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1. Questionably Legal Chapter one explains the fact that I’m not a lawyer and that I’m not qualif ied to offer legal advice. It explains that the contracts and recommendations in this book are offered by a seasoned performer and promoter with 30 years of experience, but that bands might be well advised to consult a registered attorney before actually using them. This protects both you and me f rom future lawsuits when someone uses one of our contracts and f inds out up the road that it didn’t include provisions for who’s responsible in the event of a UFO landing on a crowd during a show. But the good news is, according to the Federal Trade Commission, we’re required to post a not ice here that all contracts contained in this book are for entertainment purposes only.

2. Getting Your Act Together

This second chapter is about gett ing ready to rumble. Anybody can promote their way into a major Vegas Casino, regardless of how good, or bad, their act is. Problem is, once you stand in f ront of a crowd and bomb once, it ’ l l forever sit in the background and haunt you. A good promoter can get a bad act top bil l ing, but only once. Af ter you’ve tried to perform beyond your abil i ty and talent, you might as well pack it up and go home. Word wil l be out that you can’t be trusted and that your show made promises it couldn’t keep. We discuss the importance of paying attent ion to quality, variety and detail. I also break down the 5 major parts involved in doing a show, any show (equipment, talent, venue, promotion and support staff ), and how you can make more money by accept ing responsibil i ty for more than just your voice and guitar. Finally, chapter two includes a reality check of sorts. Are you serious enough to make the kind of commitment that ’ l l take you to the top? Are you wil l ing to travel? Are you wil l ing to take the t ime to promote? Can you stand the typical problems professional performers invariably f ind themselves dealing with (broken marriages, distanced kids, few “real” f riends, etc.).

3. Selling the Package

Chapter three offers a general overview of the process of market ing a show. We discuss the importance of offering a solid promo package and how to best use posters, f lyers, demo tapes, and show cards to sell and market a show. I also discuss innovat ive ways to get these various tools at discounts or even for f ree. This chapter also brief ly covers the ins and outs of cold call ing, networking and referral business. It ’s a chapter aimed at out l in ing the “big picture” map to success.

4. Role Playing

Chapter four is a natural sequel to chapter three. It explains the roles of a talent agent, manager, press agent, PR person, advance man, taxman, lawyer, accountant and ad agency in the career of a successful band. This

5

chapter could be considered an encyclopedic overview of the business. It also offers hints and t ips on how to take on some or all of these responsibil i t ies on your own and how to make the overall package a success.

5. Club Dates This chapter discusses all the opt ions available to a band when booking club dates. It covers some of the theory of negotiat ion, and various industry “tricks” that guarantee you more money and “goodies” in your package. We’l l talk about four wall ing (rent ing the hall and doing it al l yourself ), working for the door, working for a percentage of the drinks, even the implicat ions of working for a percentage of the club ownership. It also discusses copyrights (American and Internat ional), t rademarks, foreign work permits, contracts (both with clubs and among band members) and how to manage a powerful mail ing l ist .

6. Taking It On The Road

Again, this chapter comfortably f i ts direct ly following chapter 5. Where local gigs depend on reputat ion and local fol lowing, road gigs are strict ly about promotion. Taking It On The Road is a chapter about touring. It discusses the logist ics of booking a tour and offers plenty of advice on how to make the most out of the experience. Booking hotels at a discount, “rules” for gett ing along as you travel, arranging to get your mail, phone calls and messages are all covered in this chapter.

7. Working The Media

Gett ing airplay, arranging for talk show appearances, “sneaky” exposure secrets and what to do once you’re on the air are all covered in this chapter that covers the various aspects of wine and dinning the press. This chapter also introduces you to the concept of press agenting (which was discussed brief ly in chapter four) and offers a few examples of successful press agent packages.

8. Record Production

Chapter eight covers the gambit of record product ion. Should you self produce or should you hold out for a larger label? Is it worth it to do it yourself in the garage or should you pay for studio t ime? How should you market your record? What makes a record sellable? How can t ie ins make it easier to promote a record? All the ins and outs of ending up with your own record are covered in this easy to understand, step-by-step guide.

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9. Playing For Money

This chapter combines everything explained in the book so far and neatly puts it all into place. It also outlines; - How to use various available venues and markets(most that are often overlooked) to make extra income with your music. And- How to make “supply and demand” work to your advantage.

10. Thanks For The Memories

The sad truth of the matter is that only a very select handful of bands actually make it to the proverbial “top”. If your goal is to become f i l thy rich and a household name, probabil i ty says you’re destined to a l i fe of misery and disappointment. In Thanks For The Memories I wrap up this book with a warm, realist ic look at the pleasures of being “on your way”. I encourage bands to savor the moments, enjoy the ride. Af ter it ’s all said and done, even if they never become one of the “greats” they’l l a lways be able to say they f lew much higher than most and when they came down, they brought with them memories few have shared. Kenny Rogers once said he most enjoyed his l i fe when he was street performing in the streets of San Francisco and wasn’t sure if he’d make enough to pay his hotel b il l . I’m suggest ing that it ’s those “me against the world” experiences that make show business so intoxicat ing. Anybody who wastes their t ime looking at pastures on the other side of the river is throwing away the real treasure.

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Chapter One

Why You Shouldn’t Read This Book

Imagine your local janitor deciding he wants to write a book about the

intricacies of doing brain surgery. He buys a manual or two and starts

organizing his facts. Eventually he ends up with a great looking manual he’s

not really qualif ied to write. But, heck, it has good-looking pictures and the

instruct ions are so simple even a janitor could understand them.

In many ways, that ’s exact ly what’s happening here. This book is packed

full of facts we’re really not qualif ied to offer you. It makes all kinds of legal

suggest ions, and we’re not lawyers. In fact, i f you decide to take our advice and

end up in trouble, we could be l iable of some crazy sounding charge that would

translate into “trying to act l ike a lawyer when you’re not”. It also has all kinds

of information about how to sell your show to a club owner and a record label,

and we’ve never owned a club or record studio.

So why would we decide to write a book on breaking into the music

industry? With all the many bands that have tried and failed over the years,

what makes us think we’re qualif ied to offer advice worth paying for?

No, we’re not lawyers, so we can’t off icial ly hand you a contract and tell

you it ’ l l work for you. But we’ve drawn f rom the experience of plenty of

individuals who do know what they’re talking about. We draw heavily on the

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experiences of a promoter f riend of ours who has helped several well know

performers make it in the business. We’ve asked several club owners to tell us

the secrets to gett ing booked in quality clubs. We’ve drawn together the advice

of agents, entertainers and producers to f ind out what it takes to make it in the

business. One guy that worked closely with us used to do a seminar ent it led

“This Business Called Show Business” where he carefully researched a lot of

the very topics we deal with here.

And this book is writ ten f rom a press agent’s point of view. A f riend of

ours has spent 30 years manipulat ing the media, and creat ing “events” where

there really were non. If you’re old enough to remember the “Hands Across

America” event that took place in the mid 80’s, i t was based on a concept he

created for a similar event in Orange County, California. He’s learned a few

sure f ire tricks that can work for you, and he’s given us permission to tel l you

about them. Instead of te l l ing you how to tune a guitar, we’re going to tell you

how to talk the local media into giving you f ree publicity. Instead of trying to

explain rate charts to you, we’re going to tell you about George Evans, a Vegas

press agent.

A young lounge singer once hired Evans to try and make him a success.

Evans went to one of his cl ient ’s shows and not iced a girl who had just come

out of a wedding chapel quiet ly walk up and place a rose f rom her bouquet on

the stage at the performer’s feet. It sparked an idea. He hired a group of girls

at f ive dollars each, to attend his next concert and swoon. A couple of them

were told to toss roses at the stage. The next day, as the actors got busy, the

unpaid mob followed. Women started yell ing and kissing the singer’s picture.

One of them got so worked up she actually fainted. Suddenly the press couldn’t

get enough of this guy who a week earl ier wasn’t able to hold 10 people in his

crowd. And within a month Frank Sinatra had an easily marked road to stardom

laid out before him.

And that ’s what this book is about. It ’s about making it , as told by those

who have. It ’s about gett ing past all the myths and rumors that hold beginning

bands down and carefully laying out a roadmap to success. We’re required by

law to tell you should probably consult a lawyer before taking any of our legal

9

advice (so consider yourself warned). But what do lawyers know? Do you really

want someone who specializes in gett ing all the child support possible in a

divorce decree deciding what’s important to include in your contract? Or would

you rather hear it f rom someone who’s stood on a stage and found the

f loorboards were loose? Would a lawyer know that Pink Floyd used to include a

clause in their agreements that asked for a bowl of red jelly beans to be placed

in their hotel room because they knew if the beans were wait ing for them,

chances are, someone had taken the t ime to be as meticulous about all the

other t iny clauses in their contract? This book could easily be called “A GUIDE

TO THE ‘ INSIDERS SECRETS’ THAT WORKED FOR OTHERS”.

And the good news is that, according to the Federal Trade Commission,

We’re required to tell you that all advice offered in this book is to be used for

entertainment purposes only!

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Chapter Two

Getting Your Act Together

Before you’re f inished with this book, you’re going to know what it takes to book a show in a major venue. You’l l know all the “insider secrets” that can take you to the top. In fact, I can almost guarantee that if you follow the advice we’ve laid out in this book, you’l l end up with your big break, but it ’ l l only happen once.

You’l l book that “big t ime” show at the larger casino, and you’l l bask in the glory of feeling you’ve f inally arrived. You’l l go out and buy that smoke machine you’ve always wanted and you’l l mail comped t ickets to that High School teacher that told you you’d never make it .

And then you’l l walk out on stage. The l ights wil l go on and the crowd wil l sit quiet ly wait ing for that f irst note. Your mother wil l smi le, and your f riends wil l s it up. And you’l l suddenly realize there’s no turning back. It ’s too late to perfect that one chord change and you’l l suddenly start wondering if maybe you don’t need some girl in a short skirt up near the f ront.

And then it ’ l l a l l begin. And whatever you do wil l end up carved in the stone annals of your history. If you make too many mistakes, everybody wil l know you aren’t casino material. The club manager wil l probably make a mental note to have his caller ID screen out your calls, as he starts ca ll ing his f riends to warn them about you. The fans that thought you were great at the corner bar wil l suddenly be ashamed to admit they ever knew you. And chances are you’l l have to move to another country if you want another “big break”.

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The point we’re trying to make is that success is 20% talent and 80% promotion. Every larger city is full of lousy lounge singers making a decent l iving because they know how to “wine and dine” the club managers. As long as they stay in these $80 a night dives, nobody wil l be offended. The club owner wil l be able to advert ise that he has l ive entertainment without having to pay for i t . Patrons wil l be happy to hear some noise somewhere in the background as they run around trying to l ine up companions to go home with. This isn’t show business or entertainment. That guy is just a badly made poster that draws people in the door.

I remember a f riend of mine te ll ing me about his career doing comedy shows. He was real nervous about how he came across. Would people really think he was worth paying for? Should he offer to give back part of their money? His self esteem was about as low as it could be. As he f inished his set, his contract read that he had to walk to the back of the room and say goodnight to patrons as they walked out. As he did, a magical thing happened. People started shaking his hand and tell ing him he was wonderful. They told him they had never laughed so much in all of their l ives. And he ate it up. He knew he must have been incredible. Heck, even the cute girls said he was good. He went home and plopped himself down on the couch. This was heaven. He had f inally made it . He was incredible, and if anybody doubted that all they needed to do was l isten to the 400 plus people who had just said so. Suddenly his self esteem was shooting through the roof .

And for several years he l ived up there, f loat ing around in the clouds somewhere. And then he tells me he remembers going to see an “old t imer” do a show. As he sat in the audience he couldn’t help but wonder how this guy had gotten the gig. Heck this guy was just this side of terrible. His humor was weak and his t iming was way off . But he had somehow managed to do it for 20 or so years. As my f riend watched, he couldn’t help but wonder why nobody had ever told the old t imer how bad he sounded. And then the show ended. As my f riend watched the guy, he not iced the performer as he made his contractually st ipulated dash for the back door. During his “meet and greet” period he stood there making eye contact with each person as they walked out. And they all reached out and shook his hand. And they told him how great he was. Some said they hadn’t laughed that much in all their l ives. And he believed them. He didn’t realize they had no choice in the matter. Common courtesy says you’re supposed to tell the entertainer you l iked him, even if you’re secret ly wondering if you can get a refund on your t ickets. And for 20 years this old-t imer’s self esteem was f loat ing around up there with my f riend’s, somewhere up in the clouds. He never came down far enough to take a good close look at his show. Nobody around him dared to tell him the truth. It ’s much l ike the story of the Emperor’s new clothes. Everybody knew he was naked, but nobody dared face the embarrassment of having to challenge his pride.

And the bad news is, as long as that guy, or for that matter, as long as my f riend was all caught up in himself , he never stood any chance of changing. He couldn’t grow or get better as long as he l istened to the well meaning crowds trying to spare his feelings at the back door. He needed someone to give him a wake up call that would let him take a realist ic look at what he was really l ike.

A promoter f riend of mine tells of a talk he once had with the band leader for a group you would def initely recognize if I told you. In fact, theirs is one of the legendary songs in rock and roll. If I asked you to l ist the 10 greatest (non

12

Beatles) songs ever writ ten, you would be sure to include theirs. It ’s a song with a very dist inct ive opening and a melody you go home playing over and over in your head.

When the promoter met them they had past their day in the son and were now playing a smaller club in Los Angeles. As they talked, the leader asked the promoter what he would suggest they do if they wanted to get back in the l imelight. My f riend told him he needed to write some new songs. The singer’s immediate response was that he already had close to 50 songs he had writ ten. My f riend told him he disagreed. He explained that the singer actually only had about 3 songs he had writ ten. He had writ ten the one song that had stayed on the best seller l ist for months and a second song they played under a dif ferent name (because it was a style of music very dif ferent f rom the one they were known for). This second best sel l ing song was also very dist inctive and memorable. Both these songs show up regularly on oldies and classic rock and roll programs. The promoter explained to the singer that every other song of his sounded ident ical f rom the audience’s point of view. They all had the same basic beat and the guitar rif fs might as well have come f rom the same sheet music. In fact, considering how loud and powerful their music was, the lyrics pretty much disappeared under the volume. The singer didn’t believe my f riend, claiming he had worked hard on each one of them. So they decided to set up a bet.

