Synthesizers Banned by Union ??HISTORY

[techristian]

An interesting piece of history that I came apon. Will A.I. be next?

 

https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-union-passed-a-motion-to-ban-the-use-of-synths-drum-machines-and-any-electronic-devices-the-day-the-loony-musicians-union-tried-to-kill-the-synthesizer-which-also-happened-to-be-bob-moogs-birthday

 

Dan

[Anderton]

I used to be in Local 802 in New York, and one of the members was railing about synthesizers. My response was "Who do you think plays these things? Accountants?"

[ProfD]

I remember the backlash against synths back in the 1980s.  Folks swore the Yamaha DX7 was going to put a ton of musicians out of work. 

 

While the DX7 managed to sell a quarter of a million units or so, musicians only suffered to the point of loathing the EP sound.🤣

 

Synth Pop and New Wave and other electronic-based music became an industry.

 

Electronic music technology resulted in more recorded music.  Plenty artists, musicians, record sells and sold out concerts.  A ton of musical instruments sold too.

 

Electronically produced music provided access to a whole generation of folks who would have been left out otherwise.

 

Surely, there are still folks who could who could do without Hip-Hop, Jungle, Dub Step, Garage, Acid Jazz, Downtempo, EDM, etc.

 

Technology has given a big middle finger to those who hate electronically produced music. The beat goes on and electronic music is still alive and kicking.😎

[Notes_Norton]

I remember when I started my duo by recording my own backing tracks, others told me, “You are going to put musicians out of work with those tracks.”

 

My response was, “I'm putting two musicians to work.” After all, we were playing smaller rooms that never hired anything larger than a duo, anyway.

 

The AFofM has always dragged their feet into the future. Back when I was union, the Miami local seemed to care more about the union than the members.

 

We were playing in a big hotel on Miami Beach back in the 1970s. We were playing in the show lounge, where big acts came in on the weekend to do a show. There was another lounge with entertainment, and banquet rooms.

 

It was a house gig, and we had been there for months, and were booked through the torist season.

 

One day, the union rep came in and told us we would have to not play tonight, because a non-union band was gigging at a wedding downstairs. The Blue Notes were to play a show in the middle of the night, and I asked him, “Did The Blue Notes agree to not play?” He answered that he didn't ask them because they weren't in the Miami Local.

 

I told him we were going to play — he said that he would fine us — we replied telling him that we are quitting the union — he said we can't do that until our anniversary date arrives — we told him we're quitting now, and refusing to pay any fines.

 

We quit paying work dues and the fines and were dropped from the union. Since then, I have had no reason to join. There were never any benefits like a retirement fund or better gigs anyway.

 

I have nothing against unions, but they are supposed to work FOR their members, and the Miami local did not do that.

 

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[rogs]

I was working in a hotel band back in the 70s, here in the UK.

We were a Union band and duly paid the MU fees . The Union rate was increased for some of the Christmas gigs one year, and the hotelier refused to pay the extra.

We contacted our local Union rep, who advised that there was not much he could do, and we would be best advised to 'get the best rate we could'.

Didn't bother to pay any further Union fees after that....

It was often siad that the MU had very little 'clout' outside London, and I think that was probably true - certainly back in the day.

Not sure what it's like these days?...

There are so few local live bands compared to back then, I suspect the MU still has very little influence outsde the big cities...

[SamuelBLupowitz]

My high school band director, who was a professional trumpet player before he went into education, once told a story about how he and some colleagues were offered a gig recording samples for some synth or ROMpler library (not sure what company he was doing it for). Apparently he and his friends were torn about how it might impact them to get paid for one gig something that would potentially take gigs away from horn players in the future. Ultimately, they decided to take the gig, but ask for more money.

 

So the company hired different horn players instead. 🤷‍♂️

 

Independent musicians could really use a functioning union right now. My friends who play in the theater scene in New York City have some help making sure they have gigs, but outside of that scene there's not a lot of help. Between streaming rates, low gig wages, venues taking merch cuts, and the general high price of touring, it's looking pretty grim out there, and we're all so splintered -- it would be nice to have someone doing the kind of advocacy that the Writer's Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA and United Auto Workers are doing for the working folks who don't have their foot in the door at the highest levels where they don't have to stress about the day-to-day nickel-and-diming.

