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Hitting Critical Mass


TrickyBoy

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So, we've been at this for almost 5 years now, and we're finally hitting what I like to call critical mass. Casinos are calling. People want us for their weddings. We choose what clubs to play, they don't choose us. And the 50's band idea I have is really taking off. The casino contacts that I have already want to book us, though we're not quite ready yet. It's really fun. And I'm not posting this to brag. It's more a response to the "live music is dead" vibe that I get on here a lot. It's not dead. But it does take time.

 

And the great part is that I don't think that Meagan's pregnancy is going to slow us down at all. If anything, coming back after a 4-5 month layoff in the heart of football season is going to rock.

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In our case - it's taken from August 2012 to Feb 2014 to just get a stable, compatible, lineup that is gig-ready. Mind blowing. I had no idea how much work it was to start a band (as opposed to a group of guys who jam on stage for money). And we are old dudes! But now that we have it, I can already feel it starting to oh so gradually snowball. If I'm where Tricky is in 5 years I'll be happy! Two or three gigs a month and the odd rehearsal would be awesome. Instead of the other way around.

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In our case - it's taken from August 2012 to Feb 2014 to just get a stable, compatible, lineup that is gig-ready. Mind blowing. I had no idea how much work it was to start a band (as opposed to a group of guys who jam on stage for money). And we are old dudes!

 

I'm going to chalk it up to amount of time you're able to spend rehearsing/gig. When I was young, bands I was in went from just-starting-out, to gig-ready, to "hot" in just a few months. But we 24/7 focused on the bands. Trying to do it part-time and on the weekends? Yes, it takes much, much longer. All those years of experience DO help when you're older, but not as much one might think. It still takes time.

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That's true enough - 3-4 hours of rehearsal a week does take a long time to add up. A friend of mine is convinced it takes about 100 hours of rehearsal to get a band gig-ready -- he may be right. We've also had personnel problems that set us back quite a lot...in particular, a front man who took three months to quit. We didn't rehearse at all for those three months, it was just excuse after excuse. You know the drill. *That* lineup was gig-ready, but it didn't last long and a venue closing emptied our schedule and totally took the wind out of our sails.

 

Ah, to be young and super-focused again. I don't really have many regrets, but I really regret putting music on hold for so many years. Working hard now to make up for lost time!

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Our first couple years were definitely building years. We went through 3 drummers before finally getting the one we have now. Once he was onboard, we "clicked" musically almost immediately. But then it just takes a long time to get to the point that people remember who you are and come out and see you. For us, the timing couldn't be better. With Meagan being pregnant, we're going to definitely have to break for a couple months in the summer/fall. Then after that, we want to cut back to 2 to AT MOST 3 gigs a month. The nice thing is that now we can weed out the lower paying ones and focus on the ones that pay the best and are the most fun. I could honestly see us weeding out almost all the clubs we play entirely in the next year.

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That's awesome man! Glad to hear it and I'll celebrate for you. Watching your band grow here through your stories has been a great experience. It takes a lot of effort and commitment to get a band to that level... and it also takes time. 5 years is what I always say it takes to make that mark no matter the quality of product. I think it's really about perception. Perception builds confidence in the eyes of the club owners and audience. Confidence that you put on a good show... confidence that you will stick around for a while... confidence that you'll be consistent. Having someone support, hire, and follow a band is a commitment. An investment.

 

It's an awesome ride when it happens.... it took us the same period to gain that momentum.. 2002-2007. From 2007 through 2012 we had a self sustaining business... more venues than we had calendar dates for, raised the bar to the absolute ceiling in terms of pay. It's a great place to be and as long as you don't f**k it up in terms of drastically changing things you probably can ride it out during times when it's both good and bad with clubs.

 

We're experiencing something entirely different. Struggling is the word. A revamped band with much of the same players and in the eyes of most a better product musically. We're still struggling to regain that audience and find a new one in niteclubs. We had a terrific show last Saturday at a destination venue but this weekend we have our work cut out for us in two smaller venues. Much of the nightclub scene here has cratered. Since Jan we've had two important rooms close and two more scale back their band budgets drastically. So we are losing calendar dates. Draw wise we still pull 50-100 per show for small rooms... but the previous band was well over the 200 person mark. We are trying to book strategically but it's tough in the current landscape. I have a feeling it will be this way until the warmer weather hits. Then I hope we will see more attendance at shows.

