Music Venues: RIP

[Pat'sStrat]

Since last summer, my area has lost two substantial live music band venues and several solo/duo venues. This is on top of the few that went away last year, and the year before. The ones that are left, especially band ones, don't pay squat because they can't. We are lucky to get 400 a night and usually 300 is more the norm. There is one place that pays 500/night but you had better pack the place your first time in (and hope nothing else is going on in town) or you won't get a second chance. This makes it rough for newer bands who are already shut out of playing anywhere except little dive taverns, or benefits for free.

 

I know why we aren't drawing huge crowds. We are a four piece blues band, a pretty good one if I do say so myself, but the reality is blues has not been a popular scene here since 2003. Our fan base is somewhere between 50 and 70, and if they go out to bars at all they are heading for the door to go home at about 10 or 11 PM. But the dying venues syndrome is catching up with classic rock and 80s hair metal bands, too, as their fan bases are entering their 40s and 50s as well. And who is coming along to take their place? No one. that's who.

 

I asked my kids what they thought of live music. They all more or less shrugged and said "meh." They range in age from 32 to 27, and none of them even have live music on their radar. None of them have friends that are in bands. In fact, even with my solo gig I often see groups of millennials either get up and leave or move to the back of the room when the music starts. Oh, they will go to a concert hall to see some band they saw on youtube or heard on Pandora, but locals? Hardly. I asked them why, and each of them gave me the same answer: the stuff they are into is so varied and unrelated, and so much of it is nearly impossible to duplicate in a club with a 4 piece band, and because anyone can find anything online to listen to their tastes vary so widely that a cover band would be hard pressed to make many of them very happy. One of my kids really likes Avett Brothers/My Morning Jacket/ Gregory Allen Isakov kind of stuff. Another likes alt country (but despises commercial country) and my daughter's tastes are all over the place. So even the classic rock cover bands are starting to dwindle.

 

I realize music is a regional thing in the country. Just curious if others are seeing the same thing.

[Vito Corleone]

Live music is bars/casinos around here has been only a fraction of what it once was for at least the last 10 years, but I don't know that it is much worse today than it was in 2005, so I guess there's that?

 

​Yeah, younger kids don't really care about live music. I put a lot of that on the bands/musicians themselves who have spent the last few decades gazing at their shoes and not putting out a product that the kids can get excited about, so we all have to take at least some of the blame. Used to be the back in the day, the old guys playing blues in the corner bar would feed off the nightlife scene driven by the younger bands playing the hot venues. Those bands would catch some overflow or be the "hey, now let's check out some REAL players!" act across the street. I don't think it's really fair to blame us old guys for the fact that music scenes aren't vibrant anymore. I already put in MY years of making it happen for the bars up and down the west coast!

 

​A lot of it is, of course, the declining bar scene, period. Blame DUI laws or Netflix or whatever but when I was a kid I grew up in a small farming town of about 800 people. There wasn't much going on in a town that small, but we DID have four bars. And one of them had live music every Saturday night. (I developed my chops in part by the owner letting me in when I was 15 to sit in with the 3 piece country band that played there and I'd jam along on the piano that was set up in the corner of the stage. Guitar player was a good guy who showed me all about I-IV-V patterns and the like.) But now not only is there no live music in that little town, but there isn't a single bar that is still open. You gotta drive 10 miles to the next town just to get a drink. So it's not just the live music part of the scenes that have died.

 

​Classic rock had its heyday when most of that music was about 20 years old and you had 35-45 year old musicians playing the stuff they grew up on for audiences that were both of a similar age and the younger crowds just old enough to remember the songs from when they were little kids. now that material is 40-50 years old in most cases and there just isn't a sizable audience for it like there used to be. It's like playing Big Band stuff in the 80s. There's still a niche for it, but it's getting smaller and smaller by the day. There's some action with 90s music that is now "classic" but its not the same was playing 70s material in the 1990s was. Most of the 90s 'classics' you hear on TV/movies now is the rap/pop stuff anyway.

 

[senorblues]

I know why we aren't drawing huge crowds. We are a four piece blues band, a pretty good one if I do say so myself, but the reality is blues has not been a popular scene here since 2003. Our fan base is somewhere between 50 and 70, and if they go out to bars at all they are heading for the door to go home at about 10 or 11 PM.

