Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => The Dressing Room => Topic started by: richard on May 12, 2012, 07:00:09 PM
-
I play in a rock covers band gigging around Sussex. Usually get £200 per gig. Is this fairly average for a pub band ? Anyone get paid more ? Or less ?
-
When I used to be in a cover band we got about £250 per gig between 5 of us. Bigger gigs like Santa Pod were better paid!
-
200-250 up in NorthEast
-
Same here though we get better rates for parties and stuff like that-in fact we did a party last night and got £350.00 ( 4 piece band- well three musos and a bloke who sits behind the drums). Also in Sussex Richard (maybe we should swap the names of venues).
-
£200ish the North West too - sometime a bit more, sometime a bit less.
-
I'm in a 3 piece covers band in NE Scotland. We usually get £2000-£2500 per gig.
We have to cover PA hire from this though (£5-600)
-
I'm in a coverband in Holland. We usually get 150-200 euro per bandmember. We are with seven people.
-
I've never played a covers gig for less than £150 per head (bar a couple charity ones) but other than one or two I only ever played weddings and functions. I roadie for £50 a show so balls to doing gigs for less than that.
-
I'm in a 3 piece covers band in NE Scotland. We usually get £2000-£2500 per gig.
We have to cover PA hire from this though (£5-600)
How the heck do you get that much per gig? :?
I've never played a covers gig for less than £150 per head (bar a couple charity ones) but other than one or two I only ever played weddings and functions. I roadie for £50 a show so balls to doing gigs for less than that.
That's very capitalist of you, surely it's not just about the money? ;)
-
Well, capitalist in the same fashion any job is. It was my living, of course it was for the money. Why else would you do cover gigs? They're rubbish.
-
How the heck do you get that much per gig? :?
Ask myself that same question quite a lot. ;)
Used to have a pretty good following in the late 90's. Reformed last year, and currently surfing the nostalgic reunion wave.
Fingers crossed it continues. :D
-
That's an amazing payday! Nice work 8)
Well, capitalist in the same fashion any job is. It was my living, of course it was for the money. Why else would you do cover gigs? They're rubbish.
If you're playing with the right guys and gals, covers gigs can be great fun. I love my band :D
-
Paid? You're lucky if you see anything *at all* in Oxford.
Of course, covers bands are different, but I don't play in one of those any more.
-
That's an amazing payday! Nice work 8)
Well, capitalist in the same fashion any job is. It was my living, of course it was for the money. Why else would you do cover gigs? They're rubbish.
If you're playing with the right guys and gals, covers gigs can be great fun. I love my band :D
I played with lots of unbelievable musicians, many of them very good friends. But the people that hire wedding and function bands, as a general rule, want you to play rubbish music.
-
Generally naff all when i've been in bands. Just the taking on the doors and a percentage of the bar takings. So around £100 between the band
I think nowadays id much rather do covers because its far less effort and will fit around my working life better.
-
I played with lots of unbelievable musicians, many of them very good friends. But the people that hire wedding and function bands, as a general rule, want you to play rubbish music.
I find they want to hear popular music they can sing along with or dance to! :)
-
They always want to hear Wonderful Tonight and Just Wanna Dance The Night Away. Well, the folks that are game for paying £1200+ do.
I mean Just Wanna Dance The Night Away. What's wrong with people? Five minutes of E and A and a rubbish solo and stupid horns. Weirdos.
-
I got £20 for the last gig, and 2 beers. We did a few covers but mainly original.
That's the downside of playing in a 10 piece band.
I'd play anything anybody asked me to for £1200. Even Abba. Mustang Sally is painful to play though, but I would.
I think playing covers can really open new doors with your playing, especially the more popular show tunes and Jazz standards. Even Beatles, I know lots of folk hate them but it always surprises me learning some Beatles songs how many interesting chords and time signatures they used. I really don't like Abba but doing a cover once it was an eye opener the complexity of the music.
I like doing original stuff mostly but I'm currently building a repertoire to do solo acoustic cover gigs, no singing just the full tunes fingerstyle so I can do weddings etc. I'm enjoying this more than playing covers with a band tbh.
-
I really don't like Abba but doing a cover once it was an eye opener the complexity of the music.
