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the muzak-free restaurant


pogo97

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Is there such a thing anymore? I don't think there's a single resto in my town that hasn't got canned music in the background ALL THE TIME. And when you play, you ask them to turn it off, and then turn it back on during breaks.

 

What's with this? Are there reputable studies that show that background music increases drinking? Are the owners responding to a well-crafted sales campaign? (you know, like vinyl siding) I mentioned it to a waitress the other night and she shuddered and said something like "silence would be really uncomfortable."

 

and then there's the damn TV screens

Nothing is more useful than silence. Menander (342 BC - 292 BC)

 

Silence is more musical than any song. Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

 

From the persistence of noise comes the insistence of rage. From the emergence of tone comes the divergence of thought. From the enlightenment of music comes the wisdom of... silence. Visions of Gregorian Chants

 

Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence. John Lahr

 

 

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note that both your first two quotes are from people who never heard a radio or saw a tv...I'm jus'sayin'... :wave:

background music is ubiquitous...it started in elevators [muzak] as a way to relieve strangers from feeling like they should start a conversation...now stores, restaurants, barbershops, nail parlors, you name it...even music stores...have canned b/g music.

 

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note that both your first two quotes are from people who never heard a radio or saw a tv

 

exactly -- they may also have occasionally known *true* silence

 

I have experienced true extended silence only once -- when I was living in a log cabin in central Yukon

 

kinda sad, doncha think?

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The TV in a restaurant is something that takes work to ignore. Your peripheral vision is attracted to movement. I'd rather they don't have a TV in a restaurant - unless the restaurant has a TV theme (like a "sports bar").

 

Muzak is OK with me if kept at a sonic wallpaper volume.

 

But it should be appropriate to the clientele and not too loud. And I prefer the 'old days' when it was mostly instrumental versions of songs my parents knew by heart. But that's me.

 

Leilani and I want to a seafood restaurant last week. It was a nice, moderately expensive restaurant that had a 40 to nearly dead aged clientele. And what where they playing? Loud music for the young wait staff. It didn't ruin our meal, but we both noticed how inappropriate the music was for the average guest.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

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Real silence is pretty rare. And nonexistent in a restaurant or bar. But I enjoy the stream-like babble of many voices talking. Adding canned music is like adding aspartame to everything on your plate.

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At the place I'm doing a weekly "jazz-age jazz" dinnertime gig, they have, in addition to the usual programmed feed, vinyl. Bless their souls, they played a 60s Herbie Hancock album when I was breaking. Not perfect, but it shows they care.

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I knew it was time to stop playing restaurants and bars when we had to compete with the TV sets. When I first started gigging years ago, there was no such thing as TV screens in the venues we played. Then it became something they had for sports events on off nights or before the band started up.

 

But when it got to the point where they would refuse to turn the TV sets off and we found ourselves competing for the customer's attention with the basketball game in the corner?

 

Yeah.....time to find another approach.

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aaarrrggghhh...had a gig last year during the NBA finals, and the bar manager wouldn't turn off the TVs, so I told him, 'fine, your call, but we won't play, because then the people watching won't be able to hear the TVs'...and he said, 'Great!'

The minute the game was over, we hit it...at least he didn't cut our pay.

There is another room I play regularly that leaves the screens on but the sound off...very distracting. I asked, and was told that when they wired the place, the TVs are on the same line as the stage power... :facepalm:

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Yeah, at least the sound is usually off. For now, anyway.

 

Speaking of "on the same line" I remember playing some bar once where the power was such that the only way for us to set up was to unplug one of the TV sets. No go. We had to go run some line from way across the building or some such because the TV set took priority. :facepalm:

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And on New Year's Eve, we went to a place with entertainment, but were seated on the veranda, away from the singer. We could hear him, but we could also hear programmed music over the nearby speakers, which was not nice. Asked to have them turned off. No-one knew how to do it. There were two no-shows in the main room, so they moved us there. But… really?!!!

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Last year we played an outdoor community event for Memorial Day weekend and, among the other activities they had going on, they rolled out a big screen TV because the Golden State Warriors were playing in the playoffs that night. Asked the people involved if they wanted us to wait until the game was over to start playing (we were a distraction to the game as much as anything else) but they said they wanted us to play anyway. So our first set was playing to virtually no one until the game finished and then everyone came over to dance for the 2nd set.

 

We are booked for the same event again this year. Haven't checked to see if the Warriors will be playing that night yet or not. But I'll do so and adjust the setlist accordingly, I suppose....

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Yeah, at least the sound is usually off. For now, anyway.

