Thursday, August 23, 2012

From Mike Tyson's School of Fighting. Photo of the week.

Did anyone else immediately expect to see Mike Tyson somewhere in the foreground of this picture?

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Pay to Play, WTH Are You Thinking?


Pay to play: the transfer of money from an artist to a promoter/venue before playing. The term pay-to-play is used to describe a performance where an artist (usually a musician) turns in money before taking the stage. This payment can either come straight from the artist's pocket or be collected from the artist through the pre-sale of tickets (aka pre-sale). The majority of the funds collected go to the promoter or the club/venue.

Why pay to play is Evil
Pay to play is evil because the promoter isn't taking the risk - the artists are. If nobody shows up the promoter isn't out of pocket, the bands that traveled (sometimes hours) to get there are. As a result, pay to play promoters do little to justify their job title. What exactly did they promote? The band did their job for them! Most of the time they don't send out press releases, pass out flyer's, contact local radio, post in the local beat scene, send out mass emails or even promote it in their own venue until the day of the show! 
Bands rarely sell enough tickets to cover the pay to play cost's that they may have incurred. Usually it ends up coming out of their own pockets. Rather than getting paid to do the gig they end up paying the venue for the privilege to playing to an empty room. How friggin lame is that picture?

The venue wouldn't dream of charging the staff to work there. Why should musicians pay to provide their club with live entertainment? What do the clubs say about this? "Well, we're in the business to make money and if bands don't like it they don't have to participate." Okay, I won't and if I can help it neither will anybody else. Back when the music biz wasn't in the tank (10+ years ago) the venue or promoter would do what a business does and promote or advertise their business. I know, crazy right?! Why should the bands have to do their job? Do we musicians ask the venue to write our songs or sing back up? Most of the time we don't even ask them to help us load in or load out for fear of being looked at or treated like a friggin idiot! Basically they want us to show up, buy their concessions, fill their venue with spend happy people, provide all or part of entertainment, and clean up our mess on the way out while they (the venue) count the fruits of YOUR labor. And if they didn't make any $ they'll blacklist you and complain about how your band doesn't "drawl" and that will be that. And then THEY wonder why the biz is in the tank!! Amazing! Absolutely f'in amazing! Maybe they should look up the definition of the word exploit. Actually, I'll take the liberty of doing it for you/them. 

Exploit: To Make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage. Merriam-Webster

I could ramble on for days about my own personal nightmarish experiences with paying to play but I won't. I'll just say that we've been dumb enough to pay up to $500 to play a well known music festival just to get our power pulled halfway into our set because THEY screwed up their scheduling times. Did we get our money back (or even half of it)? Heeel no! Will we do it again? Double heeel no! There are rare occasions where my band will pay to play again. One is opening for National touring acts where you'll have an almost guaranteed increase in exposure. Second is...well I can't think of another occasion.


I would like to clarify that this isn't always the case though. There are venues and promoters out there that  treat us like royalty (better than we deserve) and appreciate what we're offering them with our music and performance. In my experience those are the guys that are most successful. Their priorities are in line, they don't sacrifice all for the sake of money and it comes around in a huge positive way. Artists gravitate toward them, people show patronage to their establishments and they are widely respected and appreciated. Sadly, they are few and far between as our world becomes more and more consumed with greed and hunger for personal gain.


Here are some pay to play truths to consider:


*A club that needs to make bands pay to play may not know how to book or manage their club and doesn't have a clue to what the music business is all about. Much less how to create an atmosphere that will draw people to the club regardless of who is playing.
Most likely you will get a very short set on a four or more band bill. Most likely you will get cheated out of a quality sound check.
The time you spend selling tickets could be spent in practice. Money spent on paying to play could be spent buying studio time to record or to make promo packages or set up merchandising that will make your band money, or to put on your own show and make 100% of the door or put you on tour etc...
 Most likely one or more of the bands on the bill with you will be non-professional in musicianship and other areas as well.
You will start to get a clue when your family/friend buys the tickets but stops going to your shows or when your friends run and hide when they see you 'cause they know you're going to hit them up again.
You already spent a lot of time and money getting to where you have a band ready to play out. You spent years practicing. You spent money buying equipment, maintaining that equipment, moving that equipment. You may spend money on a rehearsal space, perhaps lessons as well. So these pay to play clubs are not helping you pay these expenses, why should you pay for theirs? A musician is one who gets paid to perform (believe it or not) and the promoter/venue is one who purchases talent and sells tickets to see the talent they purchased. Know your role! 

People; It's time to support your local musicians! 
Bands; stop selling yourself short and tell venues/promoters you don't pay to play! Do your share in promoting your gigs but put your money back in your band for gear, merch, recording, etc.
Promoters and venues; put yourself in the artist's shoes and get off your arse, learn to build and promote your business instead of depending on the artist to do it for you! Promote the shows and bands you book and let the artists focus on their art!





Monday, August 6, 2012

Curiosity Has Landed!

I will shoot you with my Pew36 Explosive Space Modulator.
Congrats NASA on another out of this world accomplishment! So what are we looking for exactly? The latest $2.6 billion rover "Curiosity" has landed safely and it's mission is "to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms" (Marvin Martian?) NASA says.
Curiosity left earth on November 26 on a journey of over 352 million miles, according to our boys at NASA.
Controlled from a jet propullsion labatory, Curiosity is loaded with all the bells and whistles such as power windows, 17 on board cameras, a laser that can survey the composition of rocks from far away or destroy a medium size country depending on which switch you press. The Rover is also fit with a 22 speaker 2000 watt stereo system complete with ipod integration and front and rear dvd players (sounds a lot like my Escalade). NASA, you spared no expense this time! Way to go boys!