Agreed - clever guys, and the best pop group ever because of it. Unlike you Tom I really like them - they're my guilty pleasure :oops:
-
I bloody love ABBA. And there's nowt guilty about it.
-
Best pop group ever????
Each to their own fellas!!!
-
Each to their own fellas!!!
What a difference a comma, or lack of one, makes.
-
Each to their own fellas!!!
What a difference a comma, or lack of one, makes.
Lol.
-
Better don't do it for the money.
Once I bought an amp of a guy who has been in a pro top40 band for 20 years, it was his job plus giving guitar lessons, he was 40 and living with his parents, looked tired and exhausted. They did mainly weddings and stuff. He was a GIT graduate. It made me sad.
-
Paid? You're lucky if you see anything *at all* in Oxford.
That's cos...
...oh, I haven't got the heart, I can't do it! :lol: (beatles songs/telecasters/traffic wardens/mashed potato, delete as appropriate)
Seriously though, it's years since I played out, and apart from the Roo and Toe Knee stories, it sounds like there's a lot more money to be had nowadays!
It always was "covers get you more money". You had to be decent at doing them though. Like TF says, folks paying money want music that they or their punters know and can dance/snog/whatever to. The folks who liked and supported the home-grown-material bands I was in always wanted to get in on the guest-list, the venues/promoters know this.
Even if it isn't for us, it's a business for the guys trying to run music in a pub/club.
And on "covers/cover-gigs are rubbish", it is all of course personal taste in music, but they're far from rubbish for most people. If you're playing out, you're in the entertainment industry - you need to be entertaining or you won't get the work or paid much for it. In the right venue with the right audience, a decent cover band is a mighty powerful and enjoyable night out - at least you know they'll be playing decent songs!! :lol:
-
Each to their own fellas!!!
What a difference a comma, or lack of one, makes.
We are talking about Abba fans, no comma required :D
-
I HATE ABBA. I was actually in an ABBA covers band, and I agree re the complexity of the music.
But I do feel physically ill when I hear their songs.
When I was gigging with the Poets, we never got paid, or maybe 20-50 quid between the 4 of us. An originals band with no real following to speak of, I think that we were lucky just to play.
-
I will happily acknowledge that I'm a big ABBA fan as well, possibly more so than my missus and her various mates who like Mamma Mia (stage or film). They try to disagree, but I fail to see how someone who would prefer to listen to the Mamma Mia soundtrack album can claim bigger ABBA-fandom than someone who regularly listens to the albums made by ABBA themselves :lol:
Not sure whether they're the best pop group ever, though?
That's probably quantifiable (with a few punch-ups over the sources of and the validity of statistics) - the group with the most units shifted, radio/media plays, concert tickets, etc, so far, probably qualifies as the best pop group ever - it's a popularity contest. So if it turns out to be U2, for example, I shall probably be sick, but I won't be able to argue with it.
If you take the word "pop" off the front, then we're into a whole different ballgame and most folks (on here, anyway) will agree you can't really say who is "best" out of different acts who are pretty much chalk and cheese.
-
I am in a covers band and feel no shame whatsoever. It means that I get to play a lot plus we do three of my songs in the band- we sneak them in. I also play original material either on my own or with a few select mates. For the latter I generally get hardly a bean and the message I get is that I should be grateful that they let me play. I don't need to do it for the sake of my ego though. I don't get anything like the same volume of gigs for my original material because the venues don't particularly encourage it ( and I can't blame them when times are hard for a lot of them). If I were younger I'd do what I used to do-play nearly every night and build up a following but those days are behind me.I am lucky because I have a small group of folks who turn up when I do play my own songs-mainly because they have seen the band and know that I am going to be playing. When I was in my teens and twenties I wouldn't have been seen dead in a covers band. These days I don't give a toss- I enjoy it and apart from a moron sitting behind the drum kit, I have a bit of a laugh with a bunch of mates. Some of you younger guys might change your views when you get a bit older- maybe not. Each to his own.
-
I started this thread with particular reference to covers bands because I appreciate that playing your own stuff is a completely different ballgame. I spent a couple of years not so long ago playing with a guy who wrote all his own stuff and very good it was too. The problem for a mature gent like me is that we played all over the country and, if I'd stayed in the band, could have gone to USA, Germany and many other places but I'm not in a position to do this sort of thing. These days it's a maximum 45 minute drive.
