Embarrassed, Ashamed?

[chris_b]

I played with a terrible Working Men's Club band in the 70's. They really were the lowest of the low. Our best number was Spanish Eyes! I'm shuddering even recalling this! I got paid a lot and the Guinness was very cheap. I was happy that no one I knew would see me. . . until we did a cricket club and an old school friend, who I hadn't seen for years, came over while I was setting up and said Hi. I've not seen him since but the whole night was a nightmare of embarrassment and shame!!!

[Monkey Steve]

6 hours ago, StringNavigator said:

In Toronto, they want you to bring enough people in BEFORE you even get the gig (your parents, their friends, your family and you have to make the bar happy. So mommy and daddy "help" make little Bobby's dream come true...). Some guarantee "exposure"... Some you have to man the door and collect a cover, which you then have to split with the club... There's so many musicians playing for free, hoping to be "discovered", that even festivals and the like will give you only $50 and that's that. And there's all these "charity" gigs for this and that, where you "volunteer". God knows where that money goes. I suspect it's merely a gimmick to attract patrons, avoid taxes and lower expenses.

 

It's not uncommon over here for promoters or venues to want support acts to bring people, and as a rule of thumb the bottom/medium end paying venues like the Underworld would expect a support act that they are booking to bring about 50 people (and they're not judging based on Brazilian Facebook likes)

An old band of mine once got presented with a contract by the a headliner's management, acting as promoter (and, oddly, also pretending to be a record company) for a gig offered a support slot where we would be playing for free (it was early days for the band so we were OK with taking a loss leader at a gig that would be packed).  We had to guarantee a certain number of people through the doors, we had to promote the gig on all our social media, send invitations to all of our industry contacts, handout flyers before the gig, hang around all night and encourage our fans to do the same so that they would all see the headliners.  In exchange we were offered the exposure of playing with the headliners, and being seen and appraised by the highly rated music industry professionals (i.e. the chancer of a manager).

In the end the gig didn't happen, but we seriously debated whether or not to sign the contract.  We settled on "yes" simply because it was laughably unenforceable

Edited November 28, 2018 by Monkey Steve

[Bluewine]

15 hours ago, casapete said:

Sounds like they’re the gigs you need to be promoting more then Blue, assuming you want to keep them of course?

No, there the kind of bars I'm embarrassed to be seen playing in.

We call it "take the money and run" gigs.

As much as I need the money some gigs are not worth it.

We played an employee appreciation party, a private event mostly folks under 25. They ignored us. During our break they played hip hop through our pa and they were all up dancing.A real mismatch, not uncommon with private parties for us.

The owner recently asked us to play another party, we declined.

Blue

 

 

 

[casapete]

6 hours ago, Bluewine said:

No, there the kind of bars I'm embarrassed to be seen playing in.

We call it "take the money and run" gigs.

As much as I need the money some gigs are not worth it.

We played an employee appreciation party, a private event mostly folks under 25. They ignored us. During our break they played hip hop through our pa and they were all up dancing.A real mismatch, not uncommon with private parties for us.

The owner recently asked us to play another party, we declined.

Blue

 

 

 

Sounds like you need to have a think about their validity then? A quick buck doing such unsuitable gigs may well mean you get a bad name for not going down well and then impact on your earnings long term. Sometimes you just have to stay at home and keep your reputation (and sanity!) intact.

[StringNavigator]

6 hours ago, Bluewine said:

We played an employee appreciation party, a private event mostly folks under 25. They ignored us. During our break they played hip hop through our pa and they were all up dancing.

Grief! Makes one wonder why they even hired a band. Who could foresee that? Must have been a long night...

Edited November 28, 2018 by StringNavigator

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, StringNavigator said:

Grief! Makes one wonder why they even hired a band. Who could foresee that? Must have been a long night...

It was a very long night. Probably the worst 4 hours of my life.

Yeah, and why would she want us back.

Blue

Edited November 29, 2018 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, casapete said:

Sounds like you need to have a think about their validity then? A quick buck doing such unsuitable gigs may well mean you get a bad name for not going down well and then impact on your earnings long term. Sometimes you just have to stay at home and keep your reputation (and sanity!) intact.

I'm not above doing a crap gig for the money. But even I have to draw the line at some point. 

Bad name, not at these private events that wouldn't happen. There's nobody in attendance that could have any impact on reputation or long term earnings.

Blue