Members wades_keys Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 To me there is no "this band does 'this' or this band does 'that'. Successful bands just 'do' period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Originally Posted by wheresgrant3 ..... In my market there are dozens of bands the proclaim "We're not your average ordinary cover band" ... yet in execution they are exactly just that. Now all of them, given the opportunity, will represent themselves as if they are an A-list band. And most have the faces pressed up against the glass of A-list venues hoping for a Friday or Saturday slot. They say they do weddings... but really it was just one, for their guitarists uncle Frankie... and it wasn't a formal event it was a pig roast/wedding. Now these bands are just 1-2 per month, maybe rehearse, sorta cover bands. In their minds maybe they believe they aren't average... but every market is full of them. To me that's pretty average. I think that's exactly right! I guess my point is regardless of the talent involved most bands you get out what you put in, right? If you don't put in much then it's reasonable to think you can't expect much. If your commitment level is very low, on the hobby scale and your are trying to sell yourself as an A-list or professional band or toward higher paying opportunities you'd imagine it would be a hard sale. I made mention of this a few months back. Take an average classic rock cover band with no real work on setlist or their show... throw in a badly played Rhianna cover, and wigs on the bandmembers. That does not constitute a 'Party Band'. It's more like a hot mess. I often feel that bands try to be something they are not. They'll watch successful bands and say... "We've got to try this, we have to add this". In essence... they watch other bands an analyze what they are doing, instead of themselves just 'doing'. Just create what works for you and build a reputation and a following. A following could be a handful of family or friends... or it could be a throng of Fraternities and Sororities. A following is essential to any non-professional night time gig because it helps to establish value... something important if you expect to get paid. You can't sell something unless you have some sense of personal investment. Putting a wig on your head, or playing the tried and true songs or playing your favorite material will never be successful just for the act of doing so unless you are personally invested in it's outcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkwire Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Had a talk with my drummer a few months back...a local band bounced their female singer in a crappy way, and she was available. Good voice, cute redhead in great shape, and he said she was always really easy to work with. He sounded me out about maybe taking her on. I listed the pros and cons...Pro: we immediately are able to do a lot more current popular material. We are instantly more appealing to upper-tier clubs who wouldn't consider us otherwise. We can command a higher fee with an attractive front person. Cons: We'd have to revamp our whole night and learn material for her to sing. Right now the drummer and I do the bulk of the vocals. It would be nice to get a break, but would we like singing only 2 or 3 songs a night? Would the rest of the band go along with switching up so dramatically? What it came down to was...I'm 48. I really don't know how much longer I'm going to be gigging. If I was 10 years younger, I'd pick her up without hesitation and re-vamp the list. Because I could do the female-fronted band thing for a few years, then go back to doing the stuff I really like. But at this point, I don't want to devote the playing time I have left to songs by Katy Perry, Pink, Lady Gaga, etc. Even though it means passing up the opportunity to make several hundred more per night. We always work on tightening the music, finding good material to add, engaging the crowd. We want to improve our pay and gigs, but we want to do it with the group of people we have. If that's setting limitations on us, so be it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 I think a big part of it is reliability and consistency. Even though we had three different lineups at the out-of-town bar that we have in a quarterly rotation, they kept hiring us because the focus on our style of entertainment was there every time. We play a decent variety of songs (including some newer stuff), we keep the party going like a DJ (going from one song to the next right away), we appeal to younger people as well as older people. We're tight. We're experienced (veteran), decent musicians. We play with energy and passion rather than just standing around, looking bored. My vocals don't suck (lol). And I think other things that we do are: we are respectful to the staff (tipping well included), we hang out with the people that come to see us as well as the people that just happen to be there for a while, we play at a reasonable volume level, we don't get drunk onstage. We are thankful, friendly and kind. I think these things are more important than people realize. Consistency is the mark of any good band. I think most venues value generally consistency over talent (for better or worse) because often times the venue's revenue depends on it. It's why sometimes you'll see a band you may feel isn't as talented as yours in rotation at a desirable booking. The question always comes "What does that band always get booking" In all likelihood it's because they are consistent. Consistency breeds trust. When a band loses a long standing booking it's usually because things aren't so consistent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 About 15 years ago a co-worker approached me. He knew I played guitar and he was a struggling guitarist. He mentioned that his friends had a little basement band and it would be great if I could come by and just hand out and jam with them. I told him it was a while since I played with other people and I wasn't interested in being in a band. Every Friday he'd say stop by Sunday we're jamming at 2pm and I'd say 'sure' with no real intention of commitment. For nearly a month he would show up to his 'rehearsals and his bandmates would ask 'Where's Grant?'