A Musician's Rant

Wednesday night I played a gig at a dive bar on US 19 in St Pete.  We were checking each other out for a possible fit.  For some reason, club managers tend to think that the audition process is all about them, when in reality it's a two way street.  I'm not going to name the place because I live here and don't want to piss anyone of unnecessarily.

It's the kind of a place where the rooms are for rent by the hour and the clientèle is prone to regular drug use, the hard stuff.  It was kind of like being a piano player in a whore house.  I tried not to touch anything but myself when I went to the john, opening and closing doors with my feet and elbows.  Hey, if I get sick I can't work.  My immune system is strong but why take chances.

Surprisingly, my mellower stuff worked there; Cat Stevens, Harry Chapin, Chris Christopherson.......  The Management staff and I had a long talk after the gig about goals and aspirations.  Seems they want to change the class of clientèle and use someone like me to do it.  Now, I'm not really that much of a class act.  Give me a room full of rowdy rednecks and I'm right at home.  It does seem to me though, that if they want to make that kind of a change they will have to move the bar.  That ain't gonna happen.

Let me put a band in there on a week night, grow with the room, invite jammers after the first two sets, do live streaming on the web, advertise the shit out of it real time and in the local papers and maybe, just maybe it'll work out.  Club managers have short attention spans as a basic rule.  "Make me money now! Not six months from now!".  I doubt that they will go along with my suggestion. I also kinda priced it out of their reach.

I take care of my people.  I'm not going to ask my band to dedicate six hours plus for less that a C note apiece.  It takes that long to do a four hour gig.  Load the gear, drive to the gig, set the gear up, play the gig, load it back out, drive home during amateur hour with the cops on high alert.  I can hear some folk saying that something is better than nothing.  How much will you risk for $50.00 and have to pay your own bar tab?  I risk $7k in bucks every time I do a gig and I'm just the bass player with no job, home or family to risk.

Let's not forget about all the practice, dedication, discipline, sacrifice and plain hard work it takes to just get to the place where you can actually say "I can do the gig.".  Musicians are some of the hardest working, dedicated, disciplined people I know.  We have to perform in mathematical precision while at the same time being creative.  Music is math.  Music is math made audible.  Not kitchen arithmetic but real time quantum physics happening on stage.  Ya gotta know more than just how to count.  Heisenberg plays a real big part in this.

Well, that's my rant.  At least on this subject.  I'm frustrated that because of the economy I have watched my pay as a musician drop dramatically.  Twenty five years ago I was pulling down close to 35k a year.  Now I'm lucky to do 12k.  And that's a GOOD year.  It seems the better I get at my job the less it's worth.  I'd have done better being a sanitation engineer.  It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Screw it, I'm going sailing.

By the way.....if you read this blog, please become a follower or member or at least leave a comment once in a while.  It would be nice to know that I'm not just shouting at the void.  Don't be shy.  I'm not selling anything or asking you to make donations.  This is basically for my family so they can keep track of me.  Black sheep do wander.


No one gets out of here alive, so live it like ya mean it.