Right folks for the job…

Man, we’re just back from three-weeks of gigs down south and in France and we head away to Finland and Estonia at 5am tomorrow. I had a fantastic run of shows, great audiences, sold loads of merch. And we had a great time.

But there’s something that bothers me about the UK gigs – the lack of promotion by some venues. We don’t expect venues and bookers to do ALL the work, especially the ‘small-time’ folks. But they should make at least a bit of effort.

When I’m booked for a gig we send out a letter confirming the arrangements, a proper MU (Musicians’ Union) contract with a stamped addressed envelope to return a copy after signing, posters for the show and a bunch of EPKs (Electronic Press Kits) and promo CDs.

I’d love to say “no contract, no gig” but we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot as only about half of the folks send them back. The bizarre thing is that all the late cancellations (only three or four in as many years) have had contracts and subsequently been settled fairly easily.

Promotion from our end, regardless of the size of the show, includes all the online stuff (social networking sites, my own websites, online listings etc), email and snail mailouts and a media campaign targeting all local and region press, radio and TV. We also send monthly gig info to all the national press and relevant magazines.

I think that’s as much, if not more, promo activity than other independent acts – and it’s one of the reasons why we ‘re building things up and managing to make a living out of this.

Some venues certainly do their bit, and more – displaying posters and publicising what they have going on at their venue.

But it’s a mystery to me how some others get any audiences in at all, let alone stay in business. Two venues on that last run of gigs (which will remain nameless) had no posters up at all even though we’d sent them about 50 each. Nothing inside or out the place indicated there was anything on, let alone live music. Although very nice, the bookers and staff at each venue just didn’t seem bothered if it was going to be busy or not. One of the venues did have a big “what’s on this month” poster inside, outside and around town – but guess what? My gig wasn’t on it!

I was on a guarantee at each, so it wasn’t going to affect us financially, other than in potential CD/merch sales. But it’s nice to play to a decent sized audience. And surely to goodness the venue wants to make money and have a good vibe in the room? Sometimes you wonder if folks want things to be a success!

Luckily, all the shows worked out okay. But it worries me for bigger, future gigs – especially as we’re planning a major headline tour this time next year.

I guess the answer when aiming for that “next level” is to work with a name tour promoter who knows the venues inside out and can help sort out some folks at ground level to ensure all the neccessary local promo activity actually takes place.

Food for thought…

Demos…a word of advice

IT’s a funny thing. When I was getting into music the same message was hammered home at just about every magazine and networking event. It was about demos and sending them out, and I still see and hear a similar message regularly – but wonder if anyone else does.

Times may have changed a bit since we put our three best tunes on a cassette, ideally a C15 (a fifteen minute-long tape for the whippersnappers) and same three tracks on both sides. Clearly labelled.

But the theory’s still the same. If you want to attract busy folks’ attention, make sure the tracks you send – whether it’s CD, links to MP3s or a MySpace page with tunes – have immediate impact. Unless you’re a prog rock or whacky electronica artist, stay away from minute-long intros and self-indulgent solos. Put the best song first and give folks three tracks that represent the range of your music. Venue bookers, label folks, potential managers and other industry figures are busy people and don’t have time to listen through for more than a few minutes. So maximise the chance of grabbing their attention quick.

It doesn’t matter how long the messages go round… I still get heaps of demo-laden jiffy bags with CDs that have no info or contact details on the disc itself. They get put in a computer or taken in piles on a car journey and generally get separated from their covers (if they ever had any!). So if something does grab you but you don’t know who it is, that’s a terrible waste. Make sure the CD as well as the cover has track/artist info and contact details.

Then there’s the three things that particularly annoy and mystify me.

Email attachments: Never send MP3s (or other large files) as email attachments – send links to the files on your website/MySpace,YouTube etc. Nothing worse than an inbox full of unsolicited attachments slowing down your system or costing iPhone users a fortune to download when they’re abroad (three quid a meg means it can cost someone nearly a tenner for the privilege of receiving your email when abroad). And before anyone points out you can turn data roaming off, why should we? Especially if we’re waiting on important attachments from folks we want to hear from!

Impersonal messages: General mailouts addressed to no-one in particular – unless it’s a news release to journalists – tend to straight in the bin whether they’re email or snail mail. Do a bit of research. Find out who you want send stuff to – and check it’s relevant. I get stuff from ambient dance acts, death metal bands and all sorts despite running an alt.blues label.

