Why Musicians Shouldn't Work for Peanuts

It seems the writer wants amateurs to charge pro rates so as not to impact on the pros ... might be hard for the students to get gigs.

Supply and demand ... noise laws, gaming machines, DJs and drink driving laws ... it's a shame but times change and musicians either adapt or perish.

The café scene seems a good source of gigs for small outfits, and then there's YouTube heroes and others monetising the web. Probably some other types of opportunities I haven't thought of.

Wise words. That's the right attitude. Like it or not, you're either desirable by a large enough segment of the market, to get paid well for what you do, or not. If you're not, there isn't anything you can (or should) do about it, aside from improving as a musician, playing with better musicians, and creating better music.

The music industry can no longer enjoy milking fans for *copies* of albums, forcing the whole thing down consumers' throats, even if 9 out of 10 songs on the album are crap. The internet has decimated the protectionism that IP laws have forcefully held in place, for far too long.

This is my opinion, BTW...I don't wish to debate whether or not Intellectual "Property" is a good idea. Please, let's pass on that subject for now.

Today...we're in charge of our art and that's exactly how it should be, IMO. It's the difference between being self-employed or being just another corporate employee. I thoroughly believe if you have a marketable product with broad appeal, and you put the work in that's necessary to propel you to success, then there is still plenty of opportunity out there. Whatever replaces the crumbling music label empire is surely going to be an improvement.

My goal; just have fun and make (what I think is) great music. The rest is a bonus.
 
But isn't playing live how you guys cut your teeth and get better? I've never seen vast improvement achieved by playing in a bedroom on your own. It always comes from slogging it out live in front of an audience....the ultimate test and quickest and most brutal learning curve I know of. That's where the real improvment is seen IMHO. If you're encouraging kids to sit at home until they're "pro" enough to get out amongst it, they'll be there forever.

Everyone has to start somewhere. All this "taking money out of my pocket" talk is a bridge too far. When I was starting out and still playing at a "garage band" level, we didn't get the big gigs....simple as that. We played in dives to 10 people including the bar staff on a Tuesday night for a percentage of the door. You can't honestly tell me that is any threat to a working pro?

Seems many of you have forgotten where you came from, to me. How else are these kids supposed to improve if you're all moving to deny them the opportunity to do it in the first place? In a normal course of a working life outside of the music scene, I've never seen a "master" threatened by an "apprentice" yet.
 
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How else are these kids supposed to improve if you're all moving to deny them the opportunity to do it in the first place?

I ain't trying to stop anybody doing anything: what I'm saying is that all musicians, whether beginner or experienced, are guilty of allowing their trade to be devalued if they are accepting gigs from venues who charge an entry fee but don't pay the band. The upshot of this is not only impoverished musicians but also a small-venue scene that is stuffed to bursting point with crap bands. I don't mean "that's not my cup of tea" crap - I mean they can't tune their instruments, they show up late, they can only manage about 25 minutes worth of material, and they have all the charisma of a bucket of wallpaper paste.

I'm advocating that all gigs that involve money should include adequate payment for the performers: if the promoter/whoever decides that any given band isn't good enough - whether they're greasy teenagers or wrinkly old farts - then I guess they don't get the gig. As I've already said, there's plenty of opportunities for bands to polish their acts that don't involve any money for the band or venue; But it astonishes me how many venues are run by people who simply put no value in music at all. If that's the case, fine: DON'T HAVE BANDS.

I cannot accept that it's part of paying dues to allow venues to rip off performers. Surely it's simply not good for one's self esteem? It's no coincidence that as popular music has lost a lot of its monetary value via various routes it has become more and more boring. I believe if you don't have a sense of worth about your music then you'll never excite an audience enough to provoke any kind of reaction - let alone a positive one.
 
Once you've pushed the kids who aren't very good out of the way how are you going to get rid of the DJs? How about the poker machines?

If the "pros" in the bar scene picked up their own acts and learned to sight read at a high level they might pick up gigs at shows, with orchestras, on tours etc. Since the 70s (and no doubt before) bars have always provided lean pickings for all but a precious few.

