Chuck Hughes: Facebook is flooded with ads offering to teach you how to quit your $100 bar gigs and teach you how to play $1,000 corporate and wedding gigs. What they don’t tell you is:
- The client will demand to control your dress, manner of performance, and repertoire.
- They will want pretty much all covers- covers of very mainstream music, the songs you would switch from when you used to listen to radio in your car.
- A relative at the wedding used to play in a high school band, and will want to sit in with the band.
- You will be handed an event schedule, and be expected to make announcements advancing each event at the wedding or corporate party.
- No one will contact you from a foreign country, offering to fly you over and book a tour, because they liked your cover of Hotel California or Sweet Child O’ Mine.
- You will not usually be offered a plate of the guest food, but you will be offered a band sandwich to be consumed at a table in the kitchen.
- You will not build a good streaming base from your wedding/corporate covers.
- At a $100 bar gig, you can play 50% originals, and build a following for your original music, which will translate to streaming numbers.
- If you submit to 200-300 music supervisors, 5% will sign up 12 of your originals , and use 5-10 seconds of several for background music in TV shows [meaning you don’t get paid].
- The top 3 music supervisors who placed my songs in TV shows and films will probably not be the top 3 who want to use yours, so be prepared for the drudgery of submissions to many supervisors and libraries.
- The day you stop playing covers-for-hire your musical income will stop.
- Your streaming income and sync income may continue far beyond your gigging years.
- AI may change everything about musical income.
- A few days before the gig, the client will ask you to play a few or many songs that you don’t know how to play, and they will not be in your predominant style, if you still have one.
- After a few years, playing songs you actually like for $100 will sound like a dream come true.
Pete Midtgard: Annnd… Don’t fall for the bride and groom hiring your non-wedding-playin’ nightclub band because they “don’t want a typical wedding band”. The problem is THEY are busy that whole day doing all the photo/cake cutting/dealing with drunk family protocol and you are stuck dealing with people who only ever see a band AT a wedding and THEY want to hear every cliche wedding band song ever. (I always try to talk people out of booking us, then charge them the “I don’t want to do it” price if they insist.)
Chuck: Play Brown-Eyed Girl. Play Mustang Sally
https://www.facebook.com/chuckhughes2
[I had a friend whose ROCK band was hired but they wanted a bunch of COUNTRY tunes!]Photo: Chuck Hughes with Blues Trail sign! From his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161549281816409&set=pb.515441408.-2207520000&type=3
