Jump to content

The corporatization of the music biz


Shaster

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Strictly speaking, corporatization isn't exactly the right word, but I think you'll know where I am going.

 

I did a few gigs recently where the management has been very rigid in their position. Not necessarily bad, just rigid to the point of diminishing dollar returns (for them). There was one gig that I might mention later, but the one that prompted me to post was this one... Had a very nice gig in a high end venue - booked for three hours. I was planning on doing my usual one hour first set and then two forty or forty-five minute second and third sets. A very friendly manager came up to me after my first one hour set and said that they wanted three forty-five minute sets. I thought, well this is perfect, I've given them an extra fifteen minutes, they'll be quite pleased. To my surprise he wanted me to do a thirty minute second set and then a forty-five minute third set so that my playing time would amount to two hours and fifteen minutes (3 x 45 minute sets). The fact that I was booked to eight and would have to end fifteen minutes before, was irrelevant. Apparently this was coming from somewhere above the manager.

 

So... anybody got any stories of corporate music biz gone strange?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as "suits." Paul Graham

 

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit. Sir Frederick G. Banting (1891 - 1941)

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

My band p.lays a nice corporate hotel chain. But they won't pay more than 300 a night.They don't have to, because of the limited number of venues in the area. They do feed us dinner, but not free beer. In addition, it's a restaurant/lounge, very nice, but they don't start music until 9 PM, and the place is nearly empty by 11. They don't do a thing to make it appear it is a live music venue. They have a raised seating area they use for a stage and they have really weak "stage" lights, but no stage background, TVs on the wall behind us, and so on (at least they turn them off) . We have asked repeatedly for them to change the hours to 8-12 or even 7:30 to 11:30 (lots of places are doing that) but they won't budge; it's a decision from "corporate." We have asked them to put some dark curtains on the wall that is the stage area, but they won't do that either.

 

Meanwhile, last weekend I did a solo gig in a nice little lounge in a restaurant and it was from 6 to 8, sitting on a stool, they fed me, I made nice tips and they handed me a check for 200 dollars when I was done. It's 13 minutes from my house; I was home and in my jammie pants at 9 PM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

In a chain and/or posh hotel, it seems that all decisions are made way up the food chain, and can't be countered by anyone. I've told the story of a lounge I played in Vancouver that had their lighting controlled by a tech in Toronto. The place was too bright, but they had no control over the lights!

 

And TV''s... I played a lounge where they had a wall of TV's directly behind the stage - about six screens in all. They did not turn them off during my sets. I'm guessing that the GM told them not to touch the screens and that was that. However, had the GM come in and seen me playing in front of the screens, there would have been a terse note to management to turn the screens off. It's a funny world.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

I find hotel lounges/ballrooms are the weirdest 'corporate' gigs, with inane rules someone offsite obviously made up...like where you can store the cases and carts [shaster knows the pitfalls of this one], what elevators you can and can't use, how long the sets have to be, where you can take breaks, max volume levels [one place told us it was 75dB, so, in front of the lounge manager, I asked the drummer not to set up...we got that resolved pretty fast], what to wear [no t-shirts or torn jeans? I'm okay, but insisting we all wear suits...?] and the standard load-in through the kitchen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Everything about the "corporate music gig" is strange. That they pay the most but listen the least is strange. That they pay musicians in large part just to show the attendees that the event was important enough to have live music is strange. That they care more about what you look like than what you sound like is strange. That you can ruin a band, and even your own playing, by playing corporates is flat out strange.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

My blues band does strictly corporates, and the $ dried up after 2009...it has been tough, but they still pay so much better than club work. It would take me 5 club gigs to make what we get for a low end corporate, plus we typically get fed well on corporates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

The corporate/Hotel/restaurant scene is my bread and butter here in Touristland FL. These gigs can definitely be wacky in their requirements and no they're absolutely not flexible..You just smile, try to reach some people and understand that you are background. I give my all and still get a lot of compliments/tips so you end up realizing some people dug it.