That night, during their concert, the singer told his audience they were going to play a game. The band was going to play the music to 10 of their more popular songs and they were going to see who could ident ify them f irst . My f riend says it was actually pretty funny. Most of the songs started with the exact same opening guitar l ick and the drums cold have been lef t running all through the game. Except for a few lucky guesses, the crowd wasn’t able to successfully ident ify a single song. Non, except for the two songs that had made it to the chart , each of which are very easily ident if iable af ter the f irst 3 or 4 notes.

They had done in music what my comedian f riend had done in comedy. The band had done just enough right to get not iced (nat ionally) and then had coasted on their laurels. They made mil l ions sell ing two songs to concert crowds that didn’t know how to tell them there wasn’t much more worth l istening to in their repertoire. In fact, even the crowds were sucked in to their “glory” by mob psychology. Everybody said these guys were good, so they must be. Everybody had heard their one song (remember the second one made it to the top, but they never, to this day, took credit for it ). Everybody thought their one hit was great. And the rest of their concert was l i t t le more than f i l ler. Everybody said they were wonderful, so it was perfect ly alright for individuals to yell and scream on cue every t ime the lead singer swung his guitar or the drummer did a drum solo.

Show business is about l iving in reality. It isn’t the “normal” world where people l ive in denial and everybody worries about hurt ing each other’s feelings. When someone paid money to see you perform, they’re expecting to get what they paid for. If you can’t deliver, i t ’s ult imately going to ref lect on your chances of staying in business. You haven’t really reached the point of deserving the t it le of “professional” unt i l you welcome crit icism. You aren’t really ready to grow and become successful i f you st i l l have a chip on your shoulder.

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It ’s l ike watching your f riend walking out the door wearing those weird pink and purple polka dotted pants. You know everybody is going to make fun of him behind his back, and he’s going to ult imately wonder why everybody is avoiding him. If you really consider him your f riend, you’l l say something to him. You’l l g ive him a chance to do something about it before he embarrasses himself . But all too of ten what should be done and what is done are two ent irely dif ferent realit ies. Far too many people are more interested in avoiding the possibil i ty of conf rontat ion than they are in helping their f riend avoid embarrassment. Of course, if the f riend had made it clear that he wanted your opinion and was wil l ing to accept it as a friend, the chances of him walking out dressed funny would be much less. If the band with the two hits above had developed at least a handful of f riends that were really wil l ing to be honest with them, they could have turned their two wonder career into a l i fet ime of achievements. Instead, they walked out with their pride untarnished and their career severely hampered.

Step back and take a good close look at your band. How dist inct ive is their sound? Can you tell one song f rom the next? Do audiences really l ike you or are they just doing what they guess they’re supposed to do? Before stepping out on that big stage, you need to know for sure. Show business is very unforgiving. And the real success happens right now, before anybody sees you. If you’re wil l ing to take the t ime to polish down all the rough edges, once that big moment comes along, you’l l be ready. And that’s what this chapter is all about, gett ing you ready to tackle the step by step process of working your way to the top that ’s out l ined in the rest of the book.

Kenny Rogers was once interviewed on a radio talk show during the t ime when he was generally considered to be the highest paid solo performer in America. At the t ime he brought in mil l ions per show. He joked about making enough money to be able to buy a brand new wardrobe before every show so he wouldn’t have to be bothered to do his laundry. They talked about his hobby in interior decorat ing and how he regularly had large statues or massive pieces of furniture shipped f rom remote corners of the world to one of his several houses around the country just because he through they’d look good “in that one corner”. The interviewer asked him at what point in his career was he the happiest. Without hesitat ing, he immediately said he was at his best, he felt the most fulf i l led, when he was a lonely street performer hoping to make enough to be able to pay for his hotel room at the end of the week. It was the excitement of making it one day at a t ime based only on his talents. The feeling of walking out without a penny in your pocket and coming home with enough money to pay rent and afford a nice dinner. Today the money’s there, but he’s no longer in a “survival mode”. He just goes to work, does his thing and goes home to enjoy the rewards. It ’s a dream everybody says their hoping for, but a dream that obviously isn’t al l i t ’s cut out to be. Ask Elvis, or Mari lyn Monroe. Ask Freddie Prince. They all made it to the “big t ime” only to f ind it wasn’t what they were looking for. According to Kenny Rogers, the struggle is the fun part .

And that ’s probably the t ime you’re going through right now. Wondering if you’l l be able to make enough at this to pay your b il ls. Trying to rehearse enough so you really understand each other’s temperament and talents. It ’s the t ime that separates those who wil l eventually make it f rom those who won’t. What happens when you f inally walk out on that big stage depends ent irely on what you do now. This is the t ime to develop the talent. It ’s the t ime to work out all the kinks. Today is the t ime to prepare for whatever level of show you hope

14

to someday do. If your goal is to make it to the top, it has to begin by becoming star material right now. Before anybody sees you or agrees to someday book you. You need to decide right now that it ’s something you want enough to be wil l ing to take the t ime to really be ready when the t ime comes. Once you get that call that asks if you’re able to do a show in, say, 30 days, i t ’ l l be too late to start gett ing ready. At that point you must have all your ducks properly l ined up, or you’l l be best served turning your big break down.

In the next chapter we’l l actually go through the entire process of sell ing yourself to several dif ferent markets. We’l l d iscuss networking and some of the ways you can get your name out there. But f irst , let ’s talk a bit about negot iat ing. If you truly understand the elements of a good negotiat ion package, you’l l f ind that powerful negotiating, and understanding the big picture is actually the secret that ’ l l make it or break it for you.

Imagine I have a car I’m try ing to sell you. We’ve discussed it ’s book value and I’ve pointed out that I installed a quality radio in it . You mentioned the dent in the right fender, and we’ve gotten to that crucial point when we have to discuss price. Typically that ’s how most negotiat ions take place. All the other details are ironed out and then both part ies sett le on a price. That ’s the way it ’s done “normally”, and there couldn’t possibly be any worst way to try and reach an agreement. If that ’s the way you sell your car, ult imately, you lost the batt le before you even started talking.

What happens when two part ies start haggling over a price? It doesn’t take long before it becomes a pride issue. Both part ies are interested in proving they were right, and the price they aimed at should be paid. Unless both part ies began with the same exact price in mind, the chances of both part ies leaving sat isf ied is virtually nil. If I asked, say, for $1000 on my car and you immediately took me up on it , what would go through my head? I’d probably wonder if I had asked for enough. In fact, i f you’re too quick to buy, I’d probably walk out convinced I must have undercharged you and ult imately I’d feel I had been suckered. If I of fered to sell i t for $1000 and you counter offered that you were wil l ing to pay $800, which I immediately agreed on, then what would happen? You’d walk away feeling you probably didn’t bid low enough. The bottom line is, regardless of how things work out, if the only item on the table is price, then one or both of us wil l a lways walk away feeling cheated. From an entertainers point of view, that ads up to promotional suicide. You’l l e ither walk away f rom a client that feels he’s been taken and doesn’t feel l ike call ing you back, or you’l l walk in to a show feeling you aren’t appreciated and wondering if you ever want to work with that cl ient again.

So how do you get around the “price trap”? Suppose I told you I was wil l ing to offer you the car for $1000 and you counter offered $800. Instead of haggling and eventually “sett l ing” for $900 (which means we both walked out feeling a l i t t le bit taken), suppose I added something to the mix? Imagine I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t shown you the 100 CD changer in the trunk that had cost me $600 and I was wil l ing to include in that price. Now what are you going to think? Suddenly price isn’t the issue. We’re now discussing perceived value. A car you thought was worth $800 suddenly went up in value by an extra $600. Of course, what I don’t tel l you is that I had taken the CD changer out of my other car when I upgraded to a better system, so even though I had originally paid $600 for it , I really didn’t consider it worth much when placed next to the deluxe model I had in my personal car. Basically, by

15

forcing the negot iat ion into the intangible, we suddenly found ourselves agreeing on the price I had asked for without offending anybody.

If I didn’t have any “new features” to show you, I might toss in one of several other items that might sweeten the pot for you. Suppose you mentioned your 5 year old son was having a birthday in a month and I just happened to be a part t ime clown. I could agree to do your sons party f ree of charge as a “tossed in” way of making sure you were happy with the deal. If I could convince you that enough people actually had paid $300 for an hour of my t ime, you would walk out feeling you got a great “package” deal. Instead of insult ing you and demanding you merely come up with the added money, I was wil l ing to offer you something valuable in return to make up for your concessions. Truth be told, even if I could show you that others had been wil l ing to pay me, say $800 for an hour of my t ime, I’m st i l l only talking about an hour. And considering he didn’t come in looking to hire me, it ’s probably an hour I would have spent sit t ing in f ront of the television. Again, we both feel we ended up with a great deal, and, ult imately, I got my full $1000 for the car.

You probably get the idea. The more “extras” I have hidden away in my back pocket, the easier it ’ l l be to come to a win-win situat ion. In show business, there is no such thing as a win-lose proposit ion. If either party walks out feeling they have lost, then both part ies def initely lose. Successful show business depends heavily on repeat business. Your cl ients all need to leave convinced they got one heck of a deal with your show. They need to be out there conf ident ly recommending you to f riends and they need to be ready to hire you again the next t ime you call. Anything else would be nothing less than a long, t iresome road to the top.

So how do you introduce extra variables into a show? Most performance deals sound so simple and predictable. The club normally has budgeted $500 they pay weekly for their band, so you have to f ight to prove you’re worthy of the money. What could be simpler?

Actually, f rom a promoters point of view, that ’s just the f irst variable in a package that can be much, much more complicated. It might help some here if we paused long enough to carefully look over the 5 basic components of any show.

The f irst i tem needed for a successful show is props. To a juggler that means juggling pins and a pair of t ight pants. To a musician that means a sound system and a sharp guitar.

The second component of a successful program is talent. Stage presence, number of songs you know and how much you paid attent ion in voice classes all come into play here.

The third component is venue. Where are you doing the show? An open f ield? A converted warehouse? Carnegie Hall?

The fourth item is support staff . Who mans the f ront door? Who serves the drinks? Who works the l ights?

And f inally is promotion. Who buys the ads in the paper and who prints the posters?

A successful show is the sum total of these f ive elements. A really successful show is the sum total of each of these elements done with excellence. Unfortunately, as in the proverbial chain analogy, the total strength of your show can be measured in terms of which of these elements is the weakest. You can do a perfect performance in the ideal showroom to a sold out crowd being served by veteran waiters, but if you keep breaking guitar strings,

16

that ’s all the crowd is going to remember. If everything else is perfect, but the air condit ioning unit isn’t working, all your crowd is going to remember is that the experience was unpleasant.

All f ive of these elements need to be done perfect ly in order to end up with a perfect show. Tradit ionally the band has accepted responsibil i ty for the f irst two items, their props and talent. Clubs or venues have tradit ionally worried about locat ion, staff and promotion. Before going any further, let me say that as a rule of thumb, the more of the responsibil i t ies you are wil l ing to take on, the more money you can plan on making.

If you agree to be responsible for all the promotion of the show, the club owner wil l see this as a burden off his shoulder and wil l automatically understand that you expect to be paid for your efforts. If you chose to rent a hall and pay for a staff to man the door, then you’ve created a situat ion where there is no middle man to take part of the money. You simply pay the rent, salaries, promotions and misc. expenses and keep all the prof it .

Another advantage to taking on extra responsibil i ty is that you have more say so on the overall package.

Let ’s face it . When you’re up there, you’re responsible. It really doesn’t matter who actually forgot to lower the thermostat, when your audience is sweating during your show, all they’re going to remember was that your show was hot (and that ’s a bad thing! ). It ref lects on you if the service isn’t up to par. Even the dress and the way the waiter combs his or her hair ult imately ref lect on you.

Something else to keep in mind as you consider how much of the bigger picture you’re going to be responsible for, is that you have an inherent edge when it comes to promoting your show. The club owner gets a dif ferent group in there every weekend. He has to insert dif ferent names into the same ads week after week. He can’t afford the more expensive promotional packages. You, on the other hand, wil l be promoting yourself week af ter week. It ’ l l probably pay off for itself nicely if you go on and spend, say, $800 to have some nice, larger posters made for your show. You’re going to use them week af ter week and they’l l help make you famous. You also know where your strengths l ie. Do you sound good on the radio? Maybe you need to plan a few guest appearances. Or maybe you’re a writer on the side. Try gett ing off a solid press release and promo package to all the major media outlets. If you’re capable of doing a better job than the club owner can, then by all means offer to help. In the long run, it ’ l l ref lect favorably on you, both in the eyes of the audience and those of the manager.

So, as you walk in to talk to the club manager, he has his l i t t le “package” all worked out in his head. He normally spends $300 a week promoting whoever is on stage and pays the talent $500. He charges $3 a person at the door and hopes he sells 235 t ickets (which would let him break even). If he does, he ’l l make a ki l l ing on drinks.

Most bands also have their l i t t le “package” worked out. They have to rehearse 3 t imes a week and each person has bought their own instruments. They show up at the club and do the gig. They then split up the money evenly among the 4 of them. Basically, they are wil l ing to work for 4 hours every Saturday night if they can each take home $125. That ’s the way it is and the way it has been since as far back as both part ies can remember. It ’s a dead end street. The only way the club manager can hope to make any extra money is to spend more, which goes right back to cutt ing into his prof it , or pay the

17

band less money. The band doesn’t begin to have enough to be able to do anything except be thankful for anybody wil l ing to give them a job.

