lose" will never work because if they are not using it now, then they will not miss it when it slips away.
In all it is about getting people to feel part of something and music is great for that because listening requires little effort, but live music does require effort.
I have just this week had a contract through from a festival that wants 10% of merchandising sales, they want proof of Public Liability Insurance, and PAT certificates for all our equipment we intend to plug into their power supply...lets say that show will not be happening under those conditions.
Level playing fields are hard to find, especially when i pay my tax bills ontop of all the other things to budget.
But i do it and i do it well, but i just wish is was getting easier rather than harder LOL,...maybe its just old age catching up and it was always this hard.
Yeah come on Jason, stop putting word in my mouth.. Ardant Capitolist........i'm a Hippy materialist... i own and have collected lots of big expensive stuff through the years, but i'm just a little hazy about exactly where it all is. LOL
Too bad that bars are not required to pay their bands. If they were I bet alot of you play for free bands would be unable to get a gig.
If bars were required to pay their bands the result would be less bands playing and fewer places, and less live music. A live music scene is dynamic and grows it self after a certain size. "Original music for pay" bands NEED a scene with cover bands and other original music bands, some playing for free and some playing for pay, in order for the scene to have sufficient dynamism. Reduce it and it'll likely sputter out all together. Voila, the few places that still have live music will hang on to their "money makers" (ie: cover bands) and if you aren't the house band, you probably won't get in until they decide to quit.
Regarding the "everyone deserves their fair pay" mindset, I look at a lot of the smaller (town green level) festival type shows that must pay union scale. The venues has a certain budget for music. Because each musician MUST be paid a certain amount, the venue is motivated to bringing in smaller bands to keep their costs down while filling all the time slots. And then they realize that filling an hour on the stage is even cheaper with a solitary musician or a duo. This is great for the 1, 2, and 3 piece bands that win this lottery, not so good for the larger bands.
Learn the law of unintended consequences or suffer it's penalties.
Ardent capitalist means ultra-free market to me. Ultra-free market means no restrictions on labor movement.
This sounds like "I like the free market, as long as I'm free and the restrictions on the market are in my benefit"
If there are tons and tons of people who can do it, such that one unit is basically equivalent to another - it's fungible.
There are lots of things nowadays which are fungible that weren't in the past. Lots of formerly "skilled labor" that no longer requires skills.
Intel spent years inventing DRAM. They completely got out of the business two years after they invented the product - because it became a fungible commodity and they couldn't make money selling it anymore.
I copied and pasted this from a response, I believe the original has been taken down. Plenty of complaint responses remain.
Interested what people on TB would say about this. I see the same debate happening on CL.
"""""REHEARSAL SPACE with FREE FOOD & DRINKS!
AVAILABLE ONE NIGHT ONLY -- June 25, 2011
We have a 175 square foot stage in a unique, beautiful
and bug-free outdoor setting.
We also have a laid back, respectful and appreciative
audience of 100 to 200 music lovers, many with solid
connections to the movie-making and arts community
on the east coast (so this potentially a great showcase
opportunity!)
AND WE HAVE GREAT FOOD: Fresh-grilled burgers,
beer, wine and much more.
It's a great opportunity to kick back & try out you new stuff
on a very hip and supportive crowd. This is our 18th year,
and every band who has played here before loved it!
It's a win / win gig -- for you and for us!
AND IT'S ALL FREE TO THE RIGHT BAND (or bands)
We are open to a wide range of music, leaning toward an
alternative-jazz-rock-blues-reggae-fusion sort of vibe, on
the mellow end of the head-banging spectrum. Could
this be you?
If interested and available, please reply here . . . soon!""""""""""""
Interested what people on TB would say about this. I see the same debate happening on CL.
"""""REHEARSAL SPACE with FREE FOOD & DRINKS!
AVAILABLE ONE NIGHT ONLY -- June 25, 2011
We have a 175 square foot stage in a unique, beautiful
and bug-free outdoor setting.
We also have a laid back, respectful and appreciative
audience of 100 to 200 music lovers, many with solid
connections to the movie-making and arts community
on the east coast (so this potentially a great showcase
opportunity!)
AND WE HAVE GREAT FOOD: Fresh-grilled burgers,
beer, wine and much more.
It's a great opportunity to kick back & try out you new stuff
on a very hip and supportive crowd. This is our 18th year,
and every band who has played here before loved it!
It's a win / win gig -- for you and for us!