Look at how the real culprits have pushed things to the point where musos turn on their own. Why should we attack young people just wanting to gig? Not good.

It would help far more to attack the real biggest source of our problems - gaming machines.

Maybe musicians could band together with like-minded lobby groups and campaign against gaming machine laws that make them so much more attractive to bar managers than music. It's more work and maybe less fun than picking on kids, though.

DED, there is only one plumbing superstar - Kenny, the self-proclaimed Dalai Lama of Waste Management - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yM5a5QM4R8

Modern Plumbing magazine haha ... nice ring to it, DED. It could catch on ...
 
Please do, kiddies! Part of the reason going out to see music is so unattractive are the garbage 12 year olds playing Nirvana covers with hot rods in the local coffee shop. They should NOT be getting gigs. Theyre undercutting cost and damaging venue reputation. I did this when I was 15. We literally stole a gig from local jazz musicians who were hundreds of times better than we were at the time. I didn't know we were undercutting (the POWER of education, I let all my students know how I feel about this and what they should be asking for when it's time to start gigging), but the jazz club went out of business and I think to a large degree my garbage high school jazz band was responsible. I wish I would not have done that. I had no idea I was doing anything wrong at the time,.
Blaming yourself is a bit mis-placed though. Shouldn't the venue have known the other guy were a hundred times better and worth playing more?

You're not good enough to work yet? No problem!!! Dont work then! Keep it in the shed with your dudes, get tight, get killin, and then you can start to worry about venues..

But do you think the average kids listens? On average, a good majority of people tend to think they are ready for more than they are.

If there are gigs to be had, kids will take them. People tend to have a hard time looking at their own music objectively.

if the promoter/whoever decides that any given band isn't good enough - whether they're greasy teenagers or wrinkly old farts - then I guess they don't get the gig.....

But it astonishes me how many venues are run by people who simply put no value in music at all. If that's the case, fine:

And from my observation, that is where the real problem lies. It's not musicians under cutting each other or venues simply not willing to pay, it comes down to so many venues do not take "quality" of the bands into the equation. And because they don't, they book bad bands that drive customers away over the long run, just because the band promised to bring in x-number of paying people, or worse, fronted the money to the venue for customers that never show up.
 
Now a days if you want to play any club in my town, you will most certainly play for peanuts or free. This is where it's evolved to over the few decades I've been doing this. Prior, the money was actually great. Then came DJ's, stiffer DWI laws and no public smoking.

If you choose to participate in one of those options then you understand what it means. For me, I've burned all need to ever play live again - though I do. So, I personally don't care anymore.

If the band thinks it's going to be fun and we have the personal free time to do it - we do it. Whether or not we are doing is completely irrelevant whether or not the place will be open. We take up space in their opinion.... If my band is not there - another band will be.

At this point of my life, I'll play for free for the sake of having fun with the band. I personally find the gigs at this stage of my life a hassle - especially the paying ones. The free ones - we pick the start/end times - the length of the sets and breaks.

I truly just don't care enough any longer about the money involved in playing.
 
From my perspective, it all seems relative. I consider my practice of engineering to be very important to society. I doubt many people want to drive over a bridge that has been designed by an engineer that isn't qualified. There are a lot of steps (education, testing, experience, etc) that an engineer has to go through to obtain their license and be able to sign engineering drawings. In this field, I make a pretty comfortable living (I'm now at the management level), so I'm definitely not complaining. However, with the economy in the crapper, clients are significantly cutting back what we can charge for our services, as if somehow what we do is worth less now.

Ironically our clients are squeezing us, yet continue to pay upwards of $400/hour for legal services, and the attorneys aren't cutting back on their fees.

Meanwhile, professional (and non-professional) musicians continue to earn less, yet professional entertainers and athletes continue to make obscene salaries.

Two of my bandmembers are unemployed, so paid gigs are pretty important to them. Right now we can only find one venue that is willing to pay us, and fortunately they haven't squeezed us yet. There are so many horror stories about how venues have broken promises about hiring or payment.
 