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Congrats! I always seem to have the worst luck with bands. I get with a group of guys and we do all the hard dirty work that it takes to get a band started and off the ground. Choosing the material, rehearsing rehearsing and more rehearsing, then playing shows and getting a name for ourselves. Then just when things start to take off someone starts to become a flake and torpedoes the thing straight to the ground, killing any momentum that we've created. The band I'm in now did all the hard work over a 2 year period. We have a nice following, and we have venues contacting us rather than us hounding them. We've had people express interest in original material, so we took some time and wrote songs. Then we put in the time and money to do an album. We have a CD release show in 2 weeks and yesterday our bass player informs us he's leaving the band. He said he would do the release show and the show after and then he's done. We have shows booked throughout the rest of the year and there's a chance that they will have to be canceled depending on if we can find a replacement in time. His reasoning is that he wants to devote more time to his wife and young child. I respect, understand, and can't fault him for that as family comes first, but he has been acting strange for the past few months and we have been asking him if all is good and he always said "yes." We've given him many chances to come clean and let us know prior to booking most of these shows and he chose to just let it go telling us how pumped he is about how things are going. I just hope that we can find a replacement soon and we don't lose much momentum because I don't think I have it in me to start all over again.

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Much of the nightclub scene here has cratered. Since Jan we've had two important rooms close and two more scale back their band budgets drastically. So we are losing calendar dates. Draw wise we still pull 50-100 per show for small rooms... but the previous band was well over the 200 person mark. We are trying to book strategically but it's tough in the current landscape. I have a feeling it will be this way until the warmer weather hits. Then I hope we will see more attendance at shows.

 

You know, I wonder how much of the change in scene is BECAUSE your band went through a transition period. I was always amazed at how you could draw so many people in your area, which is really pretty small demographically. Once you guys started having trouble, it's possible that many of those people decided to find something else to do, possibly permanently. IDK, you think there's anything to that, or were a whole bunch of bands matching your draw?

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You know, I wonder how much of the change in scene is BECAUSE your band went through a transition period. I was always amazed at how you could draw so many people in your area, which is really pretty small demographically. Once you guys started having trouble, it's possible that many of those people decided to find something else to do, possibly permanently. IDK, you think there's anything to that, or were a whole bunch of bands matching your draw?

 

 

Absolute that had much to do with this. From 2007-2012 there wasn't really a local band on the same level as us. Not with draw, not with pay, not with opportunities. We had the profile of a marquee agency band but we were managed completely independently. We were really an enigma in the area... and we really did alot to raise and enhance the club scene to the benefit of many bands in the area. In 2005 we were making $600 a show and most bands were making $400-600. In 2012 we were getting $1700-2000 and a few bands were making $800-1200. Funny... cuz there wasn't a ton of love and respect thrown our way but every time we opened a new room it created a new venue on the scene. And every time we raised our pay the other bands were able to draft off us and inch theirs as well. Going through a near breakup, a critical lineup change over the course of the year in 2013 certainly put the area in a tail spin in terms of nightclub entertainment. But did other local bands capitalize on the vaccum we left behind? Nope. Instead a bunch of agents came in and started booking in bands from out of state. That's where some of the erosion occurred. And those same bands were looking to book into our market b/c their clubs were closing. In 10 years we never had an agency band play in my market on a Friday or Saturday night but maybe once. Last Thanks giving Eve we had the two biggest agency bands playing across town from one another just 10 minutes from where I live. In other words the two biggest agency cover bands in the Northeast were spending the biggest bar night of the year not in Atlantic City... not in Philly, Boston, Hartford or Long Island (densely populated areas) but in rural Orange County in upstate NY. Now you might think that was due to opportunity... I'll argue that it was due to lack of opportunity. Both bands had to cut their pay to gig in clubs that barely hold 150 people.

 

​So yes the market is in major decline. The one room I spoke about that is closing is Black Bear in So Norwalk in CT.... I speak with bands in CT all of the time and the scene looks pretty grim there. We play a club in Danbury that is pretty small by capacity standards and one touring agency band says it's one of their best rooms in the entire state. Who knows what would have happened to NUTS had we stayed together. We were in the process of aging out and clubs wanted more Top40 and less Party rock. So it's difficult to say if we would still be chugging along. To me and my bandmates we felt that our format was a bit tired and we were really just coasting really well on the name. 2012 wasn't a terrific year in terms of the clubs. I saw a lot of soft spots particularly in the summertime when attendance is usually the best. We weren't playing much in New England or upstate and we had recently done an agency showcase with very little in terms of opportunities or direct feedback. So I think it really was this 'perfect storm' per say.... of us regrouping and the club business falling off.