 

I don't know if any of you have had this happen but this is a new one for me. A few weeks ago I was playing a new restaurant gig that I had played one time before and done well. Lots of great reviews and they booked me again. I went back but this time the General manager was working. This particular restaurant had a lot of upbeat contemporary music playing as it's a kind of hip modern tapas place with the later crowd. So when I started I played more upbeat contemporary music rather than old stuff. The manager comes up to me after the first set and tells me that he's looking for more kind of upbeat contemporary music to be played. I did play one slower tune which was a request..Daughters by John Mayer.. anyway he must've heard me slow down and I pissed him off but clearly he was listening to anything I play because I was playing exactly what he was asking me to play for the majority of the set... I just looked at him and I asked him if he had any suggestions. He looks at me and says "I don't know Beatles or something"...lol...ok...So I play it and keep it up beat the rest of the night but I felt like the guy was watching me and I'm not allowed to read the crowd and play with the ebb and flow of the vibe...he wants what he wants like he's the curator of a Spotify playlist and I'm the piece of tech playing whatever he deems....pissed me off as you can imagine. I've only been doing this 30 years and I know how to read a crowd but he wants his vibe in this restaurant. I ha e had something similar happens his spring where the owner was playing loud upbeat top/40 pop and was constantly telling me to pick it up with people eating Mexican food 5 feet from me..Never before did owners try to dictate the music I play..In all the years previous. Im NOT down with being on a leash. The customers dig it, they tip, request. As far as I'm concerned if I'm not a good fit, fine...I have a gig back at that restaurant this Thursday. It will most likely be my last there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

power makes people do stupid things. I did once suggest to a venue owner that his business was mixing the drinks and mine was making the music....did not end well for either of us...we never played there again, they went out of business a few months later. Coincidence?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yep, daddymack, most of us have been doing this long enough, we can see a "fail" coming a mile away. Probably good he didn't have you back, he might have paid with a rubber cheque.

 

As for the micro managing sventvkg was talking about, I've got a few stories. The first couple are positive. I worked a place where the owners came in and after I finished, asked the manager to ask me to play a bit more... so I did. They loved it, and after that I could do no wrong. Another time and hotel (might have told this), this fellow kept coming up and requesting songs, each time putting some money into the tip jar. I went about fifteen minutes overtime because of this. When he came up again, I said that he better talk to the manager. He then said he was sitting with the owner. I went to take a look (they were hidden) and sure enough it was the owner, so I kept on playing, and kept getting tips.

 

Now the not so great. My agency basically forbids their solo acts from playing ballads. If you do the songs better come off as power ballads. I've got a buddy that likes to play songs like Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Wonderful World. I don't play those tunes unless I've got a party table requesting them or something similar. The reason being that I know as soon as I play them, the GM is gonna walk in and start texting the agency. That is what happens to my buddy. He gets micro managed because he gets branded as a lounge lizard, instead of a "fashion forward, youthful contemporary solo artist".

 

Tonight, I took a chance and did We're All Alone by Boz Scaggs. I figured if anyone called me on it, I could always say it was the latest KPop hit. As to other material, I had a quiet but appreciative crowd (as I found out after). Two songs got the biggest applause; Cold Shot by SRV and Hey Nineteen by Donald Fagen. Ya just never know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'm part of a trio who jam on Tuesdays at a local pub. It started because we were meeting at my house to jam in the afternoon. But one of us also books the pub and he suggested that maybe we could get free beer and food if we did it at the pub on Tuesday nights. So we do.

 

The "rules" are: we play anything we feel like playing. We may never have played a song together and it may be old and it may be slow and it may be a song I wrote last week and it may be pretty damn funky (and it *may* be glorious or it may be a trainwreck) but we basically just jam like three musicians who enjoy playing with each other. And it's acoustic -- no PA no amps. Very pleasant for us and, since we began, Tuesdays are starting to fill up with people who want something different than the usual. It helps that we're all three real musicians with well over a thousand songs between us.

 

It took someone to tell the owner that this was a winning combination and set it up to win. They're sometimes open to that. And, once we show that it's a draw, we'll start to get money as well. Or we'll move back to my living room.

 

Ditto on Wednesdays. I proposed to the owner (another pub) that I would bring in my piano and play nothing but 20s/30s/40s pop songs from 5 to 8. I call it "Jazz-age Jazz." Again, I get beer and a meal with the understanding that when it's drawing in customers we'll negotiate money. I'm advertising to the over-60 crowd, but I get lots of good feedback from much younger folks who are delighted to hear great music they've not heard before played with skill and passion. And ballads!!! Ballads galore and the folks adore them.