A good promoter/press agent would see this dead end situat ion as a golden opportunity. There is so much both part ies can gain by opening a few extra doors. And whenever both part ies have a lot of extra they can gain, it ’s a sure formula for a solid win-win situat ion.

What can you offer the club owner that he might want? How about some sharp, professionally made 4 color posters? How about a mail ing l ist you’ve nurtured over the years that ’ l l increase his take at the door? Do you think the manager would be interested in being able to give away f ree $10 CD’s of your show to the f irst 150 people in the door as part of the overall package? Suppose you’ve taken the t ime to nurture your relat ionship with the media. Do you think the manager might be excited to f ind that you can get a lot of f ree press for them? How about equipment? Would the manager be impressed if you brought in a complete, digital laser show that played along the wall while you were doing your show? How about a professional video demo tape of you in act ion the club can play at the bar for the week before you show up, to help sell t ickets? How about f ree T-shirts for the staff that have your logo on it during the night of the show? How about f ree autographed posters for anybody who wants one? There are probably 200 dif ferent, tangible items you can easily push on to the negotiat ing table that would set you apart f rom all the other bands. And we haven’t even mentioned the quality and popularity of your show.

Of course, with that much to offer, you might want to consider moving on to a better venue. Maybe that upscale club downtown, or the convention events. Or maybe you should consider accept ing less of a general payment and more of the door. Or maybe drop your payment down to, say, $200 and keep all of the door. There’s all kinds of ways you can negotiate in more money. When we get to the chapter on booking a club we’l l break it al l down for you much better. For now, what’s important is to realize there are plenty of ways to pull out of the old rut. The quest ion is which should you consider and in what order should you use them to focus your career.

One concept you’d do well to keep in mind here is that regardless of who is doing the sell ing, it ’s about gett ing a crowd in a room. The club is stuck having to try and tell enough people around town that you’re performing tonight to hopefully f i l l 235 seats. You, on the other hand, have the dist inct advantage of being able to do everything the club can do, while also keeping track of a group of people that have seen your show in the past and enjoyed it . Before going any further, the f irst step towards being successful, whether it be in and around your town or while touring across the country is to start a powerful mail ing l ist .

These are people you know are interested in your show. Being able to show that l ist to anybody you plan on marketing to wil l be a big ace in the hole. A magician f riend of mine in Los Angeles started a kids magic club. Any kid in town that wanted to could sign up for f ree. In fact, the guy bought mail ing l ists of famil ies with kids and paid to mail them f ree membership kits. If a kid signed up (and had his or her parents consent) he would send them a personalized, laminated membership card, a wall diploma and a monthly newsletter that taught the kids how to do magic. On top of that, he also did at least 3 larger shows a year where only club members and a couple guests (parents?) could attend. All for f ree.

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Doesn’t sound l ike a big money maker, does it? Every bit of that package involved giving things away. Not only did the magician have to do 3 f ree shows a year, but he had to spend a week or so every month designing a newsletter he eventually ended up having to mail, f ree of charge, to a mail ing l ist of about 4000 kids. His monthly overhead, without count ing his t ime, came in right at $500. Just for the privi lege of giving all kinds of stuff away. And that one package ended up making him around $80,000 the second year he had it . That ’s $80,000 af ter paying out all his expenses, including a staff of 3 who eventually did his mail ings and designed his newsletter.

How did he do it? Think about what he had nurtured there. 4000 kids who felt they were members of something. They went around showing off their cards and doing magic tricks for their f riends. Every couple months the magician would organize some kind of event that was f ree to the kids. They might get f ree access to the L.A. Zoo, plus a f ree show if they were wil l ing to spend some t ime collect ing l i t ter in and around the zoo. They might all march in a parade together, wearing matching t-shirts. And they all loved it . The magician, on his part , regularly marketed events using his l ist . Imagine being able to tell the local fair that you have a l ist of 4000 famil ies that are dying to see you perform. Not only would they gladly pay your $2000 show fee, but they would also be more than wil l ing to allow the kids to enter f ree of charge if they were accompanied by a paid adult . And he brokered out hundreds of birthday part ies a month to local magicians that all paid him a $20 commission on their $200 shows. Shows he didn’t have to advert ise for or even promote. And advert isers started l in ing up to buy advert ising space in his newsletter. They more than paid for the letter, the mail ing and the 3 person staff that put it al l together. Once he got the ball roll ing, he ended up growing big enough to where all he did was make money off his mail ing l ist .

Of course we’re talking apples and oranges, right? A band can’t start a kiddie club and plan on making it big, can they? Most bands probably can’t , although The Backstreet Boys seem to have sold quite a few records to the younger set. But that ’s not the focus of this book. We’re not going for the kid market. We are, however, very interested in promoting the same kind of thinking that made that club successful. It worked because the kids all felt they were a part of something and they were well rewarded for their loyalty.

Suppose you started offering a door prize in exchange for people signing up for a mail ing l ist . Every show you did ended up gett ing you an extra 150 names, and all for the cost of one of your CD’s. As the l ist grew, you started mail ing out a quarterly newsletter. In it you included some “insider information” about the kind of music you play and the clubs around town that host it . A featured area would include a l ist ing of places around town where you’d be performing. At f irst you could offer f ree admission for mail ing l ist members. Think about it . You negotiate with the club that you’re going to take, say, $100 plus the door as your salary. You then include the show on your quarterly mailer, tel l ing your “gang” where you’l l be, and how much they’l l save at the door just for being part of your circle of f riends. The club owner doesn’t care if anybody paid at the door or not, since what came in at the door was all yours. All he wants is to sell a lot of drinks. If you mailed out to 2000 offering f ree admission to your show, you’re sure to have to turn people away. Do you think the club owner wil l be impressed? How about the neighbors? If the house is packed (even if ¾ of them were comped) do you think a person would be wil l ing to pay more to get in to the “hot party” in town? How long is it going to be

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before word gets around that whenever you do a show it sells out? Do you think you’l l have a problem talking clubs into paying you, say, $500 plus the door if they know you’re going to pack them in? And the 50 people who actually paid to get in the show would probably be excited to get in to the “happening event” for just $8. Even if every other show in town only cost $3.

And if you have a mail ing l ist of , say 3000 loyal fans, how hard do you think it would be to have someone run around town and gather up discount offers f rom restaurants and local resorts? Imagine being a member of a mail ing l ist (that cost you nothing) but gets you two for one offers at 10 restaurants every issue, gets you in to nightclubs for f ree and cont inues to come up with offers to events you and yours are interested in. Heck, if a big name star is coming to town, they would probably welcome the chance to offer get a f ree l ist ing in a targeted letter that went to individuals that enjoyed their kind of music. If you can promise to tell 3000 people that Madonna wil l be in town, the promoters for her show would probably welcome the chance to give you a 20% discount (and early sales rights) to your readers.

Maintaining and support ing your mail ing l ist is a major part of having something to offer. Remember the 5 parts of a successful show? You now corner 3 of them. Heck, you could easily f i l l a l l f ive. Suppose you scheduled a cruise where the f irst 200 people to sign up would spend a week in the Caribbean having you and a couple of other bands performing night ly at dances your crowd felt comfortable with. You could probably even schedule in a magician or comic to add variety to the event. If you called one of the smaller cruise l ines (that had ships that carried only 200 people) and asked to simply rent the ent ire ship for a private cruise, you could easily get it for a steal. You would be saving them all the costs of advert ising and promoting and all the middle man fees they pay to bookers and travel agents. Virtually every penny that runs that industry would be yours.

You could easily afford to do the ent ire cruise, for about the same price it might normally cost, and make a fortune. Let ’s break it down. Suppose the normal 7 day cruise normally sold for $1500 a person (which is a low est imate). If you offered your “Caribbean Jam” for just $1000 per person, sell ing 200 t ickets, you could plan on making $200,000 gross on the event. Of course, even at the discounted price, $1000 is a lot of money. But only if you have to pay it al l at once. Suppose you offered to hold seats for the f irst 200 people that could come up with $100 deposit . Then you spread out the payments over the course of , say, 9 monthly payments of $100. Now, suddenly it becomes much more affordable. And the group that ’s coming with you has not only made a commitment, but wil l be a captive audience for 10 months. Part of the deal could include f ree admission to all your shows between now and then and a private “let ’s get to know each other” Christmas party in December. Plenty of “you’re the elite crowd” kind of stuff that culminates with a week in the Caribbean.

The ship would probably rent for somewhere around $50,000 for the week, which would cover all the meals, etc. If you allow them to run their casino and gif t shops on board during the event, which would give them some extra take in the deal, you might even be able to talk them down to $45,000. Knowing you’re going to do the Caribbean, you could probably strike a deal with a club or two at one of your ports of call. For an extra, say, $800, you’l l set up and play at a club in Montego Bay. The club owner would be told you are bringing in 200 tourists which wil l probably enjoy coming to see you in a tropical sett ing.

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He’l l see 200 drinking Americans on top of anybody else in town. You’l l see an extra $800.

Out of the $150,000 you have lef t af ter paying for the ship, you’l l have to pay for, say, 2 other bands to come down and rotate with you and a Vegas juggling duo. How much do you think you’d have to pay a band to play for a week if you offered to include in the deal f lying them down to Miami and paying for their cruise? Your f riends would probably l ine up for the chance to pay to be a part of this. Your jugglers might cost a bit more. Let ’s just say you’re going all out here. You agree to pay each performing team $1000 a night for 7 night of work. If you only have 200 people on board, chances are you aren’t going to be running more than two shows a night, so that ’s very conservat ive, but going all out l ike that, you now have a bil l for an extra $21,000. You’re now down to “just” $129,000 prof it . You want everybody to feel they got a great deal (so they talk it up for next year’s party cruise). So you pay to have everybody enjoy a banquet at a casino in San Juan. If you call the larger casinos in town ahead of t ime and get them negotiat ing against each other, i t won’t be too hard to get a great deal on the meals of 200 people that ’ l l be coming in and probably staying around to gamble. Heck if you can’t talk someone into giving you the meals for f ree then you might want to reconsider your profession. Casinos do it al l the t ime for the bus tours, and the Caribbean casinos regularly f ly in groups of “high rollers” f rom the states, f ree of charge. But just for argument sake, lets imagine you had to pay $10 a person to let them feast out in style. If you end up paying that much for that big a crowd, they better agree to comp you t ickets to one of their Vegas style acts. You’ve just added another $2000 to your overhead. Your prof it now stands at $127,000. How about a “goodies” package for every cruise goer? You could include your CD (perhaps even a “special collectors edit ion” autographed CD with a l imited, numbered run of exact ly 200, including a special “I Love The Caribbean” song and a select ion or two f rom each of the other bands traveling with you), a special cruise T-shirt (that ’ l l te l l everybody all of next year that they went on your cruise) and a cruise cap. If you budget in, say, $8 per CD, $10 for the shirt and $7 for the cap, you now just spent another $25 per person on things that ’ l l g ive them all bragging rights to help you promote for next year. At $25 a person, t imes 200, you now added $5000 to your bil l . You now are lef t nett ing just $122,000. If you went all out and paid $100,000 for the ship, instead of just $50,000, you would st i l l end up with $72,000 prof it . Heck, if you cut $20,000 off the top and stored it away in order to make next years success a sure thing you’d st i l l have enough lef t over to buy a pretty fancy sound system to the tune of $52,000.

And all you did was give away a few CD’s to people as they came into your show. You can even get the various clubs where you work and local t ravel agencies to help you sell them. Every t ime they get a $100 deposit f rom someone that ’s interested, you give them a $50 commission. If you get enough people out there talking it up (and making $50 every t ime they sold one), i t shouldn’t be too hard to sell your full boat. A visit to a few civic groups where you offer them $50 a person for every commitment they get as a fund raiser would probably get you started nicely. If al l 200 people were sold by commissioned sales people (and not by you), you’d end up paying an extra $10,000 for the effort . And your total discounted take (af ter stashing away the $20,000 for promoting next year) would work out to $42,000. If you set up a payment plan l ike this one, it ’ l l start gett ing you a regular income coming in every month. You have to be sure you allow enough to pay your b il ls, but you

21

can also draw f rom your income to take out full page ads in local papers, posters all over town, whatever it ’ l l take to sell any remaining t ickets near the end of the run.

Once your general mail ing l ist gets big enough, provided you’ve been taking the t ime to print your newsletter up nicely, you can probably count on gett ing more than a few advert isers. Local record stores and clubs would probably love to get l isted. Singles clubs and music teachers would probably l ine up for a chance to get in on this. Major sponsors (l iquor, sodas, sneakers, etc.) would be naturals for this kind of thing. Basically, by support ing the l ist yourself unt i l you had, say, 5000 or more people on it , you’ve now grown big enough to where you can afford to let someone else pay to promote you.

That ’s how a promoter thinks, and that ’s the kind of stuff we’re going to be diving pretty deeply into in this book. But before we get too far into the theory part of the book, this might be a good t ime to do a solid reality check.

Making a band move is serious business. It ’s not a hobby that just happens to pay a lot of money. Granted there are a few lucky types out there that sat around in a park playing songs for their kids and were suddenly discovered by some major record label. But don’t get your hopes up. They’re very few and far between. Realist ically you’l l need to decide up f ront, before you get going, if you’re ready to make the commitment. Because once you’re on the road, it ’s hard to step back out. It takes a lot of work to get moving, and it ’s rough to dedicate your l i fe to something only to discover up the road it isn’t what you were hoping it would be.

First you’l l need to decide if you’re really ready for the emotional and mental tol l you can plan on having as a member of a band. There’s long hours and cancelled dates. It ’s a l i festyle that calls for a lot of work and dedicat ion long before you see a penny of prof it . It ’s about long nights and having women hit t ing on you. That may sound l ike fun, but it makes for all kinds of problems if you plan on having a family.

