Music Venues: RIP

[jeff42]

some 90s stuff we do

Run Around- Blues Traveler

What I Got- Sublime

Hey Jealousy- Gin Blossoms

Two Princes- Spin Doctors

Tubthumpin- Chumbawumba

Song 2- Blur

Breakfast At Tiffany’s- Deep Blue Something

Laid – James

Semi Charmed- Third Eye Blind

My Own Worst Enemy- Lit

New Aged Girl- Dead Eye Dick

The Impression That I Get- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Livin' La Vida Loca- Ricky Martin

Zoot Suit Riot- Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Get A Job- The Offspring

Inside Out- Eve 6

This Is How We Do It- Montel Jordan

California Love- Tupac

Here Comes The Hotstepper- Ini Kamoze

Jump Around- House of Pain

YMMV

[StratGuy22]

I'm in a little town of 10,000 that's 3 hours from the nearest city. Middle of nowhere. There's a pretty decent little original live music scene going on. I provide basically house sound for a couple main venues, along with different annual one-offs.

 

We will bring in 2 bands plus a solo or duo opener. $10 cover which is split between the bands. The bands get 100% of the door and the bar pays me separately, not from the door.

 

Each band gets:

2 hotel rooms

$100 tab which usually breaks down into 25 drink tickets

They keep 100% of merch sales as well.

 

Here's a couple bands from this weekend. It was pretty cold so the turnout wasn't huge, everyone had a good time!

[StratGuy22]

Here's the headliner band. This song is about Han Solo, it's called...

 

Han Shot First

 

[Vito Corleone]

Yep. "Interactive" is the key word. I have no doubt whatsoever that the difference our shows being "meh" and going over huge is the degree to which we get the audience involved. Dragging people up on stage. Handing out blow up guitars to the kids. Etc. and we don't even really do all THAT much of it. Just a few bits throughout the night. But the people eat it up They all wanna be part of the show.

 

A good friend of mine that I've played with since we were kids runs sound for us sometimes and can't stand that we do that stuff. He's still of the mindset that he wants to get on stage and perform the music he likes but and have everyone pay attention to HIM.

 

I tell him "dude, you gotta get over yourself if you wanna make any money"

 

His 3-piece struggles to make more than $250 a night and find any gigs at all.

[Kramerguy]

I used to agree and argue that the cause was the declining bar scene. But I go out to the bars regularly, and if anything, it's pretty happening. The problem is not the bars, it's the bands. Not that we all aren't pretty badass - Especially you Pat- but the decline is the music scene, not the bar scene.

 

I've noticed in a few of the local bars where the stage is away from the bar, far enough to separate the room, everyone hangs on the bar side. Actually 3 different clubs come to mind, unless it's one of the really hot regional acts playing, the bands get zero love.

 

Why? I don't know.. I think a lot of it has to do with fewer kids playing instruments, so when they become adults, that fascination we all had with bands just isn't there. The youth today is promarily hipsters and hipster wannabe's.. they only like underground original bands who use power tools and trash cans as instruments or something. Using actual guitars and drums is Sooo 90's classic rock.

 

I'm being funny now, and kind of on purpose. I don't know why there is no interest in local music anymore, but even that acoustic guy is virtually ignored in whatever restaurant he plays in. Even by us.

[Vito Corleone]

It's never been written anywhere that people have to love live music---or even music at all. We loved it as kids because it meant something to us. It moved our souls and our spirit and our butts.

 

​I don't think kids today are any stupider than we were. That could hardly be possible. But things other than music are obviously what move them.

 

​Could something eventually turn that around? Sure. But it will up the musicians to figure it out. It's not the job of the audiences or the venues to do so.

 

[Kramerguy]

Yes we did have a connection that seems to be missing these days. I was really just musing on the topic without any real direction on this. We've seen the same drop in my area, and it's just disappointing. I still feel like a teenager when I get a new fx pedal or some other gear.. play with it for hours on end and forget to eat lunch , etc.. I look at today's youth, too glued to their phones to acknowledge life around them, and while no they are arguably far more intelligent than our generation, they seem to lack any real comprehension of life and spirituality.

