Tag Archives: band advice

Your Best Gig Could Be Your Next Gig

Over the past few columns I’ve talked about crazy, memorable, and terrible gigs. That’s life as a working musician. I appreciate all the letters, calls, and e-mails about out-of-the-ordinary playing jobs. They are too numerous to mention here, but I am retaining many of them for future columns.

Besides just mentioning a highlight or funny story of some careers, three AFM members sent me books they’ve written. They range from “riding the crest of a slump” to looking back on a wonderful career as a union musician.

Hank Doiron of Local 198-457 (Providence, RI) wrote a recap of his more than 70 years as a bass player/vocalist. In his book, Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey, he mentions the hundreds of local AFM buddies he worked with through the years. Doiron is a former secretary of his local, and has had an outstanding career. One of the more unique gigs he played was when he was asked to put together a Dixie trio of bass, banjo, and trumpet. He arrived to find they were playing for a wake and the deceased’s last request was to have live Dixie music play during his calling hours.

I received The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Drummer (available on Amazon) from Troy “Skeet” Seaton of Local 71 (Memphis, TN). It’s his stories from 45 years as a drummer in a number of different bands throughout Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

One of his fun stories was about playing at a bar with a guy who didn’t drink. It was the guy’s first job with the band in a number of years, and Seaton had a tough time even getting him to play the gig. The band was on a break, and someone bought a whole tray of tequila shooters and sent them over to the band. Skeet told one of the guys at a table next to the band that they’d had enough, and that he could drink them all. He promptly grabbed them like they were diamonds and downed them all at once. The guy in the band who didn’t drink came over to see what was going on, and the tequila grabber promptly threw up all over the nondrinking musician’s new cowboy boots. Skeet said all he could say was “welcome to the band.”

Then there was Local 1000 (nongeographic) member Jamie Anderson’s Drive All Night. The liner notes say it’s “in the tradition of the second oldest profession.” She’s been a traveling singer, comic, songwriter, musician, and a few more things beyond that. These are her recollections of grungy lodging, shady producers, half-deaf sound engineers, and miles of highway weariness. She has a very unique niche, and you’ll have to get her book on Amazon to really get a good take on her adventures as a girl with a guitar. She’s opened for major and minor acts, closed a church coffeehouse by uttering names of female parts, and danced with a tornado.

The book is a delightful mix of horror road stories on the touring circuit for her unique audience. It’s very funny in parts, and will make you feel your worst gigs were nothing compared to what she went through—no matter where you played. Her life has always been gigging, writing, networking, recording, and laughing. It’s a not-so-glamorous look at her daily grind.

Once, after slogging through a too-long sound check at a gig in Baltimore, a sound guy groused, “You’ve just never worked with such great equipment before.” She was tempted to answer, “It sounds like you’ve never seen sound equipment before.” Nothing she could do would convince him that her guitar does not usually scream like a jet at O’Hare, and her voice shouldn’t sound like something from an ancient boom box. She says you learn to live with it.

Once she had to sit on the edge of a stage in a huge theater, singing without amplification because no one knew how to adjust the computerized sound system. There was a date in Ohio where the sound equipment was locked in a cabinet for which no one had the key. She still did the gig, but only the folks in the first few rows could really hear her. She still got paid.

You learn to deal with these times, because you know the next gig will be better. Anderson writes in her book: “As long as somebody wants to hear me, I’m there. I’m especially interested in any gig in Hawaii, but Burnt Corn, Alabama, will work too.” She goes on to say, “There is nothing more satisfying than hearing applause when you’ve done a good job.” (It’s really nice when you get well over scale too.) Anderson also says she could never be an accountant because “no one claps when you balance the books.” Amen to that.

Tough gigs are a fact of life. It’s part of what we do. You learn from it. That next gig could be the best one you’ve ever had!

Preparing For a Gig: 3 Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Thanks to Gig Salad for sharing some wisdom on three lessons learned the hard way when it comes to a gig. You can read the original article here

So you’ve landed a gig. Awesome! Maybe it’s your first one, or maybe you’ve been at it for years. Either way, there are few things to remember when preparing to head off into the gig unknown. Our resident musicians and booking agents, Joey and Devin, put their heads together and came up with some lessons they learned the hard way. Now you don’t have to! (We’ll keep the lessons anonymous so as not to embarrass the contributors.)

#1: I Forgot to Sign a Contract & Get a Deposit

Sometimes in the midst of booking a gig, the most important part can be forgotten. You show up, do your thing…and then the excuses start. Maybe someone forgot the checkbook, or someone else was supposed to pay you. Bottom line is, you don’t get paid. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a contract or a deposit, there’s not much you can do. So we can’t stress enough: Get those in order before the gig. To help you avoid performing for free, we offer a handy booking tool to take care of all of that for you. One more thing you don’t have to worry about!

#2: My String Broke During the Show

Equipment malfunction is always a risk at performances. You know it, we know it. So to avoid stopping the show altogether, make sure you have some backups on hand. Whether this is strings, batteries, cables, extension cords, or clown noses, it’s always better to be over-prepared than under. Don’t assume that the venue or client will provide the things you may need. Make yourself accountable for everything. Use a checklist to make sure you have everything you need for each gig.

