By Cheryl Lomneck
Somebody call the milk company!
Somebody
call the milk company! I’ve been kidnapped! Well,
it’s not as drastic as that, but very close to
what I feel when shelling out five bucks to see original
live music. I’m talking unknowns here. Not established
acts. Me and the other nine people that I find in the
club look around and wonder how we got bamboozled into
The Zone. Three bucks to park, five bucks at the door,
six bucks for my drink. Fourteen bucks before the first
sip of my milk..err..I mean White Russian. Now we hang
in limbo. What to do, what to do? Leave and spend another
five on cover down the road, or hang tight and hope the
crowd swells to twenty.
An ongoing debate continues
about the popularity of original music in local venues. “Why
doesn’t anyone come out and see us?” “The
cover bands pack them in, people have no taste!” “We
play every other week but can’t seem to build a
following!”, they cry.. . “Why, why, why?”
I’d like to offer
a few reasons, if I may be so bold. No question like
this is easily answered, but some things to me are quite
clear. First…a few things about the venues. Back
in the dinosaur age, when I started going to clubs, Orlando
supported a few decent clubs that managed to pack them
in. There was an “A” circuit, where the best
drawing bands would play, the bigger venues, and the “B” circuit,
which included more of the smaller neighborhood type
places. I’m going to focus more on the bigger clubs,
mainly because bars like Will’s Pub have strong
community pull and loyal regulars. They also don’t
need to pull the numbers like the larger venues to stay
afloat. In the big clubs of ole there were two bands
a night, the headliner, an established band with a following,
and the opener, usually unknowns trying to break into
the scene. This worked out pretty well. The unknowns
started at 10, played a set and got some exposure. Then
the established band played the last 2, and brought their
crowed in with them. The cover was usually around 3 bucks..unless
it was a special occasion or a major act. You knew who
was playing and YOU KNEW WHAT TIME!!! |
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Now you’ve got some cluster-fuck bullshit where the
clubs have 4 or more acts a night. Starting at 8o’clock!!
Some of them, (and I do mean some, not all) won’t nail
down which act plays at what time! I gotta tell ya..there is
nothing that quite matches the thrill of getting home from
work at six, slamming some food down, showering, rushing to
the club to be there by eight..to find out the band you want
to see isn’t going to play until 12:30. Lovely. Now I
get to sit through 3 other bands, three teardown/setups and
of course 3 sound checks. Grrrrrrrrrr… Last time that
happened …well lets just when the drummer from band
three hit his china boy for the 50th time in a row I wanted
to jump up on stage and kick him in his Moby Dick.
You want the people that frequent other clubs
to come in?
“How can we get people that go to other clubs in here
to listen to these bands?” the owners ask…Well
you have to be willing to compromise a bit. You want the people
that frequent other clubs to come in? Give them just a bit
of what they like too. They want to dance? Well between sets
play something they can dance to, instead of some growling
cookie monster crap the sound guy picks.
A lot of women used to dance between
sets. More women, more men, more women and men, more sales.
Seems easy to me. I cannot tell you the last time I saw someone
dance between sets at an “original” club. Okay, so you are hosting all
original acts…is playing something danceable between
sets below your standards? Compromising your integrity? No,
but not playing any is probably compromising the size of your
crowd. So it’s danceable. Big deal. You don’t have
to play WHAM to get people to go from sitting on their asses
to shaking them .…slap on some early Chili Peppers,
before their guitarist O.D.ed and they turned into wimpy whiney
ballad singers, and watch what happens. It doesn’t hurt
to have a drunken stripper in the house that’ll get things
rolling all by herself.
Point is a more diverse sector would
be willing to give a listen if they knew they’ll have something to do. Like
dance between sets. You’ll bring more people in and the
bands could pick up new followers. Win win situation.
Cover. Hey, I’m not cheap, but 5 bucks is too much to
pay to see unknowns. Sorry. It is. There is no reason to charge
that much. If venues lowered it a few bucks, more people would
come in. Most just don’t want to spend 5 bucks on the
chance that maybe, just maybe they will like one of the bands.
Lower the cost and they will be more apt to take that chance....more
people, more sales. Cover clubs don’t charge at the door
and pack them in. They also manage to pay their bands nicely..wonder
why? If your sales are high there’s no need to stick
people at the door. How many times have you went into one of
these places to find 10 people in attendance, including the
bartender? (To top it off the ten were probably friends of
the four bands and didn’t pay at the door to begin with)
This isn’t the fault of the bands, fresh out with no
following..but frankly, nobody wants to go to a dead-ass club.
Pay five bucks, hope the band’s good, hope the crowd
is good, hope don’t have to sit through three teardowns
with nothing to do. Lotta hoping there. I hope I’m not
gonna get pissed off because I just dropped five bucks to see
a band that sucks in an empty club and hope I don’t have
to leave and pay another 5 bucks somewhere else.
Now lets get to the bands….
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More
often then not those that play originals don’t
want to, (like the clubs), compromise their “integrity” by
playing anything that is remotely similar to what is
popular with the masses. They feel they have some God
given insight as to what is good and what is not. Never
mind the fact that the popular bands have sold millions
of albums. They go on and on saying the radio forced
that crap down the public’s throats and MADE them
go buy those C.D.s Umm, okay. Thanks for the vote of
confidence there, Skippy. Really makes me want to go
see your band.
A lot of musicians also
have the bad habit of playing for other musicians. I
don’t care if you can play 4/6 music in ¾ time
and have created a brand new classification of music
that only you and other musicians can understand, if
I hear it and it sounds like shit it sounds like shit.
Listening to fans is not degrading, nor is it compromising
your ethics. If you’ve been playing the scene for
2 years and have a following of 10, including your mom,
I’d ask a non musician why. And listen to them.
No one said you have
to create music just to please the public, but if you
want to build a following some fine tuning maybe do the
trick. Oh, new bands? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE know how your
set list is going to run. Make that jump between songs
smooth, not a drop off into the abyss. Nothing like dead
air to remind a small crowd that the club is empty..
Hear a pin drop? Shit, I’ve heard a napkin hit
the floor.
One last thing. If your
singer says any of the following phrases: “How
the fuck are ya'll tonight?” “Who wants to
send us a shot?” or “umm.whats next?” FIRE
HIM. Well that’s just the tip of the ice-burg but
maybe it’s a start. After these stunning revelations
I guess next time I go to a live venue to see unknowns,
I’ll be paying 3 bucks at the door, and be able
to talk some dance friends into going with me when I
assure them they can shake it. I’ll know what time
the bands play, and if they suck I wont feel too bad
about leaving and going elsewhere. |
Or
maybe not. If you see my face on the side of a milk carton,
hurry up and send someone out to rescue me! I’m probably being held
captive in…..The Zone.
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