[Vito Corleone]

Yes we did have a connection that seems to be missing these days. I was really just musing on the topic without any real direction on this. We've seen the same drop in my area' date=' and it's just disappointing. I still feel like a teenager when I get a new fx pedal or some other gear.. play with it for hours on end and forget to eat lunch , etc.. I look at today's youth, too glued to their phones to acknowledge life around them, and while no they are arguably far more intelligent than our generation, they seem to lack any real comprehension of life and spirituality.[/quote']

 

​Oh, I dunno. Were we really so comprehending of life and spirituality as kids?

 

​I was mostly about wanting to get my car fixed up so I could cruise the drag with the stereo cranked and talk to girls. And I started playing in a band because that was even a better way to meet girls.

 

​And my personal connection to music? Was mostly to help fill the gaps in my life and emotion that weren't already filled by girls.

 

​I think kids do the same thing today, just with other things. We thought music was important because we were the ones playing it. But for the average kid in the 70s or 80s? Was listening to Boston or Motley Crue really that much more spiritual than today's kid checking out his Facebook feed?

 

​musicians had it easier in our day because we had less competition for trying to provide the thing that fills the holes in people's lives. So today's musicians maybe have to work harder to be that thing.

 

 

 

 

[Pat'sStrat]

It's never been written anywhere that people have to love live music---or even music at all. We loved it as kids because it meant something to us. It moved our souls and our spirit and our butts.

 

I don't think kids today are any stupider than we were. That could hardly be possible. But things other than music are obviously what move them.

 

Could something eventually turn that around? Sure. But it will up the musicians to figure it out. It's not the job of the audiences or the venues to do so.

You nailed it. Millenials in general, insofar as they value live music at the local level at all, want to be part of the experience. Either they go see someone because they are friends with the performer ( my daughter, 27, has friends who do solos and it is not uncommon for the performer to have 20 or 30 friends show up) or they want to be a part of the show somehow. This is what interactive technology has created in them- a desire to be part of what is happening, not just observers.

 

But, at least here, I'm told by a few solo venues that they don't want to hire millennials much because the crowd they bring takes up a lot of space but doesn't spend much money and tips even less. Go figure.

[Vito Corleone]

You nailed it. Millenials in general, insofar as they value live music at the local level at all, want to be part of the experience. Either they go see someone because they are friends with the performer ( my daughter, 27, has friends who do solos and it is not uncommon for the performer to have 20 or 30 friends show up) or they want to be a part of the show somehow. This is what interactive technology has created in them- a desire to be part of what is happening, not just observers.

 

But, at least here, I'm told by a few solo venues that they don't want to hire millennials much because the crowd they bring takes up a lot of space but doesn't spend much money and tips even less. Go figure.

 

Yeah. When have kids ever had any money? When I was younger we played these venues that packed hundreds of people in. Fun to play but they probably needed to be so big because it took 10 kids to make what 1 regular adult would spend.

[Idunno]

Music popularity itself is now waning. It has been for awhile. The Boomers took themselves out of their parent's world at war and distracted themselves with a world of art forms.Their prodigy have been distracted from music by technology and it's tendency to isolate them and turn them into a society of reclusives.

 

My kids (18 & 23) listen to 70's music because their own generation is not anteing up. It won't, either, because the technology of today has turned them into instant gratification specialists. Learning to play a real musical instrument does not fit into it so they do not develop that kind of interest (in anything that requires real work, for that matter). Instead, they spend their time gaming privately or online and socializing through the various media. I see young couples (teens) walking hand-in-hand completely unaware of each other as they stroll along totally absorbed into their cell phones. This is good?

 

Music has lost its place in the psyche of young people as an important aspect of their lives. It's worth has dropped. I want to think the visualizing of music (video) was the stepping stone to that. It swapped the importance of the aural challenge to entertain the ear, for the eye, and even on these various forums for so-called musicians more often than not I read about the visual drooling over the aesthetic appeal of guitars than the aural. So, instead of musicianship leading the interest in guitars it's the guitar itself that leads. That's a guitar enthusiast's MO, not a musician's.

 

The ear is now on the back burner as a sense to entertain. Food has taken a leap forward as a sense to entertain and turned the techno-reclusives into fatties with the physical attributes of potatoes. I have no interest in entertaining them with music any more so than they want me to so it's a mutual win-win.

