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How is 2014 shaping up for everyone?


Vito Corleone

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We tend to run on pretty short notice down here. Got a regular rotation show outside sat that the weather looks iffy  ,,, cold over cast 48 degrees 10 percent chance of rain. No idea whats going on with that. I do know if it does not get called we will play it.

The regular tue night standing trio booking goes all the way till spring.. and we picked up two extra shows next week for  at the same venue and we may get a couple more the next week.    Have a feb 8 show at a gated community that looks like it could set us up as their go to guys for events where they use a full band. We have a road trip show up in the pan handle of texas in the spring. .

There some concert and festival things in the works for next season , but nothing really nailed down yet ,, that stuff is above my pay grade for the songwriter band. 

Things are looking ok for me between the two acts I play for. Both acts are in a transition stage ,, the trio is building and the songwriter deal is working toward more concerts and festivals and away games.  Everything happens on island time down here so you never really know whats going down till it goes down  

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Different.

Our guitarist just left the band to make his "side" project his full time project. We kind of figured it was coming, but we'd been so much in "let''s try hard to keep him" mode for the last half a year or so that we need to redefine our direction now he's gone. He was a founding member, and contributed a lot to the songwriting process as well as sharing lead vocal duties. This lineup has been together almost three years, and it's not obvious we'd even be the same band if we did replace him.

Right now we're considering whether to audition a new guitarist or to dissolve and bring our upcoming side projects to the fore. Both the other founding member (bassist, vocals) and I have new projects we're going to bring online whether the old band continues or not, and they'll be very different both from the old band and from each other.

So however it shakes out, 2014 will be very different from the last three years. More than that is hard to say.

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Kevin T wrote:

 

You know how last yr sucked ......this yr looks to hella suck. At least it will be with some new bands

 

Because my main one is on life support

 

pretty much.. what he said.

We had a couple of really good shows in 2013, but 90% of them were serious buzzkills, smaller crowds, less shows.. the bar scene around here is pretty much ready for the 'stick a fork in it' test.

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I got in to a Wedding/Corporate band that does about 12-15 club gigs a year on top of it. All told they do about 40-50 gigs a year. Most of the wedding/Corporate/Private stuff is outta town 2-6 hours and the club stuff is usually within a couple hours. Should make me about $10K. I'm also playing with some older, cats who are really into the older outlaw country stuff. Waylon, Hank Jr, Merle. Should be fun..Had our first gig this past Saturday canceled dude to ice storm but we have another one this coming friday. The singer is really talented and has that older country stuff down cold and they love me..I'll sing a few as well. These gigs are both on bass and i'm not THAT jazzed on playing bass too much outside the studio. I kinda "retired" from playing bass on gigs in the mid 90's and have been playing guitar in all my projects since. However it's giving me an opportunity to learn some classic country stuff I've never done before so it's nice. Also, I'm much less busy of a player than I used to be with maturity and finesse so that's a plus.

I'm not really looking to gig for the cash so much as connections in Nashville so this is a nice jump start on my journey. I would definitely like to play with an original artist who tours etc..Either one that I'm helping to produce/nurture or otherwise. So, we'll see where it all goes over the next couple years. After that I'm at a crossroads that's self imposed. 45 years old. I'll either double down if things are going good here or start focusing on buiding a business for the long term as a hedge, probably go back to doing a lot of solo gigs, and focus on the corporate, private event market, move back to FL. We shall see:) 

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Lousy.

 

I have two venues that I didn't have anything booked for until later in 2014 call and ask us to do shows in late December.  So that's good.

 

But...

 

I have two other venues that are hemming and hawing about giving me 2014 dates even though they are telling me they liked us and want us back.  And another venue where they switched from an outside booking guy to the bar manager doing the booking, and so confirmed 2014 dates are now up in the air.

 

And I haven't been able to pry open the door at any new venues...even ones that are expressly asking for bands to contact them for bookings.

 

I thought by now I'd have a pretty good 2014 calendar booked up, but instead I'm not sure I have ANY confirmed dates.  

 

Suggestions?  2014 was supposed to be a step forward for this band.  :-/

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2014 is looking pretty good for me.  My 8 piece has solid monthly bookings in two rooms through June (12 shows total) plus 5 private events.  We're at the point that we're no longer considering taking on new bar work (the reality is that with 8 pieces it just doesn't make sense financially - we work a couple of rooms that we like playing in order to keep us playing during the gaps in private work that does pay - and so that we've always got someplace to invite prospective private clients to come see us).  

My 6 piece has a 5 dates on the books as well.  All of this is on the books well in advance of what has traditionally been the time of year that our schedule starts to fill up.   It's been awhile since I started a new year with 22 dates already booked.  

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I just locked in a twice a month open mic gig. It should be a good time! We had one in Dec and they really liked how it tuned out. I wanted to do it once a month. They were down with EVERY FRIDAY!

 

I told them the best I can do is twice a month so it will work out pretty good.

 

:)

 

Ill have time to throw a fab5 on top of each speaker this time. Here's a quick clip from last time!

 

 

Looking to get my band out there a few more times than last year. We have 3 fresh leads we are pursuing, have the same 2 Christmas parties as last year and I believe we have a lock on Halloween and NYE already.

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well this week has been good news on the booking front... Got calls and/or dates from A local room that was a good gig with the last band, a summer beer festival, A lakeside resort in the poconos and a gig at Princeton U for the reunion weekend (THAT is going to be awesome!)

the 1st half of 2014 is filling up FAST!

