We Don't Play There Anymore

[SICbass]

A buddy of mine experienced almost the exact opposite many years ago. It must have been in the late 70s or early 80s. He was playing with his band in a bar when, in between songs, a guy walks up to the bandstand and says,  “OK guys here’s your money. At the end of this set you can pack up and go home I’ve just bought the place”.

The new owner didn’t want to have live music.

 

[Woodinblack]

44 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Interesting stories about owners that have questionable policies regarding pay.

We are usually paid our fee prior to playing.

Here we are always paid after for a pub gig, or before for a party or wedding.

 

[Bluewine]

10 minutes ago, SICbass said:

A buddy of mine experienced almost the exact opposite many years ago. It must have been in the late 70s or early 80s. He was playing with his band in a bar when, in between songs, a guy walks up to the bandstand and says,  “OK guys here’s your money. At the end of this set you can pack up and go home I’ve just bought the place”.

The new owner didn’t want to have live music.

 

My opinion, don't be blind sided by ownership changes. Some time it can't be helped.

It's always a good idea to keep a good relationship with the owner. In most cases we've been given advance notice on ownership changes. Some time it helps and some time it doesn't matter. Choosing to abandon live music is not uncommon.

Blue

[Maude]

3 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

My opinion, don't be blind sided by ownership changes. Some time it can't be helped.

It's always a good idea to keep a good relationship with the owner. In most cases we've been given advance notice on ownership changes. Some time it helps and some time it doesn't matter. Choosing to abandon live music is not uncommon.

Blue

One of our gigs last weekend was at a pub whose landlord, Phil, used to own a different pub. We used to play regularly for Phil at his previous pub but the new owners cancelled all the bookings when they took over. At last Saturdays gig two minibuses turned up full of locals from Phil's previous pub who'd come especially to see us, a thirty mile round trip. Money in Phil's till and two fingers up to the new landlord at his previous pub. We were delighted to see them

[DrBike]

On 16/07/2018 at 13:05, Muzz said:

There's a wedding venue up in t'th'hills round these parts that we're not going back to: it's a big wooden barn conversion with gaps in the walls you can see through, and 'actively negative' neighbours on the volume front* - none of them are particularly close, but it's quiet up there and I guess the sound carries.

Anyway, they have the most aggressive sound limiter I've ever encountered - our dep drummer at the time set her kit up, hit her snare once, not too hard, and off it went. We found it actually onstage. She then tried a rimshot...ping, off it went again. I walked up to it and clapped my hands...it went off. So we moved the kit to the far side of the makeshift stage, and started off at suuuuper low volume. There's nothing more depressing than being able to hear everyone's feet shuffling on the dancefloor, and people coughing, over the music. Still wasn't enough for the woman running the show - she was constantly on our case. The couple who'd booked us were desperately disappointed; ultimately, it's not a venue that can cope with amplified music, and really shouldn't have been advertised (or sold) as such.

To add insult to injury, it was early in the year, and the wind was blowing through the walls (see 'gaps you could see through', above) - there were four of those big tube heat blowers going full blast, but it was still freezing anywhere not in a direct line with them.

All in all, a nightmare of a venue...

* Can't really blame them, as they've been there long before the owners decided to make it a music venue.
 

Did a wedding reception yesterday. On Friday the guitarist sent a link to the venue, a barn in the hills, hmmmm methinks. Drummer and guitarist get there before me and the singer and send a message that there's a sound limiter that triggered at the slightest sound. On arrival I can see daylight shining through holes in the walls! 

 

To cut a long story short we just turned everything down as much as we could and blagged a table cloth that we stuffed inside the bass drum which did the trick. I sincerely hope that we never have to play there again. 

At least it was a nice warm day for us. 

[Lozz196]

15 hours ago, SICbass said:

A buddy of mine experienced almost the exact opposite many years ago. It must have been in the late 70s or early 80s. He was playing with his band in a bar when, in between songs, a guy walks up to the bandstand and says,  “OK guys here’s your money. At the end of this set you can pack up and go home I’ve just bought the place”.