 

I highly doubt the music industry will sponsor real musicianship again now that the very cheaply fabricated EDM is blanketing the musical landscape. Studio-owned button pushers - dime a dozen by contrast to real musicianship - are pumping out the new music with similarly talented throat warblers and pitch correction. Who needs real talent?

 

That may not seem a fair statement to make when the techno-jizzed children of today actually think button pushing requires the same inner ear to punch out melodies. Agreed. How does this reconcile musicianship on a stage? Who would want to watch a person on stage thrashing at a panel to his own knob turning and sliding choreography? Engaging?

 

 

[sventvkg]

Absolutely brilliant summation of the landscape. I agree wholeheartedly!

[Heg666]

I somewhat agree with ^ that.

 

But i'd simplify it a bit.

 

What's was the most popular music in the 70's, 80's and even 90's?

It was ALL "band" music. Guitars, Bass, Drums etc.

 

Whats the most popular style of music today?

R&B/Electronic/Rap/Synth based.

Mostly Solo performed - no need for guitar, bass etc.

My 16yo and his mates all listen to Rap and various electronic versions (not dance music but produced almost entirely without the need for a band). Given the opportunity they would hire a DJ over a band ANY day of the week - because the DJ can accurately reproduce what they want to hear.

Most forms of rock (and by extension - bands themselves in the traditional sense) are now classified as "old people music" by todays kids. With good reason. The majority of it was recorded > 20 years ago.

 

[Monsoon]

I somewhat agree with ^ that.

 

But i'd simplify it a bit.

 

What's was the most popular music in the 70's, 80's and even 90's?

It was ALL "band" music. Guitars, Bass, Drums etc.

 

Whats the most popular style of music today?

R&B/Electronic/Rap/Synth based.

Mostly Solo performed - no need for guitar, bass etc.

My 16yo and his mates all listen to Rap and various electronic versions (not dance music but produced almost entirely without the need for a band). Given the opportunity they would hire a DJ over a band ANY day of the week - because the DJ can accurately reproduce what they want to hear.

Most forms of rock (and by extension - bands themselves in the traditional sense) are now classified as "old people music" by todays kids. With good reason. The majority of it was recorded > 20 years ago.

 

 

This is an excellent point. Even bands that used to be bands are now not so much bands. I'm thinking about artists like Maroon 5 which now puts out songs that are little more than Levine singing almost a capella over a drum track and a bassline, maybe with some light synth for effect. People are listening to music that doesn't really lend itself to band performances. Yes, I know there are bands like Ostrich Hat and my last band that finds a way to take these songs and "rock them out" in a full band, but that's not what the current generation is listening to.

[Vito Corleone]

 

 

This is an excellent point. Even bands that used to be bands are now not so much bands. I'm thinking about artists like Maroon 5 which now puts out songs that are little more than Levine singing almost a capella over a drum track and a bassline, maybe with some light synth for effect. People are listening to music that doesn't really lend itself to band performances. Yes, I know there are bands like Ostrich Hat and my last band that finds a way to take these songs and "rock them out" in a full band, but that's not what the current generation is listening to.

 

​Well, at some point it needs to be recognized that the guitar/bass/drum format is 60 years old. It's no more exciting for young kids today to see on a stage than it was for us to look at Lawrence Welk.

 

​What I still believe will remain viable long into the future, however, is live performance. People will still always be intrigued by seeing what other people do with their talents and will be able to be moved by them. It's up to the artists to find new and innovative ways to reach them. Electric guitars and loud amplifiers and PA systems were the cutting edge technology of the day back in the 50s and 60s. That was part of the allure. Now they are instruments these kids' grandfathers played.

 

​So it really only makes sense that new ways to make the music and reach the audience will be the future of live musical entertainment. We are all just the last throes of an art form in transition. If I was 20, I might be looking for new ways to do things. At 55? I'm just looking for ways to squeeze a last few breathes out of the old ways before it is all but completely gone.

 

 

 

 

[sventvkg]

 

​Well, at some point it needs to be recognized that the guitar/bass/drum format is 60 years old. It's no more exciting for young kids today to see on a stage than it was for us to look at Lawrence Welk.

 

​What I still believe will remain viable long into the future, however, is live performance. People will still always be intrigued by seeing what other people do with their talents and will be able to be moved by them. It's up to the artists to find new and innovative ways to reach them. Electric guitars and loud amplifiers and PA systems were the cutting edge technology of the day back in the 50s and 60s. That was part of the allure. Now they are instruments these kids' grandfathers played.