No reason for sending: I get many emails and snail mail packs – not just from new bands/artists, but also from established acts and major record labels. Quite often folks don’t say why they’re sending it to me! Do they want a record deal with Buzz? Or are they after management? Maybe just some advice or opinion? Or perhaps they think I’ll review it somewhere? Maybe they just want me to have it for no particular reason? For goodness sake, address the stuff to a specifc individual and state exactly why you’re sending it.

Just think about!

Famous? Aye, right!

Save for a couple of festival shows, the last moth or so has been taken up with our house move from Glasgow city centre flat to Loch Lomond-side cottage.

Once we get everything sorted out, it’s going to be AMAZING. Meantime, though, it’s a bit of a logistical, economic and organisational nightmare.

The everyday ins and outs are covered in detail in my daily blog – packing up, the move itself and the daily surprises and discoveries in (so far) the first week in our new place.

One of the biggest hassles of all has been insurance.

My guitars and gigging stuff is all covered by a policy through the Musicians’ Union. Amongst all the membership benefits, members get £2000 free equipment insurance which can be topped up if and when required. It’s very good.

Our car insurance is through Aviva – they too are very good, competitively priced and give the level of cover we need.

Home insurance, I’m afraid, is a different kettle of fish. If you – or anyone living at your address – are deemed as ‘in the entertainment business’, you could be in for a rough ride. I have a very good insurance broker who understands what I do and tackled the insurers head on when they became reluctant to cover our new house.

It’s not that they think all musicians’ are drug-infested, alcoholic ne’er-do-wells – that’s what I, perhaps in a fit of paranoia, initially assumed. It appears they googled me and decided I was too famous to be a good risk. If only!

Their argument is that a musician in the public eye could easily attract folks (stalkers and weirdos?) intent on damaging their property.

I tried to explain that I was not ‘famous’ and, in the great scheme of things, am unlikely ever to be accused of being such. My music is non-commercial and, in my experience, the folks that come to shows and hang out for a blether have only good intentions. I honestly don’t believe that I have any more chance of a brick through the living room window that anyone else out there.

Eventually the insurer listened to my broker’s argument, but it wasn’t without a lot of hard work on their part.

Funny how the MU insurance underwriters will cover our gear for free (up to a point), worldwide for all risks, yet a major insurer balks at house (buildings) cover if you’re a musician!

My advice? Join the MU and find a good insurance broker.

Sound hassles….

First up, we’ve had a wee rethink about my blog. We’re gonna revert to more specific posts on this Rock Radio blog, and I’ve moved my daily diary across to a new home. Wow – TWO blogs…I must be keen!

Anyway, through all the cutting and pasting into the WordPress blog, I noticed I was having the occasional moan about soundmen – some praise too, of course. Well, my live dates in July went from the sublime to the ridiculous with regard to the attitude of sound engineers.

Margaret – my partner, booker, tour managers, merchandiser and sound caretaker – knows my sound inside out. She’s not, and doesn’t claim to be, a sound engineer – but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how my guitar and voice should sound.

We can usually tell when there’s going to be an issue. Most recently, when introducing Margaret to the engineer with the usual, “This is Margaret, she isn’t an engineer but she knows my sound, so will work with you…” the engineer replied, “Exactly – she isn’t the sound engineer. I am.” Asshole. The sound wasn’t too bad in the end, but it was a battle.

A week of gigs down south ended with a big festival show in Belgium – there’s some clips on my YouTube channel. The engineers couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. They were determined to deliver the sound we wanted – which is just as well, really, as I was making my Belgium debut in front of about 8000 folks.

Other acts on the bill included Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, Joe Bonamassa, John Mayall and Roger McGuinn; and Margaret and I were treated with the same respect and service as the big names. Amazing. I should also mention the engineers at The Met in Bury the night before – they were equally great too.

Back to earth with a thud, though… A day after getting back I had a wee gig in Edinburgh. My technical rider and stage plot covers everything and specifically says: no compression on the guitar. The engineer had other ideas, though, and Margaret immediately heard the ill-effects of compression on the guitar channel. After heated debate – and absolutely ridiculous attempts at justification by the engineer – I had to pipe-up from the stage that no compression on my guitar means exactly that. Not a little bit… none!

Margaret knows my guitar sound intimately and she also knows what sounds go well with an audience, and what can turn them off immediately (ie: an over-harsh, toppy guitar sound that hurts your ears).

So we’ve learnt that, just like in any job, the problem folks are most often the ones lacking confidence and insecure about their role. So there!

