JAZZ MUSICIANS: GUARANTEE VS. THE DOOR

[farnellnewton]

How do you get payed for your club/restaurant engagements? Check out what I wrote and please leave a comment. Would love to hear your opinion on this topic. http://farnellnewton.com/?p=249

Farnell
_________________
Denis Wick Artist 4C & 3E
Cannonball 789-RL Stone Series Trumpet
"The Raven"

Farnell Newton
Professor of Jazz Trumpet
Portland State University

Trumpeter, Composer & Hip Hop Producer
(503) 997-2071
www.farnellnewton.com

[BeboppinFool]

There are many reasons I prefer not to play in clubs or restaurants, and money is not the main reason.

Playing for an audience that's not there specifically to listen to music is what I prefer not to do. As a bandleader I have sought to only play concert venues. Granted, that's a tough way to go, and I haven't been hustling lately, but when it goes well there's nothing like it.

In a club or restaurant setting you have 98% of the people not even listening to you. They might as well have a CD player.

I do work for a leader who is content to play in club/restaurant settings, and having the weight of the bandleader responsibility off my shoulders and a group of excellent players makes it more of a social gathering/blowing session for the band. When that happens, I don't care that nobody is listening, but if they do listen, then it's icing on the cake.

I know guys who say that they'll play for next to nothing until they get a reputation and then they can charge more. I tell them that they already have a reputation . . . a reputation for playing for next to nothing.
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Rich Willey—Click here to hear my SoundCloud clips

[jazz_trpt]

[PhxHorn]

I don't do much club/restaurant work anymore, but I always prefer a guarantee over the door. If there's a good crowd, you can't trust the restaurant to tell you how many people actually came in. Often, they'll lie and tell you it was a lower amount and keep the difference. So then you have to put your own person on the door to double-check, and it creates tension with management if there's even a slight (honest) discrepancy and then they threaten to stop booking you, etc. If you happen to be a friend or significant-other of an employee of a place that pays you from the door, the financial hijinks can drop your jaw.

I remember one instance where a guy in the band happened to be, ahem, 'dating' the girl at the door unbeknownst to the club manager. The band was making something like a $700 minimum guarantee versus the door (pop cover band in trendy bar). At the end of the night, the manager grabbed the door money to 'count it' back in his office. He came out and told us 'You guys only brought in $650. So here's your $700 guarantee. We may have to lower your guarantee if you can't put enough people through the door.' The girl told us later that we'd brought in over $900, and the manager peeled a big wad of cash off the top. The bandleader said it wasn't worth going after the difference because we wanted to keep playing there and we were making our guarantee anyway.

If you read the contract riders for national acts who take a percentage of the gate, they always include a way for the artist to audit the ticket sales.

My advice is to go for the guarantee and eliminate the door headache altogether.

[J_Mase]

I wear many hats, depending on what comes up:

-Sideman
-Contractor/Leader
-Arranger
-MC/Vocalist
-Sound Guy (This is rare - Never ask me to do it)

It all depends on who calls me, and for what. Really, I don't care either way, so long as the bills are getting paid. I like my job. ...Except for a couple weeks a year.

---------------------------

Anyway, it's always a necessity to have a contract in-place for something. That can entail a piece of paper signed by both parties, or in cases where relations and stable, someone's word. There are some people I trust to hand me the money at the end of the night, and it's not a problem. At the same time, there are people I've kept a baseball bat in the trunk for, in case things get funny.

But as for a guaranteed pot, versus money off the door, it calls into question why they hired the band in the first place. If someone's making money off the door, there are two things that could be going on:

1) The band has an established following, and will draw a crowd. There's nothing wrong with this, and the ensemble stands to make more money than with a guaranteed rate in some cases.

2) The venue doesn't think you'll draw a crowd, and doesn't want to pay you. This tends to happen with a lot of young bands' rock shows, where they end up going into pocket to even get on stage. That seems to be the message conveyed to the younger generation now: you have to pay [your dues, actual money, etc] to break into the ground level of this field. The emphasis on skill and business chops is brushed away, since the more people have in those categories, the tougher spot the venue believes they'll be in if they have to pay the musicians. They don't realize that a better band will draw a better crowd. Their line of thinking goes as far as how much they're making off food and drinks that night, and there doesn't seem to be a world outside of it.

----------------------------------

As a fail-safe, I'm more at ease when I know there's a contract guaranteeing a predetermined amount of money being paid to the band. That way, I only have to deal with the contractor (if I'm not the contractor myself) for my bread. As a contractor, I don't do "door" payment. I don't want to deal with soiling my reputation, if a venue refuses to inform even the people walking by, that there's a band inside. On that note, venues will often expect the bands to promote the event entirely by themselves. "Promoters" have largely become the people who pay somebody $30 to design the flyers, and yells at the band to sell tickets. That's not a world I particularly like living in.