Also because peanuts are not legal tender to pay for things.
 
From my perspective, it all seems relative. I consider my practice of engineering to be very important to society. I doubt many people want to drive over a bridge that has been designed by an engineer that isn't qualified. There are a lot of steps (education, testing, experience, etc) that an engineer has to go through to obtain their license and be able to sign engineering drawings. In this field, I make a pretty comfortable living (I'm now at the management level), so I'm definitely not complaining. However, with the economy in the crapper, clients are significantly cutting back what we can charge for our services, as if somehow what we do is worth less now.

Ironically our clients are squeezing us, yet continue to pay upwards of $400/hour for legal services, and the attorneys aren't cutting back on their fees.

Meanwhile, professional (and non-professional) musicians continue to earn less, yet professional entertainers and athletes continue to make obscene salaries.

Two of my bandmembers are unemployed, so paid gigs are pretty important to them. Right now we can only find one venue that is willing to pay us, and fortunately they haven't squeezed us yet. There are so many horror stories about how venues have broken promises about hiring or payment.

Here's some economic food for thought and conversation:

- What good would it do for an unqualified "engineer" to build a bridge that collapses and kills people? In a theoretical situation where there were no coercive regulations and licensure for your profession - who would want to hire someone with such a reputation...and why would an inexperienced engineer accept a one-time paycheck for what are clearly much more severe consequences than the paycheck can justify? Even if I were the most sinister of con-men, the valuation seems obvious here. With that, a rhetorical question; why are so many bridges, roads, and other infrastructure crumbling, anyhow?

- Lawyers can charge what they want...the law is a monopolistic institution. If/when engineers become a function of government, they'll enjoy the same monopoly privileges. Licensure and regulation can only go so far in squeezing out competitive (price-reducing) forces. What you do is in fact, worth less now, according to the market. Value is subjective...which means prices are ultimately determined by the market.

- Athletes make obscene salaries because of us - the market. People are willing to pay obscene ticket prices to attend sporting events, therefore athletes can continue to demand obscene contracts. Musicians are seeing less money because consumers aren't willing to pay as much to see them, and are fed up with paying protectionist prices for copies of mediocre, rushed, over-produced albums, cranked out by the corporatist music industry. No longer can musicians afford to put out electronically-enhanced, carefully airbrushed albums, and put on relatively poor performances. Thankfully!

My wife is our band manager. She also manages a few other bands in town and has become pretty active in the local music scene. She hears the same thing from club/bar owners all the time - prices are rising and profits are falling. The owner of the Knitting Factory wrote out all of his costs for doing a show, in detail. These guys are squeezed as tight as they can possibly get and most of them are *still* willing to do whatever they can, as far as paying a band to come and play. Too often, bands want to walk into a bar, lay it down for a couple hours, and still complain when they only walk away with $50 in each of their pockets. It's the band's responsibility to get people into the venue and spending money. If you're doing that, you deserve to get paid. If you feel it's not good enough, renegotiate or just quit playing there. If someone fills your spot for the same pay...you weren't worth more. The supply of musicians is typically much, much higher than the demand, so competitive pressure keeps the prices low, for club owners.
 
Meanwhile, professional (and non-professional) musicians continue to earn less, yet professional entertainers and athletes continue to make obscene salaries.
.

As for professional athletes, only a small, small percentage do make obscene money, and there is very little to no middle ground.

Look at American Football players, only 0.2% of high school football players make it to the NFL. Of those who do, the average NFL career is 3.5 seasons long. Which means for every player who plays 10 to 15 years, there are dozens of players who only play for a year or less. And if you don't make money in the nfl, there are only a few options, none of which play nearly as much.

And even the very best athletes in nearly every sport (outside of Golf) are generally retired by their mid-30's.

In Athletics, only the cream of the crop make money, and only for a short time.
In music, it's possible not be quite the cream and still make a living far longer than an athlete.

Although one tie in is we see numerous formerly high paid athletes and formerly high paid musicians end up broke due to poor money management.
 
