What is your job?

[pglaser01]

Well, maybe it's that back in the day people even liked bad ones. I remember before I was ever a bass player or even in a band, I was just trying out some Karaoke. One of the songs I did was "born to be wild". Then one day I walked past a bar and the band was doing "born to be wild". I remember thinking, "Sheesh, if that's all it takes to be a lead singer in a band, I could blow that guy away. This was around 1996. It was the first time I even bothered to notice that there are a lot of bad bands out there.

But back then, there was a lot more demand than there is today. Then again, maybe I'm comparing my Kentucky experience today with my Seattle experience. In seattle, theres seemed to be a lot of bad "originals" band. For every modest mouse or Nirvana, there were a couple dozen bands that were simply not worth your time.

There is a documentary about it called "will play for beer". It's free on amazon prime right now.

Where in central KY? Lexington???? I can’t say I’ve seen many non-country music venues in my time around those parts

 

[Old P Bass Guy]

I’m 67, playing over 50 years. Our job as a rehearsed band is to bring in and entertain enough people to pay a cover and to eat and drink alcohol or sodas so the club can pay us and make money on top of that.
If the numbers are consistently down they replace you.
Occasionally I do benefits for free, too. But, at this point in my life it’s not worth it to drag out myself and gear “for exposure.”
Just my two cents. Now, get off my lawn.

You old coot! You need to start thinking like an Artist Melinial..

 

[dlargent]

Here is the way I see it-

When a venue hires a band, they are looking to end up with more money that if they didn’t have a band, either on a specific night or on average.

My job as a musician is to figure out what I can enjoy doing on stage (musically and otherwise) which will help realize the venue’s goal, and perpetuate my gig.

So I don’t take a gig that will require me to do something I won’t enjoy.

 

[Old P Bass Guy]

Here is the way I see it-

When a venue hires a band, they are looking to end up with more money that if they didn’t have a band, either on a specific night or on average.

My job as a musician is to figure out what I can enjoy doing on stage (musically and otherwise) which will help realize the venue’s goal, and perpetuate my gig.

So I don’t take a gig that will require me to do something I won’t enjoy.

As much as we want to be independent musicians we are "shackled " together with club owners and have a shared interest in putting butts in the chairs. We need each other to survive. We need to find diffrent outlets to satisfy our creative desires. E.G. Jazz labs, open mic nights etc. Etc.

 

[dlargent]

As much as we want to be independent musicians we are "shackled " together with club owners and have a shared interest in putting butts in the chairs. We need each other to survive. We need to find diffrent outlets to satisfy our creative desires. E.G. Jazz labs, open mic nights etc. Etc.

I love it! There are certainly ways to earn money playing without dealing with club owners- perform live on Concert Window, throw a musical house party, rent a space and organize your own music festival.

Or perhaps challenge yourself to prolifically produce live videos, work diligently to find an audience, and then monetize them on YouTube. You could do this without spending a dime.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

My day job is very simple in concept: Make 3 groups of people happy/satisfied: My boss, my customers, my staff that report to me.
My band job is also very simple in concept: Make 3 groups of people happy/satisfied: The venue, the people who came to see the band, and my band mates.

What it takes to accomplish these jobs can vary dramatically in a band based upon venue, fanbase, and band mates, but the overall concept is the same. Keep people happy and satisfied, more money will come your way. If you focus on you vs. what your job is; success will likely be challenging to achieve.

Gold star. You don't need to be a genius. If one of the things you're in this for is to make some money, all you need to do is put your ego in your pocket and execute. I don't want anyone to tell me I'm a good bass player. I want them to tell me they had a really good time.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

I'm talking as a band. Make people dance? Sell beer? Entertain? I've watch many posts about making people dance. But I remember the old days when you had to sell beer. There were so many crappy sounding bands out there but the ones that got the gigs sold beer.

Right now our drummer turns down free drinks from drunk patrons. Our guitar player turns down tequila shots. Unheard of in the old days. You don't have to drink it, but you should damn well accept it! In fact we used to encourage it by constantly holding up empty bottles or telling people that we would like to dispel the rumors that the band doesn't drink. Or holding up a bottle and yelling cheers every other song, etc.

There's the story about the bar owner who doesn't understand why sales are down. "I've got the best dance band in town, the dance floor is full all night long but my beer sales haven't gone up". Well if they are on the dance floor all night they aren't drinking. Plus their beer is getting warm so when they do get a chance to drink they blame the bar for warm beer. I could go on and on about this, but back to the original question...

My job is to interact with stupid people and not kill them.

Doing both of those much better..............now. I might have the hang of it.

There is always the chance I might be the stupid one, but again so far, I'm not dead yet.

 

[hintz]

My job and any groups job collectively has and continues to vary depending on the gig and if you're a professional musician you have to wear many hats.

