How was your gig last night?

[Muzz]

Last minute fill-in gig at a regular venue just popped up for tonight...we've nothing in till the 29th after that, tho the BL is a real gig-ferret, so there may be more. We've 25 or so gigs in for 2024 (inc NYE) so far, there'll be more..

 

We were going to use Jan to refresh the set list and maybe even have a rehearsal, we'll see how much time there is...

[markbunney]

26 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Last minute fill-in gig at a regular venue just popped up for tonight...we've nothing in till the 29th after that, tho the BL is a real gig-ferret, so there may be more. We've 25 or so gigs in for 2024 (inc NYE) so far, there'll be more..

 

We were going to use Jan to refresh the set list and maybe even have a rehearsal, we'll see how much time there is...

Thats great to have so many gigs booked for 2024 already. We've got 11 booked so far, but one of members doesn't want to commit to anymore, which is frustrating so I am busily trying to find dep opportunities or a second band

[Muzz]

Yeah, I've had years when more than one band was necessary to get in as many gigs as I wanted...right now, with a boy just started Uni and draining the coffers as fast as he can (something about wanting to eat every day), I'm taking everything I can...

[Downunderwonder]

8 hours ago, markbunney said:

Thats great to have so many gigs booked for 2024 already. We've got 11 booked so far, but one of members doesn't want to commit to anymore, which is frustrating so I am busily trying to find dep opportunities or a second band

What about a dep for Mr Homebody? 1 gig a month is hardly enough to keep it tight.

[markbunney]

7 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

What about a dep for Mr Homebody? 1 gig a month is hardly enough to keep it tight.

He sings and plays guitar, so would be quite hard to get a dep for. It’s a frustrating situation but am trying to be proactive about it.

[Downunderwonder]

23 minutes ago, markbunney said:

He sings and plays guitar, so would be quite hard to get a dep for. It’s a frustrating situation but am trying to be proactive about it.

Any of the rest of you sing a bit, just a bit? You could host a regular open mic as house band and kick off the night.

[Obrienp]

10 hours ago, Muzz said:

Yeah, I've had years when more than one band was necessary to get in as many gigs as I wanted...right now, with a boy just started Uni and draining the coffers as fast as he can (something about wanting to eat every day), I'm taking everything I can...

I am in two bands and dep with another. Normally it works pretty well to get the gigs rolling in but occasionally they behave like buses: none for ages and then you get 3 on the same weekend. 🥴

[msb]

Once you begin taking gigs with more than one band the inevitable is inevitable.

[Bluewine]

1 hour ago, Obrienp said:

I am in two bands and dep with another. Normally it works pretty well to get the gigs rolling in but occasionally they behave like buses: none for ages and then you get 3 on the same weekend. 🥴

 

I'm not sure how depoing works. Don't you have to be somewhat known in a thriving local or regional live music scene to get dep work ?

 

Daryl

 

 

Edited January 5 by Bluewine

[Chienmortbb]

5 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

I'm not sure how depoing works. Don't you have to be somewhat known in a thriving local or regiona live music scene to get dep work ?

 

Daryl

 

 

I saw a band a few weeks ago that many people told me was the best in the area. They had a bass player deputising for the usual low ender. It did not go well, and even the other band members were making lots of mistakes. We have to use a dep drummer on a gig in March (our drummer made a firm commitment to a family event without consulting the band diary). I am now dreading it, although we are rehearsing with the deputising drummer beforehand.

[Bluewine]

35 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I saw a band a few weeks ago that many people told me was the best in the area. They had a bass player deputising for the usual low ender. It did not go well, and even the other band members were making lots of mistakes. We have to use a dep drummer on a gig in March (our drummer made a firm commitment to a family event without consulting the band diary). I am now dreading it, although we are rehearsing with the deputising drummer beforehand.

 

 

Our old drummer deps for us occasionally.  He's great and knows all the material. I'll consider ourselves lucky.

 

Daryl

[Obrienp]

2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

I'm not sure how depoing works. Don't you have to be somewhat known in a thriving local or regional live music scene to get dep work ?

