Faking it in a battle of the bands!

[The Bear Jew]

With all due respect to everyone involved in this conversation...

 

Isn't it time to start talking about defecating in each others' meals again?

 

No? OK.

 

RE: Play Vs. Pay

I see Mr. Claber's point -- taking a non-paying gig from a club DOES devalue bands in general. Essentially, it gives booking people the impression that any band can easily be replaced with one who will play for nothing. It sucks... Of course, a few booking people know that nothing good comes cheap and nothing cheap is really all that good.

 

For example, when I'm booking tours, a lot of booking people will balk at paying our guarantee because they could easliy book a band without a guarantee and just let them drink for free in lieu of actual cash.

 

Having said this... If I can't get a guarantee, I'd rather take a potentially non-paying gig than not play for a night when we're on tour. See... if there's half a chance that we might be able to sell some merchandise, score a free meal, make a few bucks from the door, potentially earn a few friends/supporters and get a free place to crash -- I say it's worth the time. It's better than sitting in the van and doing nothing all night or, worse yet, shelling out the bucks for a shitty motel room and sitting in there all night. Shit, at least you get to PLAY if you take the gig. To me, it's better to take a shot and get nothing then it is to do nothing, get nothing and lose out on a potentially good experience.

 

However... when we're at home, I really don't see the point of taking a non-paying gig unless we're guaranteed SOMETHING of value to us in return (i.e. for airplay, exposure as the opening act for a national band, etc).

 

When you're first starting out, I think it's OK to do a non-guaranteed-pay gig at the clubs you want to "get into." The clubs don't want to take a risk with an unproven band (you have no track record with them yet), so it's OK to play one show for them for free or solely for the door. Show them what you can do... If you deliver the goods (draw a crowd and act like a pro), you should have no problem getting a nice paycheck in the future.

[ibescotty]

I've noticed in my area of the country that it's easier to get paid to play covers. It's much harder to get paid to play an all original show. In fact most of the time your going to have to play the all original shows for free to get your name out there. Of course our strategy is to get paid to play a cover show and sneak in 2 originals per set sometimes more. I know that when we finally get our CD out on the market we're going to have to play the CD release party for free somewhere. That's just the nature of the market where I live I guess. Now if we get to build up a little prestege locally we could then charge for all cover shows. Someone pinch me when that happens.

 

Oh yeah and.....

Please don't pee on my scrapple!!

[Cup]

Yes this did start out as a fun post. I think it still is. It's fun to hear peoples views on, ethics, payment for services and supermarkets A, B and C.

 

For the record, this is maybe the second gig we've played for no fee. Of course if we set aside the moral debate, my band could profit out of this. One 20 minute set in the first heat and our next 20 minute set in the final could have a pretty nice return of a 3 song demo (wooppee B'loy). This would normally cost us between £200 and £300. £300 for 40 minutes of enjoyment would definitely be one of our biggest payments yet, not to mention the local press coverage.

 

CupMcMali...this monkey's gone to heaven