. I'd never show. Finally one Sunday I stopped by... I had a blast. We jammed on some Ramone's songs, we reworked a cover "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" (Ramones style). I came back every Sunday until we had 20-30 songs. Then they had 'the talk' They wanted to play out in bars was I onboard? I said 'yes' thinking it would never last... I was wrong. A year into it we had a decent following (20-30) a setlist of punk classics and some limited modern rock. The punk we nailed, the rock we didn't. Our rhythm guitarist who did all of our bookings to that point was in LOVE with another area band that had a huge following at the time. They were playing modern rock alternative hits... Fuel, Tonic, 9 Stories, Counting Crows... they had hundreds of fans, they looked the part and put alot of work into the band and shows... big stage material. His solution was for us to cover their setlist religiously. "You gotta be playing that music to build a bigger following". We bristled. It wasn't our style. It wasn't our league. We didn't have the range, the versatility or the talent to try and 'be that band'. We had many debates but in the end we took his lead (he formed the band)and started working on that material. Our singer was singing songs he hated and was forced to 'sell' that were out of his range. He felt like a {censored}, we sounded like {censored} and in a HUGE heated argument after a miserable show (our $300 was cut to $80 after no body showed... nobody) our rhythm guitarist quit the band. Immediately it was like a huge weight had been lifted. I took over the bookings and we started adding an entire catalog of classic and skate punk songs... bands at the time I had never heard of (I was a metal head) like NoFX, MxPx, Lagwagon, Bouncing Souls... but I grew to love and enjoyed playing it. Almost overnight we tapped into an audience of 20-somethings still living with their parents, working at Walmart by day and shooting skate videos at night. Our front guy who was never much of a singer became well known for his energetic performances. At the peak we were drawing 100-150 a night and earning $700-1000 off the door. We scored through a promoter an annual gig put on by the State of New Hampshire for annual High School Summit on Tobacco and Alcohol. $3000 per show, hotel included. After things peaked and the audience we played to started to age out of the scene, and either get married, get a job or go to jail (lol) our crowds started to thin. In the end we threw in the towel when we had as many people showing up to shows as when we started. It was a great 5 year run though. Alot of good times. Incredible success for a band that decided to remain true to their musical interests and built a following based on music they found interesting. We didn't invest much into the band.... just our personal gear. The thing that primarily drove us was our passion for the music. And eventually we found an audience who shared that passion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 and anybody actually believing that there are bands out there that prefer no pay/low pay gigs to $15G private parties Depends on the party and the requirements. I have turned down lots of higher paying gigs because they weren't right for me. I'd much rather make 100 bucks a night/guy doing exactly what I want to than make 10 or 15k and hating every minute of it. I can only say that because I've done both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TIMKEYS Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Depends on the party and the requirements. I have turned down lots of higher paying gigs because they weren't right for me. I'd much rather make 100 bucks a night/guy doing exactly what I want to than make 10 or 15k and hating every minute of it. I can only say that because I've done both. I fully understand the concept that a local benji doing what you like to do is more attractive than going for higher profile gigs that have a lot more hassle involved in doing them. We are starting to book gigs that are more up scale , but involve a whole lot more hassle. When you step back and look at it ,,,it would be very easy to just pass that stuff up. An example. we have a fri and sat night booked in MO in june. We also have a local country club gig on sunday that same weekend and maybe a bar show that sunday night. I am sure by the time monday rolls around ,, i am going to be sick of rock and roll for a few days. The good news is that we are getting booked for some nice gigs ,, the bad news is that its going to be a bitch to pull that weekend off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Depends on the party and the