SonicBids – good or bad?

I’VE got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about Sonicbids, the online resource that allows musicians and bands to compile an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) and use it to make applications for all kinds of ‘opportunities’ at a cost to the musician.

There’s a monthly fee of a few dollars to have a Sonicbids-hosted EPK which can be enhanced at a small extra cost. It’s a neat concise way for an artist to present themselves and offers useful features including a gig calendar ‘widget’ that can be embedded in other web pages. I use the widget myself and it works a treat. 

On the positive side, SonicBids offers artists a quick and easy way to submit for festival slots  and it can often be cheaper than sending CDs, video, press cuttings, letters etc by snail mail – especially abroad. Indeed, I have personally secured showcase slots at events including Canada’s NxNE using Sonicbids.

However, just because it can save  the time and cost of mailing an application or promo pack, does that mean that it’s right for folks to make money out of the process? The ‘submission fee’ is divied up between Sonicbids and the promoter offering ‘the opportunity’. When a submission fee is US$5, then it could represent good value saving on promo items, postage and hassle – but when it’s US$10 or 20 does it move from being practical and useful to being a morally wrong money-making exercise?

Imagine if all bookers, venues and promoters said…’it’ll cost you a tenner for us to consider booking you for a show”…! It can offer a level playing field for artists and the promoter receives info in a consistent format and that is surely a good thing. The system can fall down tho’.  There have been event’s where the official website advertised a showcase opportunity indicating the only way to be considered for a showcase was to submit via Sonicbids only to change their mind a month or two later and say they’re now also accepting postal applications. Not only will those that paid a £10 or so submission fee be just a little miffed that they could’ve sent it snail mail for less than a quid, but it also potentially penalises the folks who submitted within the confines of Sonicbids.

We all know it should be down to the music, but a physical package with well designed promo material, press cuttings/reviews can help a musician/band differentiate themselves in a way that even the best put together ’supersonic’ Sonicbids EPK can’t match.

There is a worrying trend for some magazines, radio shows and podcasts (usually low-profile internet stations) to use Sonicbids to solicit review/promo/airplay material and charge folks for the privilege. One of the worst practices though, is folks putting out compilation CDs who ask those providing tracks not only to waive any publishing rights but expect them to pay towards the production of the CD…after they’ve paid via Sonicbids for the privilege of being considered! More recently, some venues and promoters have been using Sonicbids to offer ongoing gig opportunities (ie: not one-off festival slots or showcases) to musicians. Again, is it right that venues/promoters make money from musicians hoping to be considered for a slot? 

There was even a recent ‘opportunity’ asking artists to pay for consideration to be one of the folks featured in a one-off press advert.

In saying all that, Sonicbids can – and often is – a good resource and offers some genuine opportunities for artists. But it is also open, like most things, to abuse and makes it easy for folks to rip off artists with what is perceived to be third party endorsement. 

The aim of this blog is not to slate Sonicbids, it is to encourage musicians to consider the services so they can make their own informed decisions on whether or not an ‘opportunity’ offered through Sonicbids is what is seems, worthwhile and offers value.

Is Sonicbids the only way into the opportunity? For events like SxSW it may be – but for consideration for a local gig a personal email or a phone call to the venue, booker or promoter will be considerably cheaper and possibly more effective.

Same goes for getting a CD review in a magazine or played on the radio.

The web and social networking

THE INTERNET really has turned communication on its head. Fourteen or 15 years ago musicians realized the potential for websites and email. Not only was the internet bringing a whole wealth of information and contacts to the desktop – it was also, via email, allowing instant communication with these people.

As well as opening up incredible channels of communication with potential venues, labels, management, promoters etc worldwide, it also heralded the opportunity to show off our songs, image to a world of music lovers, build fan bases and communicate with fans too. Then we could sell stuff – firstly hard product like CDs and merch…and not long after, downloads. All without the need for big budget record labels and third party investment,

That was the theory – and to some extent it’s true, but it has brought a whole new set of challenges to the musician and songwriter out there. How do you differentiate yourself for the millions of others vying for attention, let alone make money.

That’s the stuff of the new music industry, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the need to utilize whatever tools are there to best advantage.

Social networking sites have proved good for spreading the word and awareness – but it’s the new wave of web tools that can help turn the theory into practice and really help musicians engage and interact with audiences and potential fans.