I have no problem playing covers because I get to play songs by people that are much better songwriters than I am. I don't learn solos though as I just love improvising. I'm pretty happy with about 25/30 gigs a year and enough cash to cover my thirst for Guinness, a set of strings per gig and a bit left over.
38th - we may have exchanged this information before because I'm sure we play some of the same places but:
The Elms (Worthing), Duke of Welly (Shoreham), Hampden Arms (Newhaven), Swan (Crawley), Hove Park Tavern (errr... Hove), Malt Shovel (Horsham), The Volunteer (Lewes). All reasonable places, let me know if you want contact info.
-
Cheers Richard. Some of our regulars are Queens Head (Horsham), Prince Albert (Copthorne- can be a bit iffy though) John Harvey Tavern (Lewes- very small though) Shelley Arms (Broadbridge Heath- near Horsham) and Tanners Arms (Horsham) though the latter is unusual in that the Landlady encourages original material and full credit to her for that as she got my songwriting out of retirement bless her.
-
most I've been paid is 950euros, but usually I only get my expenses covered and a pint. Often, I just play for free if it looks like being a cool party and I know it will be well organised.
-
If you can pull a crowd, putting on your own gigs and selling tickets is the best way to go.
We did one last year at the Forum in Aberdeen.
500 + tickets at £15 each
We cleared over £2000 each (before tax ;) )
Bit more stressful, but worth it.
-
average pub gig in the midlands 200 - 350 for a standard pub gig 25-30 tunes for a 4-5 piece band. Stingiest pubs will give less than 200.
-
This thread has got me thinking i really should have joined Bon-Journey. At least i would be out playing...
I really need to get something sorted again.
-
This thread has got me thinking i really should have joined Bon-Journey. At least i would be out playing...
Is that a real band? Sounds cool.
(The Journey bit, anyway! :P )
-
This thread has got me thinking i really should have joined Bon-Journey. At least i would be out playing...
Is that a real band? Sounds cool.
(The Journey bit, anyway! :P )
yeah they're a localish band that were looking for members a while back.
-
I would not approve of their tunes. But I thoroughly approve of their name. One day I'll find something else the calibre of Gallus Cooper.
-
One day I'll find something else the calibre of Gallus Cooper.
Embarrassingly, I had to spend a while thinking about that.... :oops:
This thread has got me thinking i really should have joined Bon-Journey. At least i would be out playing...
Is that a real band? Sounds cool.
(The Journey bit, anyway! :P )
yeah they're a localish band that were looking for members a while back.
It would be great being in a Journey covers band. I can only dream of being able to sing like Steve Perry and play like Neal Schon.... :)
(In reality it's more a case of sing like Schon and play like Perry - and even that's making a bold assumption about Perry's guitar playing.... :| )
-
I play in a covers band nearly all old rock stuff what I grew up with..............the money is a little bonus i'm just enjoying playing :)
-
I am in a covers band and feel no shame whatsoever. It means that I get to play a lot plus we do three of my songs in the band- we sneak them in. I also play original material either on my own or with a few select mates. For the latter I generally get hardly a bean and the message I get is that I should be grateful that they let me play. I don't need to do it for the sake of my ego though. I don't get anything like the same volume of gigs for my original material because the venues don't particularly encourage it ( and I can't blame them when times are hard for a lot of them). If I were younger I'd do what I used to do-play nearly every night and build up a following but those days are behind me.I am lucky because I have a small group of folks who turn up when I do play my own songs-mainly because they have seen the band and know that I am going to be playing. When I was in my teens and twenties I wouldn't have been seen dead in a covers band. These days I don't give a toss- I enjoy it and apart from a moron sitting behind the drum kit, I have a bit of a laugh with a bunch of mates. Some of you younger guys might change your views when you get a bit older- maybe not. Each to his own.
Great post Steve! :)
-
I mean Just Wanna Dance The Night Away. What's wrong with people? Five minutes of E and A and a rubbish solo and stupid horns. Weirdos.
I think you'll find it's E and B................
-
Is it? I was sure it was E and A. I've spent five or so years avoiding it, though.