 

The music scene here still has a fair number of guitar solo acts, but as you say, they roll the sidewalks up early. I haven't played past 9PM since I've been here.

 

About the blues. . . I'm wondering how much license you take with the blues genre. I would think that older songs with turnarounds and a bridge like "Please Send Me Someone to Love" would do better with the older crowd than "Messin' With the Kid."

 

We've been working up a few Robben Ford tunes with my trio. They went over well as a solo, so why not.

[MikeyParent]

Live music is bars/casinos around here has been only a fraction of what it once was for at least the last 10 years, but I don't know that it is much worse today than it was in 2005, so I guess there's that?

 

​Yeah, younger kids don't really care about live music. I put a lot of that on the bands/musicians themselves who have spent the last few decades gazing at their shoes and not putting out a product that the kids can get excited about, so we all have to take at least some of the blame. Used to be the back in the day, the old guys playing blues in the corner bar would feed off the nightlife scene driven by the younger bands playing the hot venues. Those bands would catch some overflow or be the "hey, now let's check out some REAL players!" act across the street. I don't think it's really fair to blame us old guys for the fact that music scenes aren't vibrant anymore. I already put in MY years of making it happen for the bars up and down the west coast!

 

​A lot of it is, of course, the declining bar scene, period. Blame DUI laws or Netflix or whatever but when I was a kid I grew up in a small farming town of about 800 people. There wasn't much going on in a town that small, but we DID have four bars. And one of them had live music every Saturday night. (I developed my chops in part by the owner letting me in when I was 15 to sit in with the 3 piece country band that played there and I'd jam along on the piano that was set up in the corner of the stage. Guitar player was a good guy who showed me all about I-IV-V patterns and the like.) But now not only is there no live music in that little town, but there isn't a single bar that is still open. You gotta drive 10 miles to the next town just to get a drink. So it's not just the live music part of the scenes that have died.

 

​Classic rock had its heyday when most of that music was about 20 years old and you had 35-45 year old musicians playing the stuff they grew up on for audiences that were both of a similar age and the younger crowds just old enough to remember the songs from when they were little kids. now that material is 40-50 years old in most cases and there just isn't a sizable audience for it like there used to be. It's like playing Big Band stuff in the 80s. There's still a niche for it, but it's getting smaller and smaller by the day. There's some action with 90s music that is now "classic" but its not the same was playing 70s material in the 1990s was. Most of the 90s 'classics' you hear on TV/movies now is the rap/pop stuff anyway.

Great assessment I think.

 

SOOOOO.... if one were so inclined both in attitude and capability as an ensemble... is 90s the new 80s?

[jeff42]

90s the new 80s?

 

yeah I'd say so at least from what I am seeing. But a lot of 80s songs are still HUGE.

 

what is also interesting is I see its moreso 90s pop/rock than 90s grunge/rock even though grunge was HUGE. Sure the big ones will get a reaction (the hits from nirvana, pearl Jam and so on) but overall its the pop/rock stuff and 1 hit wonder stuff over the "heavier" stuff... At least that's what i'm seeing YMMV

[Vito Corleone]

Great assessment I think.

 

SOOOOO.... if one were so inclined both i attitude and capability as an ensemble... is 90s the new 80s?

 

​Oh, no doubt. Look at the set list Jeff42 posted in the other thread as a good example of 90s stuff that is working the way 80s stuff did 5-10 years ago. It looks to me like his band has pared it down pretty well.

 

​The trick with the 90s stuff is (at least in my opinion and experience) that it is much slimmer pickings for great material. It wasn't a "party" decade musically the way the 80s were. Especially when it comes to rock stuff. The most fun classics seem to be the pop/rap songs.

 

​But I can tell you that when we kick into "Wannabe", every 30-ish female in the place will be on the dance floor dancing around and singing all the lyrics and getting in touch with her inner Spice Girl. And if you have someone who can rap pretty well and you can do stuff like "Bust a Move" and "Baby's Got Back"?

 

​Those are the new "Jessie's Girl" and "Pour Some Sugar On Me"s , IMO.