It's the band's responsibility to get people into the venue and spending money.

Though I agree with most of what you've said hitherto, I cannot agree with that. I concede that a band which puts a lot of effort into promoting itself will tend to do better than not, yet what you've said there has for far too long been the motto of lazy and moronic promoters and venue owners.

It baffles me when, to this day, some people who run small venues still have the attitude "I'll book this band but if they don't bring X amount of people through the door then they don't get booked again etc" - and then simply do nothing themselves to encourage people to come to the event which they have organised. Then they have the nerve to turn around and moan that they lose money by putting on gigs that no one comes to. Well whose fault is that?

This whole situation seems to have fallen arse-over-tit: I mean, no one's going to just pop round my house of a Friday evening out of the blue on the off chance they might hear some good music; but if somebody opens a club in a populated area which sells booze and has an area large enough to dance around in and he makes the place as inviting and welcoming as possible so that people actually start going there on a regular basis, may be then he could think of a way to entertain them. Honestly, none of us need a bloody MBA to work that one out.
 
It baffles me when, to this day, some people who run small venues still have the attitude "I'll book this band but if they don't bring X amount of people through the door then they don't get booked again etc" - and then simply do nothing themselves to encourage people to come to the event which they have organised. Then they have the nerve to turn around and moan that they lose money by putting on gigs that no one comes to. Well whose fault is that?

Indeed. The venue is responsible for its own promotion. The band is responsible for entertainment. Now of course there's a degree of cross-over in that arrangement, but in order for the most successful outcome for all it certainly entails both sides uphold their end of the bargain. To pin the entire responsibility of a venue's success or survival on "the band" is a very long bow.
 
To pin the entire responsibility of a venue's success or survival on "the band" is a very long bow.

Which is why they increasingly pin the responsibility for success on gaming machines. And it works every time. No noise. Fewer rowdies. Less mess. No band egos to deal with. No setup and tear down. Just the consistent flow of money from customer to bar owner ...
 
Though I agree with most of what you've said hitherto, I cannot agree with that. I concede that a band which puts a lot of effort into promoting itself will tend to do better than not, yet what you've said there has for far too long been the motto of lazy and moronic promoters and venue owners.

It baffles me when, to this day, some people who run small venues still have the attitude "I'll book this band but if they don't bring X amount of people through the door then they don't get booked again etc" - and then simply do nothing themselves to encourage people to come to the event which they have organised. Then they have the nerve to turn around and moan that they lose money by putting on gigs that no one comes to. Well whose fault is that?

This whole situation seems to have fallen arse-over-tit: I mean, no one's going to just pop round my house of a Friday evening out of the blue on the off chance they might hear some good music; but if somebody opens a club in a populated area which sells booze and has an area large enough to dance around in and he makes the place as inviting and welcoming as possible so that people actually start going there on a regular basis, may be then he could think of a way to entertain them. Honestly, none of us need a bloody MBA to work that one out.

They don't need you...they'll sell booze and make money with or without you. So, if you expect to make more than peanuts...bring some fans with you. If this weren't the case, and there was *more* of an incentive (demand), the market would be tipped more in favor of musicians.
 
It baffles me when, to this day, some people who run small venues still have the attitude "I'll book this band but if they don't bring X amount of people through the door then they don't get booked again etc" - and then simply do nothing themselves to encourage people to come to the event which they have organised. Then they have the nerve to turn around and moan that they lose money by putting on gigs that no one comes to. Well whose fault is that?
.

I brought that up in a prior thread:
http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87778

Which came from an article with this quote:
But here’s where the club owner doesn’t get it. The crowd is following the band, not the venue. The next night you will have to start all over again. And the people that were starting to follow your venue are now turned off because you just made them listen to a bad band. The goal should be to build a fan base of the venue. To get people that will trust that you will have good music in there every night. Instead, you’ve soiled your reputation for a quick fix.

If you asked a club owner, ”who is your target demographic?” I doubt they would answer ”the band’s friends and family.” But yet clubs operate like it is.
 