 

United Musicians and Allied Workers seem like they're trying to do some of that, and I've been meaning to do some more research into them. I don't usually play at the level where they would be intervening on my behalf, but that kind of advocacy would help all of us in the long run.

[ProfD]

47 minutes ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

Independent musicians could really use a functioning union right now...have some help making sure they have gigs...

Artists and musicians have to create a demand for their music. Done effectively they don't need a musicians union. They just need a booking agent/promoter to secure gigs.😎

[Anderton]

The Musician's Union never got me studio gigs, the producers did. However, the union did establish pay scales that benefited me when I was the leader on sessions.

[Notes_Norton]

8 hours ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

Independent musicians could really use a functioning union right now.

Depends. I suppose if you work in an orchestra, get paid with taxes taken out, and all that, a union would be a good thing.

But for the majority of musicians out here, we are all self-employed, small businesses.

My little The Sophisticats business strives to be better than our competition. We work for “the house” or who ever is hiring us. If commercial, we do what we can to help the business make more profits, any way we can. If non-commercial, we want the guests to tell the person who is throwing the affair that they had a wonderful time.

We do our bests to play at the best of our ability, prepare properly, and play the audience, giving them the songs they want when they need them. Pace the crowd, play at the appropriate volume, skip breaks if the party is hopping, make our own backing tracks instead of relying on karaoke tracks, be friendly to everyone, and don't cause any problems.

We simply want to do a better job than our competition. And we do charge a little more.

 

Notes ♫

[Shamanzarek]

In the early 70s I used to play 6 night a week gigs in Oregon and Washington state. In Oregon nobody from the Union ever showed up at our gigs. In Washington a couple of representatives of the Union would show up everywhere we played often on our opening night. They would try to intimidate us into paying Union fees. We were playing really out of the way places in WA like Ephrata, Sunnyside, Moses Lake, etc, so I can't imagine where these union guys were based to come all the way out to these small towns. We never did pay them any money and the club owner would argue with them on our behalf until they left. Then they would send a bill to our booking agent and he just laughed it off. Our agent was a former member of The Champs so he had been around the music business quite a while. He recommended that we not join the Union as there no real advantage to doing so. He said some of his bands joined thinking they could demand higher Union wages. The reality is if you wanted to work you had to accept wages the individual club owner was willing to pay Union or not. To this day I have never had to join an MU even after years of playing NYC and European tours.

[o0Ampy0o]

I had a friend who took up his father's trade buying out the father then branching out starting other machine shops. He recruited a senior machinist from the father's competition. One day he got a call from someone inquiring about this machinist. Turned out he was a world renowned and sought after oboe player. He hated the musician's union so much he had abandoned a career as an accomplished orchestral oboe player and chose to work in a machine shop.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, o0Ampy0o said:

Turned out he was a world renowned and sought after oboe player. He hated the musician's union so much he had abandoned a career as an accomplished orchestral oboe player and chose to work in a machine shop.

 

Well, that's what he said. He was probably just tired of dealing with all the oboe groupies constantly accosting him, grabbing his crotch, and wanting to give him sexual favors. It can get to you after a while.

[Notes_Norton]

When I was touring, and when I was the opening act in concert for the superstars, it was essential for us to be in the union. But as far as I could tell, the union never did anything for us, except take our money.

 

But as I mentioned earlier, we are really self-employed businesspeople. A professional organization might be a good idea, but a union is for employees of a business.

 

I'm neither pro nor anti-union. In some places it makes sense, and others it doesn't.

 

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

 

Well, that's what he said. He was probably just tired of dealing with all the oboe groupies constantly accosting him, grabbing his crotch, and wanting to give him sexual favors. It can get to you after a while.

 

Perhaps I should have picked up oboe instead of sax.

 

Notes ♫

 

 

[CHarrell]

I'm super pro-union, and deeply advocate for workers and their rights and abilities to collectively organize for better treatment on multiple fronts. But without having done any research on this subject, my imagination runs pretty short on how it plays out with individual musicians and the many venues one usually has to play to get income. I've seen many of you report the lowering of pay from venue to musicians over the decades, and in my short musical career, lord knows how many times I've played 3 hour sets to get enough money for a couple large bags of potato chips. And I've talked to venue owners who have blamed entities such as musicians' unions or PROs for having to shut down but surprise surprise, turns out they were doing shady-ass business practices (tangentially related is a very recent case of a restaurant in Oakland closing due to "increased crime", but turns out they had to settle a big lawsuit in the past couple years for wage theft). 