requirements. I have turned down lots of higher paying gigs because they weren't right for me. I'd much rather make 100 bucks a night/guy doing exactly what I want to than make 10 or 15k and hating every minute of it. I can only say that because I've done both. Understood and completely respectable. The question that remains do you feel that you would be first call the next time that or similar opportunity rolls around or much further down the call list. I find that many musicians get upset when they are left off the list for consideration after they've declined in the past. I can't tell you how many times I get this: "Your replaced your drummer... you should have called me bro!" after they've declined a sub position 2-3 times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Higher profile gigs are definately a lot more work. Again, anybody who is playing music just for the money is probably going to be disappointed. If you don't love what you're doing for the sake of doing it, then it's not worth doing. Doing the type of gigs we do? Once you figure in the travel time and everything---on a per-hour basis we probably aren't making much more individually than we would for a $500 4-hr bar gig. You don't want to break this {censored} down per-hour for sure! And we often laugh at the fact that most of the gigs we do COST us more than we used to make playing the bars. But we do it because it's what we WANT to do and what we want to do well. Personally, I don't get nearly as much satisfaction from just setting up in a bar and playing for a few hours in what feels to me like a low risk/low reward situation. I get a much bigger feeling of accomplishment at the end of the night knowing what we did took a lot of effort to pull off successfully and knowing that we did it well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pickinatit Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 I would say that MOST bands, and most individuals in bands, wouldn't do it. I know guys, good players, who seem perfectly happy to get together once a week and talk/practice/jam/drink/rehearse with no real desire to gig at all. :thu:You just described me to a 'T' Listen, it's a no brainer that ANYBODY would rather make $15K over $500 for a gig. Even me. But at the same time I could give a rat's ass whether or not I make ANY money at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 The question that remains do you feel that you would be first call the next time that or similar opportunity rolls around or much further down the call list. It wouldn't matter. Any gig booker calling me and asking me to do what I don't normally do is going to get a "no" from me. It's not the hassle of the gig that's the issue, it's having to play music I don't want to play. Since I play only what I want, no one is going to ask me to play a 15k party anyway unless they're specifically hiring me to do what I do. I get booked for festivals and concerts based on my setlist and my track record. Do they pay top dollar? No, but then again I don't know of a single band in these parts in this economy getting over $1500, let alone 15k, for a private party, and I pretty much know everyone around here in the top echelon market, so if I get offered 800 or 1000 dollars to play a 90 minute set with backline provided, I'm happy. The point is, I might be able to get into the traveling corporate market (going to Seattle, Portland, and resort towns) but I'd have to play music that would make me want to kill myself. That's not meant as a a slam on anyone who plays whatever, it's just how I'm wired. We all play for various and multiple reasons; my main one is to accurately represent who I am and play music that resonates with my soul. Pay is secondary to that-still important, but not THE determining factor. Further down the list is fan base, dancers, creating a party atmosphere. That's all part of it, but I have to first an foremost enjoy what I'm playing or I'm not going to do it. I can honestly say I don't play a single song I don't at least like. And I'm not going to at this stage of my life. I spent many years playing for the masses full time. Now, I play for me, and do what I can to get others on board with it. If that means less money and a smaller fan base, so be it, I can live with that. They keep hiring me back, so for now it's working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tim_7string Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Depends on the party and the requirements. I have turned down lots of higher paying gigs because they weren't right for me. I'd much rather make 100 bucks a night/guy doing exactly what I want to than make 10 or 15k and hating every minute of it. I can only say that because I've done both. I haven't done a $10,000-15,000 gig but I have played for pretty good amounts of money. Like you, I'd rather do what I like to do (not just song selection, but approach, my own role, etc.) for less money than make tons but be chained by a lot of things I don't like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 I often feel that bands try to be something they are not. They'll watch successful bands and say... "We've got to try this, we have to add this". In essence... they watch other bands an analyze what they are doing, instead of themselves just 'doing'. Just create what works for you and build a reputation and a following. This. You have to find what works for you. I've done the analyzing Grant mentioned above and