Starting a regular jam night

darius

Proposing to start a monthly weekday jam night, using our band and another to share the duties of gear and hosting, at my local gigging pub.

I'm aiming for it to be the opposite of the all too common Open Mic night full of acoustic solo singer songwriters. This is full band, amplified fun. Its what i grew up doing in the 90s and since i cant find it anywhere anymore, and i have a great gigging rock band, i thought I'd do it myself.

Any advice do's dont's risks opportunities or serving suggestions?

darius

Anybody? No? Just me here?

soma1975

I would 1000% love to go to one of these.

hollywoodrox

soma1975 said:

I would 1000% love to go to one of these.

Me too 

TheBigDipper

I can't advise you on how to get started. I can tell you why it's the sort of thing I wouldn't go to. Not to 'diss the idea in any way, but just to explain what (IMHO) is the biggest pitfall for these types of events. 

Repertoire. To have repertoire that anyone can play, you'll end up doing generic dull stuff. Or 12 bar blues. Then what happens is you'll get people who sit at home honing their solos who come along and just shred (at whatever level) over the song being played, the singer, everything. They don't listen and they are selfish and unmusical as a result.

Unless you really do mean a "jam night" where no-one knows the material and really are listening and jamming together. That would be a fun thing to do.

Either way, good luck. Just coz I wouldn't come doesn't mean you won't pack the place out. :-) 

ftumch

I'm in a house band at a jam night that does exactly this, I've been doing it about 7 years but it's been running way longer than that. When it works its brilliant but it all lives and dies by the people that come. Advertise heavily, get as many people involved as you can, ideally itll be full of regular visitors who will chat amongst themselves and plan songs together for coming weeks, at that point it's pretty self sufficient. It needs to be in the right venue with plenty of local musicians. Be prepared to learn all the rock standards! 
Good luck! It can be great fun  

newi123

I do this currently.

I don't find it becomes a solo / blues shred fest. In fairness we've tried a blues jam specifically in the past, and that did veer off that way.....

The current set up is guitar, bass and drums. We all play in different bands and have a fairly good repetoire. 

Things I'd be careful of:

1) by a means let people bring their own guitars,  but prob not pedals and amps. Otherwise it does turn into a noise fest and the people that bring amps want to sit in all night. Same with a chap that brought a keyboard. We couldn't make him sit down..... 
2) rotate people. 3 songs usually then change. You have to manage this! Similarly in helping 3 strangers pick a song and making sure they all vaguely know it. 
3) try and get a few good friends who are players so you have some immediate help. Drummers and bass players are gold here
4) be prepared for people to play your guitar and rig, and if it's busy I only play on the first couple (often on bass) and then the last couple on guitar to close
5) we close the night as a house band usually with a couple of guest singers so we end on a high
6) if you're doing this as a band, it's really easy to turn into a gig / rehearsal. Try and play different stuff from usual and mix and match players.
7) once you have a few players you can agree songs and learn for next time. This can be helpful in making sure the same people don't do the same things week in week out. 

It's great fun when it works. It's now a night out with a pub full of friends for me. There have been nights where I've supplied the gear and literally haven't played - I like that! There have also been nights where its tough and I wonder why I do it! 

Quality does vary, but youll have fun. Enjoy! 

mrkb

Im in. Just let me know when you need me to turn up...

vonLayzonfon

Definitely let us know when you're up and running.  I'm frequently at a loose end of a weekday evening.  

Nunogilberto

I did it for a good year or so at a local pub - and you're right - there aren't enough of this type of jam night about; too many acoustic-y chilled out cafe bar type affairs.

I found it was a balance between having some sort of organisation, and just letting it be what it would be. The organisation comes with giving people a max of 3 songs (as someone's mentioned), and making sure you enforce this - ensuring everybody who's there gets a turn. 

At the same time, it's the people attending who will make the night what it is. It needs to be inclusive as well; although you don't want it to sound like a shed building workshop full of enthusiastic wannabe drummers for example, everybody needs to feel welcomed and encouraged regardless of ability - time needs to be made for the novices who might lack a bit of confidence.