And then there’s the travel. Let ’s face it . If you really want to make it big, you’l l probably have to schedule at least some traveling. You need to have enough possible venues wait ing for you so you aren’t cornered into depending on the one club in town to pay all your bil ls. There’s something magical about knowing there are 8 clubs ready to hire you any t ime you want to work. You can afford to turn down gigs that don’t pay enough and you can demand the kind of respect you feel you deserve. Unless you l ive in a larger city, chances are you’l l end up having to market yourself within a larger radius. You might also plan an actual tour. Clubs are much more l ikely to hire you if you tell them you’re f rom out of town and wil l be passing through their town on a given week. It makes it sound l ike they get just one chance to hire the person important enough to command a music tour.

And remember, you’re touring with the band. If you have personality conf l icts, you can count on bringing them to a head while on the road. Tempers tend to f lare, egos are easily bruised. It ’s usually a growing experience, but all growth tends to bring along its share of pain.

And somebody in your band is going to have to get busy promoting you. It involves a lot of call ing and mail ing. You have to make meetings and keep commitments. It ’s about constant ly digging for new markets and then attacking them with everything you’ve got. It ’s about creat ing fame. Making people see you as having already made it , and then riding the wave unt i l you reach the top.

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And it has to move fast. Once you get going, you can’t slow down. Any hesitat ion or laziness wil l u lt imately translate into wasted momentum. If you just did a radio spot, and a local club agreed to run a b il lboard announcing you were performing, you don’t want to wait 6 months, af ter everybody has forgotten who you are, to do something else. You’re going to need to work out an organized plan of attack and then you’l l need to dedicate long, late hours to putt ing it into effect.

In the next chapter we carefully out l ine the process of se ll ing a show. No, it ’s not about answering the telephone and saying you’re available for a show this coming Friday night. Chapter 3 is sure to offer you plenty of pract ical t ips on how to promote yourself , network, negotiate contracts and cold call ing. We’l l also discuss in detail the various components of a quality promo package and how each piece of the puzzle f its into the bigger picture.

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Chapter Three

Selling the Package

Many of you old t imers assumed there was nothing else worth reading

about in this book and jumped straight to this page. You’re hoping to pick up a

hint or two on how to better sell your bands. If you did that, if you skipped

everything we’ve said to this point, you’ve really cheated yourself . We’ve

already covered how to negotiate fees that are probably 10 t imes what you

make now. We’ve covered a lot of the ins and outs of being successful. We’ve

even out l ined the exact step by step plan to organizing a complete “Ship that

Rocks” Caribbean cruise ship and walk away with over $100,000. If you skipped

the f irst couple chapters, you’ve cheated yourself out of all kinds of important

stuff , so go back there and read it , then you’l l be ready to understand why we

sell shows the way we do.

It ’s hard to write a book l ike this one and keep all the information about

sell ing yourself in one chapter. We’ve already covered a lot of the material

you’l l need to know in sell ing yourself , and we’l l toss in plenty of other stuff in

some of the upcoming chapters. This chapter is more of a toolkit of pract ical

ways to market your act.

And it al l begins with the material you have to offer. Let ’s face it , whether

you want to be a promoter or not, you’re going to soon f ind out your only

chance of making it in this business is to become the best promo agent around.

Every t ime a club looks at what you have, they’re comparing it to that expensive

package they just got f rom some guy out of Nashvil le or Los Angeles. Most club

24

owners and booking agents can spot a beginner before they even open the

envelope. Long before they plug in your cassette, they’ve already decided

whether or not they’re going to l ike you. And it al l has to do with the quality of

your package, how well put together it is and your background.

Promoting yourself is a numbers game. On one hand you have a

promotional kit that costs you a certain amount of money. On the other hand

you have a l ist of clubs and other venues you’d l ike to promote to. Then you

have your budget, or, in most cases, the lack of one. Finally you deal with the

quality of your equipment, what you look l ike and how popular your music is.

Somehow all of this has to blend together to make you successful.

We’re going to start with the assumption that you’re interested in sell ing

your act for the big bucks. You’re t ired of going home with $80 each after

putt ing in 5 hard hours of work. It can be done, and that ’s what this chapter is

all about.

Suppose you mailed out a single f lyer with the picture of your band and

the inscript ion under it that says “We’re Hot Stuff ”. How many f lyers would you

have to mail out to sell a single show? Probably an awful lot . If you sold one in

1,000, that would be incredible. If you f igure print ing, envelope and postage,

you might be able to get away with an overhead in that deal of $0.50 each,

bringing your cost for promoting in right at $500. And the gig you get may pay

right around that amount. So you really didn’t do anything there except risk

your money.

Now suppose you added a cassette tape with a copy of some of your

better songs. Now how many would you have to send out before you sell a

single gig? Considering the number of cassettes the average club owner gets,

your chances of even gett ing a club owner to break into his schedule to plug in

your tape is right up there next to none. 900 packages, going out at probably

$1.50 each might sell a single show. Considering you’ve now invested $1,350 in

promotional packages, it better be a great gig.

Now suppose you put together a package that cost you $10 each. It

includes a sharp poster, great audio tape and a video of you in act ion. Plenty of

25

pictures and a sharp promo pack including quotes and f igures relat ing to your

band. And it al l comes in a real professional looking box. Now suddenly you’ve

worked your way past the crowd. Now, the person gett ing your package wil l

assume you must be good. The quest ion in every bookers mind now would be

whether or not they could afford you. How many of those packages would you

have to send out? If you’re looking for, say, $1,000 a night gigs, you can

probably land one if you mailed out 20 or 30 packages. At ten dollars each,

you now have an overhead of up to $300, and every club you mail to wil l keep

your package while wait ing for the chance to book the “big guys”. Now when

you call, they’re going to be wil l ing to l isten to you, and more than l ikely see

nothing wrong with giving you a chance. And you’l l take home a prof it of $700

the f irst t ime you sell the show.

The point I’m try ing to make here is that most bands never make it

because they aren’t wil l ing to take the t ime to promote themselves right. In

chapter 5 we’re going to discuss all the opt ions available to you when se ll ing

your show to a club. Chapter 9 is going to introduce you to all kinds of hidden

markets you can make all kinds of money in. Chapter 7 wil l help you f igure out

how to get your foot in the door with your local media. All three chapters are

going to depend heavily on having a top notch promo package. This chapter is

aimed at helping you put together the tools you’l l need to work those other

markets.

It al l starts with some good promo shots. You need some good pictures.

No, you’re not looking for something your girlf r iend shot with an instamatic.

These need to be top quality photography done by a professional, or at least

someone almost that good. If you go down to any university that offers classes

on photography and post a not ice on their bullet in board that you’re a band

looking for someone interested in taking shots of one of your concerts, you’l l

probably get swamped by offers. If not, t ry call ing the portrait studio at the mall.

They have plenty of guys there that shoot pictures full t ime who would probably

be wil l ing to cut you a good deal on gett ing some shots. Either arrange to set

up in their studio and let them shoot you there, or f ind out what they’l l charge to

come out to a l ive concert and take some shots.

26

You’l l want one shot of the whole band in act ion, complete with l ights,

smoke or whatever else is typical at one of your concerts. If you all agree to

take the money you’re planning on making at your next gig and spend it on

gett ing a roll of shots taken at a studio (where the l ight ing and effects can be

made to do exact ly what you want them to), i t ’ l l be well worth the cost. It ’ l l

probably be the cover of your f irst CD, and wil l def initely make for great promo

shots. You might also want some shots of the various players in act ion. The

singer doing whatever he or she does best, the drummer really gett ing into it ,

the guitar showing why he or she’s great. These picture wil l eventually end up

in newspapers, posters, CD’s, and all over town.

When you go to get the shots done, be sure you specify, when making the

arrangements, that you’re a band and wil l probably be making bulk copies of

the print. Explain that you’re wil l ing to hire them, but only if they’re wil l ing to

leave their stamp off the back. Placing a stamp on the back of a photo is a sign

to anybody in the business, that the picture is copyrighted. Bulk copying houses

aren’t supposed to touch them without a writ ten release f rom the studio. If you

can’t get the photos without a stamp, go somewhere else.

Once you get some good shots, you’re going to want to make up a box of

them. If you l ive in one of the larger cit ies, there may be someone in your town

who can do it for you. If not, the granddaddy of them all, the company that

probably does 80% of the Hollywood actors and professional musicians around

the country is ABC Pictures out of Springf ield, MO. If you decide to go through

them, you can get 500 8 X 10 black and white copies of your picture, complete

with the inscript ion along the bottom, inside the white space for $80. If you go

on and order 1000 copies (you might as well), you can get them for $108. In a

moment we’re going to discuss how to use these pics to get your name all over

town. They’re well worth the investment. You can contact ABC pictures at (417)

867-3456. They’re mail ing address is 1867 E. Florida Street, Springf ield, MO

65803. They typically take orders for their weekly print ing through Wednesdays.

They then do the weeks work on Friday. If you can get your original 8 X 10 in to

them before Wednesday, they’l l have it in the mail back to you by that coming

weekend. You can also order color shots and bleeds (without a border) f rom

them. Call to f ind their current rates.

27

Once you have a box of pictures, there’s all kinds of great ways you can

use them to promote yourself . Obviously they’re a part of every package you

mail out, and club owners are going to appreciate the quality when they post

your pics announcing you’l l be at their club on a given day. We mentioned in

the last chapter just how powerful a good mail ing l ist really is. You can do

wonders with it . A sneaky way to get your name out and get a good mail ing l ist

is to offer, af ter your gig, to give autographed pictures to anybody who wil l sign

up for your mail ing l ist . They cost you $0.11 each, and anybody who gets one is

sure to put it up somewhere, making you (at least in their eyes) into a celebrity.

Heck, any autographed picture of a performer looks classy. And the more they

look at it at home, the more they’l l look forward to hearing you again. That ’s

one heck of a run off the cost of a business card. And if you support the mail ing

l ist the way we discussed in the last chapter, you’l l be able to offer sold out

shows wherever you go.

Af ter your pictures, the next most important item is a demo tape. First

(tradit ionally), you’l l want an audio tape. It lets the buyer hear what you sound

l ike. You can record it l ive at a concert, or buy studio t ime at a local sound

studio. Either way, make sure it honest ly projects the feeling you try to portray

on stage. As you decide what to put on it , remember, you won’t be the one

l istening to it . You may love that one song you wrote because it brings back old

memories. That doesn’t mean a booker is going to feel the same way about it .

Find the stuff the audience l ikes, your A l ist . Once you know what you plan on

including, make it count.

If you really want to impress a booker, include a video tape of you

performing as well. Again, it ’ l l probably cost you the price of a single show, and

you’l l sell shows with it for years to come. If you have a videographer shoot a

performance, have them do a 2 camera shoot. One camera can be steady, on a

tripod, while the videographer is busy walking around looking for audience

response and t ight shots. Later, the two cameras wil l a l low the editor to create

a fast moving promo video. A l i t t le trick that ’ l l really spice up your video is to

have the videographer stand at the back of the room af ter your concert and

videotape interviews with some of your audience. Get individuals saying how

28

much they loved the show or how great it was. Later, while edit ing, they can

mix these endorsements throughout the tape.

The completed promo shouldn’t run more than 8 to 10 minutes and should

come across l ike a television commercial. Fast moving with cutaway shots.

Maybe even a voice over in the background reminding whoever is watching of

your credentials and promo info. If you plan on sell ing your group to

conventions, most planning committees, and/or larger venues, you’re going to

need a good video before they’l l even consider you. Yes, you’re probably

sell ing a few shows now without one, but chances are they don’t pay much and

they’re all at the same venues. Every truly professional band out there (and for

that matter, any professional entertainer out there) use videos as one of their

main market ing tools. It ’s an industry standard.

Another item you’re going to want to be sure you include in your promo

package are let ters of recommendation. I realize it may sound crazy,

considering how rare they are in the music business, but they can be gotten,

and It ’s not that dif f icult . When was the last t ime you and a club owner

completely agreed on price? Remember the last chapter, where we talked about

always having several pots on the f lame? Well, one very easy pot to insert is a

letter of recommendation. The next t ime a club owner asks you to do a gig at a

reduced price, tel l them you’re wil l ing to, provided they’l l be wil l ing to put in

writ ing, on their let terhead (if they have one), their feelings about the show.

Explain that you’re trying to organize a solid promo package and would love to

include their let ter in it . Chances are pretty good they don’t have a let terhead

(unless the club is attached to a hotel or other business that needs one). If

that ’s the case, you might offer to make some up for them. Just get anybody at

all famil iar with computers to pump out something that looks decent f rom one of

the template programs. You’l l then be able to offer a “trade” of sorts. They’l l get

some decent letterhead, you’l l get a letter writ ten on something that looks as

classy and professional as you’re wil l ing to make it . Later on these letters are

going to prove invaluable. But we’l l get to that in a minute.

One entertainer f riend of ours has been asking for let ters for years. Every

t ime a club owner or cl ient mentions that they l iked the show, he immediately

29

answers with, “you know, I’m trying to organize my promotional material, and it

wouldn’t hurt me to get a letter f rom you saying that.” He claims to have well

over 100 of them f rom every conceivable industry (he does a lot of conventions,

casinos and resorts). He even jokes about several let ters he wrote himself . No,

he didn’t fake it . After he asked clients to write let ters, he found them

hesitat ing. Finally, almost as a favor, he suggested that if they were too busy or

had a problem f iguring out what to say, that he’d be wil l ing to write the letter for

them and let them look it over. If they agreed with what he said, they could sign

it , i f not, he wouldn’t be offended if they asked him to write it over.

He then went on to write the perfect let ter. It included several powerful

sound bites (those one l iners l ike, “you were great! ! ” or “Our crowd couldn’t get

enough of you”). It commented on his dependabil i ty and the quality of his act.

Basically, i f you could get the manager of some well known club to endorse

your band, this is the t ime to have them say the things you always wished they

had.

Then you’l l need a general bio. List where you’ve performed and any

notable accomplishments you might have (featured as the opening act for the

1998 Summer Rocks Concert at Kelmer Park, Idaho). You can also take

advantage of any background your individual players has here. List stuff l ike

“featuring Ron White, with his 30 years experience on the drums, including….”.

