"corporate attire"

[KuruPrionz]

The Motown cover band I was in had an agency that booked us. 

We got a gig at a nudist colony, a repeat gig but I was not in the band the first time around. 

One of the lead singers said to me in all seriousness "Look at your shoes."

The band dressed in our usual outfits and the band that played before us left a really nice guitar cord on stage in my spot so I announced repeatedly over the microphone trying to get the cord back to the owner. We didn't know them and they had come up from south of the gig while we'd come from the north. I still have the cord, it's a good one. That was about 14 years ago. It didn't bother me, naked people are just critters. 

[TommyRude]

I went corporate for my day job, wore suits 5 days a week for years.  Glad that's over!

 

If your band signs up for the classy look, hopefully everyone buys in.  If you have 6 guys, and 5 come in looking well dressed & coordinated, and one guy comes in looking a bit shabby, kinda ruins it.

[stoken6]

On 5/5/2023 at 12:48 AM, Stokely said:

a certain beach near Titusville

The U is not silent. 
 

Cheers, Mike

[o0Ampy0o]

You cannot go wrong with lime green satin shirts under black vests. So cool cool cool. I was 7 or 8 and have never forgotten the band at my mom's company BBQ when she worked at Montgomery Ward. She walked 3 miles in high heels to get to and from that job, BTW. 

[Stokely]

On 5/5/2023 at 8:40 AM, TommyRude said:

I went corporate for my day job, wore suits 5 days a week for years.  Glad that's over!

 

If your band signs up for the classy look, hopefully everyone buys in.  If you have 6 guys, and 5 come in looking well dressed & coordinated, and one guy comes in looking a bit shabby, kinda ruins it.

I never have thankfully, and these days I work from home wearing...well, whatever I want, including basically nothing if I so desired since I've almost never on Zoom video   

Talking a bit more with the singer, that last part is really what she's after.  Not really any kind of uniform, just a cohesive look.  Everyone on the "same level" as far as attire, doesn't have to be color-coordinated though we both agreed you can always go with black   And mainly just for the corporate/fancy gigs, for our bar gigs it's not such a big deal.  I still tend to go at least to a button down shirt, but partly because I am too out of shape to rock a tight tshirt these days...something I'm working on!

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

On 5/4/2023 at 7:08 PM, Dr Nursers said:

There's not debate on this really, there's an agreed industry standard that's been in place for decades:

 

 

Suddenly I am left wondering whatever I did with that old picture I had saved of "Murph and the Magictones"...

[kpl1228]

On 5/4/2023 at 10:22 AM, KuruPrionz said:

 

I think it's good protocol for the band to be reasonably "formal" looking and the front person(s) to stand out a bit. 

^This. No shame in a cool contemporary (2022, not 20 years ago) sport coat, designer jeans or slacks and some cool non-tennis shoe footwear (maybe Beatle Boots with a Cuban heel-----timeless). You can dress the part and not look like you're playing Bad Company covers at a bar at a bowling alley.

In the words of Maury Sline, "Don't you guys ever wear blue jeans or jumpsuits like Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders?"

[CyberGene]

While we’re at it, outside of classical music, jazz (and other similar genres where music is the only important ingredient), for any other (commercial) genre of music I go to see a complete show and I expect proper attire, choreography, interaction between musicians, even theatricality. And then also a certain limit of BMI 😉

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, CyberGene said:

While we’re at it, outside of classical music, jazz (and other similar genres where music is the only important ingredient), for any other (commercial) genre of music I go to see a complete show and I expect proper attire, choreography, interaction between musicians, even theatricality.

Therein lies the rub.  That's how music becomes entertainment. 

 

The more serious music doesn't require a gimmick.  But, commercial music i.e. fun stuff has to be a small scale circus.😁

 

Before most artists and musicians take the stage, listeners are introduced to them by some type of recording.  There is nothing to see.

 

The production aspect of show business has permeated music for several decades now. 

 

Thankfully, there will always be artists, bands and musicians who can hit the stage without a costume or a uniform and kill it musically while entertaining the audience too. 