 

Speaking of "on the same line" I remember playing some bar once where the power was such that the only way for us to set up was to unplug one of the TV sets. No go. We had to go run some line from way across the building or some such because the TV set took priority. :facepalm:

 

yeah, I've had to deal with that type of schtick a few times...the worst is when the one for the band is not properly grounded, or the hot and neutral are reversed... :facepalm:

One place I played years ago had fluorescent lights and neon lights on the two circuits that serviced the stage :mad:

...another place, the bar blender was on the same circuit...every time someone ordered a daiquiri, pina colada, strawberry margarita...woooooozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....:cry:

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I haven't ever played a place that didn't have music, and I can't think of any restaurant that doesn't have background music.

 

Getting the music off before I play can be challenging though. some of the hotels I play have their music controlled by the front desk staff. I have to wander over to the desk, hope to get their attention and then they turn it off. Then I have to walk the one hundred plus feet back to the stage area. Once it took me thirty minutes to get the music turned off. The bartender in the lounge even tried, but they ignored him as well.

 

As for TV's, even the high end places have TV's in my area, because of the Winter Olympics we hosted a few years back. They stay on all day and night, sometimes with the sound on. Then you add people listening to YouTube at their tables, and it's a glorious thing. Most of these places have music because it's a cheap way to add value. That and the $50k to $200k they spent on their piano makes them feel they should get some use out of it. Works for me - allows me to pay the bills.

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I've posted before about a Restaurant that I played at for at least 12 years. What I posted was that they completely cut live music out in 2016. Their fight with ASCAP/BMI has been going on for a few years. Long story short - I'm pretty sure they don't have any music at all now. TVs are always have the volume turned all the way down too. They don't want ASCAP to catch them with any audible music. I've wondered if they would be interested in having a musician play either all originals or music so old that the copyrights are no longer in effect?

 

They also have a banquet facility on the same property which makes me think they would have to pay ASCAP/BMI to cover the mobile DJs working weddings there. I'll have to give them a call and find out more.

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I remember when restaurant booths had little jukeboxy music things on the wall. Normally you'd put in a coin and you would hear the chosen song softly in your booth. I especially recall one place that had those and my father chose a song and put in the money and it came out really loud all over the restaurant. He was quite embarrassed. Strange. But the basic story was that, if you wanted music, you paid for it by the song. Unless it was live music.

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I've posted before about a Restaurant that I played at for at least 12 years. What I posted was that they completely cut live music out in 2016. Their fight with ASCAP/BMI has been going on for a few years. Long story short - I'm pretty sure they don't have any music at all now. TVs are always have the volume turned all the way down too. They don't want ASCAP to catch them with any audible music. I've wondered if they would be interested in having a musician play either all originals or music so old that the copyrights are no longer in effect?

 

They also have a banquet facility on the same property which makes me think they would have to pay ASCAP/BMI to cover the mobile DJs working weddings there. I'll have to give them a call and find out more.

 

IIRC, private parties are not covered by the venue license agreement. Get them to hire Pogo...most of his playlist is public domain! :wave:

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I remember when restaurant booths had little jukeboxy music things on the wall. Normally you'd put in a coin and you would hear the chosen song softly in your booth. I especially recall one place that had those and my father chose a song and put in the money and it came out really loud all over the restaurant. He was quite embarrassed. Strange. But the basic story was that' date=' if you wanted music, you paid for it by the song. Unless it was live music.[/quote']

 

ah, Pogo, I remember the 'private' jukes of the roadside diner era...with the two-sided panel playlists, there would be about 100+ songs available...1 for a nickel. 3 for a dime and 7 for a quarter... [yeah, I'm that freaking old... ;) ]

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As a young lad back in the seventies, I frequented this burger joint that was trying to do the retro thing. They had the "jukebox stations" at every table. We would always freak the mostly young customers out by not playing Top forty, but rather tunes by Glenn Miller, and the like. Fond memories of screaming out, "Pennsylvania 6-5000."

 

As for ASCAP and SOCAN it's my understanding that if you play a radio station for background music, the fee is already paid for and you don't have to. That might be an urban myth though.

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Hmmm, I am having a hard time thinking of restaurants around me that do have music playing. The ones I go to mostly don't. And most of the diners around here still have the booth-side juke boxes as well.

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radio play through is non-licensed as the station pays the fees. There is a 'single payee' system for juke boxes that covers ASCAP/BMI/SESAC...I'm not sure about SOCAN, but I'd bet they have a similar arrangement. I also believe thePROs gave up trying to chase DJs as the yproliferated...when I first was doing mobile DJ work in teh late70s, teh company did pay a fee similar to radio stations; we kept a log of what we played...rarely accurately ;)

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