PART 2: WORKING MUSICIAN REALITY CHECK
#1: Making 100% of your income from music sometimes sucks.
If you are making 100% of your income through music you kind of have to take any job or gig that comes down the pike. Your rent and livelihood depends on gigs and probably some teaching also. There were some gigs I took years ago that were absolutely horrible but I needed the money. Not every musician makes it to that elite 1% where the money is good and so is the caliber of musicianship. The rest of us have to do the grunt gigs.
Not knowing or realizing any of this as a kid or teenager, I would be out at some event, or wedding, and looking at the musicians in their tuxedos and just drooling. That is what I wanted to do. I had no idea how cheesy it was, or how much they hated playing cheesy cover tunes, so the idiots could dance. For naive little me I thought that would be the "next level." I was a dumb kid. I saw the music stands that were part of their rig or equipment which for me implied that these were good musicians. They could read. I had not yet found out that good reading skills do not necessarily make a good musician. Little did I know that they were reading some scribble of a chord chart for some shitty 50's, 60's, or 70's pop tune.
THE WORST GIG I EVER HAD TO PLAY
I've been asked by my wife to put down the worst and the best gigs I have ever played. She is editing this for me so I have to abide.There have been so many bad gigs that it's really hard to classify only one as the worst. And the same with the best gigs. Some of the worst ones I have probably blocked out of my memory as a defense mechanism. There are too many to mention.
One that comes to mind is the one where the keyboard player just got a brand new synth. This one is testimony to the fact that you should always work with your new gear at home before you use it on a gig. This guy didn't.
We were playing a wedding. Weddings can be hell sometimes because the bride wants everything to be perfect. It's her day, and you can bet someone has paid a shitload of money for it. At some point during the reception the bride and groom are going to have their first dance, as husband and wife. A solemn and emotional moment which will be etched in everybody's minds. They are standing on the dance floor waiting for the music to start. The tune was picked by them before the wedding. Usually a very romantic ballad. The bride and groom want this moment to be remembered for the rest of their lives. We start the tune.
In situations like this I am always afraid of what this particular keyboard player might do or play. He makes so many huge clams that he single-handedly can ruin any emotional moment with a flurry of wrong notes or sounds. Well he out did himself this time.
There was a particularly quiet point in the song where there were supposed to be strings (violins and cellos, sounds that were programmed into the new synth) to help with the romantic mood of the song. Well this guy did not do his due diligence with his new synth, and instead of pushing the button for the beautiful string patch, he hit the button for the 747 landing patch. It sounded like the plane was going to land on the building, and was so loud that everyone in the room jumped. Mood Broken.
The Bride and Groom stared at us with a look of shock! Not only did the keyboard player hit the wrong button or patch, but he could not get it to stop. Because he didn't do his homework. So we had this continuous jet landing on the building. He finally was able to stop the sound and we resumed with the song, and the Bride and Groom resumed with their disastrously ruined first dance.
ONE OF THE BEST GIGS
On the flip-side, one of the best gigs I have done didn't pay much but it was with some good musicians. There were not many people in the audience listening, which most times was the case on these types of club gigs.
The drummer on this particular gig was David Garibaldi the drummer from Tower of Power. At this particular time he had quit working with Tower and was doing other freelance gigs. Of course I was a little nervous, which soon turned into pleasure as Dave was the drummer of probably my favorite rhythm section ever. It was so smooth and easy playing with him, a moment that I will always remember.
Doing that kind of freelance work you sometimes found yourself on gigs with some really cool musicians. I was fairly lucky in that I would sometimes get these types of gigs. The funny thing is that it seemed that the better the gig the worse the money was, and the shittier the gig the better the money was. Weddings always paid well but sometimes were a complete pain in the ass. Long drives and mediocre musicians.
MAKING 100% OF YOUR INCOME FROM MUSIC SOMETIMES SUCKS
#2: It's all Smoke and Mirrors
I used to sub for this guitar player who would send me on his gigs that he couldn't do. He was a hustler and would take any kind of gig and then sub them all out and take what he thought would be the best one. I remember having to drive to Fresno, California (4 hours south of San Francisco where I lived) for a gig of his. He told me to bone up on my reading in the 9th position (guitar talk implying it would be a reading gig). Obviously it struck fear into my heart as I was not a good reader.