 

It will be interesting to see how music consumers expect their favorite AI (Artificial Intelligence) performers to dress and entertain them.🤣😎

[Docbop]

All the showy stuff ruined good music.  I miss the 60's and 70's seeing the great rock bands like Traffic, Zappa, Electric Flag, Joe Cocker, Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Sly and Family Stone,  Who, CTA, Doors, Allman Brothers, and on and on and on.    They showed up stacked their gear on stage now propos or crap,  dressed in whatever they were comfortable in, usually house lighting, and played their asses off.    Then thing started getting a bit fancy props, lighting, and ticket price start going up, so the show aspect started moving in,  ticket price continued to rise,  so the show got bigger PA's and lighting,  backup musicians.   People wouldn't pay more for show so tours got sponsors and logo and crap.   Every moved from being about the music to being about some stupid Vegas like show.    People bitch about how crappy Pop is will guess what you asked for a bunch of showy crap where the show is more important and the music just sounds like a CD being pumped into FOH.   Dam even clapping is being pumped into the FOH these days to get the audience more into  THE SHOW. 

 

Leave to the show band stuff for Las Vegas get back to musicians playing good music.   

 

Not that I have an opinion on the topic. 

[o0Ampy0o]

Bands were dressing for shows in the 50's and 60's. The Beatles had a band uniform of sorts. Pink Floyd's shows are legendary. They wore jeans but the sound system and visuals were spectacular. David Bowie and others were doing glitter rock but it emptied of substance in the late 70's and all the 80's cloning the Frampton Rock Star look and emergence of hair banger bands. MTV took things to a new low as everyone mimicked the MYV playing to the camera bits. I enjoyed a visual show like PF or Genesis could produce but I still was most impressed when the band played good through a good sound system. Nothing beats the band's playing hood no matter how things look on stage.

[TommyRude]

perhaps this is good for a corporate summer beach gig?

[timwat]

7 minutes ago, TommyRude said:

perhaps this is good for a corporate summer beach gig?

 

If that look doesn't pull the baddies, I don't know what will...

[surfergirl]

5 hours ago, TommyRude said:

perhaps this is good for a corporate summer beach gig?

[retrokeys]

After all this time and different bands and musical styles, I've been through it all from changing matching outfit every set to the 1960's "whatever you came in wearing." and much in between. About the only corporate thing I dealt with that I liked was one band did where we agreed on a color and then each member "styled" that. The drummer, for example wore a sort of Steve Jobs T shirt and lightweight vest.  The horn guys did short sleeve button down collar shirts. The singer had a black suit.  I had sort of a suede like long sleeve shirt.  Everyone had the standard black pants. You can, of course do this with any color or even combinations. I was with another group where the rule was black and red. Some guys wore red ties with black shirts othere had red and black stripes.  It works. There is enough uniformity but also allowing for comfort, invidual style and visual interest. An old guy's two cents.

 

[Stokely]

Much as I personally agree (and hope, and wish) it would be about the music...doing corporate covers you are largely window dressing, in my somewhat-limited experience with them.  So we will need to look the (or "a") part to some degree.   We don't really do those gigs for our enjoyment, because they largely are not (though I like playing, period.)  I think color coordination, other than black, is probably not going to happen with our group.  Hearing from a bunch of you doing various gigs in various duds has been educational!  I really like the "classy not corny" idea and will endeavor to make sure that happens as much as I can  

We still have a fair number of "wear what you want" cut-loose gigs where we know a bunch of people that come out and it's more fun so it's all good  

[CowboyNQ]

On 5/9/2023 at 5:25 AM, ProfD said:

Therein lies the rub.  That's how music becomes entertainment. 

 

The more serious music doesn't require a gimmick.  But, commercial music i.e. fun stuff has to be a small scale circus.😁

 

Before most artists and musicians take the stage, listeners are introduced to them by some type of recording.  There is nothing to see.

 

The production aspect of show business has permeated music for several decades now. 

 

Thankfully, there will always be artists, bands and musicians who can hit the stage without a costume or a uniform and kill it musically while entertaining the audience too. 

