Re: payment for service (playing in bars)

[SoundFNR@aol.com]

Anecdote.

In the late 80's I made quite a lot of effort to find pub gigs for my 
(somewhat bizarre) jazz band.
I remember one long running slot where the manager seemed genuinely taken 
by 
our music, but always had an eye on how much extra cash we could produce 
for 
him.
I just turned up at his bar one night, and asked him to book my band, I 
think 
he was impressed in some way when I said I didn't drink alcohol.
 
He didn't have many customers on a Saturday night, so he asked us to play, 
just to see how things worked out. 
So every Saturday  we would go and play 3 sets and then wait to see if we 
got 
next week's gig. Ever tried to publicise a gig at one week's notice??
This went on for a couple of months at least, and we even got  paid 
(probably 
more than we ever earned in terms of increased sales) 

Our manager friend suggested we did a few well known numbers, (instead of 
our 
own Mingus/Ornette/progressive compositions), we didn't mind this so tried 
a 
couple of things. Made no difference of course.

Thing was, it just wasn't beer music, not really the average pub jazz kind 
of 
sound. The manager wasn't unsympathetic, but pointed out that even the few 
people who came to see us didn't really drink much. (unlike the manager 
himself).

Eventually he just stopped booking us,  and the next Saturday he had a 
full 
pub. 
A month or so later and his pub was again empty on Saturdays.
6 Months later that manager left the pub (popular theory being that his 
liver 
had given out).

The moral of the story? 
Don't know really, but maybe certain venues aren't about interesting new 
music, even  if we think they could be, or should be.
Our music wasn't all that way out (except to jazz fans), but it didn't 
have 
that tired old familiarity of the British pub.

So I imagine playing my looped guitar in such a venue 
" do you know any blues "
" can you play Hotel California "
" can you turn down a bit "
or some version of the landlord's classic
" I'm not saying you're a bad band, but you're not what we expected "

andy butler