#3: I Drank A Protein Shake Before the Show

We can’t help but laugh a little at this “lesson learned” but it does have some truth behind it. Think ahead to how long you’ll be in the spotlight, and plan accordingly. You may not get a bathroom break for awhile! Read your contract carefully and check out when and where to load in, start time, breaks, end time, etc. Nothing is more miserable than being physically uncomfortable during a gig! So plan ahead, don’t drink a gallon of lemonade beforehand, put on deodorant (thanks, Devin!), and you should be fine.

Happy Gigging!

Awful Gigs Some AFM Members Have Experienced

Last month I wrote about Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld talking about awful gigs. Jay talked about a bad gig he had done, and Jerry said, “Hey you got paid didn’t you? Don’t complain.” Well, in that respect he’s probably right, but some gigs are definitely worse than others. My e-mail inbox filled up over the past few weeks with your stories about bad gigs. Here are a few examples:

From Alan Thomas of Local 6 (San Francisco, CA): I am sharing my real-life stories about terrible pianos. Fortunately instruments like this are in the minority and most pianos in finer homes are pretty well maintained. But this piano was in a spacious and fine home in a wealthy enclave on the peninsula about 35 miles south of San Francisco. I think I could have actually wrung water from the felts. As I progressed with this gig, more and more keys retreated into the keybed—and didn’t return. My standards turned into minimalist renditions. By the end of the gig I estimated that at least 44 keys or 50% of the keyboard were “down” for the night, slumbering in the keybed.

From Jane Bate of Local 186 (Waterbury, CT): In a community production of Evita, the directors called orchestra members “barbarians” and worse, even though the orchestra was unquestionably the best thing about the production. Things got so bad, that I spent the break between acts dress rehearsal night in the ladies’ room crying. Opening night, the president of the union was there to prevent a walkout by the orchestra personnel. We made it through the performances­—and the orchestra played brilliantly­—but I knew I wanted nothing to do with the group again. Here’s the coda: The following season, that theater group put on The Boyfriend, a piece of musical fluff. The review was headlined something like, “Great Costumes Make Up for Poor Music.” There is a God!

From Robert Michaels of Local 60-471 (Pittsburgh, PA): I have had many awful gigs including drummers getting drunk, playing too fast, sending texts, drinking beer, yelling into the mic; bass players playing too loud and storming out in the middle of gigs; and getting grief from bar owners because we didn’t bring enough people with us and not getting paid because of it. One time, the band I was in got fired from a gig because a drummer attacked me and cracked my ribs.

The most memorable awful gig happened when we were playing a showcase of my band EXPEN$E’s original material at a local club. The bass player I had at the time liked to show off and toss his bass around his body and catch it. It was cool when it worked right. At the end of one of my songs, when the bass player tossed his bass the strap broke and his bass went flying. Fortunately, no one was in the area where his bass landed.

From Mike Anthony of Local 618 (Albuquerque, NM): One year in July I took off in my new Explorer to play a wedding on my classical guitar in the Tijeras mountains. I reached my destination greeted by a torrential downpour using my four-wheel drive in the mud. I still had to walk about a quarter-mile following signs to the tent. I was quite alone!

No one showed up for a half-hour. Then a large roar of motorcycles delivered a tribe of Hells Angels and their girlfriends. The wedding was delayed for almost an hour and a half while the bride and groom were having a knockdown drag-out fight in their trailer. Meanwhile, I played some classical, as the bride had requested, and a variety including James Taylor. The attendees only wanted to hear Def Leppard. I was definitely intimidated. Finally, the weather cleared and the bride and groom made up and I sat on a tree stump in the hot sun and played their ceremony. By now, I’d been there longer than the time we’d agreed to and frankly had had enough. The bride became angry with me when I told her I really needed to leave. I was thrilled to return to familiar surroundings. I washed my car and really appreciated my friendly home. I never did get paid.

From Paula Hatcher of Local 40-543 (Baltimore, MD): My worst gig was an outdoor wedding under Maryland’s tallest Bing cherry tree. The tree was full of ripe cherries and hundreds of birds eating them. The bride’s parents staged the wedding directly under the tree. My polite concerns were ignored. Halfway through the ceremony, the birds “let fly” and bombed purple poop over everyone, even the wedding cake! As people screamed and ran, the parents shrieked at the musicians to “keep playing!”

From Fred Gosbee of Local 1000 (Nongeographic): Like almost any full-time musicians we have had gigs where there was a poor fit, as in “what were they thinking to hire us?” We are an acoustic duo, Celtic harp, guitar, fiddle, vocals, that has done considerable research on the songs of Robert Burns. On his birthday every Scottish society in the world celebrates with a banquet, recitations of Burns’ poetry, and performances of his songs.

We were hired by such a Scottish society when we were on tour a few years ago. It seemed like a match made in heaven; we would be performing the Burns songs that we love to a knowledgeable and appreciative audience.

I suspected we were in trouble when we saw that there was an open bottle of whiskey on every table in the banquet hall, plus the opening act was an 18-piece bagpipe band (indoors!). 

As part of their scholarship fundraising, the society had a silent auction, which was supposed to close after dinner when we started our set, but there weren’t enough bidders so they held it open for another hour. Potential bidders looked over the items, which were displayed at one side of the banquet hall.

Between the whiskey, the adrenalin jolt that bagpipes always cause, and the chatter at the (not so silent) auction, we were generally ignored. There was one table of folks who stayed and listened so we played to them.

We did get paid and we did get fed, but we both came down with food poisoning.

Yikes. These really are awful. To everyone who wrote in, thank you very much. What’s nice about bad gigs, though, is they make the good ones even better!

Click here to read more awful gigs