There an unnerving quality to a gig where I know the band's getting paid off the door, or as jazz_trpt said, when a hat's being passed around. This type of arrangement will make anybody question their own worth as a musician, and that's not something anybody who's spent years trying to improve needs to contend with. Personally, I've done nationally-televised performances, have played with a list of Grammy-winning artists, and have worked a fortune 500 entertainment company as a performer. To wait around for $18 at the end of the night, isn't something I feel is worth my time. If it so happens that way, I always establish with the contractor that it'll be my last gig of that type of arrangement. I'm fine offering leeway for the next gig, so long as I know what I'm walking away with at the end.

We've all had gigs that didn't need to go awry, however. I was left with non-payment for a 2nd gig with a group (after being promised it, and the gig before, would be made good on, monetarily). I didn't say much to the band leader after that, but explained in a very polite email that I was holding the entire horn section's books, a guitar amp, and 4 microphones ransom until he fixed the issue. I turned down another gig that night, because I thought his as going to be worth my while. The mistake was made, and I spelled out exactly what the situation was to him. A month and a half later, he "found" the money to pay me, and I dropped off the hostage items. It was non-ironically, the night before he had the group playing somewhere else. I know for a fact he got paid, and the check didn't bounce.

The less guess work I have to do with my income, the better. There's no reason musicians should be the barnacled underbelly of the professional world. Someone shows up to work all week, is promised a fair wage, and receives it in redeemable form in good time. That's the paragon of how a professional atmosphere works, and I strive for nothing less. What I do is largely project based, rather than something of a long-standing nature. The stigma of what musicians are, has largely ruined the field of professional music for us. Some people committed to living low on the hog, and in shady confines, and it became the running jokes that all musicians were like that, prior to it become more of a reality over the last 50-60 years. The thick paint of dignity has been greatly stripped from this profession, and replaced with sloppy graffiti slather with gang tags, and the overuse of "...wuz here".

We can stop this, though, by not taking crappy gigs. Let them die. The market's smaller for live entertainment than it was in the past, and has to compete with canned stuff and DJs, but it can grow if the muck is swept away.
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Jeff Mason

[tptguy]

<<I tell them that they already have a reputation . . . a reputation for playing for next to nothing.>>

Rich, Love your quote! If one has a national pop reputation then he/she can charge accordingly. However, all except for a relatively few union scale gigs and the small, select handful of nationally renowned musicians, we are all competing with the "next to nothings". In truth, I admit to playing more than a reasonable number of low paying gigs. But, I'll be honest enough to recognize that this hurts us all. An amateur plumber is easily identified by the leaky pipes he leaves behind. Unfortunately, working musicians are most often judged by amateur ears. And most listeners are very easily pleased by this. It's a hard row to plow and, unfortunately, I don't have a decent counter apart from your clever retort. My question is sincere, what the heck can be done to protect the honest value of higher level musicianship in an age of synthesizes and drum machines? Has our age ended and are we left with the dredges of the entertainment industry? Is there enough of an art industry left to support more than a small few?

[crzytptman]

Good point, Kyle. My answer is to make sure your local schools have good jazz programs. Maybe offer to do some low paying gigs at school assemblies. Start training your audience now.

I have found that people respond positively to good, in your face live music played with conviction. The problem is, most kids nowadays are not exposed to such, as you say. The more kids you can get into good music programs, the more discerning listeners we'll have. They're not all gonna be players, but will have developed an appreciation for good live music.

On topic, I often wonder if the chef, waitstaff and bartender are under the same pressure to pack the joint? I've never seen a chef handing out flyers or doing an email blast.

"Hey, you cook some real nice dishes, but you just don't bring the people in. I've got this other chef who wants to cook here that will work for beer. He's not nearly as good as you, but he has a great following . . ."
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[hankinsmd]

[farnellnewton]

In Portland the main two clubs now are Jimmy Mak's and Ivories! Jimmy Mak's used to give a $100 upfront plus you will get the door. With Ivories I get a set Guarantee for each person in the band plus dinner and drinks covered. As far as covers go, if it goes over the price of the guarantee I get the difference. Which in my case I have always been fortunate for having great crowds at my gigs.

My thing is when you have 5 of some of the best musicians in the city on the stage and there is only 4 people in the audience. To me is sad plus that means the club didnt make money but is just spending money on the bands. You only can do that for so long!

They might need to have different situations for different bands.
_________________
Denis Wick Artist 4C & 3E
Cannonball 789-RL Stone Series Trumpet
"The Raven"

Farnell Newton
Professor of Jazz Trumpet
Portland State University

Trumpeter, Composer & Hip Hop Producer
(503) 997-2071
www.farnellnewton.com

[farnellnewton]

[mbradd]

Here's an interesting blog that I came across awhile ago. I agree with these sentiments.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/78468650/La-Club-Owners
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[farnellnewton]