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Simple Life Here I Come!

As I reflect back on it, growing up in rural Ashland, Ohio wasn't so bad after all. I lived on a dead end street consisting of about 14 homes absent of nearby parks, walking paths, community pool or clubhouse and of course no HOA. Yet somehow as I compare myself and the then kids around me I'm certain that I was more enriched, responsible (in most ways), had waaaay more common sense than any kid that I've had the pleasure of being around nowadays plus I managed to have a few bucks in my pocket most of the time from picking apples and baling hay for the farmer down the road. Generally, I was pretty content and happy. How the heck could that be the case?! I mean, all the crap we have at our disposal now is supposed to keep us entertained, happy and content right? So why are we so discontent as a nation? Why are we so bitter and angry? Why are we so shallow? Okay, okay, I know you've heard this same rant before but you haven't heard it from me because I've been too busy with important things like Facebook and various other avenues that keep me distracted from my own true reality.
The first thing some of you will think when reading this is "I'm not bitter and angry, nor am I shallow or discontent" and I hope that is true for you (and I promise I won't tell you that you're in denial or lying to yourself) but as for me I somehow became that guy. 
Here's how it happened (I think). When I was a young kid my family wasn't poor by any means but my Dad was a bonafide cheapskate so we did without things like TV, fancy vacations, theme parks, going out to eat, (except for the local Burger Chef for 25 cent hamburgers) until I was old enough to use guilt tactics to manipulate them into giving me these things. As I came into my teens I was able to manipulate them into a TV, name brand clothes and lots of sweet cars (family was in the car biz). Looking back, the more "cool stuff" I got the unhappier I became. I evolved into a self-centered ass with serious entitlement issues but I was ignorant to what was happening to me. The older I got the more insatiable my appetite for "stuff" became, so I fed it and fed it, ignorant to the self-destruction I was setting myself up for. 
But now that I'm older and wiser I'm all better now, have it all figured out and no longer need or want "stuff" to make me happy. The End. 
Crap! I just remembered that some of you reading this actually know me and would certainly dare to call me a big f'in liar. So here's the reality. I've tried (and succeeded to a very small degree) to curb my "stuff" appetite but the damage is done. I'm jaded, ruined and broken beyond reasonable repair. So now my plan is to overcompensate by moving to somewhere in Central America sometime in the next 10 years and give the world and all it's "stuff" the finger. I don't need your fancy cars, you're humongous 3D TVs and media rooms, pools, vacations, designer clothes, 4g smart phones, etc. All I need is a simple oceanfront house on the beach, a boat for fishing (I need to eat right?) a jeep or maybe a Hummer because the terrain is mountainous in some areas (also to pull my boat) and a cell phone so I can still check my email and call my family now and then. Of course I'll need Internet capabilities for my phone/email and if I'm going to have that I might as well have an Xbox for rainy days right? An Xbox is worthless without a TV so I'll just get a modest 42" HD LCD. But now that I have the TV and Xbox I have full access to Netflix and all the movies I could ever want! Also, I've read that having a full time maid (mamacita) cost's only a couple bucks a day so I'll be happy to help the natives by providing one of them full time employment in my home, that's the least I could do for such poor and needy people right? I wonder if they have sushi there? Life is going to be so much better! The next 10 years can't go fast enough! Simple life, here I come!





Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Chick-fil-A and same sex Kiss-in day

So this coming Friday is same sex "kiss-in" day at Chic-fil-A brought to you by the gay activist community. If you don't know what I'm talking about go back to sleep, sorry to wake you. If I were the old me I could and most certainly WOULD have a hay day with this one. The things I would conger up would not only be somewhat humorous but probably illegal. But since I'm NOT the old me I would never stoop so low as to organize a "punch a homo in the face" day or "make out with your opposite sex significant other" day or any other atrocities that would blatantly mock the immeasurable accomplishment of this fine example of free speech and human expression. I know, I know, some of you are already writing me off as a "hater" simply because I'm poking fun. Get over yourselves and read the whole post.
I truly am impressed that thousands of gays will be making this exponential statement (whatever it is) in  chicken fast food establishments across this chicken fried country. A friend of mine said "Jeff, they're just thrusting their homosexuality in our face!" but being the people loving, optimist that I am don't believe that to be true. Not for one harefooted second!
I believe this day to be a day of reckoning for us straight laced heterosexuals. We will begin to see clearly and understand the significance of their plight. I'm sure that as my kids (and thousands of others around the country) witness 2 men embracing each other in a passionate tangling of mustaches, they will undoubtedly understand the rightness of this moment. I honestly don't think I'll have to explain to them why Adam is kissing Steve or why Ava is kissing Eve, they will simply feel the natural pretensionless love in the air. I am quite certain this day won't be polluted with leather ass-less chaps or nipple tassels. Nor will it be scandalized with scantly clad rainbow painted bodies or 7 foot tall high heeled wearing transvestites with  voices like James Earl Jones.
Okay, okay enough sarcasm. I'm just going to put it like this. This particular demonstration is no more endearing or appropriate than the so called Christians that walk around with "God hates homo's" signs. The only message being given or received by either party is one of haughty self-righteous pride and ignorance. The proud are so consumed with themselves that their thoughts and beliefs are far from God: "In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God." Ps 10:4
That is all.
-jeff