 

​So it really only makes sense that new ways to make the music and reach the audience will be the future of live musical entertainment. We are all just the last throes of an art form in transition. If I was 20, I might be looking for new ways to do things. At 55? I'm just looking for ways to squeeze a last few breathes out of the old ways before it is all but completely gone.

 

 

 

 

I'm playing to corporate professionals who range from mid 20's-70's with the median age about mine..Mid 40's. I figure I can pretty much play my 80's 90's modern country easily for 20 years and I'll be out of this. In fact I doubt I'll be playing more than a few gigs a month in 5 years. I'll have younger players and I'll just run it. I don't see my audience for what I'm doing going away as long as I want to do it. We're not playing for a little kids that listen to EDM. Playing bars is over however. Kids just don't listen to music that can be played live. Although there are lots out there rediscovering good stuff from the past that they missed so there is some hope.

[Vito Corleone]

 

I'm playing to corporate professionals who range from mid 20's-70's with the median age about mine..Mid 40's. I figure I can pretty much play my 80's 90's modern country easily for 20 years and I'll be out of this. In fact I doubt I'll be playing more than a few gigs a month in 5 years. I'll have younger players and I'll just run it. I don't see my audience for what I'm doing on the way as long as I want to do it. We're not playing for a little kids that listen to EDM. Playing bars is over however. Kids just don't listen to music that can be played live. Although there are lots out there rediscovering good stuff from the past that they missed so there is some hope.

 

 

Yeah, you just gotta pick your spots. There are gigs and will always be gigs for pretty much whatever you want to do musically. There's still guys making good money playing 100 year old dixieland jazz tunes. How hard to gotta work to find those gigs? That's a different story. Doing the corp/wedding thing the way we do it, I never cease to be amazed that we can still find groups of fairly young people willing to pay pretty darn good money to have a live band at their event.

 

You just got give 'em a good product and market it well.

 

We all got spoiled by the days when pretty much anyone who could make some noise with a guitar could find a gig and make a few bucks. The line from the old song "get a second hand guitar, chances are you'll go far, if you get in with the right bunch of fellows" was pretty true. Now you have to work at it a bit more.

 

But my take on that is also that you ALWAYS had to work pretty hard and treat it like a serious business to find the REALLY good paying gigs. And those still exist. It's the $500 a night stuff at the corner pub that is drying up. The easy stuff has been replaced by easy social media or DJs or whatever.

 

 

[wesg]

There's still guys making good money playing 100 year old dixieland jazz tunes. How hard to gotta work to find those gigs?

 

Honestly? Easier than Classic Rock around here, by virtue of lack of competition, I guess. I play Dixieland funerals, university swing dances, summer concert series. I guess I should point out that the format around here is always Dixieland/Swing. Nobody does purely Dixieland, which is why I get the calls instead of a banjo player for the chording instrument.

 

Big Band is also keeping me busy. I'm not 100% sure why, but I know part of it is because of a small number of very active folks who can connect with their generation (born in the in 1940s) in my area. Obviously that has a limited life span, but I played a show last night that was sold out before the doors opened. That group does primarily self-produced shows, the band hires the venue, does all the promo, and we are paid out of ticket money. We are consistently making better than union scale, but a bad turnout could have us working for free.

 

Wes

[Outkaster]

Music popularity itself is now waning. It has been for awhile. The Boomers took themselves out of their parent's world at war and distracted themselves with a world of art forms.Their prodigy have been distracted from music by technology and it's tendency to isolate them and turn them into a society of reclusives.

 

My kids (18 & 23) listen to 70's music because their own generation is not anteing up. It won't, either, because the technology of today has turned them into instant gratification specialists. Learning to play a real musical instrument does not fit into it so they do not develop that kind of interest (in anything that requires real work, for that matter). Instead, they spend their time gaming privately or online and socializing through the various media. I see young couples (teens) walking hand-in-hand completely unaware of each other as they stroll along totally absorbed into their cell phones. This is good?