Fast forward.... I never saw a piece of music on the gig. It was just pop tunes that everybody knew or had to know to be able to play what we called a "Casual," as opposed to a club gig where you sometimes play multiple nights a week in the same club with the same people. A "Casual" is a gig where you show up and play, go home, and do another gig the next weekend with different musicians. And hopefully all of the musicians know the same tunes.
A funny thing about casuals. In the 80's gigs were plentiful. Especially casuals. There were contractors, or so they called themselves, a little different than an agent, who would book as many gigs on a weekend as they could. Then call musicians and contract them to play the gigs. A lot of these contractor types would also be out playing on some of the gigs.
The funny part was being told sometimes to not shake hands with the other musicians upon arrival, like introducing yourself. They, the contractors, wanted the client to think that they hired a band and not just a bunch of freelancers who had never played together before, which we were. So don't shake hands and introduce yourself, and act like you have played with these guys for years.
WHAT DO I MEAN BY SMOKE AND MIRRORS?
The lesson for me was that a lot of these musicians talked up their gigs like they were really cool gigs and you had to be a very good player to do it. The reality is that they were shit gigs but they paid money and some guys were always talking up their gigs trying to impress a young neophyte like myself just to make themselves feel good about their shitty gigs they get.
Well being the impressionable dumb fuck that I was I fell for it almost every time and would be really nervous before the gig. Only to find out that I could handle the gig with no problem and these guys were all talk. Kind of smoke and mirrors.
SOME MORE ABOUT CASUALS
I used to work with a drummer who was a name dropper and whose whole persona was about how many gigs he could do in a weekend and how fast he could get in and out of the gig. He was always the last to show up, displaying a cavalier attitude, and invariably someone had already set up in his space which prompted a slight temper tantrum. And of course no one was going to tell him he should arrive a little earlier so as to claim his space on the very small stage where space was at a premium.
It was always kind of a fight between these supposed mature men for their little plot of land to set up on. Sometimes I would have to put my amp off of the stage down on the floor making me feel even more inferior than I already felt because remember, these guys were good musicians. They all had music stands.
So this particular drummer was also of the mindset that if you were a professional casual musician you had to have your shit torn down faster than everybody else because you worked so much and probably had to get to another gig. Or along with the cavalier attitude you just didn't have time for screwing around. You were a working motherfucker and had packing up your shit down to a science.
A typical gig would go like this. This drummer is still setting up during the first tune. So first tune has no drums. But he doesn't care because he came flying in from another gig. And I don't mean airplane flying in. He is finally set up and ready to go, but wait. He needs a drink. So he now misses the second tune.
We get through the gig and are closing in on the last song of the night or day or whatever time it was that we were playing. A few bars into the tune the drums start sounding a little funny. Where there should be some cymbals there were suddenly none, where there should be some toms there were suddenly none. Upon further visual inspection it was discovered that this guy had taken his whole kit apart and put it in the cases during the song. All that was left was a high-hat and snare. Thanks dude! Nice playing with you! The song ends and the high-hat and snare are in their respective cases in about 2 minutes. All of his shit goes onto the dolley and he is out the door. Later dudes! Nice working with you!
A COLLEGE TEACHER???
After High School I attended a Junior College. It was free. Only had to buy the books. I took a Jazz History class taught by a former drummer. Here I am an impressionable kid wanting to play good music and I'm surrounded by musicians who really don't care about the music, but getting other things done while playing the music.
This guy extolled the virtues of studying for his classes when he was young and playing gigs. Great. A good student. But he took care of his studies on whatever gig he was playing. And not on the breaks. He would use his music stand for his text books, not for music. He would tout his gigs as the best place to study. What happened to playing music? Again, I'm surrounded by musicians who really didn't want to play quality music. I'll never forget him telling the class that while playing the drums on a particular song he was doing his homework for the next days classes. I guess it's cool being so nonchalant about your chosen art form.
Still want to make a living playing music? Be careful. It's a lot of ego and false impressions.
To be continued, maybe...we'll see