Ego Likeness Tips for Band Booking

[The Newswire]

For some reason I have been having this discussion over and over lately, the most recent being with my buddy the truly awesome musician Dan Clark about the problems of getting your band booked. Based...

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[Raza]

Blech; commercial crap, trying to reduce art to business. No offense, but if you can seriously say that going on tour is 'just bleeding money' if you don't come out of it with more exploitable commodities than you started out with, you're missing the point as far as I'm concerned.

[Amelia G]

Blech; commercial crap, trying to reduce art to business. No offense, but if you can seriously say that going on tour is 'just bleeding money' if you don't come out of it with more exploitable commodities than you started out with, you're missing the point as far as I'm concerned.

I think you might need to re-read the article. It is about how a band can be empowered to tour and perform for the long term. If a band wants to go on tour, the funds to do have to come from somewhere. This article is about how to be able to tour consistently for a long time.

I've known Steve Archer for a very long time and I feel qualified to say that he is an artist.

I think Steve's article contains really good scene-positive advice, such as the parts about not burning the promoters, so a band can continue touring with longevity. Structuring the situation to allow continued ability to perform is in no way antithetical to art.

[incog]

Glad I have people to deal with all this for me but this is some solid advice for musicians who want to tour.

[Velvet-Tongue]

Booking bands is a huge pain in the ass. I've been trying to do it here and have a decent sized group but I know I can't rely on them to turn out and support it. Nor will other members help me so its kind of been dead in the water untill I get large sums of cash to push it.

If I end up spending 400+ to rent the venue, plus another 400-600 for the bands hotel, food, pay. I need to have at least 80 people show up so I don't go into the negatives.

I know I'd get a ton of people if it was a large, popular band but those bands cost a lot of money.

Having a solid community (thats passionate) is the biggest thing needed for a band to be booked and suceed.

[eviltwin]

Well said!
Raza, you have a point, but remember that the dream of most artists is to be able to "make a living" from their art. and that makes it a business...

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

Blech; commercial crap, trying to reduce art to business. No offense, but if you can seriously say that going on tour is 'just bleeding money' if you don't come out of it with more exploitable commodities than you started out with, you're missing the point as far as I'm concerned.

The point is making art. Going out on tour just for fun is great, but if you can't pay your way then you will have to get a day job. If you can pay your way, you can spend more time on your art.

It is not a bad thing to make money from the art you produce. Too many artists get the idea that treating your art professionally is some sort of sin. Playing live shows to build a fan base or to improve your craft is not a bad idea, but going on tour for vanity does not make you a better artist.

Art is art, business is just a tool to allow you to make art and even Davincci sold out.

[Amelia G]

Well said!
Raza, you have a point, but remember that the dream of most artists is to be able to "make a living" from their art. and that makes it a business...

I don't think most artists dream of making a living exactly, although I do agree that most dream of being able to concentrate on their art and that I guess ends up being in some ways the same thing. Speaking only for myself, I know my desire to be able to keep doing creative projects made me learn about business, but the art and associated community were always the dream. There are aspects of business I find fun like a video game, but there are definitely mostly parts I would rather not have to think about. But materials and travel and adventures and all the stuff which goes into creating tend to have associated expenses.

[nathanmbailey]

I've also seen lesser known/unsigned bands go on tour and use local bands to get people to come to the show. I was at a show last night with The Chop Tops headlining and The Strikers before them. I'm in Chicago and both bands are from California. It was at a medium sized bar they were playing. To get the people into the show, they used two Chicago psychobilly/rock bands to draw the crowd, Tracer Bullet and The Gravetones. So, really it works both ways, especially if promoters put together bands that really just want to play and have a good time.

[Raza]

I think you might need to re-read the article. It is about how a band can be empowered to tour and perform for the long term. If a band wants to go on tour, the funds to do have to come from somewhere. This article is about how to be able to tour consistently for a long time.

I've known Steve Archer for a very long time and I feel qualified to say that he is an artist.