It all seemed to start with Myspace and Facebook. These little ‘status’ boxes urging you to tell the world what you’re busy with right now. Then, about two years ago I bumped into a lassie at South by South West (SxSW) who wouldn’t shut up about this thing called Twitter and how she could tell all her friends what she was doing (or thinking) instantly via her phone.

I admit I was kinda intrigued and did some investigating and even created myself a Twitter profiIe.  Have to say, tho’, I didn’t really get it. What did I care if someone on my friends list was cooking risotto or stuck in traffic jam – and what did anyone care what I was busy with? Anyhow, there didn’t seem to be many people using it,

Maybe I’m a bit slow, but it took a year before it dawned on me that updating social status on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, whatever didn’t have to be nonsense. I could let folks know where my gig was that night. Not just folks ‘following’ me on Twitter, but also those monitoring nearby tweets to see what was going on locally.

More recently I discovered that there’s more to Twitter than the simple tweet. Applications like Twitteriffic work on iPhone and iPod, Tweetdeck brings a whole bunch of functionality and Twitter-relevant tools to the desktop (or laptop).

The thing I’ve got most excited about tho’, is the way you can shorten web address/links and track clicks using services like bit.ly and www.tinyurl.com. I like bit.ly best.

So instead of having to put an entire web address into a Tweet (or Myspace/Facebook status update) where characters are limited – for instance, I ‘tweeted’ the fact that I’d added a bunch of gigs to the gig guide. Instead of having http://www.davearcari.com/tour.htm I can put in http://bit.ly/Ga7v2

That’s a good start, but where this really comes into it’s own is with long web addresses – for instance a link to buy gig tickets which can take up the whole character count of a tweet, is clumsy to type, easy to make a mistake in and just a pain in the ass.

What’s more, I can log on to bit.ly and see how many folks have clicked on the link. Not only that, but I can see where in the world the clicks have come from.

The downside, I suppose, is that the shortened link hides the destination URL, so unscrupulous folks might send innocent clickers to spam or porn sites. But then, none of us would be following unscrupulous types. Would we?!

Because people opt-in to follow someone on Twitter, it already looks like a great way for musicians to update fans without fear of spamming folks.

Combining all these things like quantifiable links, Google analytics and YouTube insight can help marketers and communicators of all things, not just music, use the power of the web to create meaningful plans strategic decisions.

How on earth did we manage before?

Celebrating Burns’ Gift

EVERY now and again a really weird gig comes up – you know, the kinda last place you’d expect to be invited to play.

That’s exactly the gig I played in Monday night at “An Evening Celebrating Burns’ Gift” in the extremely up market auditorium upstairs in Oran Mor in the heart of Glasgow’s West End.

The line-up at this exclusive concert was made up of well-known names from the folk and trad music world including such polite and accomplished performers as Maggie McInnes, Christine Primrose, Allan Tall, Stramash, the Sirens of Titan Choir. And me. As the capacity crowd  took their seats I could sense the murmurings…”what’s that tattooed guy in the Ramones shirt kicking about here for?”. I was still wondering the same thing.

Actually there was method in the madness. Somewhere.

The concert was arranged by former Poets’ lead singer George Gallacher and Burns’ guru Andrew Noble who had picked up on the version of Burns’ Parcel of Rogues I wrote and performed for a BBC special a couple of years back to mark 300 years since the Act of Union. They got in touch at the turn of the year and asked if I would play it, and another song, at the concert. Then they dropped the bombshell that they would like me to give another Burns’ poem (MacPherson’s Lament) the treatment as the ‘other song’.

Like Parcel of Rogues, it took me five minutes to write the tune and guitar part and three months to learn the words.

Luckily after a very complimentary introduction from broadcaster and musicologist John Cavanagh who was MC for the night, all went swimmingly – and my worry about what this seemingly high-brow audience would make not only of my performance, but also of my treatment of Burns’ most sacred work quickly vanished. The crowd (well, most of ‘em, I guess) went for it and we had a fantastic night.

There’s a wee video clip at http://bit.ly/12DNGy – it’s a lo-fi video clip taken with a stills camera from the back of the room.  It’s a strange link address, but all will be revealed in a future blog when I air some thoughts on social networking and e-marketing.

Merch..and chicken fillets!

SEEMS my feet have hardly touched the ground since the release of my new album Got Me Electric at the beginning of March.

There’s been three separate runs of gigs taking in France, Germany, England and Ireland with just the odd day at home in between to get the laundry done and try and catch up. And a bunch of Scottish gigs are coming – the first for the No Mean City festival at the O2 Academy (Glasgow) on Saturday (18 April).