 

Got to keep upping our game!!!! Can't slack off now! 

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Things are still formulating. We survived the name change in November, and a final lineup change in Dec (swapped out drummers) and played a kick ass NYE... (probably one of the best NYE shows I've ever played). 

 

So we've survived the 'shock and awe' phase of adding two black, soulful and talented singers to a decade old, all-white,frat party band that built it's name and rep delivering female driven songs sung by a male singer. (in other words we put our big boy pants on). Now we have to sell the new name and product which given the performances might seem effortless but it's not. The club scene is cratered, out of area/state agency bands are dominanting remaining bookings and we still have to educate people on the new name. It's two weeks into the new year and I say only a few hundred have paid attention and realize that Nuts In A Blender is no more and About Last Night is in it's place.  That has partly to do with the fact that legally we can't promote the band as 'formerly Nuts In A Blender' we can only say 'former members of Nuts In A Blender are now About Last Night...' yeah six former members. LOL Anyway we understand that it could take six months to a year to be back in the position we were before.... that's if we maintain the same buzz and draw as we did with the last band. My heart says absolutely but my head registers a big question mark. Nuts was largely successful b/c of the work we put into it, constantly raising the bar, and the fact we didn't have much in the way of local competition. This band we have amazing talent and it works in such a smoother way... yet it's young, people are way too polite yet.... everyone is smiling but my hopes is that it stays that way. Second again intense competition from heavyweight touring bands in our backyard. In actuality this may help us. Bringing in an agency act to play a smallish-medium sized club for $3-4K  and having them draw the same or even less will give us leverage over club owners regarding pay. As it stands we're getting $1000-1200 but we have to pay out 7 performers and 3 crew.  We can do that comfortably if we inch back to our previous pay level $1500-2000. No one is expecting $250 take home from club gigs... the sweeter spot are privates where we can pull in $400 per man. We have 26 dates on the board now... 18 are clubs and there are a few 'ugh' destinations. So we will have to work hard to extend out of our local market to places like CT, NEPA, Long Island just to get some better profile clubs and some great audiences for potential private bookings. A few years back we played upstate in Albany (90 mins away) 7-9 times a year and we would pull another 7-8 privates: weddings, company events, birthday parties. 

So the strategy is there and the mechanics are in place... now we just have to produce. ;) 

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We finished up a new demo video late last year - and immediately did a mass mailing to local municipalities and festival planners in the hopes of finding a few beer tent/festival/concert in the park type gigs.   Our mailing went out in mid December ... and we've had at least 8 serious inquiries since the first of the year.  Nothing has been booked yet - but are definitely excited by the number of "nibbles" we're getting!   There's definite signs that this has the potential to be our best year ever!

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Open mic, now with lights!!

 

:)

 

 

 

 

Good times! I've also picked up 3 more students as well, so I'm at 12 students again. Mon, Tues & Wed I teach guitar and bass from 7pm - 9pm.

 

Keeping busy! I have this weekend off, so I think I'm off to the city to pick up a couple things.

 

An IPR1600, new drum throne, some sticks, some strings. Plus I'm going to replace all the pins on my light stands, 2 sets of speaker stands with these pins. I like that they basically lock with the half moon ring:

 

http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z398/robare99/F1EAEE3E-BAB0-48C9-809C-FA63616149C6-25266-0000121EFA9E38E9_zps517e1179.jpg

 

They are about $4 each, so ill pick up a couple dozen to have on hand.

 

Also have 4 weddings and a school dance to DJ, so that's good. It's fun, not as fun as playing with my band but it pays more. I average from $1000 - $1300 to DJ a wedding. $1000 for the school dance. I'll bring my full light rig for that one, should be fun.

 

It's crazy what DJ's can charge. I always let brides know my band is available for weddings. Sometimes they bite, sometimes not.

 

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2014 is shaping up great because I gave my month notice to my band last week, and will go back to being a hired gun and solo/duo gigging. My band's situation changed (no more house band status) and my own personal situation has changed to where road trips just don't work for me. Burnt out on playing new country in a band that sounds like a power trio, too much sameness of material, also too many cavernous, deserted, frozen honkytonks out in the sticks with their sleazy club owners. My decision was vindicated last night, with a truly disastrous (pay-wise) gig, 100 miles away. 

I intend to get back to playing organ in this man's band: https://www.facebook.com/KingEdwardAntoine .His manager contacted me a few days ago and said the artist wondered what I was doing, and was I available for gigs that needed a keyboard player. Last night while I was in a far-away honkytonk wasteland, they were playing a nice room 10 minutes from my house, onstage with Big Bill Morganfield (Muddy Waters' son).  

Here is a sample of my new duo pod'na: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tajpjq0yENQ. We already did 2 gigs, him on the guitar in the video with a Fishman combo amp and me on nothing but a baby grand at the country club. We got to channel Chet and Floyd and also a few jazz standards and blues. He booked a Valentines gig at the same place for us but will add either drums or upright bass for that one. 

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We're pretty booked up through April, then it looks like we're going to be taking 6 months off - Meagan's pregnant.  We'll do acoustic stuff as long as she's up for it, then we're gonna lay low until probably halloween or so..

 

So, I have 20 or so originals, so my plan is to record an album this summer.  I'm pretty excited about the project!

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