Again, if you ever want to get past the corner bar, you’l l need a package that

rivals the guys doing the big t ime, so take the t ime to do it r ight. If you own

your own computer, take a l i t t le while to get good at one of the word processing

programs and it won’t be too long before you’l l be pumping out packages that’ l l

compete with the best.

Finally, you’l l def initely want to include any promotional material you

offer the client here as well. Posters, f lyers, handouts, etc. that can be printed

up for the specif ic gig (again, let your computer do the work) wil l pay off in

extra shows. Remember the 5 steps to a completed package? One of the steps

was promotion. The typical club assumes you offer nothing to help them

promote you except maybe a picture. Imagine what’s going to happen if you

walk in carrying a sharp, 4 color poster. And they aren’t that hard to put

30

together. You can buy one of several computer printers that can print on 11 X

17 paper and make up your own. Or you can design them on a typesett ing

program and print them up at Alphagraphics or Kinkos (or any other self serve

computer center around town). You might even f ind a local printer that has a

copier that ’ l l take your disk and make up posters. A sharp 11 X 17 poster wil l

def initely set you apart f rom the rest. And that ’s precisely what you’re looking

for.

You may be reading all of this thinking most of your gigs don’t deserve

that kind of treatment. You couldn’t possibly be more wrong. It ’s not the club

that is or isn’t gett ing the royal treatment, i t ’s your band. Everybody knows what

to expect f rom the club, the only party that ’s going to benef it f rom sharp

promotion is you. When people walk in the door and see professional looking

f lyers, posters and pictures, they’re going to be more l ikely to show up. Heck, if

they see professional looking stuff at the door, they’re probably going to walk in

expect ing to see a “better” band. And if that ’s what they expect, more than

l ikely, that ’s what they’re going to end up f inding. They’l l be far less crit ical. It ’s

l ike going to a major concert. You know the group must be great. Heck, they

sell records and had a full page ad in the local paper. Even if the concert isn’t

incredible, most people wil l walk out feeling it was. It ’s almost l ike the whole

issue about the emperors clothes. As long as the crowd all said they looked

good, nobody wanted to be the fool who disagreed.

You’re also going to f ind more people wil l be excited to follow quality.

Your mail ing l ist wil l be much easier to promote and you’l l be able to boast

about a larger following. If you’re interested in moving up, then take the t ime to

do for yourself what a promoter would do if he were hired to take you to the top.

Audiences deserve to know that any t ime they hear your name, they can expect

nothing but the best. It ’s kind of l ike the dif ference between the Hilton and

Motel 6. You know Motel 6 wil l save you money, and it ’s just a matter of

f iguring out how much you’l l have to sacrif ice for the savings. The Hilton

charges a bit more but gives you everything. The doorman makes you feel

welcomed. The staff is courteous. The valet takes your luggage. The rooms are

immaculate. There’s a complete toiletry kit wait ing in the bathroom. The maid

lef t chocolates on your pil low. The room includes a complete, elegant breakfast

31

buffet. The TV includes all the cable channels. Some rooms even come with

built in computers. It sounds l ike a lot , and those who can afford it , don’t mind

paying $180 a night to stay at the Hilton, where they could have spent the night

at Motel 6 for just $30.

But if you think about it , once you break the cost down, it really isn’t

cost ing the Hilton that much more to offer great service. All of the staff ing

(valet, bell hop, concierge, etc.) are working for everybody who stayed there

last night, so the actual cost added to your room may add up to $2 or $3. The

chocolate on the pil low adds another $0.05 to the overhead. The computer in

your room paid for itself months ago in added business. The toiletries and the

breakfast are about the only real “costs” the Hilton has to cover that Motel 6

doesn’t . Together they probably add $10 to the overhead. Basically, by giving

you an extra $15 worth of amenit ies the Hilton just raised your price by 600%.

They charged you $150 for $15 worth of products.

And that ’s exact ly what you’re doing here. It may cost you $800 to have

1000 larger, professional show posters made up. But when you split the cost

down to the “per poster” cost, that works out to just $0.80 a poster. If you plan

on offering 10 posters per show, your bil l just jumped to $8. How many extra

t ickets do you think the club manager wil l see sell ing if he has 10 sharp

posters? Do you think he’d be wil l ing to add an extra $8 to your take? Actually,

he’d probably feel very comfortable paying you an extra $50 to $100. Of course

you don’t sell i t to him as a “poster cost”, you simply tell him you work for that

amount and let him decide the extra t icket sales he can count on based on the

quality of your promotional package. You’l l also f ind yourself se ll ing classier

clubs, that naturally pay more, because you look l ike the kind of band that is

worth it . You’ve just “sold” $8 worth of posters for $100. And the good news is,

once you pay for the original posters by agreeing to take the payment f rom a

gig to put them together, you’l l be busy making that exact same sale, over and

over, 100 t imes. If you only made an extra $50 a show on the posters, by the

t ime you sold them all out, you’d have made a net prof it of $4200. Not bad for a

$800 investment. Specially when you consider the number of fans (and clubs)

that now consider you the “classy” band.

32

Always sell quality. It ’s a rare commodity in the music business, a

commodity the better clubs and clients everywhere are looking for. Anybody can

play top 40 music. It ’s the band that makes themselves look l ike “The” top 40

band in the area that ’ l l get the big jobs.

Another very important tool to keep in your promo arsenal is a top quality

set of business cards for every band member. How many t imes have you been

in a conversat ion with someone who asked for your number, because they

happen to know the guy that books the XYZ club? Nothing looks less

professional than having that guy walk up to a club owner somewhere with your

number scribbled on a corner of a napkin. You can probably print up some nice

looking cards on your computer. Be sure every band member has a stack of

their own designat ing them as “the drummer” or “lead guitar”. It makes them

feel important and encourages them to hand a lot of them out. These are your

mini bil lboards. People should cont inue to hear your name over and over. And

gett ing a ton of cards out there is an easy way to do that.

And it also gives you the chance to promote yourself . Which brings us to

the topic of networking. No that doesn’t mean you need to buy a coat and t ie

and start hanging out at the country club (unless you happen to do chamber

music). It just means gett ing your name out wherever you go. And there’s an art

to it . “What do you do for a l iving?” is one of those quest ions everybody tosses

out. When you’re standing at a party or chatt ing to the guy behind the counter

at Seven Eleven. If the person you’re talking to works for any larger company,

ask them if they ever do any funct ions where they use bands. If they do, don’t

t ry to sell yourself there. The person is probably not the one who’s going to hire

you, so don’t waste your t ime (and don’t get them angry). Instead, ask if they

know who the hiring person is. It ’ l l probably be the personnel department. Take

down the name and hand the person your business card. Ask them to hand it to

the right person, if they get a chance, and then drop the subject. Move on to

something else, something that’ l l te l l the person you aren’t here solely to sell

your show.

As soon as you get home, call the personnel person and f ind out if they’d

be interested in receiving information about your group. If they are, this is the

33

t ime to mail out that elaborate promo package we’ve been busy putt ing

together. It has to talk for you when you’re not there. Make sure it yells “we’re

much better than the other guys, classier, more professional, more

dependable”.

As you travel around, any t ime you see a venue you think you could do

well in, stop off and ask for the manager. Again, don’t hard sell. Casually

mention you guys have done this for a while and give him your card. You might

hint at the fact that you offer a pretty solid promotional package along with your

show (that’ l l get their attent ion). Ask if he’d be interested in gett ing some

promo material f rom you. If he says yes, go home, put together a package and

mail i t out with a large note plastered across the f ront that says “Here’s that

package you asked for”.

In either case, wait a couple weeks af ter you mail the package out and

then give the prospect a call. Tell them you’re just ca ll ing to make sure they got

your package and ask if i t ’s possible for you to swing by to discuss possible

dates. At that point, your foot is in the door and it ’s just a matter of making sure

yours is a good match.

Another very effect ive way to use your promo package is to get busy cold

call ing. That means picking up the phone and running down the phone book.

Find every club within your area that might be interested in your brand of

music. Call them and offer to drop one of your promo packages in the mail to

them. If you spend $10 on every package, chances are, it ’ l l be a sharp looking

end product. It ’ l l outclass anything else any of these people wil l be gett ing. If

they’re already in the market for some music, who do you think they’re going to

hire? If your package cost you $0.75 each, you’d probably have to send out

1000 of them before you’d make a sale. If you can’t sell a show af ter mail ing

ten $10 packages to interested prospects, then maybe you need to take a

closer look at the kind of show you’re doing. If you plan on sell ing one show for

every ten packages you mail out, that means your promotional overhead wil l

break down to about $100 to sell a show. How much do you make in prof it per

show? If you’re not making more than $100 you def initely have some serious

overhauling to consider. Every penny over $100 is pure prof it . Suppose you

34

sold your 4 person band at a minimum of $500 a gig. That would mean you

should plan on paying each member $100 and putt ing the last $100 in the bank,

in an account marked “promotional budget, do not touch.” Now your math gets

pretty simple. How many shows do you want to sell? Would 8 a month be

enough? Using these numbers, if the band all agreed to do a single (or maybe

two) shows for f ree, and you saved up $800, you should be able to sell your 8

shows. And once you worked out the math, af ter expenses, you’d take home

$3200. All because you guys agreed to do a single f ree show. And if you each

agree to cut your take in half (at least at f irst , while you’re gett ing yourselves

going), you could add an extra $1600 to your promotional budget. Again, you

now should be able to plan on sell ing another 16 shows. The trick here is to sell

as many shows as you can. As long as a club owner knows he can call you

anyt ime and expect you to be open, he realizes you’re not working that much.

He knows he can offer you pretty much anything and you’l l have to take it . If , as

a group, you agree to wait t i l l you get busy enough before you guys agree to

take a full take home, it won’t be long before you should be booked solid. At

that moment 2 very magical things happen.

First , you know there’s a steady income coming in, so you feel more

comfortable raising your rates. You’l l a lso be appearing more around town, so

your fol lowing wil l grow considerably. If you’re nurturing a mail ing l ist , i t ’s not

going to take you too long to get to the point where you can plan on sell ing out

any club you work. Now you can afford to ask for more money. You can also

start planning on doing some creat ive f inancing. When you know you have a

solid following (which only happens if you’re working a lot), you ’l l be able to

start 4 wall ing (rent ing a hall and doing an actual concert , where people come

to hear you rather than to just pick up dates). You can now afford, comfortably,

to work for the door. And you can afford to charge more at the door, i f

everybody knows your concerts all sell out. And it al l begins because you took

the t ime to put together a quality promo package.

Everybody talks about the bands that appeared at a talent contest

somewhere and suddenly were world famous. That happens, but it happens so

rarely that you might as well forget about it . The odds are l i terally in the

mil l ions. You’d have a much better chance at winning the lottery. The vast

35

majority of the bands that made it to the big t ime, did it this way. Most of them

ended up having an outside promoter put the package together for them, but

eventually it came down to how well the package was promoted rather than the

fact that the music sounded good. If you’re looking to impress your mother and

girlf r iend, then st ick to doing an occasional gig at the local bar. If you want to

move on to bigger and better things, put together a solid promo package and

start call ing around. Call clubs, civic groups, convention and visitor bureaus,

sales and catering departments at larger hotels, schools and local resorts. Get

your name out all over town. Make it your goal to get one of your promo

packages out to every potent ial booker in the area. They may not use you

immediately, but they’re sure to save any good packages. If they think you’re

the kind of band they might use in the future, it ’s a sure thing they’l l hang on to

your material. We’re going to talk more specif ically about all these other

markets later on (in chapter 9), but for now, just realize that the f irst step

towards your success is to put together a top quality promo package.

In the next chapter we’re going to talk about agents, managers and all

the “business” end of being in show business. Again, if you want to have an

agent or manager get excited about working with you, you’l l need to realize

their number one concern is going to be marketabil i ty. If they think they can sell

your show easily (and thus make a commission) they’re going to be much more

l ikely to consider you. And nothing yells “I’m a good bet” better than a quality

promo package, something an agent feel comfortable sending out to concert

promoters and larger venues.

There’s one other area you need to really consider focusing your

attent ion on. There’s no excuse for your band not to have their own web site. A

good web site is worth its weight in gold. It lets someone holding your business

card have access to all your promo material. You can mail out occasional post

cards to all your prospects announcing that “you can now meet all your

entertainment needs at WWW.JoesBand.com.” You can also include references

to it in your promo package. Members of your fan club wil l love having access

to your upcoming show schedule readily available. And f inally, i t ’s a great place

to market your products. We haven’t really talked about CD’s or Cassettes yet,

but I’m sure your realize they’re a real big part of the larger picture, and we’re

36

going to discuss them in a moment. A good web site a cheaper way to get a lot

of information out to your customer. And your only cost in putt ing it together is

t ime.

The web is ful l of sites that ’ l l host your web site f ree of charge. There are a

few variables you’l l want to consider as you shop around. First, you want to

be sure the site you’re looking at allows businesses. Many of the sites are

dedicated. They’re wil l ing to give web sites to any knit ter or dog owner. They

aren’t interested in having you come on their server and start promoting a

business.

Even among the ones that do allow you to promote, you need to realize

that most of these groups make their money by sell ing other items via banners

on your site. As long as you don’t mind an occasional ad for AOL or some cell

phone provider popping up on your site every now and then, you can usually

f ind good servers for f ree all over the place.

Another popular package includes a f ree web space if you’re wil l ing to

register your site with the company.

One example of this kind of site is a group called Free Home Page (found

at WWW.freehomepage.com) which offers a 12 MB site (which wil l probably be

more than you need) and an easy to use web site page builder. This f ree site

would l ist your address as WWW.Yourname.FreeHomePage.com. If you have

them register your domain name (which gets you a company or personal name

held for you, as in WWW.BobSmith.com) it would cost you (at the t ime of this

writ ing) $13.30 a year. This package would include 15 MB of disk space, a

single email account (which might be a disadvantage if you’re hoping to

separate email as in quest ions@bobsmith.com, personal@bobsmith.com and

laughing@bobsmith.com.) This $13.30 package would be yours without banners

or advert ising f rom outside sources. Yahoo also offers a nice package through

their GeoCit ies web page “community” (found at WWW.GeoCit ies.com) where

you can get f ree hosting and well designed templates that ’ l l get your site up

and running in minutes. In researching this paper, I entered “f ree websites” into

my yahoo search engine and found a l ist of 351 possib il i t ies. If you’d l ike to

37

l imit that l ist down a bit , you might try exploring at WWW.freewebspace.net.