The gigs have been great – but one in particular deserves a wee mention here. We left Glasgow at 5am a week past Tuesday for the first Ireland show…which was in Cork later the same day. Midnight, to be precise.  The venue – Crane Lane Theatre – was awesome. Just like someplace out a Tom Waits song, but who’s gonna come out at midnight on a Tuesday to see me? Luckily, a good few hundred did so all was cool..although I seem to attract a certain kind of stage invader, invariably drunk (very) and always keen to ‘interact’ and this gig was no different.

This time it was a lassie who climbed up on stage not just once, twice or three times – but four times. Security were swithering as to whether to remove the wannabe erotic dancer a third time when an odd looking plastic bag fell from under her shirt and landed with a resounding plop by my left foot mid song. She was removed by the end of the song and, intrigued, I investigated the squishy form on the floor – but just as I lifted it up a hand reached up from in front of the stage and grabbed it back.

I didn’t think much more of it til someone getting a CD signed at the merch desk said “what about that drunk girl…and the chicken fillet!”. I was dutifully informed by the folks around the merch table that the thing that fell from the girl’s shirt was a, let’s say, breast enhancer. Otherwise widely known as a ‘chicken fillet’. You learn something new every day!

Anyhow, I got distracted – I was going to write about merchandise and stock control this time! I guess the (tenuous) link to staying on topic was the folks in the merch queue who introduced me to the chicken fillet concept.

It’s always hard knowing how much merch to take on a trip. It’s not so bad in the UK when empty corners in the car can be crammed with extra CDs and t-shirts, but when air travel and baggage allowances come into the equation it can be hard. Especially when my two National guitars alone take up the entire checked in baggage allowance for two people.

 So whether it’s filling the car for a UK trip or sending merch abroad by courier ahead of the first show the working out how much to pack is fine line between not enough and too much.

It’s difficult to forecast how many CDs or t-shirts (let alone which albums or shirt sizes!) will shift at a specific show – sometimes we sell 20 or 30 albums…sometimes it’s three or four. Sometimes we sell 20 shirts, sometimes 2!

Learning by experience doesn’ t appear to apply. On one batch of t-shirts all the large and extra large will go quickly and none of the medium or small sizes. So we order. So we adjust our order with the t-shirt folks so we order more large sizes and less small sizes and then guess what? Yup, there’s a rush on small and medium and only handful of large sizes go. Typical!

It’s a similar story with albums.  Revisiting a venue where lots of my last album sold the previous gig, you’d expect to sell fewer of the old album and more of the new one (that wasn’t out last time). Wrong again!  Another big bunch of the old album’s sold and just a handful of the new one.

I shouldn’t really be surprised at this – as with every other part of this music business there is no science or logic to anything! If we could predict sales – online, at shows or through the stores – and gig attendance we’d all be rich by now.

And I’ve just noticed, we’re nearly out of shirts and there’s this big O2 Academy show tomorrow. Need to phone the t-shirt guy right now…

Gigging abroad: A different world!

Got a couple of hours’ of  ‘free time’ this afternoon before my last show on  my France/Germany Spring mini-tour so packed in some sightseeing in Heidelberg and STILL have some time left to do a wee bit of blogging (or maybe ranting!).

Actually, it was a time for a wee bit of thinking and reflection over the last weeks’-worth of gigs that got me to the laptop…and also the fact I’m trying not to speak for a few hours having given the vocal chords a fair old bashing with crazy gigs every night.

So, what was I thinking? …all about the difference in the gigging experience abroad compared to the UK. I do around 150 UK shows a year. Most of them are well-run by good folks – and there’s a few where we are exceptionally well looked after. Here in France and Germany, though, we’re exceptionally well looked after at EVERY show. Not only are the fees good (nearly double that of my average gig fee in the UK) without exception we (my booker, road manager and partner, Margaret – Mad Mags to those in the know) are provided excellent meals before or after every show (sometimes both!). A steady (too steady at times!) flow of drinks comes courtesy of the venue and the hotel accommodation provided is nothing short of first class. Basically, we haven’t had to spend a single Euro since we left the UK.

Now that’s a pretty good experience for a grass-roots level touring artist like myself. Treatment like this in the UK is the exception rather than the rule, even for reasonably high-profile artists.

Thankfully one thing is the same as the UK – the audiences are great here, as good as they are at home.

It’s not just this trip. Or France and Germany. This is our second trip to both these countries in the last six months – and the last year I’ve been gigging in Ireland, Canada, Estonia and Finland too.  The grass does indeed seem to be greener!