 

The one thing I can say about my experience in building that band was that most of our following were people who didn't follow other bands... in fact they didn't follow anyone at all... they just liked to party. So they weren't people out and about supporting a music scene. They were just people in their 20's and 30's looking to have fun and dance the night away.

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The one thing I can say about my experience in building that band was that most of our following were people who didn't follow other bands... in fact they didn't follow anyone at all... they just liked to party. So they weren't people out and about supporting a music scene. They were just people in their 20's and 30's looking to have fun and dance the night away.

 

Yeah I think this is a mindset that most musicians don't really get, at least around here. SO many bands try to appeal to a handful of dedicated scenesters and/or other musicians. "Come out and support the local scene!" and that sort of thing. I want to draw the people that AREN'T part of the scene already. Expand the pie, just like you guys managed to do. Maybe it's a futile hope in the current environment, but I'm gonna do my best to try to catch a wave at the right time and ride it as long as I can.

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"expand the scene" - great idea. This is one reason I like gigs with an early start, it gives us the opportunity to convert late dinner crowd into dancers for a couple of sets. Then I just need to make sure our branding good enough that they remember the band name...

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Yeah I think this is a mindset that most musicians don't really get, at least around here. SO many bands try to appeal to a handful of dedicated scenesters and/or other musicians. "Come out and support the local scene!" and that sort of thing. I want to draw the people that AREN'T part of the scene already. Expand the pie, just like you guys managed to do. Maybe it's a futile hope in the current environment, but I'm gonna do my best to try to catch a wave at the right time and ride it as long as I can.

 

Expanding the pie really didn't come from one direction or strategic effort... I think it just came from years of being an entertaining and unchallenged band in that regard. Being in a small rural market we didn't have a lot of bands offering the same level of entertainment. A few tried but would just fall short. Getting local sponsorships, playing for exposure, radio airplay and sponsorship... it took years to build the rep where people and businesses sought us out to partner for events. But once we were there we became bigger than just a band. We became an event. And people love to be apart of an 'event',.People came to shows just to socialize as much as they came out to see a good band. And that's what I see consistent with the top agency bands in the Northeast. They built themselves a brand. Now we are back to being just a band... like any other in terms of initial perception. We have to get out there and get some exposure to change that... create some good buzz like the old days. I remember in Jan 2005 we were playing to 50-60 people and making $600... by May of 2006 we were drawing a few hundred and making $1200. So it takes time to build. We also need some consistency in our calendar which has been wrecked with cancelled dates due to weather, closing venues and our own conflicts.

 

 

The only competition we have really (aside from the out of area bands that play in the same rooms but once every 6-7 weeks) is our old name... which was by far the strongest brand in the area. Local people serious thought this was our regular jobs. I'd bump into people all of the time who would say 'I hear you on the radio all of the time' or I see you guys at XXXXX. I was at Best Buy shopping during the holidays and the cashier asked "Do you play in Nuts In A Blender?" I said yes and she called her friends over while my wife rolled her eyes. We were really local celebrities.... so it was funny how hard we struggled to get gigs more than 90 minutes away. It really was a local enigma. Now the question I get asked is "What Happened". People assume with a name change that the party is over... that something is different. And that is certainly true to the extent the product has changed. The presentation may be similar but the ingredients are certainly different. We just have to over come the 'New Coke' syndrome. Last Saturday proved we can still draw like the old band without the sake of curiosity (we've been playing close to three months now with the new lineup and name change) ... now we just need to do it every weekend.

 

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Now the question I get asked is "What Happened". People assume with a name change that the party is over... that something is different. And that is certainly true to the extent the product has changed. The presentation may be similar but the ingredients are certainly different.

 

Yes, it's a different band now. I think the best way forward is just to move on. You have whatever there is you can use from the years of being NIAB in your pocket---and that's a lot of stuff. Years of the band members playing together, a fan base to draw upon, connections and a reputation in the area. But rather than trying to sell yourselves as "we're the same band just with different singers and a new name!" That probably isn't going to work for you except for those who WANT it to work---the fans that will love you regardless. But trying to convince people you're the same when they are going to look at you and go "uh...no, you aren't...." and thinking you'll get the same crowd draws....no, that isn't going to happen. You'll have to rebuild most of that.

 

Good news is that you have a strong base to build from. Advantages no "just starting out" band would have. What took NIAB 5 years to do, you guys will be able to do in 2.

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And stuff like this is becoming the norm as opposed to the exception - This stuff never gets old :)

 

 

You worked hard to get there... some {censored}ty gigs, some lineup changes and even some life changes ;) You deserve it man! Your band gets it... it's not art, it's entertainment. And as long as you keep entertaining at the level you are delivering at you will continue to get work and have the audience finish your sentences.