[MikeyParent]

OK this is good stuff. This relates to the other thread I was asking about (set lists). My dream band right now would be a 80s/90s/current dance/party band.

 

I would love to see the reaction of a crowd to a band who could break out Barbie Girl or "What is Love" (Haddaway) live.

[Vito Corleone]

90s the new 80s?

 

yeah I'd say so at least from what I am seeing. But a lot of 80s songs are still HUGE.

 

what is also interesting is I see its moreso 90s pop/rock than 90s grunge/rock even though grunge was HUGE. Sure the big ones will get a reaction (the hits from nirvana, pearl Jam and so on) but overall its the pop/rock stuff and 1 hit wonder stuff over the "heavier" stuff... At least that's what i'm seeing YMMV

 

​That's because the basics of what we do haven't changed since Elvis took the stage. It's still about finding songs that connect with the girls. Which means danceable and usually means something kinda sexy/naughty about the song.

 

​Pearl Jam had some great songs that a lot of people remember fondly and will respond well to when played, but "Evenflow" isn't going to pack the dance floor with the drunk girls the same way "I love big butts and I can not lie" is going to.....

[jeff42]

 

​That's because the basics of what we do haven't changed since Elvis took the stage. It's still about finding songs that connect with the girls. Which means danceable and usually means something kinda sexy/naughty about the song.

 

​Pearl Jam had some great songs that a lot of people remember fondly and will respond well to when played, but "Evenflow" isn't going to pack the dance floor with the drunk girls the same way "I love big butts and I can not lie" is going to.....

 

 

Exactly!!!

 

That's why when asked what kind of music we play I respond with a smile and say "Music for Girls"

[MikeyParent]

LOL! Nice

[modulusman]

The music scene is still pretty good where I live. I live about 10 miles from a college town and during the week end there will be people doing the pub crawl. Last night I played at the American legion with a 3 piece band doing mostly classic rock with a few country songs thrown in. We had a good crowd with a lot of young people most of the night dancing. The pay isn't great maybe $400-600.00 depending on the band and venue.

 

​Still a lot of people who like classic rock around. Elton John will be playing a concert next week and later in March Journey and Asia will be in town. My main band is a country band that doesn't play bars much. Most of our gigs are private events mainly in the summer. We have only had one bar gig since October but another bar contacted us to play St.Pattys day. We will get paid $850.00 for one night. They want us to play about every 2 months so we will see how it goes. It was in the paper today that a Restaurant /bar a few blocks from my house is shutting down do to the loss of their hard liquor license. They would have music on weekends but didn't pay much if at all.

[bigboy78]

 

 

Exactly!!!

 

That's why when asked what kind of music we play I respond with a smile and say "Music for Girls"

Our unofficial response is “dance floor hits, for drunk white chicks”

Around here we’re seeing the same as guido mentioned. Not just live music, but bars in general are declining. I blame overly sensitive noise laws. People buying into “cool” neighbourhoods, that were cool because of the scene, then complaining when the venues that created the scene make any noise.

It also comes down to disposable income. I’ve got younger cousins (16-25) who all “love live music” which means they go to festivals at $150-$300 each and munch ecstasy and drink warm beer out of cans. There are bands playing somewhere near them as well, but the photos for Instagram are the most important part. After paying for the festival tickets, the mobile phone plan, the subscription to Netflix, $9 for the pre-mixed drinks there isn’t a lot of disposable income left. What is left they probably blew on ticket to watch Adele on a bug screen from the back an arena, because “atmosphere”. None of them will ever know the true atmosphere of 200 people jammed in a room designed for 150, while their favourite bands tears into their favourite songs 3 feet from their face.

Turned into a bit of a get-off-my-lawn rant. I’m not even 40 yet.

 

[Outkaster]

 

Pat round here (NYS) we are not doing badly I would have to say. Some live places have closed and the other ones bands compete to perform in the ones open. It’s heavily saturated with blues/rock and some Jazz here and a little conservative. We have found our own niche though and so far so good after 5 years on the scene. I think the big thing is just general apathetic attitudes out there concerning entertainment. With the internet people are entertained for hours, smart phones, IPads, binge watching on Netflix, you name it, it’s out there. You see a lot less social type interaction and people going out. People hardly even want to pick up the phone at all, I have to get my daughter to stop texting when dealing with adults. When you have that attitude out there it’s hard to get people to come out to see live music, they’ll act like “so what who cares about a live band” They don’t get that not too many years ago that is what people did to be entertained and I was on the tail end of that generation that started it all. Certain pockets of the state do well. Luckily I live between two other cities so we can play there or throughout the Finger Lakes provided we get booked.