The difference in the way grass-roots artists are treated (and paid) outside the UK really came home to us when Margaret was booking some shows for our German and Estonian friends who have set up many of my shows. It’s embarrassing having to explain the general poor money and lack of hotels and hospitality when they visit the UK. Some venues and promoters go some way towards matching the non-UK deals, but very few.

The visiting artists I am talking about enjoy a similar profile and level of success as I do and are just as ‘exotic’ in the UK as I appear to be outside the UK, so I am at a loss trying to understand this world of a difference between the UK and abroad.

That’s another rant off my chest. Tonight I play the Swingin’ WiWa Festival in Mülhausen and will try not to party to hard afterwards…we leave the hotel at 6am to come back to the reality of gigging UK!

The Musicians’ Union

Is there any such thing as a free lunch?

Probably not, but a few things come pretty damn close…and if you’re a musician taking your gear out on the road (whether it’s an open mic night down the local boozer or a 30-date tour) the free equipment insurance offered by the Musicians’ Union (MU) is possibly as close as you need to get.

Two grand’s-worth of free equipment insurance is just part of the benefits package from the MU which also includes ten million public liability cover, contract and legal advice and a whole range of support and networking opportunities. And that’s just the start.

OK – I gotta come clean here – not only have I been an MU member for twenty years, but I also spent a couple of years working for them full-time as regional officer for Scotland and Northern Ireland. A dream job for anyone into music, but I got cabin fever and had to get back to playing full-time. Plus, despite assurances otherwise when I took the job, the big cheeses in London didn’t like me continuing to gig and when it came down to a choice between making my living in a day job or as a gigging musician it was a no-brainer. I went back on the road.

I don’t think there’s much credibility (unless you’re a major name, or don’t play anymore through ill-health etc, then you’re excused) in standing in front of a bunch of young musicians saying ‘I USED to be a gigging musician…’ – so for me it was always gonna better to be in the same boat and be able to help through current personal experience of the issues folks are – or will – face.

Despite that, I still believe 100% in the MU, it’s representatives and it’s work…no hard feelings – just a difference in opinion.

So I’m still involved – Sheena and Jen in the Scottish and Northern Ireland office in Glasgow are not only great at their jobs, but they’re good pals too. I sit on two of the MU’s National committees – the Folk, Roots & Traditional Section and the newly formed Gig Section. The latter is particularly relevant because it will consider issues facing the grassroots and touring rock’n’roll, indie, pop and dance acts etc as well as DJs. For a long time the MU has (wrongly) been seen as an organisation for the orchestral workplace, jazz and theatre musicians – this new section will hopefully help change that perception.

And that’s gotta be a good thing. One of the hardest things facing all musicians is  getting properly paid. Beer, and if you’re lucky, pizza doesn’t pay the bills – let alone cover the expenses of getting to/from the gig or help recoup the investment in instruments, strings, drumsticks and time in learning, writing and perfecting your material.

I’m sick to fucking death of wannabe promoters , bookers and dodgy venue operators expecting bands/artists to play for free and at the same time expecting them to pull in punters to spend money and make money for everyone except the band. Just because folks are keen to play gigs doesn’t mean they should be taken advantage of…all that ‘it’ll be good exposure pish’ doesn’t wash.

Now there’s nothing illegal about any of this – some of us just see it as a bit immoral. Like pay to play and dodgy ticket deals…but bands and artists need to be aware that they SHOULD get paid for playing a show…and then make an INFORMED decision for themselves whether tit’s a wise thing to do. If you’re a new band or are new in town, playing a freebie can help you break onto the scene and give a hook to generate some press/media. But know when to stop. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with hiring a venue. PA etc and doing a self-promo show.

You might’ve guessed I’ve got a big thing about this. OK – it doesn’t (thankfully) affect me personally, but it WILL affect the future of music and those creating music. A future blog will likely be dedicated to the subject! And Sonicbids too…a great service that’s abused more than it’s used.

My hope is that with the new Gig Section, the MU will be able to put forward the pros and cons of playing gigs for nowt and help members and potential members make informed decisions about their career in music and the role writing and performing music will have in their lives.

Anyway, now I’ve stopped to catch breath if you’re a musician or DJ then check out http://www.musiciansunion.org.uk – it’d cost you more than the MU membership fee for the instrument insurance alone.

I’m off to get my shit together for next week’s gigs in France and Germany….