said "we need to do that" BUT I've also had the sense to say "there's no way we can (or should) do that". You need to be self-aware and work within your limitations - while expanding them. I know I always say this, but "take baby steps" was the best advice I've been given. The goal is to grow - but don't force it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members vanlatte Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Ever walked into a house where everybody is tripping on shrooms but you? This thread feels like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Ever walked into a house where everybody is tripping on shrooms but you?This thread feels like that. YAWNNNNNN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Crustee Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 One other main ingredient that has been overlooked in this thread thusfar is visuals. Sure, musicianship is important, as is onstage energy. HOWEVER, if you weigh 350 lbs and have stringy greasy hair, nobody is gonna care how much "energy" you display onstage. You gotta give the crowd something pleasing to look at! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kmart Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 HOWEVER, if you weigh 350 lbs and have stringy greasy hair, nobody is gonna care how much "energy" you display onstage. You gotta give the crowd something pleasing to look at! This gentleman would like to have a word with you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 This gentleman would like to have a word with you... Have HIS voice and you can look like anything you wanna look like.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Crustee Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 This gentleman would like to have a word with you... simpler time, when looks weren't as important...Same thing Mike Myers intimated at with the Austin Powers "bad teeth" schtick. For a local B Club band like mine, we need to use every trick in the book to get gigs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members vanlatte Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 YAWNNNNNN Liked it better when you were in jail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pickinatit Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Have HIS voice and you can look like anything you wanna look like.... Funny, I was just sayin' that same exact thing to someone earlier today about "Mamma" Cass Elliot. Jennifer Hudson is the only one I can think of off-hand to break the looks barrier in more recent years (but I'm not thinking about it very hard) and even she decided she needed to loose a gazzillion pounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wheresgrant3 Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 One other main ingredient that has been overlooked in this thread thusfar is visuals. Sure, musicianship is important, as is onstage energy. HOWEVER, if you weigh 350 lbs and have stringy greasy hair, nobody is gonna care how much "energy" you display onstage. You gotta give the crowd something pleasing to look at! Couldn't disagree more... unless you are talking about hygene rather than talent/image. I sat last night watching a touring cover band with a frontman who stands 5'6 looks like Evan Handler and works the room like a Brittish Bulldog! These guys made more than $3000 to play for about 150 people. I believe they are playing in your neck of the woods this weekend. A good front person is a good front person for one reason... because they draw the audience in. That can be the results of image, appearance and performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Liked it better when you were in jail. WHOOSH. That's the sound of a shroom joke going right over your head. Guess you've never done good shrooms? Here's a tip: they make you yawn. A lot. Like a zombie. Carry on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Funny, I was just sayin' that same exact thing to someone earlier today about "Mamma" Cass Elliot. Jennifer Hudson is the only one I can think of off-hand to break the looks barrier in more recent years (but I'm not thinking about it very hard) and even she decided she needed to loose a gazzillion pounds. And even back then both Mama Cass and Meat Loaf used their weight as a bit of a gimmick. (the guy was willing to call himself MEAT LOAF, for crying out loud....) And for Mr. Loaf, it wore off fairly soon. His career didn't exactly soar during the MTV era. I'm sure career decisions played a role in Jennifer Hudson wanting to lose weight but she DID win an Oscar playing a fat girl---a role she wouldn't have gotten if she looked like she does now---and to her credit she's cited the birth of her daughter for making her wake up and realize she needed to be healthier and hopefully live longer. The tragedy that happened to her concerning her family might have played into that as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkwire Posted May 4, 2012 Members Share Posted May 4, 2012 Funny, I was just sayin' that same exact thing to someone earlier today about "Mamma" Cass Elliot. Jennifer Hudson is the only one I can think of off-hand to break the looks barrier in more recent years (but I'm not thinking about it very hard) and even she decided she needed to loose a gazzillion pounds. Well, there's Adele...even though I think she's attractive. And once again...when you have a voice like THAT.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.