Posted in Music 2.0/Networking, tagged concert listings, concerts, event directory, finding concerts, hearwhere, live show, looking for concerts, looking for show, myspace songs, searching for concerts, shows, venue listing, venues on August 21, 2008 |
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Now this is a cool site. Event and concert listings have always been around on the web. Everyone has his unique resources and websites to dig them up and find a spot to listen to a good live concert. But if you don’t have a system it can soon turn into a hassle leading to ordering a pizza and watching a movie instead. Well now I’ve decided to use HearWhere. You type in your city (or any city for that matter) on the front page and kablamo! you’ve got yourself a listing of virtually every concert scheduled for weeks to come. The beauty is that the listing comes with a pic of the band, a player containing all MySpace songs and the venue’s name. The cherry on top is the map pin-pointing down the venue’s location when you click on the event. So if ever you’re bored one night and wanna listen to some music, I would suggest browsing through this site over any other.
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Posted in Booking & Promotion, tagged bands, gig, gigs, Touring & Gig Swapping, gig swap, gigdoggy, shows, quotes, band quotes, booking gigs, club owners, bars, clubs, touring band, open mic, live, live show, band match making, band promotion, dealing with club owners on March 30, 2008 |
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If you’re interest in how bands deal with club owners, you might also wanna take a look at:
Dealing with club owners: your best bet is to put a cd together with about 3-4 of your best songs, go and talk directly to the bar owner…don’t bull shit them at all…remember, they deal with musicians all the time. Don’t be cocky, but be confident, this will help you get your foot in the door, also, if you can play the same place twice, there will surely be people who remember you and word gets out“.
Gunner – www.myspace.com/guitargunn
Club owners are always looking for someone to bring in a crowd, they sell more drinks, that’s thier bread & butter.
I only take the door. They can keep all alcohol sales. They like to hear that.
A simple contract always gets signed, 3-4 things on it only, you get the door, they keep all bar money, your sales are yours, ect. Some don’t want to sign a contract. You play at your own risk without it“.
Cowboy Elvis – www.myspace.com/cowboyelvis
Although I’ve tried for a long time to get gigs in clubs, it’s been very difficult. Maybe because we are mostly a duo and clubs like dance bands. But we’ve tried restaurants too. Seems that restaurants have a rotation of bands that play regularly. It’s hard to break into that rotation. We haven’t yet succeeded. We have to leave press kits and cd’s but can never seem to catch the owner in order to actually book a gig. They will not call you ever. They have their choice of bands – they’re not looking for more or for anything particularly special. Some clubs have acoustic nights – most of these evenings are open mic evenings. We are tired of open mics. It’s great for the venue – free music! But lousy for musicians trying to make a living. Some clubs require you to secure them an audience of anywhere from 30-100 people before they will “hire” you. It’s quite a scam – after you secure them their business, they will pay you only a percentage of the door! Sometimes this is split with other bands who’ve had to do the same thing. What a scam! We’ve tried to find managers and booking agents. We’ve gotten as far as sending our press kit and then never hearing from these guys again.
Our problem is that we don’t play covers – we do originals. We are far from mainstream even in our originals so it’s hard to find a club or venue that will hire us. We’re “not what they’re looking for”. If we were a cover band playing rock and blues we’d probably be working regularly.
Payment is hard to come by – because of all of the above. But we’ve managed to be sure to be paid for most gigs – even if it’s minimal. Here’s a good story for you…
After playing the local Pumpkin Festival for a few years for free, my partner and I decided to ask to be paid. After all, the sound man is paid and so are the staff. Why not the musicians whom, without them, the festival would be basically nothing? We approached the organizing committee and asked for payment. They responded that it was not their policy to pay musicians and if we wanted to be paid we should look elsewhere!“.
Rahel – www.rahelmusic.com
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