 

Daryl

 

 

The band I have depped for recently does covers, so I just had to learn their set list and do a couple of rehearsals with them. It has gone pretty well on the gigs I have done with them. i also depped on guitar and bass in a ceilidh band a few years back. They gave me a bunch of sheet music, which wasn’t much use as I can barely read traditional notation. Fortunately, one of them had the patience to go through it with me, identifying the chords and I took it from there, plus several rehearsals. Fortunately, the fiddle player played most of the lead parts. It would be much more difficult with a band doing their own material.
 

As for being known: I go along to our local blues society jams regularly and met the band leader (drummer) at those. The society has an available for depping list that I had put my name down on. He approached me to dep. I also used to go to lots of local folk club sing arounds, which is how I got the ceilidh band slot. 
 

Depping is fun IMO. It stretches you a bit and you get to play with a wider group of musicians. It does require a lot of effort but the return is that you improve as a musician.

[dmccombe7]

First gig of 2024 with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers band doing a fairly small intimate gig at The Cave in Paisley (near Glasgow  ) where we know the owner very well thru the Punk band and we agreed it would be fun playing such a small venue. Only holds about 60-70 and it was a busy wee night.

Guitarist was suffering with a fairly bad cold/flu bug but he managed to get thru it all ok.

Audience were really up for it with many wearing glam gear including the bar staff and a lot of dancing from the start. Just a great night of fun.

Made a decent amount from the tickets too.

Always one drunk donkey***e who spoils it a bit tho but that's life in bands i guess.

Lots of great feedback which is always good.

Dave

http://www.facebook.com/jackie.mills.9889/posts/pfbid02kQMhsrhZWkWbcnJpMjNn9S3CYT23DsSAdrDDeD9HpGVDWuVVseNRiwZJmrxjd5Mhl?notif_id=1704502340802962&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic_tagged&ref=notif

 

[bassbiscuits]

Think I’ve only got about half a dozen gigs booked in all year so far. Mix of solo, band and depping. 
 

We’ve booked two holidays and annoyingly I’ve since had to turn down four well-paid gigs which clash with the school holiday dates. 

 

Hope it will even out a bit as the year progresses. 
 

[asingardenof]

We only have two confirmed gigs so far this year, one almost confirmed, and some vague talk about another couple. I'm still grafting to try and get more but nobody else in the band seems to particularly care if we don't get any more.

[mep]

We have 11 booked gigs for this year so far. There will be a few more I'm sure.

[Thor]

We’ve got 21 gigs booked for Uncle Jack - there may be another odd one out two that make their way in, but I’m also looking to restart the other band, Sarum’s Lot, with a new guitarist following the recent passing of ours - he wanted us to carry on so it seems the right thing to do. 
 

Last year I did 44 gigs, 21 isn’t enough for me, can’t stand Saturday night TV. 

[martthebass]

Think we’ve got 24 booked in for Glam Fever for ‘24. Hoping that works up to about 40 as we get through the year; last year was 37 but we had about 7 cancelled due to illness, pub closures and what not. We seem to be doing more clubs these days as many pub venues are struggling cash wise.

[dmccombe7]

Got 24 with Glam band with Xmas Sat gig and Hogmanay gig and about 10 with punk band incl 2 biker rallies.

Had a lot of interest from agents in England for Glam band from as far as Brighton to Lincolnshire to Birmingham and Blackpool and waiting to see if anything comes from it. Some weren't aware we were based in Scotland and travel would be an issue for us which would affect the cost. Still a few venues wanted us back in 2024 and still to confirm dates with them.

Dave

[martthebass]

1 minute ago, dmccombe7 said:

Got 24 with Glam band with Xmas Sat gig and Hogmanay gig and about 10 with punk band incl 2 biker rallies.

Had a lot of interest from agents in England for Glam band from as far as Brighton to Lincolnshire to Birmingham and Blackpool and waiting to see if anything comes from it. Some weren't aware we were based in Scotland and travel would be an issue for us which would affect the cost. Still a few venues wanted us back in 2024 and still to confirm dates with them.

Dave

We get a fair bit of that Dave, a fair few enquiries from down south and ooop north but when we price it accordingly based on the travel and/or digs we’ve overshot the budget. Generally we’re happy with 90% of the gigs being within a 50 mile radius.