 

So obviously, some kind of collective action would need to happen to instill a far-reaching change. But would that take place with a union? What collective bargaining power do we have as musicians with venues outside of concert spaces?

[Anderton]

2 hours ago, CHarrell said:

What collective bargaining power do we have as musicians with venues outside of concert spaces?

 

None, because there will always be musicians who think "exposure" will shoot them to the top, so they'll play for next to nothing. 

 

Of course, you get what you pay for...

[CHarrell]

3 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

None, because there will always be musicians who think "exposure" will shoot them to the top, so they'll play for next to nothing. 

 

Of course, you get what you pay for...

 

Good and depressingly hilarious point, but if we're talking in classic union terminology, scabs would always be a factor in any collectivised space. But say if musicians rallied together, and they presented an overall united front.

 

For concert venues, where musicians are practically 95% of the draw, there's power there, but what about a city with swank restaurants that book live music? Would an effective musicians union be able to do anything? I feel like the restaurants would just not get live musicians. 

[o0Ampy0o]

8 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

Well, that's what he said. He was probably just tired of dealing with all the oboe groupies constantly accosting him, grabbing his crotch, and wanting to give him sexual favors. It can get to you after a while.

Forever I have wondered how one distinguishes themselves as an oboe player.

[Notes_Norton]

10 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

None, because there will always be musicians who think "exposure" will shoot them to the top, so they'll play for next to nothing. 

 

Of course, you get what you pay for...

So true.

 

Even without a union, there will be others who will undercut. Florida is a "right to work state" and even if there is a union, you can't be denied work for not being in the union.

 

There isn't one, big, corporate employer hiring us. Instead, there are countless businesses, party throwers, and other entities looking to hire some entertainment. We want to fulfil that need. That why we are separate, individual, small businesses.

I can call a “bargain” painter to do my house, or one with an excellent reputation. In most cases, the second one will do a better job. A “painter's union” won't fix that. Same to cater a party, and so on.

 

As a private business, I am competing with other bands in the area. How do I get more business? Deliver a better product. How much do I charge? As much as the market will bear for my level of excellence.

Here in Florida, there will be retired people, folks with day jobs, who want to play for the experience and think nothing of undercutting the others, or playing for free at an 'open mic' night or for a gig. It has been that way for as long as I've been gigging, and that's a long time. A union won't fix that.

 

Wherever you go, there will be bands/musicians that are worse than you, and other that are better than you. Price yourself accordingly.

 

If you are much better than the undercutters, you get to charge more for the people who appreciate the difference — up to a point. Keep in mind what the market will bear.

For Mrs. Notes and I in our duo, we haven't lacked for work since we started in 1985. At first, we played for the low end of the going rate and after a few years, built enough reputation to raise our prices to the higher end. It's competition with our peers.

Our formula:

1. Play what the audience wants to hear. I know people who won't play Brown Eyed Girl or other 'standards'. We will play whatever gets requested enough.
2. Be a chameleon: rock, disco, big-band swing, Jazz, roots R&B, country, musica Latina, calypso, reggae, oldies, pop, metal, or whatever. This gives us more possible venues to gig in.
3. Be the best performers we can be. We work at our craft. Practice, hard work, and whatever talent we have inherited is used to the max. Whether we are playing for two or two thousands. — I also make my own backing tracks, that for live gigging, sound and groove much better than the karaoke tracks many of our competitors use.
4. Be entertaining, it's more than just music. Being entertaining means conducting yourself differently for various gigs.
5. Always work for 'the house' if you are doing a commercial gig. Pretend that you are getting a piece of every dollar that goes into the cash register. In reality, you are.
6. For private parties, pretend that these guests are your friends, and you want them to have the most fun you can provide for them.
7. Look like you are having fun while performing, it's contagious.
8. Have a good attitude. Treat the owner, manager, bartenders, wait staff, audience members and everyone else like they are your friend. Be cheerful and kind — no bad attitudes allowed!
9. Don't be afraid to do something extra. The audience is in a frenzy, skip your break!
10. Never-ever be a problem.

Regarding 9 and 10 (above). We work 3 days a week at an outdoor gig. The tables get moved around. If someone left a table where the band sets up, we move it to an appropriate spot. A bigger band followed us one day, they needed more room and a table was in the way. The leader copped an attitude and said, "I don't get paid to move furniture" and stormed over to the manager to have it moved.

