Members Sad Darwin Posted March 19, 2011 Members Share Posted March 19, 2011 In your opinions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Belva Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Last time I was in a gigging band, we got burned @ pay time once. We then drafted a form type contract and would change venue names, dates, etc to specify pay, breaks, you name it. Many bar owners refused to hire a band that made them sign on the dotted line. we then knew who planned on stiffing us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stackabones Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Booking them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members martyr40 Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Bar owners wanting to renegotiate terms at 2 in the morning after the gig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Crisco Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Dropping off Press Pak to a Manager who says he/she is there.."Come On By" then you arrive, they're gone, you leave it with Bartender who swears up and down 'they've got it, I put it right in their hand' then you follow up a few days later just to hear 'If you drop a Press Pak off...' then you inform them of who you are and the steps you took and 'Nope, no press pak here, but I'll be here for a short while if you can bring one by today.." Leaves you speechless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BAXANDALL Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Lying promoters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GreatDane Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 the booking managers who are complete stoner flakes who double-book and/or can't recall previously discussed terms (oh, like compensation...). generally though, my experiences have been ok. it's easily my least favorite part of playing out though. i'd rather load/unload band gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Belva Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Bar owners wanting to renegotiate terms at 2 in the morning after the gig Contract comes in handy here. "Hey asshole, we have a contract. You pay us in full now or you'll be seeing us in small claims court. You don't show up for court and don't pay? We'll put a lien on your {censored}ing bar." Works every time. A lien means they have to pay for their booze in cash until the lien is settled. Credit goes to {censored}. If they're behind on the rent or the utilities? You get the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 "How many people can you bring?" "Dude, we're a {censored}ing cover band. We're the entertainment for the night, not a marketing or advertising firm!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Alecto Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Bar owners wanting to renegotiate terms at 2 in the morning after the gig Those are pretty much mine, right there. At my last gig (where we actually brought out quite a few people, in a snowstorm no less), the bar owner suffered from creative amnesia when it came time to pay us. We got the $$$ but he never called us again. Don't particularly much care if he does either. There's also the time when I discovered the bar we were playing at was actually a front for prostitution and the owner owed several grand to the Hell's Angels, but that's another story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Belva Posted March 20, 2011 Members Share Posted March 20, 2011 Those are pretty much mine, right there. At my last gig (where we actually brought out quite a few people, in a snowstorm no less), the bar owner suffered from creative amnesia when it came time to pay us. We got the $$$ but he never called us again. Don't particularly much care if he does either.There's also the time when I discovered the bar we were playing at was actually a front for prostitution and the owner owed several grand to the Hell's Angels, but that's another story.[/QUOTE]Get anything in trade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 I can't recall ever having a bar mgr try to stiff us at the end of the night. But I have had a manager give me grief at the end of the night for not bringing enough people even though I told him before he booked us that bringing people to his bar was his problem and that we were simply entertainers, not a club promotions firm. Despite that he still gave us {censored} and it turned into a huge {censored}fest and we told him to {censored} off he told us to {censored} off, his bouncers came out, etc..etc.... Another thing that pisses me off is bar owners who are never there when they're supposed to be and never return messages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kayd_mon Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 Bar owners wanting to renegotiate terms at 2 in the morning after the gig ... and that was my last gig. Contract idea sounds perfect! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members curseoftruth Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 There is a reason I play in an all original band that doesn't play big venues - all of the same old crap through the years that everybody is mentioning. I also don't like it when the venue says - hey, can you get all the bands together (3-5) and put on the entire evening? I used to do that a lot, I don't the time or energy anymore for that unless I've I'm looking for one band and I get 5 that respond in short order, then I'll just tell the booking agent that I have enough bands to fill the night if they want. I'm doing that just this weekend and today in fact. The next show we have scheduled has had a huge rotating band list (add and drop) for the past month so for some reason (AND THIS ISN'T EVEN MY SHOW! we were asked to play by another band) it seems likes its on my shoulders to fill out the lineup for the night. And while I'm not pissed off about it and I want the show to be a success - plus I want to help out the booking guy who is really cool, I don't have the time or energy this week to find a last minute band for the show! Ugggg..... There was a club in Dallas that was notorious for having a prick of an owner. And this scenario has happened to other bands I know also there - 4 bands booked, us from Fort Worth (about 40 miles from the club), another band from even farther out, and then 2 Dallas bands. Again, not my show, we (my old band) were asked to play by another band who put the evening together. We get there and the two Dallas bands and the show organizer had dropped off the bill for some reason, so basically we had 2 out of the area bands playing. Not my problem, right? Well, you'd think I'd just killed the club owners dog - he was pissed that there were only out of town bands playing and he threaten to kick my ass, told me we'd never play there again, and he let me know he was carrying a gun. We never even unloaded - we turned around and went home. I'm not going to play a really bad club if the owner is treating us like ass. My current band was asked to play there twice and we did and had a good time, he didn't even remember and was actually pretty nice about 5 years later! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members maltomario Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 I actually enjoyed booking. I met some nice bar owners and treated them with respect, and usually they would do the same in return. I met a few scheisters along the way, and simply would not do business with them again. simple as that. You gotta understand, bar owners are running a business. most are decent people, at least in these parts. They generally don't care about music - they want people there consuming / spending $$$. So music to them is just a means to that end. Like it or not, if you are being hired as an entertainment, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROMOTE. You have to be advertising, hanging posters, etc. It is your product, not theirs and you have control over how its presented. They don't owe you anything, and in fact you owe them because they are taking a risk hiring a band for $$$$ I was very successful in my band - went from nothing to most lucrative band in area in very short time. Saved all my gig money to buy nice guitars out of it before I retired. And the only thing I did differently than other bands was 1) treat owners with respect. 2) show up early, start show on time 3) promote, promote, promote! 4) clean up after yourself (gaffer tape, old posters, beer bottles, etc) and 5) know your audience and what they want. I never used contracts with exception of big events like when we played at festivals, racetracks, casinos, etc) where the big money was. for regular gigs, most owners would shy away from contracts, not because they're douchebags (well, maybe some were) but because its intimidating to the avg small bar owner who lacks legal knowledge. I worked on the honor system and never got burned as long as each show details were very clear. I would also contact the venue a few weeks prior to show and confirm (helpful as I'd book shows 12+months out). Most musicians that venues see are flakes so if you make an effort by being prompt, courteous and professional it goes a long way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 You gotta understand, bar owners are running a business. most are decent people, at least in these parts. They generally don't care about music - they want people there consuming / spending $$$. So music to them is just a means to that end. Like it or not, if you are being hired as an entertainment, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROMOTE. You have to be advertising, hanging posters, etc. It is your product, not theirs and you have control over how its presented. They don't owe you anything, and in fact you owe them because they are taking a risk hiring a band for $$$$ I completely disagree when it comes to cover bands. Original bands are a different story but a cover band is almost like having a live jukebox. My job as a musician is to entertain. In order to do that effectively, I have to devote my free time to practicing my instrument, learning songs, etc... not to promoting some guy's club for free. The bar owner doesn't owe me a gig but they most certainly do owe me money for my time and efforts if they hire me. If they want to hire me as a promoter, then they need to kick in extra money for an advertising and promo budget. My band does keep a mailing list and we do promote and let people know when and where we're playing but there's no way we can guarantee any number of people. Especially if you're a cover band that plays between 6 and 10 times a month. There is NO way you're going to get the same 40 to 100 people to come out and see you every single weekend night of the month. At best you might get them out once every 5 or 6 weeks. Now, if you're an original band I can understand the concept of you owing the club owners something because they're providing you a venue to get your unknown