I think Steve's article contains really good scene-positive advice, such as the parts about not burning the promoters, so a band can continue touring with longevity. Structuring the situation to allow continued ability to perform is in no way antithetical to art.

I've read the entire article, and I stand by the essence of my original position. The article continuously defines 'successful' exclusively as 'profitable', over such factors as making it an enjoyable experience for the audience and band or facilitating cultural dynamics. It encourages promoters to distance themselves from what they like in order to be financially responsible and bands to compete for attention by spending more money, all of which only serves to cyclically heighten the 'professional' threshold that stands between making enjoyable music and reaching the audience that would like to listen to it. It calls for performers to discard everything that doesn't make them make them money - which in many cases, due to the subjective experience of art, will be exactly the things that make the act and experience beautiful and unusual in the artist's own perception. It completely bypasses the very real option of achieving any number of the goals detailed in the article without money changing hands anywhere along the line.

All in all, it demands that art concedes and reduces itself to fit the 'business' model of social interaction that tries to encompass everything in global capitalist culture these days - while frankly, the motivation to resist that narrowing of the human life experience should be expected to come out of that direction if anywhere. Yes, it's pragmatic; much like a politician's slide to acting to sustain their influence rather than using it to achieve their original ideals is pragmatic - but that's the difference between achieving nothing and not achieving anything.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

The article does not define successful as profitable, but as sustainable. If you cannot sustain, you cannot tour.

Some bands have ways to sustain that do not require them to practice good business sense, but even they need to promote or they will be paying to play in empty clubs. Without a certain amount of professionalism, touring is suicide for a band. I have watched a few local bands hook up with a tour, only to discover they could not afford the costs and loose out part way through the tour. Some of the bands did not survive.

Having a large brass section in your band may make your band sound awesome, but if you have not laid out solid ground work to tour, you are going to end up with a hungry pissed-off brass section and you will not put on a good show.

Artists of any stripe seldom get to the fat and happy stage, but by playing it smart and treating the business aspect as a business they can sustain, create more music and create a better show. You don't have to cut the brass, but you do have to figure out how to pay for it.

Also, it is important to point out that at no point does the article talk about creating art, he only talks about touring. He does not talk about how to make music or how to put on a show, only how to tour.

Thousands upon thousands of works of art slip into oblivion unseen because too many artists think that pragmatism or business is a bad word and too much crap art rises to popularity because someone got behind the crap and pushed.

Or, to put it another way, do you think David Bowie's music suffered because he was also a good business man?

[Amelia G]

The article does not define successful as profitable, but as sustainable. If you cannot sustain, you cannot tour.

Some bands have ways to sustain that do not require them to practice good business sense, but even they need to promote or they will be paying to play in empty clubs. Without a certain amount of professionalism, touring is suicide for a band. I have watched a few local bands hook up with a tour, only to discover they could not afford the costs and loose out part way through the tour. Some of the bands did not survive.

Having a large brass section in your band may make your band sound awesome, but if you have not laid out solid ground work to tour, you are going to end up with a hungry pissed-off brass section and you will not put on a good show.

Artists of any stripe seldom get to the fat and happy stage, but by playing it smart and treating the business aspect as a business they can sustain, create more music and create a better show. You don't have to cut the brass, but you do have to figure out how to pay for it.

Also, it is important to point out that at no point does the article talk about creating art, he only talks about touring. He does not talk about how to make music or how to put on a show, only how to tour.

Thousands upon thousands of works of art slip into oblivion unseen because too many artists think that pragmatism or business is a bad word and too much crap art rises to popularity because someone got behind the crap and pushed.

Or, to put it another way, do you think David Bowie's music suffered because he was also a good business man?

Steve wrote an article about how to tour sustainably and be able to continue making music and sharing it with live audiences. I don't think an article about his personal creative process would be as helpful to a Blue Blood audience. I kind of assume that most people here have at least a somewhat creative temperament, whether it is expressed artistically through music, style, visual arts, writing, serial killing, or whatever, either on the creation side or the appreciation side.