 

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are normally dead, so owners may be open to something/anything different. I'm not super-comfy about playing for no money, but I also get that the owners aren't in the charity business and we'll get to the money when we both see that it's working. And meanwhile, the players set the agenda.

 

Weekends, it's keep to the formula, thirsty chatty bums in seats and don't let the tempo down for a minute. Which is a shame. Most Saturday nights there are about five acts playing in town and I wouldn't cross the street to listen to any of them. Not that they're bad musicians but they're not playing anything I haven't heard before. On purpose!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

i was thinking last week that i needed to pick up my guitar and get a little rust knocked out... on second thought and definitely after reading this thread, im going to buy that 52" gong instead... for better or worse, im way more independent these days. it isnt ego, its simply knowing when and if something will work, and if it wont? thats ok! theres no collar around my neck... dont treat me as if there is and we will get on fine as frog hair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

A couple of years ago, I had a regular weekly patio gig and I wanted to add some new songs so I told the owners for free beer, I would come down for a couple of afternoons and sit and play/practice , worked well for us both. Nothing like an audience to make me try harder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Last Wednesday was my fourth week. Still pretty thin but had one gold-mine table. They came from a local senior's place (nice one on the river) because they saw my poster. They really enjoyed what I was doing and we chatted back and forth. That will go back as word-of-mouth and there's no better advertising than word-of-mouth around here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • Members
My band p.lays a nice corporate hotel chain. But they won't pay more than 300 a night.They don't have to, because of the limited number of venues in the area. They do feed us dinner, but not free beer. In addition, it's a restaurant/lounge, very nice, but they don't start music until 9 PM, and the place is nearly empty by 11. They don't do a thing to make it appear it is a live music venue. They have a raised seating area they use for a stage and they have really weak "stage" lights, but no stage background, TVs on the wall behind us, and so on (at least they turn them off) . We have asked repeatedly for them to change the hours to 8-12 or even 7:30 to 11:30 (lots of places are doing that) but they won't budge; it's a decision from "corporate." We have asked them to put some dark curtains on the wall that is the stage area, but they won't do that either.

 

Meanwhile, last weekend I did a solo gig in a nice little lounge in a restaurant and it was from 6 to 8, sitting on a stool, they fed me, I made nice tips and they handed me a check for 200 dollars when I was done. It's 13 minutes from my house; I was home and in my jammie pants at 9 PM.

 

 

The hotel gigs here are the same way. I live in a tourist area, but being so far west, everyone has jetlag and the sidewalks roll up early. If you don't have something happening to carry you across the 7-7:30 dead zone, everyone goes off and goes to bed. Most locals go down with the sun, and the tourists aren't too far behind. However, the suits generally want something like 8-11, which is way too late to have any attendance. The best attended shows out here start at 5pm. A smart suit would schedule music from around 5:30-8:30, as they'd get people in their seats spending money when they otherwise wouldn't. If you're starting at 8pm, you're playing to an empty room.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

love the band name...and dang, you are in one of the few places in teh world I would rather be than here...! Next time I'm on the Big Island, I will let you know!

How does Celtic music go over in the land of luaus and poi?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

The missus and I where just discussing a holiday to Hawaii this morning,having never been we thought it would be more of a party place, so when we turn up there I can promise you won't be playing to an empty room at 11pm 😎

Just listened to your compilation vid and top drawer stuff.

Cheers Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've been playing a weekly gig at a marina for 9 years and counting.

 

Private ownership, renting the property from the City with a long term lease.

 

We can play anything we want. No restrictions from the management at all.

 

So like many of us, I figure whatever is good for the house is good for the band, so I try to read the audience and play to them the best I can. I learn requests from regular customers even if the song isn't my particular cup of tea and we do the best we can at it.

 

Like all gigs, we pretend every penny going into the cash register pays for us, and make our decisions a if we were going to go home with the sales rung up while we are there.

 

It's our job. We're subcontractors and we know it. We were hired to have the cashier play the register (in the old non-PC days it was called the Jewish Piano - please don't take offense, none is intended). And whatever is good for the club, is good for us.

 

So far, so good, we'll be starting our 10th year in October.

 

Notes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...