You'll get all sorts of types I expect - bands who'll want to come and show off in the hope that the venue offers them a gig, virtuoso types who want to hog the stage, and some who aren't interested in playing covers as such and just want to jam/make noise for ages 

It's all good, just remember to keep some kind of order without being too strict on what people can and can't play etc. And try not to freeze out any one type of jammer (especially novices) as you want more people attending.

sweepy

Pick a Tuesday or Wednesday night, notoriously quiet ones that Pubs are more than willing to take a punt on 

darius

Plans are nearly in place for an inaugural debut of 2Apr and then every first Thursday. Need to sort advertising, promoting and such. trying to think of an exciting original event name that conveys all information in one line...

How did you promote successfully when getting it off the ground?

Thanks for all above advise, it all chimes with what I've been thinking. Just need to set some rules and encourage players and watchers to turn up. The pub is thinking up a manageable bar incentive for players and watchers alike.

I will post details on here asap.

smigeon

Lots of great comments and advice above. The only thought I had that’s not been expressed is on the frequency of the jam (one a month). My experience is that these things are best done on a weekly basis because it’s much easier for people to remember “oh, yeah, there’s this thing on Wednesdays” than to plan ahead for “the first Wednesday in the month” or whatever. Then again you may well (and understandingly) not be able to provide that level of commitment.

Of course, monthly or weekly or anything else-ly are looking distinctly dodgy right now.

Mark1960

There is a pub local to be that do a Blues open jam, In Oakham Rutland, called Blues-a-go-go. They promote themselves on the pub website and on face book. It's a really well run event based on similar lines to the above comments, a good house band, with musicians changing frequently and the house band filling in the gaps. there is an unofficial 3 song limit (unless the audience want more), and is done in a very user friendly way. Most of the performers are singers, and guitarists, with some drummers. The bass and harmonica tend to have to perform with most of the songs.

hollywoodrox

I lived in the odd house pub on station road as a kid in 76/77

hassleham

I run one with my friend in Holmfirth. We've been doing it since January 2019 and it's built up a nice local following whilst bringing new people down almost every month, so theres always a nice variation of performers. 
The way we do it is to start with an open mic for anyone who wants to play their own stuff (this is going on whilst we wait for others to arrive) and then we go round the room checking who plays what and get them to start thinking about songs. We've found confident singers are the hardest to come by so we tend to ask any singers what they'd like to sing and then try and put together a band of "jammers" to suit whatever the singer is comfortable with. 

We have a 'house band' of backup musicians to fill any empty roles during the jam, and the house band also plays a few songs depending on how busy it is with jammers. We also let bands come and play their own stuff at the jam as people enjoy this (3 song maximum) and then there's always people in the bands who are up for getting involved with the jam.

It's certainly tricky to get started and get enough interest to get regulars to come down and know that you'll have a good night with enough people but we're quite lucky to have a great music network in Holmfirth/Huddersfield and the surrounding areas. I also run a music school here so have met a lot of people on the scene over the last 2 years which works really well for getting new people to come down. 

We do the last Thursday of every month and that's fine for me, I couldn't do it weekly as it's too knackering doing a full day of work and then getting all the gear to the venue and set up between two of us. There's also a popular one in Huddersfield on one Sunday a month I think, and a really popular one at Matt and Phreds in Manchester (I went once and it was brilliant but quite terrifying actually playing because the standard is so high!) Ours is a much more relaxed affair.


Some pointers from what i've learnt from doing it:

- Having a compere who's comfortable speaking to crowds makes the transitions between acts a lot easier, and makes the whole atmosphere more relaxed.

- 3 song maximum before you change things around.

- Having a catalog of easy songs that everyone knows can be a life saver when everyone on stage suffers short term memory loss of what songs they can play.

- Make sure you speak to everyone who ever shows up and make them feel welcome and like they want to come back. Make sure they know your name and feel comfortable to talk to you about what they'd like to play.

- Introduce people and encourage collaboration - this makes it a regular networking event for local musicians as well as just a good night out.

- Having a good PA system that behaves itself and sounds good will take a lot of stress out of the night for you. You don't want to be faffing trying to fix feedback issues when you need to be organising everything else.

- Don't let singers play to backing tracks otherwise punters think it's karaoke!

- Whenever you meet another musician make sure they know about your jam night as you never know when they might turn up and then become a regular.



AND FINALLY - Anyone local to Holmfirth/Huddersfield - Our Jam Night is at the Box Office in Holmfirth (next to The Picturedrome) on the last Thursday of every month!