-
Is it? I was sure it was E and A. I've spent five or so years avoiding it, though.
Now you know how to play it proper... I'm sure you appreciate it so much more :lol: :wink:
-
I don't think I'm technically good enough to play in a covers band.. I play my stuff alright though, but even that could do with a brush up.
What I'm saying: its not an easy job being in a covers band.
-
In last band 200-250 shared between 5 of us
-
I don't think I'm technically good enough to play in a covers band.. I play my stuff alright though, but even that could do with a brush up.
What I'm saying: its not an easy job being in a covers band.
You have to be a cameleon playing all the different stuff. Some songs are not your natural habitat. It took me by example some time to get Juanes - La Camissa Negra right. And we play sets with (nearly) no pauses, so you have to stay focused and swith pedals/adjust amp/change guitar on the right moments. But I'm not complaining, it's good fun and it pays well.
-
I don't think I'm technically good enough to play in a covers band.. I play my stuff alright though, but even that could do with a brush up.
What I'm saying: its not an easy job being in a covers band.
Yeah, I'd agree with this. When we used to play covers (or if I record them now), I always sought to "put my own stamp" on them. In other words, I couldn't be @rsed to figure out how to copy them properly :lol:
Unless it's a blues band playing standards, or some other type of music where "improvisation and interpretation" are valued by the audience, this is not exactly the approach to be taking if you want your covers band to be successful!
I don't think you have to copy everything exactly, but you do have to get the groove and the "hooks" right... and that's a lot harder (do-able, but harder) than most of us improvising "own-material" musicians imagine.
-
It can also be a challenge to find a good volume of covers music that suits everyone in the band, and also your target audience/venues. That's why tribute bands are popular, they're much easier on everyone concerned.
-
I don't think I'm technically good enough to play in a covers band.. I play my stuff alright though, but even that could do with a brush up.
What I'm saying: its not an easy job being in a covers band.
Yeah, I'd agree with this. When we used to play covers (or if I record them now), I always sought to "put my own stamp" on them. In other words, I couldn't be @rsed to figure out how to copy them properly :lol:
Unless it's a blues band playing standards, or some other type of music where "improvisation and interpretation" are valued by the audience, this is not exactly the approach to be taking if you want your covers band to be successful!
I don't think you have to copy everything exactly, but you do have to get the groove and the "hooks" right... and that's a lot harder (do-able, but harder) than most of us improvising "own-material" musicians imagine.
Presumably it's also a useful educational process, having to learn how various writers have put their songs together rather than slipping into "what comes naturally" writing your own stuff. And whichever way you approach it, whether it's learning note by note or "adapting" it to you own style, you end up as a better player.
-
I played in a cover band for a few years and never really found it that difficult, but i guess our material wasn't that varied, went down well in pubs though.. I'm not sure about cover bands, they can be fun and are easy to get lots of paid gigs but not very satisfying and i always kind of felt like a performing monkey!
-
Does anyone find that a lot of covers bands are playing the same songs?
It's just that, I've got yet another opportunity with a bass player and drummer to form another band. Hopefully we can get this one out of the studio and get some gigs. I want us to learn a real varied set to give us the chance to play different types of audience/venues ect which could hopefully lead to more £notes. Maybe if things go well, party's & weddings ect. That's where the money is for working bands.
Anyway, I havent met the drummer yet but he comes from a rock background. The bass player is someone I've rehearsed with before and he swears he has turned over a new leaf, as he as f*cked me around a lot in the passed. I've told him I'm not doing anything with anyone who smokes puff in the studio. When they're all stoned and talking boll0cks, It's like trying to communicate with a bunch of lobotomised chimpanzees!
We should be in the studio in just over a week.
-
If you're talking rock pub bands, yes - everyone's playing the same songs.
-
If you're talking rock pub bands, yes - everyone's playing the same songs.
Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down.
:x
-
(I'm guessing) it's partly because you have to play what the punters want.
I was only in own-material bands, all of which played the odd "interesting" cover that we felt like working up as our "own" and including (usually) near the end. But I still got asked for stuff like Mustang Sally all the time :lol:
I don't remember doing that one in particular, but we'd try to satisfy requests if we could.
-
Yeah, it makes sense to give the punters what they want. I suppose it depends on the type of covers band you are.
