Our first gig

Don O

Don O

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I’ve been mentioning that I have been practicing with a local musician, Al, who’s just great at all things music. We’ve been doing almost every Tuesday for over a year. Al joined Bandmix and within a week found a local drummer and bass player. We met with the drummer yesterday and he’s seems like a good person. He’ll be joining us on Tuesday for our first practice with him. We haven’t met the bass player yet, but Al is working on that.

One of Al’s neighbors is having a large party in mid to late May and we are going to be the entertainment. Should be a blast !
 
That's how many rock bands start. Enjoy It.
Don O said:
I’ve been mentioning that I have been practicing with a local musician, Al, who’s just great at all things music. We’ve been doing almost every Tuesday for over a year. Al joined Bandmix and within a week found a local drummer and bass player. We met with the drummer yesterday and he’s seems like a good person. He’ll be joining us on Tuesday for our first practice with him. We haven’t met the bass player yet, but Al is working on that.

One of Al’s neighbors is having a large party in mid to late May and we are going to be the entertainment. Should be a blast !
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If this works out, one thing we have to wrestle with is we know some of the other local musicians. We plan on playing for free. Al and I are both retired and don’t need the money and the drummer, Lloyd, is around 60 and is a doctor and he doesn’t need the money either. We just want to play for the fun of it. This might piss off bands that do play for money. But we are only talking about maybe 6 or less gigs a year.
 
Don O said:
If this works out, one thing we have to wrestle with is we know some of the other local musicians. We plan on playing for free. Al and I are both retired and don’t need the money and the drummer, Lloyd, is around 60 and is a doctor and he doesn’t need the money either. We just want to play for the fun of it. This might piss off bands that do play for money. But we are only talking about maybe 6 or less gigs a year.
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You might be able to avoid the grief by getting paid for the gig and then donating the money to a charity you all agree on.
 
Don O said:
If this works out, one thing we have to wrestle with is we know some of the other local musicians. We plan on playing for free. Al and I are both retired and don’t need the money and the drummer, Lloyd, is around 60 and is a doctor and he doesn’t need the money either. We just want to play for the fun of it. This might piss off bands that do play for money. But we are only talking about maybe 6 or less gigs a year.
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I don’t think it will create much of an issue. It’s pretty common for bands who are just starting out to work pro bono until they gain some history. At least in this area it is. We played for six months before we started asking for pay. Even then, I don’t think any other bands have ever asked us what we make.

If you guys stick with it, you may eventually decide that you do want to get some money for all the work you put in, especially when you consider the time for load in, setup, tear down, and load out.

As much as I enjoy playing, I wouldn’t do this for free. Honestly, I look at it as a part time job.
 
smitty_p said:
I don’t think it will create much of an issue. It’s pretty common for bands who are just starting out to work pro bono until they gain some history. At least in this area it is. We played for six months before we started asking for pay. Even then, I don’t think any other bands have ever asked us what we make.

If you guys stick with it, you may eventually decide that you do want to get some money for all the work you put in, especially when you consider the time for load in, setup, tear down, and load out.

As much as I enjoy playing, I wouldn’t do this for free. Honestly, I look at it as a part time job.
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It's a load of work for sure. We get paid as we are providing entertainment and hopefully a profit for the venue. Pqst that, I personally don't care. It's fun.
We get paid to set up and tear down. The rest is just fun. I would honestly do it for beer. Don't need the money just wanna rock.
 
Jethro Rocker said:
It's a load of work for sure. We get paid as we are providing entertainment and hopefully a profit for the venue. Pqst that, I personally don't care. It's fun.
We get paid to set up and tear down. The rest is just fun. I would honestly do it for beer. Don't need the money just wanna rock.
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Plus, the vehicle expense. Every now and then, we’ll take gigs three hours away. An hour away is fairly common for us. If nothing else, you wanna get some money even if just to cover travel.
 
smitty_p said:
Plus, the vehicle expense. Every now and then, we’ll take gigs three hours away. An hour away is fairly common for us. If nothing else, you wanna get some money even if just to cover travel.
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We live in the mountains here in So Cal. We only plan on small local places no more than 30 minutes away, all on the mountain.
 
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