 

It will be interesting to see how music consumers expect their favorite AI (Artificial Intelligence) performers to dress and entertain them.🤣😎

I can’t agree with this, Professor.

 

I’ve watched many “serious” classical music orchestras play and there is a huge amount of theatricality in how they perform.

 

Including their attire.

[jazzpiano88]

On 5/8/2023 at 2:55 PM, ProfD said:

The more serious music doesn't require a gimmick. ...
Thankfully, there will always be artists, bands and musicians who can hit the stage without a costume or a uniform and kill it musically while entertaining the audience too.

 

[Bobadohshe]

My Top 40 band has altered its approach over the years. 10 years ago it was more of a 'uniform' or 'tonight we're doing purple' thing. Not great. We now have a few looks and know what they mean but each band member can bring his/her own thing to it.

 

We have our basic 'black suits' which really means black suit or maybe a suit with a bit of texture / vibe to it, and a black or white button up shirt, and maybe or maybe not a tie.

 

Then we have what we call 'rock look' which is more of an urban dressy rock kind of vibe. Not T shirts.

 

Then there can be looks for various themes. We do an all white thing when we do our Hawaii gigs. We've done a beach look before as well. And we can coordinate colors when we need to.

 

We avoid having everyone wearing the same thing. We have vastly different body types and people know what's good for them. Some guys are more stylistically inclined than others, but when it really matters everyone can go the extra mile and make their look work. It's easy to get lax with it though.

 

[KuruPrionz]

8 hours ago, Stokely said:

Much as I personally agree (and hope, and wish) it would be about the music...doing corporate covers you are largely window dressing, in my somewhat-limited experience with them.  So we will need to look the (or "a") part to some degree.   We don't really do those gigs for our enjoyment, because they largely are not (though I like playing, period.)  I think color coordination, other than black, is probably not going to happen with our group.  Hearing from a bunch of you doing various gigs in various duds has been educational!  I really like the "classy not corny" idea and will endeavor to make sure that happens as much as I can  

We still have a fair number of "wear what you want" cut-loose gigs where we know a bunch of people that come out and it's more fun so it's all good  

Right and this is the topic of the thread, "corporate" gigs. I've played a few. They had a dress code at the casino for bands, reasonable and easy. One hotel lounge I played for 9 months every weekend and left my amp on stage the entire time, the band wanted a "cowboy band" look, black wranglers and cool shirt with pearl buttons. Easy thrift store finds, worth the bother. I've been in plenty of bands where we all wore what we wanted to wear, in many situations that's perfectly fine. 

For corporate gigs you should wear appropriate clothing, you'll get and keep more gigs that way. 

[o0Ampy0o]

6 hours ago, CowboyNQ said:

I can’t agree with this, Professor.

 

I’ve watched many “serious” classical music orchestras play and there is a huge amount of theatricality in how they perform.

 

Including their attire.

 

I think you are mistaking contextual expression for theatrics. Classical musicians have a language of expression just like different cultures in different countries have languages of expression. When a musician concentrates and really gets into playing the music it isn't necessarily a bullshit visual drama put on for the audience. The genre defines the boundaries until someone pushes the envelope. In Rock and Pop someone is always looking to push the envelope. In Classical not so much or not at all. But most serious musicians have their moments when they really get into it but individual personality will be a factor as to whether you go all out or hang back in reserve.

[CowboyNQ]

2 hours ago, o0Ampy0o said:

 

I think you are mistaking contextual expression for theatrics. Classical musicians have a language of expression just like different cultures in different countries have languages of expression. When a musician concentrates and really gets into playing the music it isn't necessarily a bullshit visual drama put on for the audience. The genre defines the boundaries until someone pushes the envelope. In Rock and Pop someone is always looking to push the envelope. In Classical not so much or not at all. But most serious musicians have their moments when they really get into it but individual personality will be a factor as to whether you go all out or hang back in reserve.

Oh I most certainly don’t think it’s “bullshit”.  That was my point.  I think it’s entirely appropriate.