 

[Monsoon]

Definitely a declining scene here. Massachusetts suburbs. Can't say what the cities are like - Worcester, Boston, Providence. I don't bother much with those. But the suburb live music scene is dying for sure.

 

In the last three years, I've seen places that were staple venues for my last band either close, or end live music, or move to the solo/duo'/trio acoustic format. Or...gasp...the dreaded Karaoke.

 

By my rough count, we lost five venues (stopped having live music or closed entirely), and three others (one of them a chain of 5 bars) moved to acoustic only. Of all the places I used to play, there is only one left that has live full bands. There are a few other venues around, but they are a drive to get to. Not too long ago on a Saturday night we'd look up who was playing where and decide who we wanted to go see. Now it's a question of is there anyone even playing tonight, and if so, how far a drive is it. Very discouraging.

 

One result of this is that the venues that do have live music basically have turned to agent only booking. We are seeing more and more of the city bands (music school kid bands) being represented by an agent travel all the way out to the suburbs to play the gigs. If you don't have an agent, getting a full band booked is very hard unless you already have a long history with the venue. So the quality has gone up. I haven't seen a bad band in a while. There's that.

[Vito Corleone]

If you don't have an agent' date=' getting a full band booked is very hard unless you already have a long history with the venue. So the quality has gone up. I haven't seen a bad band in a while. There's that.[/quote']

 

​That can't be a bad thing. Better quality bands is only going to increase demand for them in the long run.

[Outkaster]

Where in MA are you?

[Monsoon]

 

​That can't be a bad thing. Better quality bands is only going to increase demand for them in the long run.

 

 

That's the silver lining, but it's good and it's bad. Better quality is good, yes. But there were a lot of good bands that didn't have agents (including mine). So the barrier to entry is higher and makes it harder. The main thing, though, is the agents pull their bands in from further away. So there are fewer bands playing a broader geography. That shuts out bands that used to do a good job playing in a 30-minute-drive geography.

 

To your point. In the long run, perhaps hearing good bands will make casual listeners want more places with live music. So the process will cycle back around again in a few years or so. Maybe. But that's a long time for some of us to wait.

 

In a nutshell, there are only a handful of places to play or to go see music anymore (full band). It didn't used to be like that.

[Vito Corleone]

 

 

 

To your point. In the long run, perhaps hearing good bands will make casual listeners want more places with live music. So the process will cycle back around again in a few years or so. Maybe. But that's a long time for some of us to wait.

 

​Yes. It would probably be a slow process. That could certainly suck in a lot of ways.

 

​But I gotta believe that a higher bar of entry is better for everyone in the long run. Better quality of entertainment=better audience response=better pay.

 

​So much of the problem has been the downward cycle of pay bands less=crappier bands=less audience response=pay band less, etc. that we have all been caught up in for probably the last 25 years. To the point to where now the new generation who are the ones with the inclination to spend time and money in nightclubs see a sign that says "live music" and they think "crap joint". It's like when I was younger and seeing one of those bars with a neon cocktail glass sign out front. You knew that was probably not the hip, fun place to go hang out. Right now "live music" can too often mean "4 old guys who play just for the fun of it and a bar tab and don't take it all that seriously but they bring in 25 friends who buy drinks."

 

​If we want "live music" to once again be its own draw--regardless of the band that might be playing inside--then we've got to up the level of entertainment and quality these acts provide and raise the bar for entry.

 

​When I was young and playing the cover band circuit, the hot clubs usually didn't hire local bands. There was a bit of a mystique and draw for a club to bring in acts from out of town. We worked fairly exclusively with one agent who had access to the best rooms in various cities. Often he had exclusive rights to these rooms. You had to be good to be on his roster of bands, but if you got on the roster you knew you'd have good work in good clubs as long as you delivered the goods and put on a good show and entertained the crowd and sold some drinks.