If you're a "tribute" band then obviously you'll cover the artists you're, er, paying tribute to.
If you're a covers band with a bit of a local following then I guess you can pretty much pick your own set, with some consideration of what your punters want to hear. But on the other hand I suppose you'll mostly have to play relatively well-known songs with some consistency in musical style, in order to build up a following in the first place.
...And if you're playing weddings, bar mitzvahs etc then your audience is much more interested in what you play than who you are - so I guess you have to toe the line and give 'em what they want.... "Mustang Sally", "Brown Eyed Girl", "Let Me Entertain You" and all that bollocks. :(
-
"Mustang Sally", "Brown Eyed Girl", "Let Me Entertain You" and all that bollocks. :(
I've only performed the last of those three (I assume we mean the Robbie Williams one), and what a pile of "stream-of-consciousness" old tosh the lyrics are :lol:
BUT! Funnily enough, if you're the vocalist, those are quite interesting songs to perform - you wouldn't get that hung up on doing them. But the other band members will get fed up with them because they're "just a blues", "boring and repetitive", or "but it's just one note in my part!!", etc.
Kind of illustrates what I was always trying to get across to other band members - most of the audience are listening to the songs, not the stuff we're playing on our assorted instruments :lol:
There are exceptions, obviously, but if you're playing to audiences that want to hear popular songs, then you probably oughta play popular songs, some of which you might have heard too often yourself, and your vocalist has got to be heard easily (and be capable of delivering popular songs in the first place).
You can ignore these "rules" if you want, but (in cover gigs) you could be seriously reducing your earning abilities.
-
Yeah, the Robbie Williams one - not Queen (unfortunately)! The two most recent wedding/Christmas party cover bands I've seen both played it.
I went to a wedding last year where the band played "Beat It" and "Play That Funky Music", which was a bit more tolerable. Pretty sure they also did "Mustang Sally" and at least one V. Morrison "classic" as well, though....
-
Thing is with covers that if people don't know the song then they won't dance or stick around and thus the pub will probably not hire you back again! No matter how good the song or how well you cover it, if they don't know it then they probably won't be up having a dance! We used to do a good cover of Richard III by Supergrass and that always went down like a sack of shite so we stopped doing it. We never got asked for Mustang Sally or anything quite that bad though.
-
In my experience it is exactly as described above-i.e that you get asked to play the "Mustang Sally" type stuff because the punters love it. I, however, loathe it with a passion and we don't have it in the set and only play it when we have to as a last resort. I have a drummer who thinks he is the MD when in fact he is a tosser. If someone asks for a song once and we don't already do it, he will nag and nag until we give in. He also tells us what he thinks "they" will dance to.This from a man who never dances. Fortunately we work on the principle that those who sing 'em get to choose 'em. We try to do well known but not over exposed songs and we try to avoid the obvious but even so, "Sweet Home Alabama" is in the set- as much as I am sick to death of it. I do like to bash out Squeeze and Crowded House songs though and I also get to do one Beatle song. I do enjoy playing and singing songs by Free though.
-
Fortunately we work on the principle that those who sing 'em get to choose 'em....
.....I do like to bash out Squeeze and Crowded House songs though and I also get to do one Beatle song.
I'm not particularly a fan of those bands, but I imagine they must be fun for you as a singer - because the basic melodies are extremely strong.
The lyrics are probably good too (although I tend not to pay attention to lyrics! :lol: )
-
Yep, loved your post 38th...
As I was reading it, I was wondering about Sweet Home Alabama, and there it was! :lol: As a (strat-playing) guitarist, I kinda like it. Then a couple of years back I had a work colleague who had been a bassist. He loathed Lynyrd Skynyrd because of that song, and I suddenly realised how "appealing" it could be to the bassist in that song!! The guitarist gets nice variations on the verses/choruses/links, but down the bottom it's just 3 chords round and round for as long as the audience wants to yell the chorus (or the guitarists want to do bad impressions of southern rock solos).
And the "those who sing 'em" principle - brilliant.