music out and try to build some kind of following. Also if the venue is one of those places that if there was no band for the night, they wouldn't be open because all it is is a live performance venue. But as a cover band playing bar+grille type joints, I'm not interested in selling CDs or tshirts or whatever. I'm interested in putting on a great show and keeping the bar's crowd there, drinking, dancing, and having fun. For the bar owner, if the band is good, it's not an unknown variable. The club owner knows beforehand that he's getting quality entertainment. It's the bar owner's job to get people there, it's the band's job to keep them there and keep them entertained. Live music is just another part of the club's vibe, just like big screen TVs, hot waitresses, pool tables, etc... It's just a tool the club can use to bring people in. It's not the band's job to bring the people any more than when the bar owner buys a giant TV it comes with a guarantee of how many people are going to show up. The bar owner has to know how to use those things as part of his marketing and promotions. The problem is that bar owners are LAZY and don't want to do jack {censored} so they pawn their responsibility off on the band and then try to blame the band if there's a low turnout for the night. If the band sucks and drives out the people that are already there, that's one thing but if the band kicks ass but there's only a small crowd because the owner was too lazy to even run one single ad or radio spot, that's not the band's problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Alecto Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 Get anything in trade? My wife plays bass in my band. Besides, track marks and bad teeth don't do much for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members craigny Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 Yeah man the biggest PITA for us is when they make you GUARANTEE ticket sales...dont get em all sold, your expected to pay for the remainder if you wanna go on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Hard Truth Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 My biggest complaint is that club bookers won't simply give you a yes or no response. Instead of saying "no we don't want you" they'll tell you to check in again next week. Instead of saying "yes we want you" and giving you a date, they'll tell you to check in again next week. Then they do not respond to your follow up queries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kid Klash Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 The most annoying thing to me are most of the agents... scumbags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members csm Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 If you're playing bars ... IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BEER. If they book your band and they sell a whole bunch of beer ... you get booked back. If they don't ... you won't. And, back in the day, the venues did indeed handle the promotion ... nowadays, they don't. All they want to do is tell you where to set up, sell the beer and ... there is no 'and.' That's IT. As the band, you're supposed to bring your own crowd, rather than entertain the regular customers. If the venue HAD regular customers, they wouldn't bother booking (and paying!) bands in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted March 21, 2011 Members Share Posted March 21, 2011 If you're playing bars ...IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BEER.If they book your band and they sell a whole bunch of beer ... you get booked back. If they don't ... you won't.And, back in the day, the venues did indeed handle the promotion ... nowadays, they don't. All they want to do is tell you where to set up, sell the beer and ... there is no 'and.' That's IT. As the band, you're supposed to bring your own crowd, rather than entertain the regular customers. If the venue HAD regular customers, they wouldn't bother booking (and paying!) bands in the first place. But, live music is one of the tools that the club can use to get patrons there, just like they use everything else...cheap food, drink specials, half naked waitresses, etc..etc.. live music just adds to the appeal of the place. The problem is when the bar takes the attitude of "screw doing promo and advertising, I'll just drop it all on the band's shoulders and let them build my business for me". In the time I've been playing in cover bands in this area, I have never seen one single club with this attitude survive more than a year or so. I've played in a ton of those types of bars and it's a discussion my band always has every time we play a new bar that says "I need you guys to bring me X number of people", we always place bets on how long the place will be in business, and without fail, every single one of them has closed. And damned if we don't try to sit down with the owner and explain this to him every single time. They don't listen, they don't promote, they don't advertise, they sit on their ass hoping that the cover bands they're hiring for 300 bucks will build their business for them, and end up lasting about 6 months to a year before they go out of business. The bars that have been around the longest are bars that have their own regular crowd partly because they book consistently good bands. They do exactly what I said - they approach live music as simply a tool they can use and a way to provide entertainment to their patrons, many of whom appreciate