We started with 1 day a week and now do 3, and the band who refused to move a table with an attitude were never asked back.

 

We started our duo in 1985. Since 1986, except for the COVID lockdown, we have never been out of work. We actually have to plan ahead and block out vacation time, or we won't get one (been there, done that more than once). And when we got better than most of our competitors, we got to the point where we can charge more.

This is not union thinking. This is a small business in competition with others. Sure, they can get other duos for less money, but you can get a Fiat for less than a Lincoln, too.

 

As Craig pointed out: Of course, you get what you pay for...

 

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

 

 

 

[ProfD]

12 hours ago, CHarrell said:

But say if musicians rallied together, and they presented an overall united front.

That would be organizing a union.  The question becomes who is going to handle the business and administration of it.

12 hours ago, CHarrell said:

...but what about a city with swank restaurants that book live music? Would an effective musicians union be able to do anything? I feel like the restaurants would just not get live musicians.

Entertainment choices have expanded in such a way that *live* music can be anything from a solo act or a band configuration or a DJ. 

 

All of these folks would have to be in the union for it to be effective.  

 

As @Notes_Norton mentions above, it really comes down to musicians 1) having a quality product and 2) handling their business.

 

Artists and musicians cannot think that just because they have a modicum of talent they're entitled to get paid. 

 

It's really about bringing to the table something of value to the customer. 

 

The question to ask is what can we (artist/musician) do for these people (customers) to make enough money to justify  paying for our services.😎

[CHarrell]

2 hours ago, ProfD said:

All of these folks would have to be in the union for it to be effective.

 

On top of that, too, I think for such things to be effective, all/most of the restaurants/venues would have to be in some kind of collective arrangement as well, like a bar association or something. It wouldn't be impossible, but that opens up a whole lot of other things, obviously. Thankfully as a composer, PROs have at least been able to work out a system that guarantees a certain level of compliance so that the writers get paid.

[Notes_Norton]

I've made my living playing in small bands most of my life. I'm thankful that I can do this and survive.

 

I had a couple of “day jobs” when I was investigating what it is to be normal, work for a company, and eventually retire.

 

They didn't last all that long because it didn't work for me. Working for some faceless corporation via a low level manager, waking up by an alarm clock, and doing the same thing 5 days a week while waiting for the weekend was a drag. To me, it was being a wage-slave.

 

As a self-employed person, I probably put in more than 40 hours a week at my job, but I answer to nobody else. I gain from my good decisions, and hopefully learn from my bad ones.

 

I've had some lean years and some very fat years.

 

In bands from 2 to 7 pieces I've played dive bars, singles clubs, show bars, upscale lounges, cruise ships, concert halls, yacht/country clubs, condominiums, retirement villages, dance clubs, and just about every venue a musician can play. It's not like punching a time clock at all. Plus I really like playing music, making backing tracks, and all the other aspects of being a musician, except for schlepping the gear — but that keeps me in shape without a gym membership.

 

If I had to do it again, the only difference would be, I wouldn't have tried out a day gig. That was a waste of time I could have spent improving my music skills.

 

10 hours ago, ProfD said:

It's really about bringing to the table something of value to the customer. 

 

Exactly. We are selling a service. A service a club hopes will draw and/or keep customers, or a party thrower hopes to delight an audience.

When gigging on a cruise ship, we used to visit the piano bar before our gig. We were on for 3 years (on a 3 week with options contract) and we saw quite a few pass through.

 

The best pianist did straight-ahead jazz, and the musicians used to hang out and hear her play. She was excellent, a musician's musician, but she had no customers and no tips in her jar. She lasted her 3 week contract and was gone.

 

In the late 1980s, an older guy came in who's first gig was playing piano for silent movies. He played what the people wanted, both old and new, and told me if he wasn't almost 90 years old, he'd buy a synthesizer.  He did well.

 

And there was this pianist/singer. He could only play in a few keys, and wasn't all that good, but not bad either. If he got to chords he couldn't play, he would sing through those passages a cappella, and if he would talk through parts, too. But he was very entertaining, talking with the audience, joking with them, ad-libbing quite a bit. Plus he remembered everything.