 

​But the level for entry was pretty high. One reason why these clubs and agents used bands from so far away is there were really only a handful of bands that were good enough in the entire region. Maybe only one band that good from any given city. So the circuit had to be pretty far reaching (especially out here on the west coast where major cities are all pretty far apart in the first place) for the whole thing to work. We played a circuit that stretched from Northern California out to Denver down to Texas and out to Arizona.

 

​Did the local bands resent that the clubs were bringing in out of town acts and not hiring local bands? I suppose they were. I never really thought about it much at the time. Although they all had their own places they played as well.

 

[bigboy78]

The death of live music is often blamed on the low quality, which leads to the question of where all the good musician are playing? Has the standard of musicianship dropped across the board or are the quality players all doing corporate gigs for big bucks so the local venues are left with dregs. Have the top tier musicians forgotten about entertaining the masses and now only play for the rich folk?

 

[Vito Corleone]

The death of live music is often blamed on the low quality' date=' which leads to the question of where all the good musician are playing? Has the standard of musicianship dropped across the board or are the quality players all doing corporate gigs for big bucks so the local venues are left with dregs. Have the top tier musicians forgotten about entertaining the masses and now only play for the rich folk?[/color']

 

​I don't think there has been as much effort towards traditional musicianship with younger generations. Kids aren't picking up guitar and learning to play like they did 30 years ago. Let alone forming bands.

 

​They focus their creative talents towards computer programming or DJing/mixing or some such perhaps?

 

​For a live music scene to ever be vibrant again, it will have to come from young bands exciting young audiences. The older players do go off and do the corporate gigs and such as they always have. When I was playing the 'scene' back in the day, good luck finding a hot band with ANYBODY in it over the age of 30. Those guys all had to move on to something else. There wasn't really a place for them in the scene.

 

​At one point my band hired a drummer who had a reputation for being a monster. He had been around a long time. We knew he was older than us but didn't really care because he was a monster. He was 34, but lied to us and told us he was 27. He told us to make sure we told all the girls he was 25. We knew he was lying but didn't really care because he was good. Although we did call him "the old guy" and "grandpa" behind his back. We were all 22-23 at the time.

 

​As crazy at that all sounds (that was probably 1984?) that's pretty much how the business was at that time.

 

[AJ6stringsting]

When I was traveling as a musician , I noticed that in the larger cities, people wanted to hear your original music, sprinkled with some covers, while in smaller towns , folks there tended to want to hear move cover tunes.

What blew me away, is how that disease, pay per play, spread from Hollywood to other parts of the Nation. When promoters pushed that policy , it killed many music scenes.

Today, they are many factors killing live music ; DJ's , Karaoke, tight wad club owners not willing to hire a top quality band and just hire some midlife hobbyist.

[Pat'sStrat]

Yeah, you hit it on the head. In fact, one of my good friends has a show band he's aiming at corporate things, and they play casinos too. They play nothing but hits and do costume change tow or three times a night and choreographed moves. But my buddy said even beyond all that, the biggest thing is that the millennials, the boys and the girls, want to be part of the show. Thus, his band does a lot of singalongs and have people come up and dance on stage, They have contests, create dances for people to do, and so on.

 

I just don't have that in me, and never did, but it is pretty clear that this is what it takes to be successful as a band in a lot of places. Funny how things change. I recall as a 12 year old kid in 1967 walking through the city park by Lake Coeur d Alene, and seeing some long haired guy with no shirt on just sit down on the grass and start playing his guitar. He did nothing flashy, and seemed to only know how to strum and play the simple chords. And in less than 5 minutes, he had about 20 people sitting around him digging on the tunes. I thought "That's what I want to do!" Back then, playing an instrument even moderately well was enough to make you special and something for people to listen to. Now, not so much.

[sventvkg]

Since last summer, my area has lost two substantial live music band venues and several solo/duo venues. This is on top of the few that went away last year, and the year before. The ones that are left, especially band ones, don't pay squat because they can't. We are lucky to get 400 a night and usually 300 is more the norm. There is one place that pays 500/night but you had better pack the place your first time in (and hope nothing else is going on in town) or you won't get a second chance. This makes it rough for newer bands who are already shut out of playing anywhere except little dive taverns, or benefits for free.