The new owner didn’t want to have live music.

 

That happened to a band I was in a while back, new owner, no promotion for the gig, halfway through the set offered us a £100 to stop and go home.

[EliasMooseblaster]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

That happened to a band I was in a while back, new owner, no promotion for the gig, halfway through the set offered us a £100 to stop and go home.

I have heard about this happening to some friends of mine without any sudden change of owner!

I happened to end up talking to a guy who'd organised an event, and told me he'd booked a band for it, but they were so awful that he'd decided to pay them off after their first set and mumble some excuse about messed-up scheduling so as not to hurt their feelings. As if I hadn't been cringing hard enough as he told me this tale, he then told me the name of the band - I decided to bite my tongue and not mention that they were friends of mine...

[MacDaddy]

the drummer in one of my bands does not venues that are 'too far away'. He's done that stinky poo before and can do without the hassle now.

[MacDaddy]

cor, that filter's good innit? I used numbers for letters and it still kicked in! 😮

[NancyJohnson]

55 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

cor, that filter's good innit? I used numbers for letters and it still kicked in! 😮

No stinky poo!

[MacDaddy]

10 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

No stinky poo!

none at all! 😆

[Dad3353]

Evolution, innit..! 

[Rich]

We bought the profanity filter from Cyberdyne Systems Inc, apparently it's very smart and learns as it goes along. We are told that there's only a very small chance of it becoming self-aware and stsrting a nuclear war against mankind. So that's ok.

[josie]

9 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

cor, that filter's good innit? I used numbers for letters and it still kicked in! 😮

Numbers for letters is easy. That's why pa55w0rd is not a safe password. 

[Fitz666]

On 20/07/2018 at 21:24, MacDaddy said:

We call them 'paid rehearsals'

Posh Practise we call it

[MacDaddy]

9 hours ago, josie said:

Numbers for letters is easy. That's why pa55w0rd is not a safe password. 

what about p455w0rd?

[Dad3353]

2 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

what about p455w0rd?

I thought the password was 'Valid'. Is that not so..? 

[lurksalot]

1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

I thought the password was 'Valid'. Is that not so..? 

No 

the password is 'not recognised' 😉

[The59Sound]

Harry's Bar in Hinckley was pretty bad. Typical 'let's fleece all the bands and put them in a tiny corner' pub. A bloke came in and started dancing with a chair on his head was the highlight...

[NancyJohnson]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just found this photo of the St Moritz on an old phone back up.  It was about this full when we played there as well.

 

[Bluewine]

3 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just found this photo of the St Moritz on an old phone back up.  It was about this full when we played there as well.

 

Sad

Blue

[NancyJohnson]

7 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Sad

Blue

Blue, it's a toilet. 

Our singer thought it would look good on our CV as the place had history. Wrong.

We played to three or four people; it's a dank basement, the place reeked of cheese (there's a cheese restaurant upstairs), old beer, old sweat and old smoke.  It's the type of place you'd never know was there unless you needed to go there.  I've actually walked past the place dozens of times in the past and didn't know about it.
P

[Bluewine]

3 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Blue, it's a toilet. 

Our singer thought it would look good on our CV as the place had history. Wrong.

We played to three or four people; it's a dank basement, the place reeked of cheese (there's a cheese restaurant upstairs), old beer, old sweat and old smoke.  It's the type of place you'd never know was there unless you needed to go there.  I've actually walked past the place dozens of times in the past and didn't know about it.
P

A lot of our local toilets have closed and for good reason.

Unfortunately many of the decent places that provided live local bands have also closed. Not many of the local bands can draw crowds that can make the nights economics.

Blue

[taunton-hobbit]

London in the 70s used to boast a number of this type of 'venue' - usually small basement areas with no fire escapes, no ventilation & occasionally, no toilets.

Unsafe doesn't even begin to describe this sort of opportunist carp...............

[The59Sound]

6 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just found this photo of the St Moritz on an old phone back up.  It was about this full when we played there as well.

 

Our rehearsal space is nicer than that!