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Slightly different........

#102
Ox Boris said:
Only if they're being taken advantage of by a club owner. In our case, it was beneficial for our new band.
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I think a band playing a club for free is being taken advantage of. I fail to understand why a club owner would bother to have live music if he wasn't benefiting from it.

A local bar is hosting open mike/jam sessions on Thursday nights. From what I understand though it's not a jam where you bring your instrument and play with others, it's for bands that want to play live (for free of course). If true, this is kind of sleazy.
 
#105
No. We prefer not to spend money on that and to, instead, spend our time doing what we'd be doing at practice anyway, in the form of a live audition for the bar owner.
It worked beautifully.
Twice.

It seems the only credible answer is that I happened to come across the only two non-arsehole bar owners on the planet.
Twice.
In a row.
 
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#106
Bass Viking said:
I think a band playing a club for free is being taken advantage of. I fail to understand why a club owner would bother to have live music if he wasn't benefiting from it.

A local bar is hosting open mike/jam sessions on Thursday nights. From what I understand though it's not a jam where you bring your instrument and play with others, it's for bands that want to play live (for free of course). If true, this is kind of sleazy.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with it. From my experience, most of these open mics are on slow nights when there's not much of a crowd otherwise. It's not on Saturday nights or anything. Practically everyone there is a musician waiting their turn to play. So the money being made is the musicians themselves buying drinks. In effect, "open mic" is "musicians' hangout night." So it's not as though the musicians are playing for free and bringing in a crowd but not getting paid for it - they ARE the crowd. Generally backline, drum kit and PA are provided so all you have to schlep is your instrument, and you only play three or four songs, you're not having to entertain a crowd all night. Often there's a host band and they ARE getting paid and anyone who shows up solo basically sits in with them. That's the norm around here. I wouldn't expect to get paid to just show up with my bass, plug in and play three songs. Nothing sleazy about it. And they're good for networking - my first gigging band started when the singer and guitarist met on the open mic circuit.

There are all kinds of different venues when it comes to booking. Some will just book you because they know you personally. Some want a press kit (not many anymore, as far as I can tell). Some only go through an agent. Some want to see your website and some demo tracks or video. Some use open mic night for an audition process to see if you're any good. Some PRETEND to use open mic night as an audition to get you to show up and buy drinks. There's no one fixed rule, and you just have to figure out how to work each venue.
 
#107
Interesting thread, with the usual TB all-over-the-map responses..
The OP missed adding this part to his first post
Lowness said:
We are an originals band. Whatever opportunity I get, I will leverage to: -- - iron-out performance kinks
- develop a live demo.
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Great.. being originals, you have to do whatever you need to to get your music out there.

Ox Boris said:
It seems the only credible answer is that I happened to come across the only two non-arsehole bar owners on the planet.
Twice.
In a row.
Click to expand...
You might have been lucky.. but if you band is a "bar/club" covers band I equate your approach to the owner like this.

BL goes into a bar to get a gig.. owner says sure, and if we like what you do and how you sound we can talk about paying you next time!
BL says, what if we bring 30 of our friends out to your establishment, eat your food and drink your beer and if we like it, we can talk about paying you next time?

Bar/clubs are in business to make money.. if they run bands regularly, your band is an expense and no band should play for free as it sets expectations. If the 2 venues you approached do NOT generally run bands.. then cool.. good job at getting your foot in door.
 
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#108
hrodbert696 said:
I don't have a problem with it. From my experience, most of these open mics are on slow nights when there's not much of a crowd otherwise. It's not on Saturday nights or anything. Practically everyone there is a musician waiting their turn to play. So the money being made is the musicians themselves buying drinks. In effect, "open mic" is "musicians' hangout night." So it's not as though the musicians are playing for free and bringing in a crowd but not getting paid for it - they ARE the crowd. Generally backline, drum kit and PA are provided so all you have to schlep is your instrument, and you only play three or four songs, you're not having to entertain a crowd all night. Often there's a host band and they ARE getting paid and anyone who shows up solo basically sits in with them. That's the norm around here. I wouldn't expect to get paid to just show up with my bass, plug in and play three songs. Nothing sleazy about it. And they're good for networking - my first gigging band started when the singer and guitarist met on the open mic circuit.
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Just to clarify, I'm not opposed to open mikes. But at this particular venue it's actual bands playing. I couldn't just walk up with my bass and ask to sit in with them.

You're right, the musicians are the crowd. But I've been to a couple of places where the audience size did increase on jam night.
 
#110
s0c9 said:
Interesting thread, with the usual TB all-over-the-map responses..
The OP missed adding this part to his first post
Great.. being originals, you have to do whatever you need to to get your music out there.

You might have been lucky.. but if you band is a "bar/club" covers band I equate your approach to the owner like this.

BL goes into a bar to get a gig.. owner says sure, and if we like what you do and how you sound we can talk about paying you next time!
BL says, what if we bring 30 of our friends out to your establishment, eat your food and drink your beer and if we like it, we can talk about paying you next time?

Bar/clubs are in business to make money.. if they run bands regularly, your band is an expense and no band should play for free as it sets expectations. If the 2 venues you approached do NOT generally run bands.. then cool.. good job at getting your foot in door.
Click to expand...
Effin' stroll on and shave a goat! Why must you insist on a mercenary bar owner and a band simultaneously sheep-like and evil to others? Was I not clear in what happened? Both venues generally run bands, I'm sure I mentioned that in the first sentence of my original post. Seems you cannot feel better unless a scenario which doesn't conform to your world view, is embellished or changed or a caveat added. Well, tough. You're going to have to walk the Earth knowing that what you insist upon, didn't happen, quite the opposite in fact.

Let me tell it again, as simply as possible: I told the owner of a bar we'd do two gigs for free for her to get a look at us. From that we got a well-paid regular gig. This happened twice. Nobody died.
 
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#111
Ox Boris said:
Effin' stroll on and shave a goat! Why must you insist on a mercenary bar owner and a band simultaneously sheep-like and evil to others? Was I not clear in what happened? Both venues generally run bands, I'm sure I mentioned that in the first sentence of my original post. Seems you cannot feel better unless a scenario which doesn't conform to your world view, is embellished or changed or a caveat added. Well, tough. You're going to have to walk the Earth knowing that what you insist upon, didn't happen, quite the opposite in fact.

Let me tell it again, as simply as possible: I told the owner of a bar we'd do two gigs for free for her to get a look at us. From that we got a well-paid regular gig. This happened twice. Nobody died.
Click to expand...
Oh the irony... ;)
 
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