If we were able to rehearse it, I would give someone else's preference a fair go - even to the extent of learning the lyrics. But if I couldn't do it justice I'd say so. Sometimes they'd got so into the groove or whatever that they'd think it sounded fine even with my naff vocals. Then I'd have to admit "oh I love playing it, I just can't sing it - why don't you give it a go?" That would usually shut them up :lol:. The few times they forced me to do one live anyway it had exactly the effect I imagined - audience switches off because the singer can't do a decent rendition. So they kind of learnt not to push their luck on a song the singer couldn't manage.
I always had the ultimate sanction at a gig though - "I don't know the lyrics..." :lol:. This got used mainly for songs that we hadn't rehearsed or ever played together before, though.
We'd discovered that if I knew a song well enough to sing it and lead the band through the verse/chorus/etc changes, and if most of us had heard it enough or it wasn't too complex (Crowded House ruled out here!), then we could actually play it in a gig without ever having played it together before. It was usually an audience request, and the audience would know that's what we were doing, so it was kind of us showing off...
But Mustang Sally specifically is a case in point for the "I don't know the lyrics" strategy - even today I could not tell you how the vocal starts or what the song structure is, I just know the hooks that the audience does, so I can't actually perform it without paying attention to a recording and a bit of private rehearsal first (and that's probably why we never played it :lol:)
-
Our function band gets about £200 per head per gig (we're a 4-piece and this keeps it nicely under the £1000 mark which seems like cut-off for most private clients). We mostly do weddings plus the odd birthday or corporate event. Recommend signing up to one of the bigger agencies like http://www.lastminutemusicians.com/ (http://www.lastminutemusicians.com/) or http://www.functioncentral.co.uk/ (http://www.functioncentral.co.uk/) as they seem to pull a lot of traffic in and are always sending us offers.
Over the years we've gradually honed the set down to a set of songs that any crowd AND ourselves actually really enjoy playing, so that we no longer leave every gig wanting to kill ourselves :cheesy:
-
It seems that our experiences are very similar. Glad you enjoyed it Andy. We are a bit like old soldiers swapping war stories only its not about how many enemies we killed, it is about songs we murdered.
Two of the most bizarre requests I've had were:
1) do you do any Girls Aloud songs mate? ( and no he wasn't trying to be funny and witty- he seemingly thought that four middle aged blokes would play that stuff-sheesh)
2) have you got any records by (can't remember which artist he said). I replied that unffortunately I'd left my record collection at home and that I didn't have any records with me. Oddly enough, I added, we are actually playing these instruments for real,. yes that right, we are really playing these songs as we have all spent a few minutes learning to play.
Thnaks for your post lindtro.
-
I've done acoustic duo gigs for £100, £50 between the two of us, not done any function band stuff which can get more. I'm starting to see the appeal in covers bands as it is better money (not that we do it for money but we gotta earn a living) and being in originals bands for years and seeing little financial reward, its not a bad thing on a Friday/Saturday night to play some rock tunes for a wedding or just in a pub full of drunkards singing along!
There's no writing process involved, saving time. You can pretty much play the same tunes with any musicians so if anyone can't make a certain date you can arrange a dep pretty quickly and easily.
Your first practice could be just deciding on a setlist of 20 songs and rehearsing through them!
-
I get paid £0 :afro:
living the dream
-
I had a gid on Saturday where we did it at a knock down price as a favour for someone. The punters, however, were extremely demanding- more so than at gigs where we charge a good fee. We ended up doing an extra 20 minutes. That doesn't sound like much but the last batch of songs were ones that I sing . I sing around 50% of the songs and I do 90% of the lead breaks and I always play with the attitude that this could be my last gig so lets make it a good one ( morbis perhaps but I lost a good buddy recently who was a day older than me and we'd been friends from the age of 5). A by product is that I play my very best and sing as well as I can. And yet, they were paying us peanuts and would have had us playing all night .
I got to thinking that maybe I should think about doing something different. I've been meaning to record a whole bunch of original songs that I've accumulated over the years ( and is likely to happen in the near future) and I did a solo spot last week and got a great reaction from a pub full of people that I don't know. I didn't get paid a penny but it was very satisfying. Comparing it to Saturday night makes me wonder why. Having said that, I enjoy about 90% of the gigs I play so I shouldn't let that one influence me too much.
Apologies, I didn't set out to post so long with my musings that are on no importance to anyone when it comes down to it.