 

If the guy came in on Monday, in conversation said he was from Buffalo and later requested a song, the pianist would remember. When the guy came back, the pianist would say, “I'm going to send this one out to Dave, from Buffalo”, and he would play that song. His bar was jammed with happy people, his tip jar was overflowing, and he lasted a long time on the ship.

 

He was new at piano, played trumpet in school, and when everyone was on shore, he was at the piano, improving his playing skills. He had a good feel, and just needed chops. But he made up for that by being very entertaining.

 

We learned to play our bar. We listened to all the other acts, to see what the ship lacked, and at that time, it was classic oldies. So we played classic oldies, advertised that at the introduction show, skipped breaks when the room was jamming, and took long breaks when something was happening on the ship that drew most of the passengers. We ended breaking the all-time record for revenue in that lounge. The execs in Miami judge the band by drink sales. They figure where they sold a lot of drinks must be where the passengers like to be entertained.

 

For a bonus, we got a passenger sized cabin with a porthole, and were allowed to sell cassette tapes to the passengers. That was a no-no for most acts. We could make an additional $400/week back in the late 1980s doing that.

 

It's best if you are a great musician, great vocalist, great entertainer, be good-looking, have a great personality, and can pace the audience like a clairvoyant, playing the right songs at exactly the right time. Not many have all, but play on your strong suits. And remember, it's a business.

 

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

[techristian]

I didn't expect this to become a discussion of union VS non-union but I will let you know of my experience. I was a member of local 566 here in Windsor for around 10 years. I think it was like $50 a year back in the 70's. They got me my FIRST JOB...one night. I was inexperienced at the time and never got another call from the union. It took me until 1980 before I finally listened that I should practice with a metronome. Anyway, back to the main idea. 20 years later on, after retiring ,I was contemplating getting back in, but they couldn't find record of me in the union. Being retired though, I had more time to observe and noticed a pattern. Most of the high paying jobs, in the fancy restaurants, went to the staff who manned the phone at the union office. After all, the "president" of our local was a musician and he was "the staff" that manned the phone. So I noticed that he and his band would get the good jobs.

 

Anyway, that was my observation.

 

I also had another weird experience while playing in my band out of town. Windsor, Ontario has always been a town of around 200,000, but I got a big surprise when I played in Chatham, a town of maybe 30,000 back in the mid 70's. I was a union member, but not playing with a union band back then....and working on average 3 nights a week, making above average money for a musician. Anyway, we were approached in the bar by someone who said that they were with the Chatham local !!! He wanted our union dues ! This never happened in Windsor !! I wasn't the leader of this band and I don't know if the leader ever paid the "dues"

 

 

 

 

Dan

[Anderton]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:08 PM, Notes_Norton said:

Exactly. We are selling a service.

 

As the old saying goes, you're alcohol salespeople 🤣

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

As the old saying goes, you're alcohol salespeople.

That's what I've always said! I've played all sorts of gigs with all sorts of bands. Originals, covers, blends of both, Rock, Blues, Country, Punk etc. The Country Cover Band I was in for a while played a gig on the back of a moving flatbed truck in the Clovis Rodeo Parade and that evening we played Jim's Place in Clovis, which was packed belly button to asshole. Dive bars out in the boonies, the Airport Lounge at the Piccadilly, and the multi-millionaire's back yard party by the fountain and everywhere in between. 

I've never been in the Union and never been asked to join. A friend who only played Top 40 gigs at spendy lounges in the snooty part of town was in the Union and he told me in no uncertain terms that the Union didn't do doodley-squat for him and his band. 

[Philbo King]

On 1/14/2024 at 6:34 PM, Anderton said:

 

As the old saying goes, you're alcohol salespeople 🤣

"The more you drink the better we sound!"  😎

[Bill H.]

IIRC (and it's been a long time guys) The ban Seattle Local 76 had in the late 60s-early 70s not on synthesizers per se, but keyboards that played recordings of musical instruments.  The studio I was involved with had their Mellotron hidden away in a closet, and they were very careful about who was around when it was used. I can't recall any legal problems recording our synths though, and there definitely wasn't a problem using them on stage. 

 

Washington was a closed shop state back then. If you wanted to work you had to be a member of the union. Union reps checked all clubs, and if they used non-union entertainment they might not see their liquor and kitchen supplies delivered the following week. Once those laws were repealed things started to loosen up, but I kept my membership active for a few years more because it was often required for touring. When that changed in the 80s I was done with the union.