Band Management

[dmccombe7]

3 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

How come the two on the end look like cats with cream and the middle two like someone is puking in their shoe and mostly missing?

They don't get paid as much as the two on the end. 

Dave

[12stringbassist]

In 'my band' we have three people, two of which have no particular IT skills to speak of. That means that one person (me) looks after http://www.the3.co.uk/ and does the vast majority of our Facebook stuff, posters etc. I don't mind as I have a hobbyist attitude about web stuff and quite like getting results.

Our drummer does the upkeep of our weekly jam night page at https://www.facebook.com/TheThreeJamNights and puts new video on it, as I decided something had to go. I'm also busy doing books and the occasional CD release.

Usually I do all of the band bookings through Facebook messenger (which keeps a handy audit trail for any disputes), or I sort them out when we are actually there. One message cut and pasted to umpteen venues every now and again and the diary fills up nicely. I won't use agents, as I have found that mainly they are useless and just parasites. Our guitarist passed us a gig the other day for next August next year after a venue had messaged him. He used to be a bit of a gig magnet, but he's stepped back from it a lot. Every little helps.

My wife occasionally says I shouldn't be doing it all, when I have a small hissy about a venue suddenly mucking us about.
If I didn't do it though, we probably wouldn't be out.
I have set myself just over another year of doing this, as the band is coming up to its 10th anniversary in Jan 2026.
I have blocked off a couple of weekends a month in 2026, though that page isn't openly visible on the website yet.
I'll be 67 and a bit then and I hate going out gigging in bad weather over winter.

 

 

Edited December 14 by 12stringbassist

[Bluewine]

9 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

In 'my band' we have three people, two of which have no particular IT skills to speak of. That means that one person (me) looks after http://www.the3.co.uk/ and does the vast majority of our Facebook stuff, posters etc. I don't mind as I have a hobbyist attitude about web stuff and quite like getting results.

Our drummer does the upkeep of our weekly jam night page at https://www.facebook.com/TheThreeJamNights and puts new video on it, as I decided something had to go. I'm also busy doing books and the occasional CD release.

Usually I do all of the band bookings through Facebook messenger (which keeps a handy audit trail for any disputes), or I sort them out when we are actually there. One message cut and pasted to umpteen venues every now and again and the diary fills up nicely. I won't use agents, as I have found that mainly they are useless and just parasites. Our guitarist passed us a gig the other day for next August next year after a venue had messaged him. He used to be a bit of a gig magnet, but he's stepped back from it a lot. Every little helps.

My wife occasionally says I shouldn't be doing it all, when I have a small hissy about a venue suddenly mucking us about.
If I didn't do it though, we probably wouldn't be out.
I have set myself just over another year of doing this, as the band is coming up to its 10th anniversary in Jan 2026.
I have blocked off a couple of weekends a month in 2026, though that page isn't openly visible on the website yet.
I'll be 67 and a bit then and I hate going out gigging in bad weather over winter.

 

 

 

 

I never thought it would happen to me. I keep driving to daytime local runs.

 

I'm 70 and my band is nice enough to pick me up and drive me to our night time gigs.

[Obrienp]

12 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

I'm 70 and my band is nice enough to pick me up and drive me to our night time gigs.

I’m one year behind you and I drive myself, plus one of the PA towers and one, or two monitors that I also provide, plus my bass gear, loads of spare extension cables, the stage box/snake, loads of kettle leads, XLR cables, spare mic, emergency DI box, tools, gaffa tape, etc, plus sometimes a mixer desk and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Every so often I get a bit miffed about it as I have back issues, arthritis and lymphoma but then one of the guitarists is 72 with prostate cancer and provides the regular mixing desk.  The drummer is only a year younger than me and provides the other PA tower, plus lugging his kit. Vocalist is much younger and I think should provide her own monitor but she works in the care sector, so really isn’t paid enough to be able to buy anything worth while. I do wonder how long I can go on doing this but I get such a rush from playing live that I really would miss it. We just got a new line up too, so a lot more fun to be had yet.