AND IT'S ALL FREE TO THE RIGHT BAND (or bands)
We are open to a wide range of music, leaning toward an
alternative-jazz-rock-blues-reggae-fusion sort of vibe, on
the mellow end of the head-banging spectrum. Could
this be you?
If interested and available, please reply here . . . soon!""""""""""""
Seen places like this all around. Like some have said here on TB you can die from exposure.
win/win is when a client (venue owner or other music customer) pays a fair price for a good service - your band giving a good performance, acting professionally, interacting pleasantly with customers, etc. I feel the same way when I pay a fair price for a good product or service - win/win.
what this club is talking about is a something-for-nothing, not a win-win. sadly, that's becoming all too common.
I see nothing wrong with the CL post. Bands are always "testing the waters" trying to get a higher fee, why shouldn't venue owners likewise test the waters. And, if they end up with a a Jimmy Buffet cover dude and some "looking for some stage time" bands, what's the harm? I think its safe to assume that if they got no responses they would have the house sound going instead and would still have a deck full of customers.
The "right band" doesn't even have to pay to entertain the "100 to 200 music lovers". What an awesome opportunity!
Yeah, as you can imagine there are plenty of un-happy posts on CL from this post. What I don't understand is why they have to advertise for bands. They should have a long list of bands THEY would want to play, and not have to scrap the barrel to see what they find?
I don't see anything wrong with the CL ad at all. If your band doesn't want to play for free, then obviously that it fine. But it is equally fine if another band, for whatever reason -- fun, exposure, those "fresh-grilled burgers" -- wants to do it.
Frankly, for many people -- myself included, these days -- the difference between playing for free or playing for a couple hundred bucks split between four or five guys is pretty nominal. I make my money in other ways. I don't put in the time and effort to do a gig because of that big $40 pay day, I do it because it's fun. I'd much rather do a fun gig for free than a crappy gig for some immaterial (to me) amount of money.
And, by the way, I've put in my time -- I've been playing for nearly 30 years, in both pro and non-pro situations. I've worked hard and reached a point in my life where I do music for enjoyment and don't have to worry about whether the bar is gonna give us two drink tickets each or if I'm gonna be able to recoup my gas money. I certainly don't feel any guilt about "stealing" anyone's gigs just b/c I choose to do something for fun that you want to get paid for.
Frankly, for many people -- myself included, these days -- the difference between playing for free or playing for a couple hundred bucks split between four or five guys is pretty nominal. I make my money in other ways. I don't put in the time and effort to do a gig because of that big $40 pay day, I do it because it's fun. I'd much rather do a fun gig for free than a crappy gig for some immaterial (to me) amount of money.
And, by the way, I've put in my time -- I've been playing for nearly 30 years, in both pro and non-pro situations. I've worked hard and reached a point in my life where I do music for enjoyment and don't have to worry about whether the bar is gonna give us two drink tickets each or if I'm gonna be able to recoup my gas money. I certainly don't feel any guilt about "stealing" anyone's gigs just b/c I choose to do something for fun that you want to get paid for.
All this proves is guy number 3 has been sniffing too many paint fumes.If he has a decent product he should charge for it because his time and supplies are not free.
LMAO! Let's take this analogy a step further shall we...
John Smith charges people money to have guy number 3 work on their cars. Guy #3 gets none of the $$ but he's happy as a pig in you-know-what because he loves what he's doing so much he doesn't care that John Smith is taking advantage of him. Truly the chimpanzee area of the brain at work!
It's all those stoopid guys whose user names begin with "f". Too confusing. Ban 'em!!!!!
I doubt they are doing this to get their favourite bands in.
I'm with you on fun over money, and I have no trouble with startup bands playing free, but I don't like dishonest ads, which I think that is. It just reads like a shonky real estate guy wrote it.
Still, I probably learned to sense that because I fell for that sort of crap a few times when I was younger.
I don't put that ad in the same class as "Small coffee shop offers place for aspiring artist to play. No money but free food and drinks". Which is a common phenomenon round here, and in my view a useful one for startups, provided there's no hoke about "This is your big break...tomorrow you'l be a megastar because you did this".
I'm totally with you on any kind of dishonesty or preying on young kids' delusions about "making it big" (as in, those pay to play scams). I don't really get that vibe from this ad, but that's a matter on which reasonable people could disagree.
My point is just that, assuming the terms are clear and up front, it's up to any particular band whether they want to do the gig on those terms or not, and it's not cool for others with different motivations to accuse them of "stealing" gigs.