For the last 8 years my "job" as an Army musician has been playing high schools and other community events to aid recruiters, other times its dining outs playing jazz("music to be ignored by" as i say or morale boost by playing a companies get together, other times its parades or ceremonies and I play percussion. In a deployed environment it's all about those morale boost gigs playing at forward operating bases....in the the last 8 years I haven't had to worry about selling drinks or tickets.

Before that I did originals where you promote, get a draw and kick ass, hopefully you'll break even! LOL. We got a steady stream of gigs because we were awesome and people dug it.

In one of the many variety bands I was in we played corporate events, weddings, outdoor festivals and "bar season"(winter)...only the last was encouraging alcohol sales, the rest were to be entertaining (only the guitarist would drink, it was a high energy gig)

Before my current gig I played in an awesome tribute band that paid really well (my only source of income for 6 months) and we didn't have to sell drinks, our collective "job" with that gig was to help people sorta relive their youth and have fun.

When I say "sell drinks" I mean even mention "drinks" over the microphone or say "remember to tip", or "the more you drink, the better we sound".... Only one group I was in would do this during our "bar season". I always saw the collective job as entertainment and my individual job to groove with the drummer.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

If someone hates playing popular tunes, hates Mustang Sally, gets no pleasure out of people in the audience having fun and dancing, then no one is twisting their arm saying they have to do it or they're inferior if they don't. If you want to play for your own satisfaction, your sense of personal creativity or whatever, then go for it. That's great. But some of us DO like entertaining, we DO like the crowd response, we DO value the opportunity to get in front of a crowd and going over. And if you do value those things, then you also have to recognize, especially in the present environment, that opportunities are scarce and getting scarcer and competition is fierce for them. If you don't entertain, if you don't deliver for the venue where the crowd is, you won't get the opportunity to play ANYTHING at that venue for that crowd. That's not a "milder form of prostitution," that's treating people who want to listen to you like THEIR experience counts for something and you're not going to crap on them.

There ya go. I had a go at playing my own compositions and those by others that I personally loved, and got $5 for playing in front of 6 people. Nice band, but very few people were interested in my quirky tastes, and pretty soon I wasn't, either. I learned something about myself: Playing music that made other people happy was much more satisfying that playing music that just made me happy. Everybody's got a thing, but some don't know how to handle it.

 

[Charlzm]

I'm talking as a band. Make people dance? Sell beer? Entertain? I've watch many posts about making people dance. But I remember the old days when you had to sell beer. There were so many crappy sounding bands out there but the ones that got the gigs sold beer.

Right now our drummer turns down free drinks from drunk patrons. Our guitar player turns down tequila shots. Unheard of in the old days. You don't have to drink it, but you should damn well accept it! In fact we used to encourage it by constantly holding up empty bottles or telling people that we would like to dispel the rumors that the band doesn't drink. Or holding up a bottle and yelling cheers every other song, etc.

There's the story about the bar owner who doesn't understand why sales are down. "I've got the best dance band in town, the dance floor is full all night long but my beer sales haven't gone up". Well if they are on the dance floor all night they aren't drinking. Plus their beer is getting warm so when they do get a chance to drink they blame the bar for warm beer. I could go on and on about this, but back to the original question...

As a band? Be well-rehearsed, have unique songs and perform with sincerity. People should be glad they made the effort to come out and see you (and possibly bought tickets/paid a cover, bought drinks, fought traffic, paid for parking, passed up any other things they could have done, etc...).

 

[4001]

So, have you got any realistic plan on how to make money on your music?

I don't write music and never was in it for the money.

 

[juancaminos]

No offense, but your entire post is about beer sales, tequila shots, drunkenness, drink temperatures... that’s cool if that’s what your whole concept of music revolves around, but I think there is more to being a bassist than chugging shooters and breathing beer farts all night. YMMV, of course. JMO.

My post is about music and booze because I am driving it that way. Yeah there are so many other reasons we play music and hopefully those reasons are more important to all of us than selling booze. But I am only trying to deep dive into the booze side of things to see how others deal with it. My day job is in aerospace, more specifically machines of war. But I don't promote killing. However I get to work overtime when things get bad between our country and others. I don't put up the pom poms with news of war but I do vote accordingly. Its a big part of our economy.

 

[DavC]

have fun .... make quality music ... entertain .!

if you suck , please stay home so the rest of us can get paid to have fun .. !

 

[4001]

But I am only trying to deep dive into the booze side of things to see how others deal with it.

I hate drunks.

 

[EdO.]

Yeah, I'd rather be in a REAL band.

Which you define as? If not a band playing semi regularly (entry level for the majority being bar level bands) then where and how often does your REAL band play?

 

[Spectrum]

My job is to drive the band's gear around in my truck.

My band's job is to play good music and not suck at it.

All that business about the band selling beer vs. the tavern selling beer isn't something I worry too much about. We are an originals band, not a cover band, so we don't play the usual 4 hour bar gigs anyway. I have no interest in playing in a cover band. I have a good-paying day job and I like it, so I play only music I like.

