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Well, I thought I had seen it all, clubowners chiseling down your pay while their registers are ringing, Jerks from other countries yelling in some foriegn accent "You are paid to entertain me, so play something!" or stuffing their ears with napkins while turning a giant fake volume knob in the sky down with their hands. How about drunks stumbling on stage to ask for cigarettes, fights breaking out near the stage and guys knocking the speakers over on us, people resting their drinks on our gear…the list goes on and on. But this…this takes the proverbial cake.
A representative of a particular venue (that will remain nameless to protect the identities of the shamefully guilty) approached us to to do an opening slot in front of a seminational band they had booked with the promise of further bookings if we did a good job. So, as you have probably inferred, we played for a gentlemens agreement that we would be getting work (in other words…we played for free). As if the pittance local musicians get payed isnt pathetic enough. I smell a digression coming on. Ok..here goes.
Doctors go to school to learn how to practice (and i stress PRACTICE) medicine for at least 8 years not including specializing, inernships, and continuing education. Thats quite a while. Because of this fact and the fact that their jobs are stressful and important they are compensated very well for their efforts WITHOUT QUESTION. Now I realize that not every local musicians case is exactly like mine, but suffice to say that anyone who plays an instrument well enough to get payed to do so has been studying for quite a while. My resume is on the web site but just to recap: began guitar at 13, started lessons at 15, started playing professionally at 18, started music school at 20, completed a double major in music education and performance with minor in jazz studies in 6 years while performing writing recording and teaching. I still study privately and on my own to this day. So altogether, I started at 13. I am now 33. Thats 20 years of consistent study and practice. Sounds like a commitment to me. As for the stress portion of the job…not many people are wired correctly to be able to bare their souls on stage. Musicians do it night after night. And how about the fact that when the gig schudule is slow because of an economic downturn or because the clubowners are going through an "I don't need music" phase and you have to hustle something up so you can make the rent. Doctors and lawyers don't have to worry about making the rent, but I am no less skilled than a doctor or a lawyer. It is merely a different discipline I am skilled in. Third is the importance factor. I understand that a persons health is paramount to living a good and happy life, but what use is there in living a life devoid of purpose. Music and the arts give meaning where there would otherwise be nothing but a collection of biological functions pressing on ad nauseum. Its what separates us from our distant ancestors (and even those primordial kin folk had rudimentary instruments and interpreted their reality in paint on cave walls). I defy anyone to find a more valuable function than the ability to make life more worth living. For this… we get paid $75 and all the beer we can drink. Poverty, and scirosis. Sign me up! Button up your shirts before your hearts fall out bar owners. If you want to save money, how about a few less HD TV's hanging from every concievable vantage point. Or how about just realizing that we provide a useful essential service and being grateful for once (monetarily and otherwise). I would be better off being a waiter than a trained musician, but happiness in pursuit of excellece at ones given vocation comes with a price i guess. End digression. Back to the story.
So we get to the place and wait by the stage for a solid hour until the aging know-it-all sound guy deems it prudent to grace us with his dubious presence and throw us up on stage with 5 minutes to set up and sound check (I will cover know-it-all sound guys in a later blog). Despite the usual bad sound conditions and general poor treatment we played a good set. The crowd was with us and everyone knew it. We stayed to see the act we opened for (good musician etiquette) and could'nt even get comped one miserable drink by the bar we just played at for free (a beer was $7…thats $4 more than a gallon of gas). Needless to say the experience was less than stellar but we had high hopes that we were building a new profitable relationship based on good faith. We could'nt have been any more wrong.
We immediately got an e-mail from our contact at this place saying that we did a great job, everybody loved it, and could we look at the April schedule so we can start booking. Great!!! Finally some payoff for a job well done. We responded and hoped to hear back. A day goes by. Two days. Three days. Eventually the reason for the delay is brought to our attention through the musicians grapevine. Our contact had not responded because he was FIRED from his job booking acts for this place because he was RIPPING OFF THE VENUE AND THE BANDS!!!!!!! Can you believe it. This piece of excrement was telling the bands that his budget was limited to something like two or three hundred dollars per gig and then telling the venue he was paying the bands seven or eight hundred and putting the difference in his slimey pocket. And this my friends…is why a gigging musician in New England can't pay his bills.
Breaks over…time to hit the stage.