 

I'm curious though... just b/c you don't mention it much. Have you guys built a following... I mean beyond the 20 hanger ons that may come out to every show? People who's faces you recognized but have never been introduced to or know their name and show up at frequent shows? Or are you just playing better, destination-type rooms. Built in crowds. Both are good... both inherently lead to the other.

 

 

 

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And stuff like this is becoming the norm as opposed to the exception - This stuff never gets old :)

 

Yep. How can that ever get old? That stuff is the main reason I get on stage!

 

Speaking of We Are Young....that song has become our standard encore number. But I've never liked how it felt to end the night with the slow bit. So we recently started doing a bit where after the end of the song we pick it back up by doing the last part of "Come On Eileen" and then we get to end the night by speeding back up and ending with a big crescendo.

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Jason , you've been lucky and smart enough to have the main lineup really stable, You Megan and the bass player have been together I believe most of the time. That's the hardest part. Keeping a stable line up and keeping at it, It's normally not that hard to find one player you need if you can offer them steady good paying gigs , you've been able to do that. We went through female lead singer HELL!!! with Deep Down Enzo and never really found any that were not aliens , so hat's to you my friend. With all your contacts now you should dabble in being a booking agent LOL I'd hire you

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You worked hard to get there... some {censored}ty gigs, some lineup changes and even some life changes ;) You deserve it man! Your band gets it... it's not art, it's entertainment. And as long as you keep entertaining at the level you are delivering at you will continue to get work and have the audience finish your sentences.

 

I'm curious though... just b/c you don't mention it much. Have you guys built a following... I mean beyond the 20 hanger ons that may come out to every show? People who's faces you recognized but have never been introduced to or know their name and show up at frequent shows? Or are you just playing better, destination-type rooms. Built in crowds. Both are good... both inherently lead to the other.

 

 

 

Do we have a following?? It's a tough question. The answer is yes, kind of... I don't think we could play a room in the middle of nowhere, and expect people to come out in good numbers. But at the places we play, we've noticed that people make an effort to get there the nights we're playing. Also, we've gotten really good at pulling in what I call the "casual downtowner". In otherwords, people who go downtown without a plan tend to make it to where we're playing (and stay there) once they find out we're playing.

 

 

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Yep. How can that ever get old? That stuff is the main reason I get on stage!

 

Speaking of We Are Young....that song has become our standard encore number. But I've never liked how it felt to end the night with the slow bit. So we recently started doing a bit where after the end of the song we pick it back up by doing the last part of "Come On Eileen" and then we get to end the night by speeding back up and ending with a big crescendo.

 

Interestingly, we generally close EVERY set slow. I tend to do Purple Rain at the end of set 1, We Are Young at the end of set 2 and we have closed every show we've ever played with What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. It works well for us, and I like closing sets with crowd participation sing alongs, and all three of those songs do that. Then the DJ kick in with bumping club music, we break, and before they know it, we're back onstage with the next set.

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Jason , you've been lucky and smart enough to have the main lineup really stable, You Megan and the bass player have been together I believe most of the time. That's the hardest part. Keeping a stable line up and keeping at it, It's normally not that hard to find one player you need if you can offer them steady good paying gigs , you've been able to do that. We went through female lead singer HELL!!! with Deep Down Enzo and never really found any that were not aliens , so hat's to you my friend. With all your contacts now you should dabble in being a booking agent LOL I'd hire you

 

Yeah, we've been really lucky. Outside of drummers, we've been amazingly stable. The bassist and I started the band and MEagan started soon there after. From that point, the "face" of the band hasn't changed, and I think that continuity really helps.

 

As for a booking agent, I outsource our booking - lol. I'd rather someone else deal with that headache.

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Interestingly, we generally close EVERY set slow. I tend to do Purple Rain at the end of set 1, We Are Young at the end of set 2 and we have closed every show we've ever played with What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. It works well for us, and I like closing sets with crowd participation sing alongs, and all three of those songs do that. Then the DJ kick in with bumping club music, we break, and before they know it, we're back onstage with the next set.

 

We usually close the first set with "Shout", which is very crowd participation and then the 2nd set with DSB which isn't either slow OR fast really...lol. WAR works well as the followup encore. And "Eileen" is just a big huge singalong too. But I like that building-it-up to a crescendo thing for the end.

 

I've always wanted to do "Purple Rain". But I don't think we have anyone who could sing it convincingly enough to pull it off right.

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