Interesting article about the plight of venues

thecolourbox

There are covers and there are covers to be fair. An originals band with their own distinct sound but who play Sex on Fire as a closer exactly the same as KOL, thus changing their own sound completely, i agree us pointless and you'd lose kudos. However carefully picking covers to do your own way to fit into your sound, is a good move to gain favour but also to reinforce your sound. In my opinion of course, I'm not all that experienced in it

Drew_TNBD

PolarityMan said:

Drew_fx said:

Not to be rude to the guys advocating covers... but.... did you actually get any fans, get any money, get any success, any reviews, any acclaim?? Did it help at all in the long term? Because if it didn't... I don't see the point.

Maybe I'm biased, but I don't want an originals band to play covers. I want them to be original, to have some soul and balls. That's the trick... have soul and have balls... even if you do wear your influences on your sleeve.

Playing covers might be a short-cut in the short-term.. but in the long term, I am unconvinced. But maybe that's because the only covers I've heard have been awful terrible. Played a gig once where they covered Lateralus by Tool. You'd think that would have my ears perking up and I'd remember the name of the band. But they didn't, and I don't... and they fucking sucked. I knew it from the first three notes. Completely out of time, hadn't spent any time to dial in the delay to sound like the original song, and ultimately left me pissed off and angry at them for even daring to try it.

lol. I'm an asshole. But yes, that's the spectrum of emotions I went through.

I've wanted to do some covers, but like... metal versions of Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada tunes. I've had a few pints so fuck it... we're all REALLY good musicians. But playing covers wouldn't help us... trust.

I remember that band! I'm sad to say we have also murdered lateralus live but we weren;t as bad as them. It's currently pulled from the set though until we can get it tightened up

Yeah but they didn't just murder it, they bound it, gagged it, raped it, and left it by the side of the road wrapped up in plastic! Jesus.

Jeremiah

I'd guess that a significant part of the problem is the same as that which has affected the sales of recorded music (no, it's not illegal downloading...)

Simply, people don't care as much about music as they used to. In the 50s and 60s there weren't as many other forms of entertainment, but now music has to compete with online games as well as a much wider range of TV/film channels than was previously available. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually live music shrank to the same kind of small niche audience as live theatre currently has (if this is not already the case.)

Another big issue is the absurdly high price of drinks in pubs and bars. Even if entry to the gig is free, at £4 a pint not many people feel like staying for more than one or two drinks so it's hardly surprising if they only stay to watch their mates play and then sod off. At least we can blame the government for this one rather than the promoters/venues/musicians/audience.

Danny1969

Well in fairness Live music is probably bigger now than it ever was in the sixties for the bigger names. U2 probably played more to one crowd at one show on their 360 tour than the Beatles did in about 8 shows, and most mainstream gigs are now so popular it's hard to get on the list to get tickets, let alone get actual tickets! 

Getting people to come to small gigs is harder work though for the reasons ^ but I still think a lot of bands just expect too much. 

I would be interested to know how many gigs an originals band have done before they expected a crowd, because I remember in the nineties it was hundreds. We played between 3 to 6 times a week for years before we could sell enough tickets to sell out a 300 seater. Doing the odd 3 gigs a month isn't going to get you there

Jeremiah

Is it even possible to find enough venues that will book you to play 3-6 times per week?

Danny1969

Jeremiah said:

Is it even possible to find enough venues that will book you to play 3-6 times per week?

We used to have a Monday Night residency at a Portsmouth pub, did it every Monday night for 6 years. We always played every Frid, Sat and most Sundays anyway like most bands and often had a Wed or Thus and sometimes both. The only night I don't remember gigging on is Tuesdays

Gigs ranged from local pubs to American Air force bases, some gigs were a mile away, some involved driving to Wales and sleeping in the van. 

Without an advertising budget the only way to get people to notice you is to get out there and relentlessly  gig. Last night I played to a new ish venue, it was freezing cold and the load in was 2 flights up a slippery fire escape. The place was dead but 3 people were impressed and that's what's it;s about, reaching small numbers of people at a time. If you can make only one fan per gig you know you will eventually get the fans if you do enough gigs

These days for covers bands I can do 3 to 4 gigs a week no problem between Portsmouth and London. For other areas it's probably harder. For covers bands there's a lot of opportunity to gig  but it does involve a lot of work for very little money

 

John_P

^  Interesting to read about gigging in the south - It's definitely harder to find the gigs here  (East Yorkshire) now compared to a few years ago.    When I moved to this area in the mid 90's I joined a covers band and regularly played thurs, fri, sat and sunday nights.  There were some monday nights gigs once in a while iirc.  In a pub a band would be on £180 to £250 unless you had enough rep to pull a big crowd.
Now I can't think of a single venue outside of Fri and Sat nights and often it's one of those not both - apart from a fair number of  unpaid acoustic open mic gigs mid week.  The fees for a lot of bands are still the same in pubs.  

The only way I can see for things to improve is if landlords or promoters start to be more choosy and limit the acts to quality bands so that people feel less risk in checking out someone new.

Phil_aka_Pip

I used to go to a gig to see who's playing, apart from the band I was going to see. I'd see the whole gig. It pissed me off that there were some bands who had a big "following", but that "following" turned up to see only that band, and weren't interested in anyone who played before or after that band.