 

[bass.slinger]

I play in a cover band on the bar circuit and view that band’s job as getting people into the bar and keeping them there by entertaining them. People dancing will get thirsty and get something to drink (whether alcohol, soda, etc.). They will stay longer and get food, etc.

As for promoting drinks, other than drawing attention to the bartender by saying how awesome they are between songs, how would you do it? I have yet to meet an audience that cares if the band is drinking or not - they care that they like the music. I don’t drink during the gig and often tell people that want to buy the band a drink that I am good and thank you (and have yet to have someone get upset by this). You do have people that will just bring a round of drinks up to the band and again I say thank you and may have a sip or two. Plus, having the band drink a lot does not make for a good performance - people will not pay a cover and stay to see the singer get falling down drunk.

The final thing is time spent asking the audience to buy you a drink or talking about a drink you’re having is time spent not playing.

 

[StraffordMike]

When "reality" conflicts with my ethics - I'm out.

First, find a job with no relationship to music.
For one you will need a way to support yourself. Barring a trust fund or something, we all gotta make a living, and as you so adeptly observed, musical schlock sells to people too busy working to dissect the genius of music created for the sake of principle rather than profit. Instead they waste billions supporting drek that is at once safe and familiar, never takes chances, never ventures to the jagged edge of uncertainty or into the abyss of the unknown. They fear change, things unfamiliar, and simply reject them out of hand without so much as a by your leave. So yes, you are on point when you believe people with miserable lives will not support greatness and instead continue paying good money to wallow in shallow puddles of banal musically mediocre corporate product, thus making gozillionaires out the clueless knobs producing that repugnant affront to principled music and the artists who dare create it.
Honestly though, who would ever want to sell out and be a gozillionaire who retires at twenty nine when you can stick to your principles and scrape by with a hundred of fans until you die homeless and pennyless at seventy two.
But hey, at least your death will insure you get a couple tracks on K-Tell Records latest compilation entitled “It’s all About The Principle (Vol XLIX) featuring artists who never sold more than 50 records over the course of their career.
So yeah, you’ll need a day job to keep the wolf from your door.
Hope this helps, and I anxiously await news of your first release. Best of luck with your music.

Ouch. Some tough love there!

 

[bucephylus]

I get it that we all do different gigs in different parts of the country/world, where there is a fair bit of variation in the way folks socialize. But, I am somewhat amazed at the vindictiveness and nastiness in some of the posts.

There is no standard for how a musician should pursue their craft. Each to their own, and don’t waste time belittling others, simply because that time could be better spent.

Playing popular music, as opposed to classical music, usually means that you go perform in front of audiences in locations where they are “socializing.” Which generally implies the mating dance in one form or other. Guess what? Newsflash: human beings are known to use alcohol, when they socialize. Been happening for a while now. We tried prohibition. Didn’t work out. Somehow, I don’t think a few TB’ers are going to change that dynamic.

As far as alcohol related deaths involving traffic accidents, it just might help to rethink our transportation infrastructure, as one constructive activity. Alcoholism is certainly a VERY serious disease in its own right. Often tragic. It deserves appropriate attention. But, musical entertainment is not part of the root cause analysis. So, let’s just leave that there.

Getting gigs requires a club manager to book the band. The band’s job is to supply what the club manager needs. Most club managers are missing several sprockets to begin with. Most fail at their business. Interfacing with them to get and hold gigs can be a whole adventure. I get paid to move equipment and keep club managers happy. The fun part is being able to make people happy, with the oldest form of entertainment known to humans: artfully conducting the mating dance.

The club managers are different in Hartford, Detroit, Phoenix, and Seattle, because they have different boundary conditions. Did you know that Mesa in the Phoenix area is 62% Mormon, and the DUI limits allow about one beer; and no club in the PHX area has a regular clientele, so, bands are expected to bring the customers? It’s a bit different from Detroit or Chicago, where families tend to stick together across generations. Only point being that our gigs and club managers all have different needs. So, let’s be kind.

Playing club music is an art in itself. It requires skill and knowledge. American popular music fuses cultural elements from an amazing diversity of musical genres. It’s an oil and water emulsion. Let’s take the oft maligned Mustang Sally. Few bands I’ve heard actually study the Wilson Pickett recording sufficiently to do justice to it. Most simply perform a “version,” and then say they are sick of it. I know players who have played it hundreds of times, but never really studied the tune to see what makes it tick.

Of course, popular music is like bread, which you can knead so much that you destroy it. No, you have to study Popular Music until you have a deep understanding and then take it somewhere new and fresh, or at least put your own subtle stamp on it.

But, I digress...

I play club gigs because a) the art form is endlessly complex and fascinating, and b) patrons like it. In order to do that, I have to keep club managers happy.

I also play orchestra for other reasons, and highly recommend that activity to musicians who are more inclined towards that field of the art. Which is certainly a different thing.

 

[Fredrik E. Nilsen]

I don't write music and never was in it for the money.

And yet, you are strongly opinionated on what other people choose to do to make money on their music. Fascinating. Do you have any realistic idea on how other people should make money on their music and their playing?