[Bluewine]

21 hours ago, Obrienp said:

I’m one year behind you and I drive myself, plus one of the PA towers and one, or two monitors that I also provide, plus my bass gear, loads of spare extension cables, the stage box/snake, loads of kettle leads, XLR cables, spare mic, emergency DI box, tools, gaffa tape, etc, plus sometimes a mixer desk and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Every so often I get a bit miffed about it as I have back issues, arthritis and lymphoma but then one of the guitarists is 72 with prostate cancer and provides the regular mixing desk.  The drummer is only a year younger than me and provides the other PA tower, plus lugging his kit. Vocalist is much younger and I think should provide her own monitor but she works in the care sector, so really isn’t paid enough to be able to buy anything worth while. I do wonder how long I can go on doing this but I get such a rush from playing live that I really would miss it. We just got a new line up too, so a lot more fun to be had yet.

 

I had two close calls driving at night to gigs and I had to ask my bandmates for help.

 

Agreed, even at 70 there's still some fun left for us.

 

Let's get another 10 years out of this.

 

Daryl

[jezzaboy]

We don`t have a manager as such but lately I seem to be taking on more. Singer usually gets the pub gigs as she is quite bolshy especially when asking for money but she now has 3 kids under 10 and a full time teaching job so I have started to deal with promoters re gigs. 

 

Our drummer recently left and I have taken the lead in getting someone in as it seems that none of the others know anyone whereas I am the only one who goes to gigs and have built relationships with other bands. I`m now the only one in charge of the facebook page as drummer was the other person involved in that: one of the other members wants joint control of the page but posts crap on theirs so that ain`t gonna happen.

 

Everyone is asked about what the band is doing but they um and ah so much that in the end a decision has to be taken. I do the set lists, arrange the studio for rehearsals, own the pa and when I look at what I have just written, I seem like a right bossy boots but I`m not, it`s just sort of left for me to deal with things. And no doubt one day I will get pissed off with all this and jack it in. 

[Stub Mandrel]

The new band seems to have gelled really well. We have a google calendar and all work at getting gigs. Surprisingly we manage to do quite well even with us all being in other bands.

 

Stuff like logo posters is done by me but with cycles of feedback through our anarchic whatsapp thread. We had a discussion of how we care four our instruments... all double entendres which culminated in our new t-shirt... this is our singist:

 

 

 

[Bluewine]

1 hour ago, jezzaboy said:

We don`t have a manager as such but lately I seem to be taking on more. Singer usually gets the pub gigs as she is quite bolshy especially when asking for money but she now has 3 kids under 10 and a full time teaching job so I have started to deal with promoters re gigs. 

 

Our drummer recently left and I have taken the lead in getting someone in as it seems that none of the others know anyone whereas I am the only one who goes to gigs and have built relationships with other bands. I`m now the only one in charge of the facebook page as drummer was the other person involved in that: one of the other members wants joint control of the page but posts crap on theirs so that ain`t gonna happen.

 

Everyone is asked about what the band is doing but they um and ah so much that in the end a decision has to be taken. I do the set lists, arrange the studio for rehearsals, own the pa and when I look at what I have just written, I seem like a right bossy boots but I`m not, it`s just sort of left for me to deal with things. And no doubt one day I will get pissed off with all this and jack it in. 

 

I'm not sure what we'd get out of more of a social media presence.  We have a web page and a Facebook page. I think they give us an indication of what to expect for attendance. 

 

I've seen some local bands that actually stream rehearsals and little live shows. It looks cool but would it bring more people to our shows ,will it bring us new business?

 

Daryl

Edited December 15 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

50 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

The new band seems to have gelled really well. We have a google calendar and all work at getting gigs. Surprisingly we manage to do quite well even with us all being in other bands.

 

Stuff like logo posters is done by me but with cycles of feedback through our anarchic whatsapp thread. We had a discussion of how we care four our instruments... all double entendres which culminated in our new t-shirt... this is our singist:

 

 

 

 

 

Nice pic Stub Mandrel. 

 

Daryl