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Original bands playing for free: a chronic problem
- Thread starter behemecoytl
- Start date
Fools on Stools. Great band name. BTW, I'm in one of those trios. Sometimes we play for free, sometimes we don't. I would never be in a band that uses a sequencer. Right now, My band has a synth guitar player, and it's cool to have those saxes in the James Brown tunes. That's as close as we'll get, though.
Really? So you'll show up and what? Let's be specific. Beat them up so they are afraid to play free again? Or threaten and intimidate them, maybe bust up their gear, for the same effect? What's that say about your confidence in your musical abilities (or your character)? I'll answer that one - not much.
Let's face it - bands that play for free don't bring in much of a crowd. If they did (consistently), they would be charging. So they are playing for experience, or to try out material, or for the fun of playing, but the venue owner isn't getting any more benefit then running the house sound system. So if the band can't bring in people to buy dinner / drink booze / otherwise spend money at his establishment, why would the venue owner want to be paying them.
I'm not opposed to playing a gig or two for free to show the venue that we can bring in a money spending crowd. And I happily do benefit type gigs free too. But frankly, I enjoy playing, and I play open mics all the time for free. The house band gets paid for those but the walk in musicians don't. In your mind should the house band beat up the walk ins in this case?
My feeling is, if your "paid" band is better than the "play for free" competition at bringing in the crowds, you'll get those paying gigs. If you aren't, you don't deserve to be getting those gigs. But you need to prove it to the house that you can, and that means playing for free the first time or two or doing a creative contract ("we'll take 10% of the bar tab after you've cleared $xxx") until you build a solid reputation as a money making resource.
This has to be THE single most immature post I've yet to read on this forum, and that's saying quite a lot.
So what, you're gonna show up after the gig and kick my ass? Threaten and try to intimidate me into not playing for free again? I guarantee you neither one of things are going to happen.
Grow up and be careful what you ask for too. Someday you'll try to threaten or intimidate the wrong person.
For most of us, music is a dream. Even those of us who get paid for it.
My wife followed me and supported me through my music career, and after decades of encouragement she came out of the shadow of my music, took up the ukulele, and joins with a bunch of others mostly grandparent age to play tunes in local pubs couple of times a month, fulfilling a dream and bringing pleasure to those around them.
And you want to take all that away so you can get gas money. You have threatened to meet my wife and her group in the carpark if they do this in your town.
So, here you go. Here's my wife's group, and this gig was a freebie:
Can you compete with this?
P.S. I play one of the same rooms my wife's uke group also does, and we just put our price up. They are no threat to musicians who know what they are doing.
You make a good point, and I agree for the most part. However, that doesn't just solve the whole issue.
Without going into too much detail, I agree that bands should try to better themselves and work harder, and be able to give something worth having. But, here is where my unpopular opinion starts. We can't just dismiss responsibility from business owners and attribute it to "oh, that's the way business works." Business owners expecting more and more for less and less is a real problem. Until our society recognizes that, we'll continue to be in deep ****. Period. The problem is only going to get worse if that attitude keeps perpetuating, even if lots of bands step up and become amazing. And think, if every band became better, it would still be a competition and we'd be in the same situation, since there is a surplus of bands and not enough venues/business owners (a large portion of which have really crappy attitudes).
Unfortunately most people in business are too short-sighted to realize that the more they pinch their pennies and try to maximize/capitalize at the expense of their laborers, the more it's going to destroy everything, including them eventually.
But hey, how's that for a choice. Humans having better priorities. Meh.
What does the bar owner's responsibility have to do with anything?
Forgive me for being rude but this thread is a full throttle pity party.
Maybe the bar owner picks his nose and wipes it on the original studio masters of The Beatles White Album. Who $#@%ing cares? That's not going to get you a paying gig!
They sell alcohol for profit and will tolerate live music so long as it's dirt cheap and doesn't interfere with selling alcohol for profit. I like to remember these two simple facts:
1) If the BEST thing your band has to offer is "not interfering with selling alcohol" then you better be dirt cheap. You have next to nothing to offer. (Literally, because the only thing worse would be interfering with drink sales, which means interfering with business, which gets you fired nice and fast.)
2) When booking your band AUTOMATICALLY means that the bar will sell MUCH MORE alcohol, then the band can start charging more for showing up. Now you have something to offer a bar owner (because "really great music, dude" is worth nothing to a bar owner, who profits by selling alcohol).
You can line up every last person on the internet to disagree with me, but next weekend, bands that cannot draw will be paid nothing or next to nothing, and bands that draw will be paid more. All musicians will still be broke, film at eleven.
Oooooooooo! SCARY!
He's going to poke you in the eye with a sharp stick. Beware.
I can think of 2 reasons a band might play for free on a regular basis.
First, they make a good living outside music and being in a band is a hobby, so it's for personal satisfaction, not money. If they earn a little now and again from music, that's fine, but being paid is not a deal breaker. I know several guys who do this (myself included these days), and they can smoke a lot of the goofs who think they are God's gift to music.
Second, they suck too bad to get any work if they try to charge.
I'm sure there are other reasons, but the above are the two most common from what I've seen.