 

I know why we aren't drawing huge crowds. We are a four piece blues band, a pretty good one if I do say so myself, but the reality is blues has not been a popular scene here since 2003. Our fan base is somewhere between 50 and 70, and if they go out to bars at all they are heading for the door to go home at about 10 or 11 PM. But the dying venues syndrome is catching up with classic rock and 80s hair metal bands, too, as their fan bases are entering their 40s and 50s as well. And who is coming along to take their place? No one. that's who.

 

I asked my kids what they thought of live music. They all more or less shrugged and said "meh." They range in age from 32 to 27, and none of them even have live music on their radar. None of them have friends that are in bands. In fact, even with my solo gig I often see groups of millennials either get up and leave or move to the back of the room when the music starts. Oh, they will go to a concert hall to see some band they saw on youtube or heard on Pandora, but locals? Hardly. I asked them why, and each of them gave me the same answer: the stuff they are into is so varied and unrelated, and so much of it is nearly impossible to duplicate in a club with a 4 piece band, and because anyone can find anything online to listen to their tastes vary so widely that a cover band would be hard pressed to make many of them very happy. One of my kids really likes Avett Brothers/My Morning Jacket/ Gregory Allen Isakov kind of stuff. Another likes alt country (but despises commercial country) and my daughter's tastes are all over the place. So even the classic rock cover bands are starting to dwindle.

 

I realize music is a regional thing in the country. Just curious if others are seeing the same thing.

 

Yea the younger crowds don't give a {censored}e at all. At best they are polite and you are background but just as music is in their lives, you are not important. Snapchat, twitter, Facebook, Tinder ALL HEAVILY outrank you and their number one thing is the SMART PHONE!...

 

Such is life! I still play but I can't for the life of me get any regular nights like I used to, just rotation so it's hard. I do a mix of corporate/private events, pool side hotel/resort and restaurants, solo acoustic. My band stuff hasn't launched yet but I do play a few corporate gigs a month in an acoustic trio. I'm averaging only about $2200 a month income and the least I've ever made as a full time musician. Millennials who are managing and booking places don't really care. I'd say, yes the days of live music in bars are SERIOUSLY numbered. It's definitely a different world and it really stands to reason. I don't see the corporate events and wedding stuff I'm doing going away anytime in the next 20 years however because there's $$ there, the clientele are older and that's what they are used to for special events. There's usually a plethora of different entertainment going on at these events, not just music. I know my market is VERY unique.

 

Pat in your area I'd look at a monthly house concert series. That's working for people I know around the country.

 

[sventvkg]

90s the new 80s?

 

yeah I'd say so at least from what I am seeing. But a lot of 80s songs are still HUGE.

 

what is also interesting is I see its moreso 90s pop/rock than 90s grunge/rock even though grunge was HUGE. Sure the big ones will get a reaction (the hits from nirvana, pearl Jam and so on) but overall its the pop/rock stuff and 1 hit wonder stuff over the "heavier" stuff... At least that's what i'm seeing YMMV

 

Jeff could you give me some examples of tunes from the 90's that kill? I don't really know what you mean when you say pop rock over the grunge rock stuff. I remember more the Stone Temple pilots Pearl Jam collective soul vertical Horizon matchbox 20 all the Lilith female artist Sheryl crow etc. but I didn't listen to any top 40 so I just don't even know any of the songs. Thanks.

[Old Fart Rocker]

I also think some of this stuff is regional. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (mainly south bay, San Jose) and the local music scene has been on the skids for a while. There are still a few good venues to play, but most have closed or changed their format. I'm playing in a modern country band and that seems to go over pretty well, especially since there are not many bands around playing what we do. But, we still only can book a gig every 4-6 weeks or so. I also commute to the Sacramento area to play in a GREAT classic rock band with 80's and 90's rock mixed in. Conversely to the Bay Area, there are quite a few venues in the Sac Town area that love classic rock and will chase you down the street with an axe if you even think of playing Katy Perry. And, interestingly, these venues pay considerably better than the Bay Area.