They offer a long l ist , complete with reviews and comparisons. Finally,

WWW.100best-f ree-web-space.com has an excellent site that not only has

webmasters vote on the best around, but offers discussion groups and general

reviews, where you can f ind out for sure if the site you’re looking at wil l really

do what you want it to.

A l i t t le trick that works real well i f you have a web site is to place a

“booking calendar” somewhere where the average person won’t f ind it . Make

sure there are no l inks to it on your site. Place it somewhere that ’s easy to

remember, l ike, for instance, at WWW.OurBand.com/calendar.html. On this

calendar you l ist the dates and locat ions of your upcoming shows (or

unavailable dates). You then include, near the bottom of the page, a big button

that announces “Hold a date by pushing here”. You then hand out post cards to

all the agents, bookers, club owners etc. explaining that they can reserve your

t ime online. It works l ike this. The club owner realizes he needs a band for a

weekend coming up (someone cancelled or he forgot to book it). He looks up at

your postcard (which is why you want to be sure the card is too big for him to

st ick in a rolladex or his wallet) and not ices your calendar address. He punches

it in and sees you’re available that weekend. He then pushes the button and

gets a form that explains that if he’l l enter the information concerning the show,

you’l l be glad to get back to him within 24 hours to conf irm. If the date is shown

as available, chances are it is (unless two people request it the same day). If

you’ve already worked out booking details with them (how much you usually do

your gig for and what’s included in the package, i.e. hotel room, dinners, etc.)

they can plan on gett ing the same package this t ime. Basically, with one click

of a button, the club can check to see if you can f i l l a blank space, or can book

you for some t ime in the future. Either way, it ’s a great added convenience

that ’s going to come in real handy in the next chapter when we start gett ing

your name out to a l ist of agents that ’ l l a l l be trying to f igure out when they can

use you.

What exact ly are you sell ing? Are you gett ing everybody emotionally high

and wild or are you offering lyrics that make you think? Do your audiences

come in because your beat is great for dancing or does your music bring back

38

old memories? Decide what niche you f i l l and be sure all your market ing is

aimed at it . You’l l need to realize up f ront that the direct ion your market ing

takes wil l be largely determined by your style of music. If you do oldies while

dressed l ike hippies you might be able to sell your show to amusement parks

and convent ions. They’l l love the nostalgic value. If your act makes Black

Sabbath fans blush, you better hope there’s enough individuals in town that l ike

that kind of music, because most of the tradit ional venues are going to avoid

you l ike the plague. The more off the beaten track you are, the more you need

to depend on your mail ing l ist . Obviously, a band that advert ises that they do

top 40 music walks into any venue with a pre established following. It ’s a group

that’ l l show up because they l ike to hear top 40’s music. Unfortunately, i t isn’t

necessarily a group that l ikes your music. Any band that did top 40 stuff would

do. And club owners know that. Your value as a band would be calculated in

terms of price, as compared to the many other guys around town that do the

same numbers. You’re also going to f ind that at best you’l l be able to sell

t ickets to people who didn’t have a closer club doing top 40’s that night.

Yes, you’l l inherit someone else’s crowd if you chose to go tradit ional

(even if that means acid rock), but you’l l f ind it dif f icult to establish your own

personal following.

As soon as you start insert ing some of your own songs and come up with

your own group persona, now you’re going to have to convert fans over to you

one person at a t ime. That ’s when a mail ing l ist becomes invaluable. Every

person who hears your music and l ikes it is worth at least 20 who haven’t .

Tell ing a stranger that there’s a “good band” over at a certain club won’t cut it .

Dropping a note or email to all you established fans, people who know about

you and l ike your music can.

Which again brings back the web site issue. Be sure you have a bullet in

board on it . Let people tell you (for all to see) that they l ike your music. Make it

a place where people can belong, a place where they’l l feel l ike family. Be sure

to post a not ice at the top of your bullet in board that “warns” writers that any

comments made on the board may be used in upcoming promotional materials.

It makes people try to write stuff they think might get published and it keeps

39

people f rom complaining if they f ind their name and a quote appear on a

brochure somewhere. And you might want to consider manning a quarterly

newsletter. It would have to be fascinat ing to the kind of people who l ike your

music. Art icles about nat ional stars and what’s going on in their l ives, columns

about recent shows and how Tommy managed to pull off “Til l Death Do Us Part”

af ter his amp chord shorted out. Your schedule of upcoming shows that are

open to the general public would also be in l ine.

If you want to set up a newsletter, you might want to begin at:

WWW.enewsletterbook.com. They offer a f ree 65 page booklet on how to get

organized when planning an online newsletter that can be downloaded

immediately onto your computer. WWW.ezine-queen.com offers a

complete “how to” course on running an email newsletter. Once you’re ready to

move, some of the folks that ’ l l help create, mail and maintain email newsletters

can be found at: WWW.imakenews.com, WWW.ciceron.com,

WWW.boldf ish.com, WWW.emailhosts.com, WWW.traxmail.com,

WWW.mailermailer.com, WWW.consult logic.com, WWW.html-email-

market ing,com (who claim to offer their service f ree of charge),

WWW.exacttarget.com, WWW.explorecommerce.com, and

WWW.relevanttools.com.

We’ve managed to come this far without ever mentioning CD’s or tapes.

Chapter 8 wil l deal in depth on how to go about producing, promoting and

market ing a CD, but for now, what’s important to remember is that the sooner

you get one made, the better. It doesn’t matter if i t ever makes it to the big

t ime, you need something that says you’re a pro. A CD with a well designed

cover (pay someone professional to do it) wil l get your foot into many doors.

Don’t underest imate it ’s importance. Mail ing it with a promo package labels you

as one of the handful who have “made it”. Having them available at the club for

a month before you appear, makes everybody think of you as a published band.

Don’t hold back. Make a CD or two quickly (even if you do it in your own garage

and print them on your CD burner). Just having one to show wil l both make you

plenty of money on CD sales and establish you as a professional in everybody’s

eye.

40

One last point that can’t be stressed strongly enough. Every t ime you

perform you represent yourself . It ’s not the fact that the venue is junky or that

the ad in the paper didn’t look that good that makes or breaks the show. You

need to be sure you’re putt ing out the best possible overall image you can

given the circumstances. Assume a great agent is going to be in the audience

(because he just might be). Work hard at gett ing a crowd. One of the managers

of one of the groups you’d def initely recognize by name used to joke about how

they became famous because they spent every moment they weren’t on stage

plastering all of Los Angeles with posters and windshield f lyers advert ising

wherever their next gig was taking place. Whether you went to their show or

not, everybody recognized their name. Most people remembered them as a

name they had seen on a f lyer somewhere, at least unt i l their f irst album went

plat inum.

Exact ly what is your job as “the band”? What does the club owner take

responsibil i ty for and how do agents, managers, lawyers, ad agencies and

accountants f it into the bigger picture? The next chapter breaks down the

various players and how they can help, or hurt you on your way to stardom.

41

Chapter Four

Role Playing

There’s so many of them. It ’s almost as if everybody is hoping to make

money off of your work. There’s agents, managers, bookers, accountants,

lawyers, ad agencies and the l ist could go on and on. And you’ve managed to

do your thing without any of them for so long, it almost feels l ike you’re giving

them a percentage of your money for doing nothing. Are they really necessary?

Can you survive without them? That’s what this chapter is about. It gives you a

good idea of what each of these players does in the bigger scheme of things

and how to survive without them unt i l you get big enough to just ify paying for

their services.

Before gett ing started here, we should probably say a thing or two about

integrity. It ’s that dreaded word our parents kept te ll ing us was important. And

all too of ten, when a person works for themselves, it ’s easy to start believing

that skimming or lying every now and then is a good idea. It makes us more

money and we often get by with it . The problem is, i t ult imately ref lects on who

you are. If you ever get caught doing it by someone expect ing money f rom you,

you better believe it ’ l l have a l i fe long effect on your reputat ion. It ’s almost

impossible to get rid of the kind of reputation you get because you didn’t tel l

someone about the extra $100 you managed to sneak away. And you have to

l ive with the rest of the band. Would you trust someone with your pay who

obviously is cheat ing on an agent? If you want your band to show loyalty and

know you’re an honorable person to work with, then you need to become one. If

you l ive in a world where cheat ing on your taxes and stealing commissions f rom

42

agents is all part of “surviving”, you probably also l ive in a world where nobody

trusts you and you have problems sleeping at night. It really isn’t worth the

hassle. It ’ l l take a bit longer to do it the honorable way, but the foundation

you’l l be building on wil l be solid. Everybody along the way wil l have nothing

but good things to say about you. All your cl ients and associates wil l welcome

the chance to do business with you in the future. And when you reach the top,

the Enquirer wil l have one heck of a t ime digging up mud on you.

So who are all these guys wait ing to take some of your money?

Let ’s begin at the beginning. Everybody knows what an agent does and

exact ly what we should plan on expecting f rom them if we use them, or do we?

Agents come in all kinds of dif ferent shapes and colors. Basically, they

make it their business to f igure out where the clients are and then take a

commission for booking your show. Most of the “agents” you’l l f ind in the phone

book are l i t t le more than some musician looking to sell a few extra shows. Many

have been around long enough to know the business and get their contacts

f rom advert ising and cold call ing. As a band, you’re going to want to show some

select ivity when deciding who you wish to represent you. However, if at all

possible, you want to avoid being too select ive. As you look around, you’re

eventually going to run across an agent that ’s going to ask you to sign an

exclusive agreement with them. If you do, you’re committ ing yourself to work

exclusively through them. That means any work you do, ever, needs to pay a

commission to them. If your uncle calls and wants you to play a gig at his

wedding recept ion, you’re st i l l bound to pay a commission to your agent. If

another agent calls and wants to use you on a cruise ship, your exclusive

arrangement obligates you to paying a commiss ion to both agents.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are some pretty large

agencies out there. They do a great job of f inding all kinds of larger gigs. If

your career has been l imited to doing an occasional club somewhere where

each of you walked away with $100 and an agency calls offering to get you no

less than $2000 a week, 40 weeks a year, i f you’l l sign an agreement, you

might consider it . Of course, before you do, you might want to be sure they

43

include in the exclusive agreement a clause that makes them liable for any

money they don’t get you on gigs. It ’s not uncommon for “almost big” agencies

to make promises of incredible riches only to then back down and start claiming

things just “aren’t going too good right now”. Be extremely weary of putt ing your

ent ire career into any one person’s hands. In almost every case it ’s better to

refuse any exclusive arrangements you’re offered.

Agents make it their business to look for work. They join all the local

chambers and network with all the business people that might need

entertainers. They pay for ads in the yellow pages and trade magazines. They

mail out f lyers to companies and clubs offering to supply all their entertainment

needs. The fact that they represent several performers actually works in your

favor. A client talking to you realizes your only goal it to sell yourself . When

talking to an agent, the same client wil l understand that the agent is more

interested in developing a long term relat ionship. He wants to establish a

reputat ion of only sending out quality performers. To that end, the agent must

set a high standard in select ing talent. The client knows that it ’s much more

important to the agency, in the long run, to provide talent that ’ l l encourage the

client to cont inue to do business with them. If the agent chooses to recommend

you over all the other bands in town, the cl ient knows the agent is wil l ing to

stake his or her reputat ion on your abil i ty and dependabil i ty.

You also get to ride on the agencies coat tails. If the agency has already

developed a reputat ion among, say, nat ional casinos, then the fact that they

recommend you automatically assures the casino that you’re good enough for

the job. It might have taken you months of calls and pushing just to get the

entertainment manager at the casino to look at your package, where the agent

can probably make a single call and get you booked on his reputat ion.

Another plus about dealing with agents is that it gives the client a third

party to talk to. Suppose a client decides your music is too loud for their venue.

Chances are, at the end of your gig, they’l l st i l l smi le, pay you and might even

compliment you on a “f ine job”. Silent ly they’l l walk out and cross your name off

the l ist of possible future talent. The prospect of ending up in a f ight with you or

hurt ing your feelings just isn’t worth the hassle. When they go to pay the agent,

44

there’s something magical about that moment. It ’s almost as if the fact that he’s

about to hand over a check for $1500 has bought him the right to complain. It ’s

almost l ike gossiping. If there’s anything bad to say, now’s the t ime. In fact, a

good agent wil l make a point of looking for complaints. They’l l know to ask

quest ions l ike, “so how’d you l ike them?”. It gives them a chance to stomp out

all the brush f ires possible. When the client explains that you were too loud and

offended some of their customers, a good agent wil l probably say something

l ike, “you should have told them. I know they can lower their volume, they have

several venues where they do. I’ l l make a point of tel l ing them, so you won’t

have to worry in the future.” If that was their only complaint, the client wil l

probably welcome the fact that he has someone he can discuss changes with

whenever they come up. In fact, the very fact that the complaint came up and

was dealt with, in this case, wil l work in your favor.

If , on the other hand, the client decides he doesn’t want to use you

anymore (he doesn’t l ike your haircuts), the agent wil l st i l l be able to salvage

the account and offer to send out the band that looks l ike the Righteous

Brothers. Believe it or not, even that wil l work in your favor. Again, i f you’re

represent ing yourself , you would have never known why you were being

dumped. All you would know is that the client is refusing to take your calls. The

agent’s job is to f igure out exact ly what jobs are best for you. If he knows he’s

gotten 3 complaints that your hair is too long, who do you think he’s going to

call when another band gets a complaint because they look “too conservat ive”?

