Play It Out pt. I

Lay It Out So You Can Play It Out
pt. 1 Booking Gigs

The New Year is upon us and many aspiring musicians are making plans and resolutions about how to get their act together this year.

I am by no means a veteran at this whole music business thang, not by a long shot. I do feel I can share some of the advice that I've learned, in large part by trial and error, which might make these posts a little more useful than your generic "How to Succeed in the Music Business For Dummies" book. Rather than start at the very beginning (tuning your guitar...), or jump to the advanced stuff like copyright law, I'll begin my Lay It Out So You Can Play It Out series with what most musicians want to do badly, but have the most trouble accomplishing: booking gigs.

Obtaining successful gigs at clubs will depend largely on your definition of a successful gig. If you want to pay rent and build a fan-base through a regular gigging schedule, it will require much more work than if you seek to play only a couple gigs for the experience and fun of it all. For this article, we’ll assume you’re trying to make music your living. Weekend warriors will still find this information helpful, but I’ll try to outline a complete, step-by-step strategy for booking and playing gigs at clubs around your town.

Research.
How you research your potential gigging market depends on what genre of music you’ll be playing. In the jazz scene, there will only be a few clubs around town that specialize in hosting jazz music. Even between those clubs, some might prefer traditional acoustic jazz, while other joints might book electric avant-garde groups. It’s important to know if the music you want to play live will mesh with the vibe/preferences of the club you’re trying to book.
In the early days of booking my band, I’d sometimes alter the description of our music to suit what the club owner wanted to hear. This can be dangerous ground, but advocating your “jazz-influenced” rock sound can be more advantageous than the “Black Sabbath-influenced” elements of your playing.

Cold calls.
This means either calling or literally calling on the club for the first time. Unless you have a friendly connection, chances are you don’t know the bar owner from a barstool. Your first contact with this needs to be professional, but not sterile, and will focus on asking them some key questions. Try not to be too drunk or stoned and inquire about the following information:
What nights of the week do you have live music?
Do you have any open nights between these dates (insert dates here)? Most club owners like booking their schedules at least two months in advance.

At this point the club owner will either blindly give you a gig (not really a good sign) or inquire about your act. More than likely they will want to see a website, Myspace, or physical press kit before they will discuss further.

Booking.
After the club has seen your immaculate website and heard your stupendous tunes, you will still have to be persistent in calling them back to book the gig. This time when you ask if they have any open dates, and they say “sure, Feb. 24th sounds great”, you ask:
What time is load-in and sound check?
How long will we be playing and for what set-lengths?
How will we be compensated? Cash? Check? Beer? Make sure and agree to this before you set foot in the door.

Some clubs even require that their acts fill out contracts and 1099’s for tax purposes. If you are making enough dough for these formalities, congratulations!

Playing the gig.
So you got the gig... way to go. A big factor in whether you can come back next time is how you perform (both musically and otherwise) while you’re at the club. Again, try to not show up drunk or stoned. A good policy is never drink more than you think your audience is drinking. This keeps your head in a place that’s congruent with the energy in the room. Play good songs (a healthy mix of covers and originals), keep time between songs short, talk to your audience but don’t ramble or preach and overall, smile and have fun.

This advice will obviously differ between genres. There will be heavier drinking for heavy metal music at biker bars, more covers in a jazz set, more time between songs for singer/songwriters, more preaching in praise music and less smiling in emo music.

There is one thing all musicians of all genres can agree on, however, and that is getting paid for your performance. While artistic in nature, playing music is a job like any other and should be seen as such. Everyone gets stiffed at some point in their career. But, contracts or verbal agreements about payment before the gig go a long way toward avoiding this situation. If you do get a club owner who ducks out before you’re done packing up and leaves his waitstaff to explain to you that you are getting exactly zilch for schlepping your gear around and playing an awesome show, you can only do a couple things short of damaging property. You can do everything in your power to get back in touch with the club owner and get the coin, or simply tell every musician you ever meet to never play at the shady establishment. It goes something like this:

“Never play at the Absinthe Lounge in Dallas, because they stiff musicians.”

See? Just like that.

In the end, persistence is the key to booking gigs. Oftentimes it takes many calls over a period of weeks to make that initial club contact. After that, it takes one phone call or email to that club to book a date. So get out there, research, and lay it out so you can play it out! Happy gigging everyone.