live music and given the choice of a bar with no band and a bar with a good band would go to the bar with the good band. Live entertainment is simply another business expense that will keep your patrons happy and keep them there and keep the beer flowing. btw, in case you haven't been able to tell, this is one of my major peeves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cephus Posted March 22, 2011 Members Share Posted March 22, 2011 I completely disagree when it comes to cover bands. Original bands are a different story but a cover band is almost like having a live jukebox. My job as a musician is to entertain. In order to do that effectively, I have to devote my free time to practicing my instrument, learning songs, etc... not to promoting some guy's club for free. The bar owner doesn't owe me a gig but they most certainly do owe me money for my time and efforts if they hire me. If they want to hire me as a promoter, then they need to kick in extra money for an advertising and promo budget. My band does keep a mailing list and we do promote and let people know when and where we're playing but there's no way we can guarantee any number of people. Especially if you're a cover band that plays between 6 and 10 times a month. There is NO way you're going to get the same 40 to 100 people to come out and see you every single weekend night of the month. At best you might get them out once every 5 or 6 weeks. I think I can empathize with the sentiment, but you seem to think that practicing your guitar is harder than running a bar or something. That's bat {censored}. There are a lot of cover bands that do exactly what you say - bringing out 40-60-200 of their hard-core fans to every gig. In order to do that, they have a pool of 1000 on their mailing lists. I know a guy who, even though is a grown up like me, promotes like this. The level of commitment he has embarrasses me on a couple levels. If you don't want to have to worry about filling the club, then play the moose and the eagles and the amvets. They have a built in crowd and you are just expected to keep them there after the drawing. I did it for a while, but it was pretty lame and none of my friends could come out. For me, the worst part about booking gigs is that I don't drink anymore. I used to go to the bar and hang out and get to know the people and walk in on monday afternoon to talk and have a couple cocktails. Now, I have a hard time going in to bars when I am gigging, let alone on a monday afternoon. Clearly my life was worse when I drank, but I haven't been able to make this adjustment in 2 years, 1 month and 3 days. Dunno if I'll ever get past it. Luckily, I've had enough people calling me over that time that I haven't had to hustle much. But, I can feel those gigs drying up, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted March 22, 2011 Members Share Posted March 22, 2011 I think I can empathize with the sentiment, but you seem to think that practicing your guitar is harder than running a bar or something. That's bat {censored}. There are a lot of cover bands that do exactly what you say - bringing out 40-60-200 of their hard-core fans to every gig. In order to do that, they have a pool of 1000 on their mailing lists. I know a guy who, even though is a grown up like me, promotes like this. The level of commitment he has embarrasses me on a couple levels.If you don't want to have to worry about filling the club, then play the moose and the eagles and the amvets. They have a built in crowd and you are just expected to keep them there after the drawing. I did it for a while, but it was pretty lame and none of my friends could come out. Becoming and staying proficient on an instrument like guitar is absolutely harder and more time consuming than running a bar. And most decent guitar players are better at playing guitar than most bar owners are at running a bar. Look, I can definitely see the bar owner's point of view. It's easy to sit on your ass and let a band fill the bar for you for free. But imo, that is a misguided strategy and a recipe for failure for numerous reasons. First, around here there are two bands I can think of that have this kind of following, and it's not because they're any better than any other bands. The rest of the good bands don't really have that kind of following. Unfortunately, a bar owner can't book the same two bands every single night. His best strategy is to book consistently good bands and use that as ONE of the many tools he can use to draw people into his place. If the band brings people, that's a bonus, but he can't rely on that all the time. Not to mention, there are a lot of {censored}ty bands that have a lot of friends and bringing in a crappy band like that regardless of the crowd is a great way to chase away any regulars the bar has and to start developing a reputation for having crappy music. Have this little gem saved. I'm sure you've all probably seen it but it seems like an appropriate time to revisit it. Dear Bar Owner, As musicians who get all the glory, we feel it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jarick Posted March 22, 2011 Members Share Posted March 22, 2011 Having to play the show in the first place Actually I never booked shows...maybe once or twice, but that was always someone else's job. I was in charge of getting the money though after our singer disappeared with it a couple times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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