You’l l end up picking up other jobs that are more suited to what you do. A

decent agent wil l soon understand exact ly what market you f it into, and wil l

eventually know when the marriage is right.

But not all agents are “decent”. Many are just in it for the quick buck.

They’l l send you out anywhere and plan on making a one t ime commission.

Some of these guys who claim to be agents are dying to sell anything and wil l

g ladly burn any bridges if i t ’ l l help pay their phone bil l . Even if these guys offer

to get you work, you need to realize that it isn’t always going to be in your best

interest to take it . Suppose this guy is busy trying to sell you by undercutt ing

everybody else in town. He’l l get you a bunch of work, provided you’re wil l ing to

cont inue to work at $400 a gig. Everybody around town wil l know you as a $400

45

band. When the bigger agency comes around, who only sells to $2000 or more

markets, he’s going to have to decide if he feels comfortable tell ing a client that

paid $400 for you last month that you can now work for him at $2000.

You’l l a lso need to consider how the agency takes their commission.

Typically, when you talk to an agent the f irst t ime, you’re going to eventually

start talking price. You can either quote them a set fee or offer a commission.

You can agree to work, say, for $1000 a gig, regardless of what the agency

makes, or you can tel l them you’re wil l ing to pay, say, 15% commission on any

gig up to $1000, and then 20% on anything larger (which encourages them to

keep their bidding above your base). Both methods have their advantages.

Offering a f lat fee allows the agency to make more money on you. And

that isn’t a bad thing. If you’re comfortable working for $1000 and the agency

sells you for $2000, don’t complain. If you had sold the show, you would have

probably asked for $1000. If you sit quiet and humbly accept $1000 a show for

a year while every agency in town is sell ing you at $2000, who do you think

they’l l a l l be trying to sell? Every t ime a call comes in the off ice they’l l a l l start

by offering your show. Heck, they make $1000 every t ime they sell you, while

everybody else, who’s working at 15%, would have gotten them $300. That ’ l l do

three things for you. It ’ l l get you much more work around town, which, in the

long run pays much better than being able to brag about that one show you did

last year where you made $5000. And the fact that you’re gett ing so much work

means more people around town wil l become famil iar with you. This is your

chance to get a solid mail ing l ist going, and establish a following. It ’s a great

chance to develop solid relat ionships with the clients. Those clubs that know

you draw the crowds wil l eventually start asking for you by name.

It also helps establish your perceived value. The fact that you’re let t ing

the agency decide what you’re worth means they’l l raise your value as they

think the local market is wil l ing to pay. Eventually, af ter everybody in town

thinks of you as the $2000 band, and you’re working every weekend (taking

home $52000 a year), you can now go back to the various agencies and explain

that you need to cut back a bit on the amount of work you’re doing (that ’s a

very strong negotiat ing place to be), so you’re going to raise your cost up to

46

$1500. You’re st i l l coming in $200 lower than the 30% guys, and chances are

you won’t lose any work, but even if you do, you’l l probably st i l l make more

money in the long run. And the agencies wil l probably also raise their amounts

to match yours. Before too long, you’l l be known around town as the $2500

band, and it won’t be too long before you’l l be doing 52 $2000 gigs a year. All

because you didn’t get greedy up f ront. Remember always that the agent is

actually your employee. He doesn’t get paid unt i l he gets you work. And the

more you offer to pay him, the more work you’l l get, which, in the long run,

makes your career much more stable and successful.

If you chose to simply accept a commission (which is how most bands

work), you’l l probably end up giving away anywhere f rom 15% to 20% per job.

Some agencies break it down by kinds of jobs. If i t ’s a one t ime gig, they make

15%, if i t ’s an ongoing, weekly job at a specif ic casino, they take 20% on an

ongoing basis. Be careful about how they take their commission. Some

agencies wil l tack their commission above your fee while others wil l take it off

your fee. Basically, an agency wil l call you and tel l you they got you $1000 for a

bar mitzvah this coming month. You show up, do your thing and show up for

your money. If they tack their commission above your fee, you’l l p ick up a

check for $1000 while the client ended up paying $1150 for your t ime. If they

take it off your fee, they’l l only give you $850. Be sure you understand how they

pay before gett ing started. It creates several implied issues you need to

understand.

Agencies that take their commission off your fee usually are busy bidding

price. They’re trying to undercut all the other bidders on your show. Basically, i f

a cl ient calls, say, 3 agencies, asking for you, two wil l b id you out at $1200 and

one wil l offer you at $1000. The $1000 bid wil l probably win. If you had l imited

yourself to agencies that take their commission above your fee, you’d f ind

yourself dealing with agencies that sell your value rather than offer you as the

bargain basement talent. One agency wil l begin their talk by offering you as a

band that “only costs you $1000”. The other one wil l be making statements l ike,

“these guys are good. They’ve worked at Excelsior Casino and are regulars in

better clubs around town. I think I can get them for $1500 if you’re interested.”

Which reputat ion do you think wil l do you better. Remember chapter one? The

47

minute you get down to negotiat ing nothing but price, you’ve already lost.

Another subt le considerat ion here is the reputat ion the agency has in the

industry. If one of the bigger agencies knows you’re allowing the XYZ agency to

bid work out for you, and they know this agency always tries to undercut

everybody else, there’s a decent chance the bigger agency wil l decide it ’s just

not worth the hassle. It ’s hard to sell talent only to have someone else offer the

same band at a discount.

As a rule of thumb, if you have a choice, try to work with agencies that

tack their commissions above your fee. And work with them as partners. Find

out what you can offer to help them. Mail out promo packages with their phone

numbers on them. Make them feel appreciated and supported. They’re going to

make or break your career.

Then we get to that gray area where managers come in. Do you really

need a manager? What exact ly wil l you be paying for? Unfortunately, this is a

tricky one. Even in the industry, among individuals that do nothing but manage

bands, all those l ines are drawn in dif ferent places. Technically a true manager

is not responsible for ever booking a single job for you. That ’s the agents work.

A manager is more concerned with making you marketable and helping you go

about the business of staying in business. A manager should know the kind of

stuff we’re talking about in this book and understand the importance of offering

quality talent and promotion. They’l l attend rehearsals and make suggest ions

about what you need to drop and what changes wil l make you more marketable.

They’l l look over your promotional material and help you design something

that’ l l sell you for who you really are. They may even have connect ions with a

few agencies that they can hook you up with, but technically, that ’s not really

their job.

Up the road, once you start gett ing work, the manager is responsible for

talking for you. They usually help you organize any touring you do, making sure

you aren’t booked to do a show in Seatt le on Friday and Memphis on Saturday.

They negotiate with the agents for you and make sure your hotel rooms are

adequate. They of ten f ind themselves playing part t ime Psychologist while

trying to sort out problems band members have about l iving together. Many of

48

them wil l stay back home and sort out your personal business. They might offer

to pay your phone bil l and make sure your rent check is in on t ime. They take

phone calls for you and always know how to get through to you when they need

to. They also end up playing that third party person that lets agents, venue

managers and clients have someone to complain to. A good manager is worth

his or her weight in gold. But then, most “good” managers are so in demand

that non but the “big guys” ever even get to talk to them.

Most bands end up sett l ing for a “manager in training”. Your brother or

wife takes it upon themselves to try and sort out the details for you. If that

happens, you need to realize you aren’t talking to a professional. A sister’s

opinion of what would look good in a cruise ship show may not be the best

advice in town. A manager that ’s been working with cruise ship performers for

25 years would be worth l istening to. Your sister’s wil l ingness to keep up with

your bi l ls and f ield complaints and calls may well be worth offering a

percentage of your take. Most professional managers wil l ask for 15% to 20% of

what you make for their services, and they would be worth every penny of it .

Remember, again, as long as the manager is working on commission, he

doesn’t get paid unless his advice is making you money.

Be very careful here. Management contracts usually assume the manager

is going to be doing most of his or her work up f ront, before they start gett ing

paid. They plan on working with you for 6 months or so for f ree on the promise

that once they get the ball rol l ing there’l l be money for everybody. To that end,

a management contract typically t ies you down to paying, say, 15% of every

penny you make for the next 5 years. If you’re hiring a professional to do the

work, that ’s a real bargain. If , on the other hand, someone cons you into

believing they know what they’re doing, and then does nothing but show up to a

couple rehearsals and makes a couple of comments, you’re st i l l legally bound

to pay them for 5 years. And that contract wil l hold up in court. Management is

such a complex concept that most courts won’t even discuss specif ically what

the manager did. As long as he can prove he once suggested you comb your

hair, you’l l end up having to pay. So before you take on a manager, ask to talk

to some of the other bands he or she has managed. Look over their t rack record

closely. Call a meeting, hand them some of your promo material, and ask

49

quest ions. Try to f igure out if the guy can really get you where you want to go.

The fact that he made mil l ions for Pat Boone may not mean he’s a good

manager for a Heavy Metal band.

Somewhere between manager and agent is a booking agent. Again, more

t imes than not, this ends up becoming a friend or relat ive that has a bit of

market ing sense and drive. This is a person that works exclusively for you and

sells your show. Most of them turn out to be the band leader or one of the

members. It ’s the single person who takes it upon themselves to call agents,

cl ients, managers, and anybody else who might need a band and offer to send

out the promo kit . They do the follow up and end up sell ing the gigs. If a band

member is booking you, typically they’l l be happy to simply accept their cut on

any gigs you get, if an outsider is booking you, you f ind yourself having to offer

an extra 10% or so for their work. Again, it can be a great bargain. Offering

10% of business you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise is a great deal. 90% or

something sure beats 100% of nothing. A l i t t le trick that works well here is to

get a bunch of booking agents going at once. When you hit a new town and f ind

someone who looks sharp, take him out to dinner and offer to give him 10% of

any business he books for you in and around town. The deal is, he ’l l be your

exclusive booker in that town (provided he can get you work). If i t ’s a town you

normally wouldn’t have had the t ime to promote to, you’re now opening a new

“business” in the area. This booker could call the local clubs, talk to local

schools, call upcoming conventions and offer your show. Every t ime he sells

you, he gets his commission. It sure beats f l ipping burgers. Heck, just being

able to carry around business cards that call him a “booking manager” would be

enough to make the guy do his fare share of keeping you in business. If you

chose to go this route, you need to make up those business cards, and

letterhead for the booker. It makes them feel they really are in business, and

that you expect results f rom them. For a month or two, it ’s going to take

constant contact and a lot of guidance on your part , but once you have them

trained, you can sit back and just show up for gigs. The more of these you can

organize in far off cit ies (where you’re wil l ing to go to), the more business you’l l

get on the side.

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If you spend a lot of t ime touring, or plan to, you’d probably be well

advised to hire an advance man. It can be a neighbor or f riend that wants to “be

in the business”, or you could go with a pro who really knows how to work the

f ield. An advance man does just that. He gets to a town before you do and

makes sure everything is in order. If you’re gett ing a percentage of the door

(we’l l d iscuss the various options for payment and the benef its of each more in

depth in the next chapter), your advance man can make sure there are posters,

f lyers and brochures in all the right places 2 or 3 weeks before you arrive. He

checks the various clubs to make sure the stage is adequate and calls the

various news outlets to try and get you f ree airt ime. He offers your CD’s to local

record stores on consignment, provided they let you place your specially

designed display case that announce (on a replaceable mini marquee) that

you’re appearing “this week only” at the Flying Cow Club. It ’s his job to drive up

and down the streets asking convenience store and gas stat ions if they’l l let

him leave a small stack of mini f lyers on their counter. In short , he does all the

work that needs to be done several weeks before you arrive. And as you do

your next town, he moves on to his next town as well. It ’s a busy job, but if you

offer him a percentage of your door, he’l l be motivated to pack your house in

for you.

Hiring an advert ising agency sounds l ike such a “big t ime” endeavor. The

name even sounds expensive. But it doesn’t have to. Many of the larger

agencies wil l ask for a $4000 or $5000 retainer even to consider working with

you. But these guys are interested in putt ing together complete, elaborate

media campaigns, which isn’t what you’re looking for. Call around unt i l you can

f ind someone who’s wil l ing to work for you one piece at a t ime. Have them

design a poster, f lyer, let terhead, envelopes, business cards and brochure that

all fo l low a matching theme. The ent ire package wil l probably cost you

anywhere f rom $500 to maybe $800 and wil l be worth it ’s weight in gold. You’l l

pay for the masters one t ime and for years to come every club you talk to wil l

know you’re a pro. A top quality package wil l sel l far more shows than

something obviously put together by someone on the f ly. Have them put it

together correct ly, and you’l l spend the rest of your run being glad you did.

51

Closely related to the advert ising agency is the Public Relat ions agency.

In fact, most ad agencies have at least one PR man on board ready to help you.

These guys may or may not be worth talking to. They’re the ones that decide

whether wearing blue matching shirts and cutt ing your hair wil l really help the

overall image of the band. They help you f igure out ways to look l ike the “good

guys” in the eyes of the general public. They might suggest you agree to offer a

percentage of your take to the Make a W ish Foundation, because it ’ l l get you

plenty of f ree publicity along the way and encourage parents to allow their kids

to attend your concerts. That may or may not be the kind of stuff you’re

interested in considering.

One last player in the promotion game is the press agent. You’ve

probably never heard of them, because they go out of the way to try and stay

unnoticed. Every now and then you’l l f ind one working on the f ringes of an ad or

PR agency, but most of the best ones work solo. A press agent is a publicity

idea man (or women). They’re the ones that manipulate the media. When you

see that picture of the t ightrope walker as he trips and almost falls to his death,

it was probably taken and delivered to a newspaper by a press agent. In fact,

the agent probably works for the t ightrope walker and they both agreed that on

the walkers 8th step he would trip and catch himself with his right hand before

dropping to his death. The press agent stood poised with a rapid shutter

camera shooting away f rom step 7 on. He then walked in, as a “private

f reelance photographer” and offered to sell the picture of the t ightrope walker in

mid air, seconds before he caught the rope. Every paper in town wil l probably

jump at the chance to get this incredible picture, and run a full page story about

the walker and how rarely in the past he’s tripped. They’l l get thousands in f ree

publicity because the press agent was on the job. Chapter 7 wil l teach you

some of the tricks of the trade that make quality press agents so effect ive.