[dmccombe7]

30 minutes ago, martthebass said:

We get a fair bit of that Dave, a fair few enquiries from down south and ooop north but when we price it accordingly based on the travel and/or digs we’ve overshot the budget. Generally we’re happy with 90% of the gigs being within a 50 mile radius.

Our band members are approx 100 miles apart so travel is something we tend to do. Most are within 2 hrs drive altho Hogmanay drive for our Perth based guitarist was 3 hrs down to Annan. At least the weather was mild altho he had heavy snow the day before but rain washed it away thru the night.

We did mention to the agents that if they can arrange another gig that weekend we would be happy to come to some sort of agreement / deal that covered our accommodation costs. One was a festival and we weren't headlining so i was all for the 4hr drive home as middle of summer so daylight up to 11-ish..

Its a tough call tho as i have pets and overnighters are not an ideal option for myself or drummer who has dogs.

Dave

[Stub Mandrel]

I’ve got about eight lined up with the blues band and can expect more as the year goes on. The guitarist is young, final year of degree and in an indie band that's taking off so I'm grateful for what we get.

 

I only started looking for deps late last year and have done four across two bands. I  really enjoy learning the extra songs without all the commitments. one lined up this month and another cancelled as their bass player became available. Hopefully I will get a few more. The route in is a combination of playing at jam nights and putting it about on Facebook.

 

The new rock covers band has a maiden gig at the start of March and again I'm hoping that goes well and we can start getting at least a gig a month in the diary.

 

A friend is restarting a band he had 10 years ago with  the aim of doing a small number of originals gigs (very Krautrock, so new for me!) So that vould be fun.

 

My personal target is to do 2-4 gigs a month but have a decent number of free weekends. Last year was very stop and go with a couple of dry months and a few with lots of gigs.

 

And then I'll do some jam nights as well, which are great fun as zero pressure (except the day they made me drum...)

 

 

 

[markbunney]

I keep advertising for dep opportunities on Facebook and join my band, but limited success so far. I got offered a couple that were subsequently cancelled, and then one on a date that I couldn’t do.

 

I am going to start going to some local jam nights to see if that leads to anything. These are well out of my comfort zone as I like to be prepared and rehearsed before playing, and am not at all comfortable with jamming and improvising, but will give it a go and see what happens.

[Stub Mandrel]

13 minutes ago, markbunney said:

I keep advertising for dep opportunities on Facebook and join my band, but limited success so far. I got offered a couple that were subsequently cancelled, and then one on a date that I couldn’t do.

 

I am going to start going to some local jam nights to see if that leads to anything. These are well out of my comfort zone as I like to be prepared and rehearsed before playing, and am not at all comfortable with jamming and improvising, but will give it a go and see what happens.

 

I would never have had the courage to dep without having done some jams.

 

The two key points are (1) no one dies and (2) usually someone leads the song who wants to do it and unless it's really well known everyone else is flying by the seat of their pants, not just you.

 

I once had the conductor of a symphony orchestra explain the detailed structure of his guitar song to me and a drummer. We just looked at each other and managed to dive in at the right point.  The rest was guesswork...🤣

[Bluewine]

14 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

First gig of 2024 with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers band doing a fairly small intimate gig at The Cave in Paisley (near Glasgow  ) where we know the owner very well thru the Punk band and we agreed it would be fun playing such a small venue. Only holds about 60-70 and it was a busy wee night.

Guitarist was suffering with a fairly bad cold/flu bug but he managed to get thru it all ok.

Audience were really up for it with many wearing glam gear including the bar staff and a lot of dancing from the start. Just a great night of fun.

Made a decent amount from the tickets too.

Always one drunk donkey***e who spoils it a bit tho but that's life in bands i guess.

Lots of great feedback which is always good.

Dave

http://www.facebook.com/jackie.mills.9889/posts/pfbid02kQMhsrhZWkWbcnJpMjNn9S3CYT23DsSAdrDDeD9HpGVDWuVVseNRiwZJmrxjd5Mhl?notif_id=1704502340802962&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic_tagged&ref=notif

 

 

Sounding great Dave. I  love the lead singers tails .

 

Daryl