 

Music has lost its place in the psyche of young people as an important aspect of their lives. It's worth has dropped. I want to think the visualizing of music (video) was the stepping stone to that. It swapped the importance of the aural challenge to entertain the ear, for the eye, and even on these various forums for so-called musicians more often than not I read about the visual drooling over the aesthetic appeal of guitars than the aural. So, instead of musicianship leading the interest in guitars it's the guitar itself that leads. That's a guitar enthusiast's MO, not a musician's.

 

The ear is now on the back burner as a sense to entertain. Food has taken a leap forward as a sense to entertain and turned the techno-reclusives into fatties with the physical attributes of potatoes. I have no interest in entertaining them with music any more so than they want me to so it's a mutual win-win.

 

I highly doubt the music industry will sponsor real musicianship again now that the very cheaply fabricated EDM is blanketing the musical landscape. Studio-owned button pushers - dime a dozen by contrast to real musicianship - are pumping out the new music with similarly talented throat warblers and pitch correction. Who needs real talent?

 

That may not seem a fair statement to make when the techno-jizzed children of today actually think button pushing requires the same inner ear to punch out melodies. Agreed. How does this reconcile musicianship on a stage? Who would want to watch a person on stage thrashing at a panel to his own knob turning and sliding choreography? Engaging?

 

 

The best summary of this situation I have probably ever seen.

[Shaster]

Here in Vancouver BC, I can only think of one bar (that is doing well) that has live bands for millennials. The bands there all look 30 and under, and play music from the last ten maybe fifteen years. That room probably works because there are a dozen restaurants close by and the ladies go out for dinner and then cruise over to the bar. There are some very wealthy guys there looking for the nineteen year old girls. A strange scene, but it is what it is. Otherwise, the millennials only go to clubs where there is a DJ or original or roots music. There are a few casinos that cater to a wider range audience, including millennials, but folks are there mainly for the gambling.

 

 

My band plays to an older crowd. In fact I'm starting to see some walkers in the club. We are high energy though, and it's all guys who were almost rock stars but not quite - so it's a good band. Problem is, rents here are so high that venues are starting to close. Here's a club that just closed that we played in twice a month. http://www.westender.com/news-issues...rms-1.14189984

 

I also just heard a rumour that another place that I play is closing for rent reasonsas well http://www.rustygull.com/live-entert...-the-gull.html

 

Thank goodness I do solo stuff. The folks that are working all the time are doing a combination of solo, duo, once in a while trio, and then once in a great while, bands.

[Kramerguy]

I blame the hipster millenials

 

For everything

 

[AJ6stringsting]

When I was a traveling musician, we played the Brickyard up in Vancouver BC, the scene was healthy back in 1992.

I guess things changed up there.

In Central California, the music scene got killed of by nepotistic promoters promoting the same lame hobbyist lame bands, most of the better bands are stuck .

Seems like the hobbyists are under pricing the Professionals and the club owners are cutting corners .... Just as bad as play for play.

[Shaster]

The scene in Vancouver in '92 was very healthy, for original bands and cover bands, but it started going downhill not too long after that. AFAIK the Brickyard is no more (unless it's reopened) http://scoutmagazine.ca/2013/02/04/vancouver-lexicon-brickyard/

 

I did forget about one bar, The Roxy. They still have cover bands there, and it's been open for a long time. I played there in the eighties when it was Jack's Hanging Tree.

 

Yes the hobby bands are undercutting the "pros" in my area as well. Most of those bands play the casinos, which use to pay well, but to a casino a dollar saved is a dollar in their pocket. Guess that's our free market economy in action - sigh.

[StratGuy22]

We used to set up on the dance floor every time.

 

It worked out well, just that you were right on the dancefloor.

 

 

They had talked about renovating for years and now they've finally done it. The moved the bathrooms to the other side of the bar. Then they took out the current bathrooms and that's where they u pit the new stage. Lots of power on their own circuits etc etc. Worked out pretty good!!

 

 

 

Been talking with their maintenance guy doing the renovations who I'm on great terms with. (He gave me a key to the place years ago so I didn't have to deal with the front desk) he's going to put in 2 pipes so I don't have to use my truss and stands. And he's going to add extra outlets at stage level on the front beams so I don't have to run extension cords to the front for my subs and pedalboards etc.

 

 

The stage is really deep so I set up my truss & curtain about 6' out from the back wall. Leaves room for cases etc.

 

[Outkaster]

That's cool. Helping to establish a good relationship helps things also. You get better buy in that way also.