-
I had a gid on Saturday where we did it at a knock down price as a favour for someone. The punters, however, were extremely demanding- more so than at gigs where we charge a good fee. We ended up doing an extra 20 minutes. That doesn't sound like much but the last batch of songs were ones that I sing . I sing around 50% of the songs and I do 90% of the lead breaks and I always play with the attitude that this could be my last gig so lets make it a good one ( morbis perhaps but I lost a good buddy recently who was a day older than me and we'd been friends from the age of 5). A by product is that I play my very best and sing as well as I can. And yet, they were paying us peanuts and would have had us playing all night .
I got to thinking that maybe I should think about doing something different. I've been meaning to record a whole bunch of original songs that I've accumulated over the years ( and is likely to happen in the near future) and I did a solo spot last week and got a great reaction from a pub full of people that I don't know. I didn't get paid a penny but it was very satisfying. Comparing it to Saturday night makes me wonder why. Having said that, I enjoy about 90% of the gigs I play so I shouldn't let that one influence me too much.
Apologies, I didn't set out to post so long with my musings that are on no importance to anyone when it comes down to it.
Well, its very important to think about these things. Music is supposed to be fun and an art form. I have the same opinion a play each show like its the last too.. You just never know what comes up.
I think you should definitely record those solo songs and put effort into promoting that for a while.
I reckon that with all the free music around these days the effort we all put as musicians in not properly valued by punters. Thats no reason to stop doing it of course, but it is reason to look for extra ways to keep ourselves happy.
-
I had a gid on Saturday where we did it at a knock down price as a favour for someone. The punters, however, were extremely demanding- more so than at gigs where we charge a good fee. We ended up doing an extra 20 minutes. That doesn't sound like much but the last batch of songs were ones that I sing . I sing around 50% of the songs and I do 90% of the lead breaks and I always play with the attitude that this could be my last gig so lets make it a good one ( morbis perhaps but I lost a good buddy recently who was a day older than me and we'd been friends from the age of 5). A by product is that I play my very best and sing as well as I can. And yet, they were paying us peanuts and would have had us playing all night .
I got to thinking that maybe I should think about doing something different. I've been meaning to record a whole bunch of original songs that I've accumulated over the years ( and is likely to happen in the near future) and I did a solo spot last week and got a great reaction from a pub full of people that I don't know. I didn't get paid a penny but it was very satisfying. Comparing it to Saturday night makes me wonder why. Having said that, I enjoy about 90% of the gigs I play so I shouldn't let that one influence me too much.
Apologies, I didn't set out to post so long with my musings that are on no importance to anyone when it comes down to it.
Funny you should say this, I've been pondering going the opposite way, from an originals band playing for free and having to pour loads of money into recording and tours, to get now't back to playing in covers bands and having a good laugh on a Friday night. I've spent the majority of my guitaring career playing originals stuff getting little return. Now I'm not saying I am doing this for the fame and money but at some stage in life you want to be able to pay your rent, bills and get food on the table. Alongside tutoring it could be a good little earner provider the gigs keep coming in.
As previously mentioned music being available for free and lack of numbers at originals gigs these days makes you think to yourself "why am I doing this?" But that's not me denying I don't enjoy being on stage playing in a rock band with my 4 friends and being proud to be up there. Maybe I'm getting a bit blurry visioned by £££ signs....
-
Yeah maybe I should just chill a bit and do both cover gigs and solos and get the best of both. At one point we did a few of mine in the band and they always went down well but we do go out as a covers band so I guess we should stick to that. I do love playing my own songs though- life is so confusing sometimes!
-
I wish I could find time to do both! Its just the more and more it goes on the more appeal covers band and making regular money becomes. I think I will stick with the originals for a few yet but it does come to a point where it drains your finances and not get much back. I have invested so much money in my rig, its there to be played!
-
Most of the time it's nothing.
Usually there's some interstate or overseas band that soaks up all the money.
Once we got $50 for playing a metal show and another time I organized a show and each band got $2 per punter, which worked out to $80 for each band.
The money goes into the kitty for the next recording session.
Lucky punk bands don't need good recording quality because the gigs don't pay!
We're not a cover band though, even if we did do a cover of Poison Idea's 'God Not God' for a couple of shows.