That said, just because you play original tunes and can't get paid does not automatically mean you suck, it could well mean not enough folks "get" the original voice/message you bring, or your delivery of said message is too lame or too outside to attract a decent sized following. Look at Herman Blount and how long it took for enough folks to finally "get" his unique style before he became an established force in music. Even with his well earned rep as the real musical deal, more folks than not will scratch their head and get that deer in the headlights look if you spin them up some Sun Ra, so it took Mr. Blount much longer to arrive than a certain young, energetic kid from Gary who was blessed with the perfect combination of all things the unwashed masses crave in the music they listen to. Or maybe you just need to set your instrument on fire more often if you have not been blessed with a freakishly long tongue.
Either way, if your goal is to make a living playing and you don't have monster chops, the ability to write clever, hooky songs, a stage shtick with mass appeal, or a day job which supports you as you forge ahead with your dreams of making the big time in music, embrace the horror and accept that it's cover bands for you, or perhaps something in the biz besides actual live performance.
The cream always rises to the top. If you are part of something that is not doing so, it's not the bar owners, the fans, or the biz doing you dirty, it's your lack of appeal to those who cause the cream to rise.
First, they make a good living outside music and being in a band is a hobby, so it's for personal satisfaction, not money. If they earn a little now and again from music, that's fine, but being paid is not a deal breaker. I know several guys who do this (myself included these days), and they can smoke a lot of the goofs who think they are God's gift to music.
Second, they suck too bad to get any work if they try to charge.
I'm sure there are other reasons, but the above are the two most common from what I've seen.
That said, just because you play original tunes and can't get paid does not automatically mean you suck, it could well mean not enough folks "get" the original voice/message you bring, or your delivery of said message is too lame or too outside to attract a decent sized following. Look at Herman Blount and how long it took for enough folks to finally "get" his unique style before he became an established force in music. Even with his well earned rep as the real musical deal, more folks than not will scratch their head and get that deer in the headlights look if you spin them up some Sun Ra, so it took Mr. Blount much longer to arrive than a certain young, energetic kid from Gary who was blessed with the perfect combination of all things the unwashed masses crave in the music they listen to. Or maybe you just need to set your instrument on fire more often if you have not been blessed with a freakishly long tongue.
Either way, if your goal is to make a living playing and you don't have monster chops, the ability to write clever, hooky songs, a stage shtick with mass appeal, or a day job which supports you as you forge ahead with your dreams of making the big time in music, embrace the horror and accept that it's cover bands for you, or perhaps something in the biz besides actual live performance.
The cream always rises to the top. If you are part of something that is not doing so, it's not the bar owners, the fans, or the biz doing you dirty, it's your lack of appeal to those who cause the cream to rise.
In short...it is business. Why give you product or services for free?
You have the option to move and take your business where you feel it can make profit...a bar/venue cannot, it is fixed.
In business you have to make you product/services desirable.
So you undercut/undermine the bar/venue or take your business else where.
Bands tour, bands record, bands merchandise, if you cannot do this then making money is not your option, so the bar/venue can/will exploit this. Sorry to sound harsh but the situation is one created by those weekend warriors that don't need to earn a wage and is exploted by bars/venues on those that do need to earn a wage.
Well there is a third reason, though you may see it as wrapped up in the other two. And that is you have a product that is artistically or altruistically satisfying, but either it's not commercially viable or you chose not to exploit it's commercial viability.
My 20 piece is something like that. No way is a 20 piece economically viable. Too big a wage bill. But it's fun to sit in the middle of that many horns, and I find it rewarding to play to that audience.
To be honest, I'm over drunks in pubs and happy to play some more civilised stuff.
I try very hard NOT to make it a business. I still make a little from it, but I choose gigs for fun, then worry about the money.
Google made almost $30 billion dollars last year. I've never been billed for using their stuff.
Come on, be serious. Firstly, do you need to be fulltime (and therefore earn a wage) or do you want to be fulltime? There are probably some who need this, but for most it's a choice.
Secondly when I was fulltime it was a very different thing from being a weekend warrior. We worked something like a 35-45 hour week as a band between rehearsals and gigs, plus our own practice time, songwriting time, extra casual gigs, and travel time when playing out of town. No way can I do that as a part timer, and it shows. My playing is not as tight, and the bands I play with are not as tight. The product is less original.
If you are fulltime and prepared to work, you can play at a higher standard than I can achieve, accept gigs that I can't do, and create a product much better than I did, if you have the commitment and the talent. And if you don't, why are you fulltime?
Great. Find a business model where advertisers will pay you huge sums to play in bars without charging the bar or its patrons, and everyone's problems will be solved. Until then, that's not a very useful comparison.
his point was that you can sometimes give part of your products for free and make money on another.
Like some band, that use the shows as an advert and make money selling cd's, t-shirts, etc...
I think that summs it up quite nicely
Jaysus. Chill out people. It was tongue in cheek.
The fact remains though that bands who go around screwing over all the other bands in town are known and recognized by all those bands and believe me, they ain't making any friends. Almost as important as a good relationship with club owners, is a good relationship with all the other bands. My band was just added to the bill for a bike rally on the June 25th because the guys in another band we know got us in.
The fact remains though that bands who go around screwing over all the other bands in town are known and recognized by all those bands and believe me, they ain't making any friends. Almost as important as a good relationship with club owners, is a good relationship with all the other bands. My band was just added to the bill for a bike rally on the June 25th because the guys in another band we know got us in.