[CyberGene]

When I mentioned classical music and jazz versus the rest, I didn’t mean to imply only commercial pop s**t. I actually had in mind some very obscure genres, e.g. alternative metal. For instance, there’s a Bulgarian band Smallman that makes music similar to Tool. I’m saying this because I was not a fan of the genre and was not even aware of Smallman (or Tool) prior to participating on their concert where I was invited by chance and hesitated a lot since I’m not a metal head. But I was really impressed with everything: the music, the way they looked and behaved (or not behaved, see further), the lighting, images and videos that were projected. I became a huge fan and learned they were modeled after Tool and then researched Tool too. They both rely on imagery and specific  atmosphere which doesn’t even require any dynamic activity on stage. Quite on the contrary, they often stay immobile and if you’ve seen Tool concerts they may not even interact or look at each other. It’s really surreal and amplifies the symbolism and message of the entire act enormously. It’s not like a regular band playing music. Instead, it’s a carefully crafted complete experience which I wouldn’t even call a show or entertainment. It’s an art in itself.

 

So, it’s not all classical/jazz (where what matters is only how the guy used super or hyper locrian on top of this or that altered chord) versus J Lo 😀. There are many corners under the big “music” hat that will include additional senses beyond ears (and the math half of brain). 

[Stokely]

Tool was pretty much the last big concert I have seen (way back in 2008 or so) and they are a special case to be sure   Maynard the frontman goes against the grain, kind of is an understatement.  At the show I saw, he was just a silhouette against the video background...at others he is behind a screen.  Generally there won't be a light on him.  Ironically we've had a few shows like that where we are told (or expect) there to be lights only to get there and...there are not.   I've been meaning to add my own light (one of those round par 64 led ones) to my backup case for times like that.

Very much an aside, but I never realized just how good Danny Carey (drummer) is.  Check out the drum cam vid of him playing Pneuma, it's pretty phenomenal.  

[CyberGene]

23 minutes ago, Stokely said:

Very much an aside, but I never realized just how good Danny Carey (drummer) is.  Check out the drum cam vid of him playing Pneuma, it's pretty phenomenal.

I’ve missed that somehow and just watched it. Wow! 😲 That’s mind blowing. Especially from the middle where he starts some syncopated 16ths along with polyrhythms and it gradually becomes thicker.

[Stokely]

I ended up getting their most recent album primarily as a modern, rock reference source (I have a lot of older cds but wanted something more modern).  He has a very odd snare sound (pretty much sounds like a small tom) but the toms and kick would be my go-to for referencing rock drums. Bass guitar as well.  Very well-produced album.

Anyway didn't mean to de-rail, though I think this attire thread (hehe) has run its course.

[ProfD]

50 minutes ago, Stokely said:

Anyway didn't mean to de-rail, though I think this attire thread (hehe) has run its course.

Surely, you're not implying that we should retire this thread.😁😎

[o0Ampy0o]

On 5/4/2023 at 10:49 AM, KuruPrionz said:

I will note in passing that I've never heard anybody going to any concert of any kind say "I'm going to listen to so-and-so."

They ALWAYS say (and I say this too) " I'm going to SEE so-and-so."

 

This is taking it too literally though. People say they are going to see a band when they mean they are going to where the band is playing live. During the course of the average concert over half the people in the audience are not focusing their attention on stage activity. It is surprising how much chatter takes place while a band is playing. You can hear it on many cell phone video captures of concerts. The going to see thing is more of an idiom than exclusively literal.

 

(edited for clarity)

[Baggypants]

On 5/4/2023 at 11:24 PM, AUSSIEKEYS said:

What would be the ultimate "lets not worry about dress code gig" ?

 

a Naturists gig?

 

Ever do a smear on your clonewheel and snagged your junk?

[Baldwin Funster]

Small dilemma here. In previous bands I've played many gigs and practices with my sandals kicked off.

Yeah I mean barefoot.

So I'm in a new band and I get told they or at least one guy doesn't think that its a good look onstage.

I'll be sitting behind a keyboard stand so no one will see my feet anyways but in over 30 years of gigging NO ONE EVER mentioned seeing my feet after a gig.  

I do actually see the point especially from the viewpoint of uptight bandleader bean counters. Hey atleast I'm wearing pants.