They don't need you...they'll sell booze and make money with or without you.

If that's their attitude, then why bother putting bands on at all? Especially if they lose money by doing so: the law governing entertainment licenses in the UK recently changed to exempt venues that hold less than 200 people, but that only came into effect in March of this year. I'm sure plenty of places all over the world have by-laws that mean a given venue incurs costs by hosting live music. If they have no interest in recouping those costs then I guess they can join the dole queue with all the unemployed musicians.

The goal should be to build a fan base of the venue

Absolutely-doodley: if your venue is worth playing at then people will value getting a gig there. If you don't give a toss, then they don't give a toss. The trouble comes back to how easy it is to get a gig at these joints; if a bunch of jokers with amps that don't work can just stroll onto the stage for no money and don't care whether any body will show up or not - then that venue is unlikely to attract any decent acts and so the problem just keeps rolling around without anyone doing anything about it.
 
Which is why they increasingly pin the responsibility for success on gaming machines. And it works every time. No noise. Fewer rowdies. Less mess. No band egos to deal with. No setup and tear down. Just the consistent flow of money from customer to bar owner ...

+ 1 Though in my local economy it's not gaming machines yet (I understand though it may be happening in the future).

For here it's still a DJ or a gazillion large screen TV's that play sports, etc...

They don't need you...they'll sell booze and make money with or without you. So, if you expect to make more than peanuts...bring some fans with you. If this weren't the case, and there was *more* of an incentive (demand), the market would be tipped more in favor of musicians.

+1 This is what it is in my local economy. In some cases you could substitute the word booze for coffee – but same application.

If that's their attitude, then why bother putting bands on at all?

Absolutely-doodley: if your venue is worth playing at then people will value getting a gig there. If you don't give a toss, then they don't give a toss. The trouble comes back to how easy it is to get a gig at these joints; if a bunch of jokers with amps that don't work can just stroll onto the stage for no money and don't care whether any body will show up or not - then that venue is unlikely to attract any decent acts and so the problem just keeps rolling around without anyone doing anything about it.

Again, this could be a reflection of local economies but it’s not so easy in my local area to get a free gig even. The competition is still there and the people with amps who can’t play a stitch – don’t gig at all - not even for free. Once they’ve played their initial gig, they are not invited back.

Again, the places here will be open and doing fine whether or not anyone is there playing live music. Many of the same people will be there as well - except for the people the band brings is. The owners are in a win/win situation. They make money regardless if there's a band there. If there is a band there, they make more money.

Again for me, the money issue is no longer a part of the equation as it was back in the 80's and 90's. Players of all levels get this - professional or otherwise. No one is taking anyone's opportunity away to make money or play for free. We all know which places pay and which ones do not. It's fair game and it's up to each band to decide.

Fortunately for me, in most cases, I prefer the free ones since they tend to be more fun than the paying ones.
 
Which is why they increasingly pin the responsibility for success on gaming machines. And it works every time. No noise. Fewer rowdies. Less mess. No band egos to deal with. No setup and tear down. Just the consistent flow of money from customer to bar owner ...

By gaming machines, I assume you mean gambling slots and what not? It's legal there?

That's pretty much not an option for CA bars... No gambling allowed, unless of course it's the state-run "lottery" which is completely different because only the state gets to take people's money with insane payout to profit ratios. It's okay for them.
 
By gaming machines, I assume you mean gambling slots and what not? It's legal there?

That's pretty much not an option for CA bars... No gambling allowed, unless of course it's the state-run "lottery" which is completely different because only the state gets to take people's money with insane payout to profit ratios. It's okay for them.

Yep, they changed the licensing laws here and after that the scene went down the gurgler as small and medium sized bars skipped the music and installed machines.

Here's an interesting development in "playing for free" - backyard gigs:

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment...hord-as-gigs-get-intimate-20120405-1wflk.html
 
That's a very thought-provoking piece! The lowest I've ever been paid for a gig is £30 and there's something about that figure...
 
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