You’ve heard of “f inding a peg”? That ’s a phrase originally coined by press

agents at the turn of the century. And in chapter 7 we’l l g ive you a peg or two to

hang your hat on.

Do you really need an attorney? What can they do for you? In most

cases, you don’t . In fact, i f you take a moment to look over the support we offer

at: www.Order-Yours-Now.com you’re going to f ind that most of the information

52

you’l l need to dig through the legal jungle can easily be found there. Our site

allows you to download a single program that includes contracts for virtually

every situat ion you might f ind yourself in as a music group.

If you f ind yourself in a specif ic situat ion where an attorney is needed, be

sure to be select ive. Law school teaches wannabe attorneys how to think the

way the legal system does. It gives them a background in how the contract law

and court system operate. It rarely takes the t ime to make them authorit ies in

individual professions. It ’s kind of l ike going a foot doctor to get brain surgery.

Legally he qualif ies, but he’l l st i l l have to keep the textbook open at his side

while he’s digging. An attorney “f riend of yours” that specializes in helping

companies in the oil industry to f ield off environmentalists may be good at what

he or she does. That doesn’t mean they’re qualif ied to f igure out how to deal

with the many variables you’re going to f ind yourself sort ing through when you

f ind yourself t rying to organize a management contract with the guy down the

street. Chances are you’re going to f ind yourself paying $150 an hour to have

someone look up other management contracts that someone somewhere once

agreed to and then changing the names before giving it to you. If you plan on

gett ing your money’s worth, you need to f ind someone who can understand the

specif ic dut ies of a manager, the issues that sometimes are and sometimes

aren’t included in agreements. You’l l need someone wil l ing to consider the

specif ic needs of your band (avoiding certain venues, staying in warmer climate

areas, etc.).

A good attorney can be a godsend, but for most of your legal work, at

least unt i l you’re start ing to negot iate 6 f igure deals, you’d probably be better

off doing your own work. And a great place to get started is to go over the many

t ime-tested contracts and agreements you’l l f ind available on our site at:

www.MusicContracts101.com

Doing taxes is a necessary evil. W ithout them we’d be stuck driving down

dirt roads without judges to protect our rights. Once you hit the road you’re

going to f ind yourself diving into a serious maze of tax loopholes and

possibil i t ies. You’l l suddenly f ind that some of your meals wil l be deductible and

some won’t. You’l l f ind that turning down some shows wil l actually make you

53

more money in the long run that just taking every offer you get. You’l l even f ind

that those charity events you’ve been doing because you want to help out can

actually make you plenty of money, while not cost ing the charity anything.

Paying a good tax man to keep your records straight is a very good

investment. He’l l advise you on ways to save money next year and wil l f igure

out how to make the most out of this year. If he can’t make you more money

than he costs you, then you have the wrong guy. Your total cost for having

someone watch your back wil l probably come out to somewhere around $150,

which he’l l probably save you the f irst t ime you sit down with him.

One last “f inancial adviser” you may or may not be interested in

consult ing is an accountant. Closely related to the tax man, an accountant is

responsible for helping you keep your books in order. He’l l usually set up a

system for you to keep track of what you make, who it goes to and what you’re

keeping. It ’s l ike creat ing a complex checkbook balancing system that covers

all the money involved in your career. If you’re start ing to make 6 f igure runs,

you might consider an accountant, but chances are, if you’re l ike most creat ive

people, all you need is someone to give you a good st if f kick in the behind to

get you to start writ ing it al l down. You know what’ l l work. Get yourself a simple

ledger book (or computer program) that ’ l l let you l ist every penny you make and

every bil l you pay. Create a zero balance bookkeeping system. Basically you

want to end up with a sheet of paper that l ists every penny that comes in. You

then want to l ist several categories, including items l ike salaries, gas, food,

publicity, agency commissions, etc. Include also categories for that “extra”

money. Savings, slush fund, etc. The last step is to start at the top of the page

with the total amount of incoming money, and then spend every penny of it . By

the t ime you make it to the bottom of the page, your balance should be zero.

Long before you get a single penny, you’ve already decided where every penny

wil l go. There should never be a few extra dollars just f loat ing around. If you’re

planning on spending money on “crazy stuff ” then admit that ’s where it went

and create a category for it . If not, any money that didn’t go out to pay

expenses should end up in savings, slush fund, emergency buffer and whatever

other arbitrary categories you’ve created. If you’re wil l ing to take an afternoon

and design this system carefully, and then have the discipline to follow up on it ,

54

you’l l save yourself the cost of a good accountant. Just be sure you split up

your categories into areas that are tax deduct ible and the ones that aren’t . This

might mean creat ing mirror categories. “Meals” might become “Tax Deductible

Meals” and “Non Deduct ible Meals”. Keep all your receipts. That includes meals

on the road, gas receipts, hotel b i l ls, and the phone bil l for the cell phone you

use exclusively for business. Your tax man wil l love you for i t .

In the long run, learning to keep good records wil l probably make you

more money than any other single act ivity you do. Most creat ive people seem to

l ive “off the cuff ”. They get paid and they spend and there’s no pattern or

reason to it . It ’s not uncommon to f ind a musician who made $80,000 last year

begging the landlord to hold off on evict ion every month. They made all that

money and then lost it “somewhere”. It ’s amazing how much we can spend on

drinks, cigarettes, electronic toys, clothes, and t ickets to the amusement park if

we’re not keeping track. Put yourself on a budget, and st ick with it .

Remember that you don’t l ive in the same world the rest of those guys do.

They know they’re going to take home $400 each Friday and can plan their

budget around it . You get big chunks of money coming in at strange t imes. It

really is a feast or famine kind of profession. If you ever plan on having any

kind of stabil i ty, i t ’s essential that you put $2000 or $3000 into an “emergency

fund” account at the bank. It ’ l l pay for rent or car problems when they come

during one of your dry spells. Honor that as your l i fe saving account. As soon

as you make some money, before spending a penny on “fun stuff ”, replace any

money you’ve borrowed f rom your emergency fund. It ’ l l take all kinds of

pressure off your shoulders.

And once you feel a bit more stable, you’l l f ind you won’t be desperate

when a client calls and offers you $200 for a night. Instead of jumping at the

chance to pay off a few of your creditors, you’l l be able to comfortably set your

standards higher and turn him down. The quicker you can break past that gig to

gig existence, the quicker you’l l be equipped to feel secure in negotiat ing the

terms and condit ions you’re interested in. Remember always, that you really

aren’t equipped to negotiate if you’ve lost your walking power. If you go in

feeling you “must get” this gig, the cl ient wil l p ick up on it and start knocking

55

your price down. If you walk in feeling you can l ive comfortably without it , you

now can afford to make demands and back them up with act ions. You’re

capable of asking for “no less than” amounts and insist that you don’t play

unless the l ight ing is adequate. In fact, ANY demands you plan on making wil l

carry very l i t t le weight if you aren’t secure enough to nicely turn down the job if

they aren’t met. Sometimes gett ing up and start ing for the door is the most

powerful negotiat ing tool in the world.

We’ve touched on some of the considerat ions you want to keep in mind

while dealing with clubs, but we’ve only touched on them. The next chapter

discusses in detail some of the opt ions available to you when offering your

services to a club and how to go about negot iat ing the best possible deal for

yourself .

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Chapter Five

Club Dates

It really doesn’t matter how “out there” or “radical” your band or the clubs

you work are. Af ter all is said and done, in almost every case, the ent ire

industry follows well established tradit ional booking patterns. Over the years

the club owners have sett led into roles they feel comfortable with and bands

have learned to adapt. If you want to play the gig, you’re told you need to “obey

the rules”. These “rules” are actually preset to work against you. They assume

the club owner has a long l ist of bands to chose f rom and can afford to turn

down all who don’t obedient ly bow to their demands.

The good news is, i f you have something to offer, those rules don’t apply

to you. There are plenty of ways to get around them. Clubs that claim to “never

pay” more than $500 for a night manage somehow to f ind $1500 when they

book a bigger band. Clubs who claim they “never” share their drink take, when

approached correct ly, wil l g ladly give you half of what they sold in drinks.

There’s al l kinds of l i t t le “secret tricks” that can get you a fortune in club dates,

and that ’s what this chapter is about.

You’l l remember back at the beginning we talked about the 5 parts of

every successful show. There was equipment, talent, venue, publicity and

support staff (waiters and doormen). We discussed the importance of keeping

as many variables as possible on the bargaining table. This chapter could

easily be a sequel to chapter one. Now that we’ve paused long enough to give

you an idea of the kind of package you should be se ll ing and the various

57

players involved in the process, we’re going to mesh it al l together into

packages that’ l l make you money.

Before going any farther, there are two vitally important points you need

to ALWAYS keep in mind. Take spray paint and paint them across your l iving

room wall. Tattoo them on your arm. Do whatever you can to never forget them.

Almost every failure in negotiat ing stems, ult imately, f rom someone forgett ing

one of these two principles.

First , remember always that the minute you get down to simply

negotiat ing price, you’ve already lost. If al l that ’s lef t is a discussion of how

much you’re worth, invariably you can count on a disagreement. Either you’re

going to walk away feeling cheated and belit t led, and resent the deal, or the

club owner is going to feel cheated and manipulated and mark you down for

ext inct ion. Price should be a given. You should begin by stat ing your price, and

then cont inue to add benef its the client wil l get unt i l they feel they’ve gotten a

great deal. One agent f riend of ours typically starts every conversat ion he has

with club owners with the statement that “I should warn you, if you’re looking

for a cheap band, I really can’t help you. All the bands I represent are carefully

picked to help you sell t ickets and establish a loyal cl ientele. But gett ing this

kind of talent is real hard, and they do, typically, cost quite a bit more than

most of the guys out there.” He tells us that very few club owners turn away

there. If nothing else, their curiosity is peaked. What could these guys possibly

offer that makes them so much more valuable? How much wil l i t cost him to get

these “good bands”? How many more t ickets wil l they be able to sell? How wil l

they do it?

If you look closely at the quest ions the club owner would almost have to

consider before answering our f riend’s opening statement, you’l l see how many

other items were instant ly tossed on the table. Throughout the course of this

book we’ve l isted all kinds of items you can negotiate with. We started with the

quality of your performance. We discussed your marketabil i ty. We talked some

about the posters, f lyers, brochures and pictures. Then there was your abil i ty to

help promote the show. All of this plays into your opening proposit ion. But f irst ,

let ’s look at what the typical band has to offer.

58

Talent and t ime. That’s it . Some may have a smoke machine and a few

f lashing l ights, but after all is said and done, most bands are offering the exact

same package. They’l l p lay the same style of music, even a lot of the same

t it les. Every now and then they’l l toss in one of their own songs. But truth be

told, f rom a club owner’s point of view, he just needs 4 guys on stage capable

of playing anything that sounds halfway decent on Saturday night. And he

knows that the name of the band or the color of their guitars won’t ad a single

penny to the amount of money he’l l deposit in the bank on Monday. The same

customers are going to pay the same cover to hear the same kind of band and

drink the same number of drinks. It ’s a “magical formula” that ’s managed to pay

the rent for 20 years.

What can you toss on the table that nobody else can? You better be at

least as good as all the other guys. You def initely need to have all your t ’s

crossed. Be on t ime, don’t get drunk and treat the customers well. Always plan

on giving a l i t t le more than you negotiated for. No, you aren’t being “taken”.

You’re just showing your wil l ingness to push harder. You’re te ll ing the club

owner, with your act ions, that you’re going to do whatever it takes to make him

successful. That ’s going to stack the brownie points in your favor.

Then offer to help him make more money. Anything that ’ l l increase what

he plans on making at the door wil l deserve more money in your paycheck.

Offer a complete publicity package. Posters, f lyers, business sized show cards.

Offer to post your advert ising around town for him. And then do it . If he starts

seeing his club name plastered all over town just before your show, you better

believe he’s going to jump at the chance to hire you whenever you’re available.

And carry in your own following. We talked earl ier about keeping a solid mail ing

l ist . If you can walk up to a club owner offering to bring in at least 40 people a

show, you better believe that’ l l t ranslate into a higher paycheck. He’l l see it not

only as a chance to make more money that night, but also as a way to get new

customers in to see his club, and hopefully decide to come back next week. In

chapter 7 we’re going to discuss working the media. We’l l g ive you some ideas

on how to end up with plenty of f ree publicity in and around town. If the club

owner recognizes your name f rom the recent art icle in the paper or the

interview on the radio stat ion, he’l l assume others wil l a lso. He’l l consider you

59

“famous” enough to hopefully draw a few curious customers. And that, too,

means you demand more market power. Which again translates into more

money for you.

If your package is powerful enough, you could, conceivably ask for a

higher paycheck. Unfortunately, most clubs have sett led in to what they

typically are wil l ing to pay a band. In their minds they see the formula

something l ike this: A typical band, on a Saturday night wil l draw 100

customers. At $4 each at the door, that brings in $400. 100 customers wil l

typically buy $700 in drinks. By the t ime the doors close at the end of the night,

the club wil l have made $1100. Out of that he needs to budget in 1/8 of the

$1200 a month rental on the room, which means $150 is already spoken for.

The ut i l i t ies wil l cost him another $10 for the night. The bar tender wil l charge

him $25 for his t ime and the wait staff wil l ask for another $60 between them.

The l iquor, napkins, broken glasses and free popcorn wil l add up to $80 for the

night. That ’s $325 he’s going to have to spend just to be in business. If he

makes a total of $1100 that night, that leaves $775. If he pays the band $500,

then he’s lef t with $275. Out of this he’s going to have to pay for the newspaper

and radio adds he runs weekly which cost him $200. Af ter all is accounted for,

he’s making a take home prof it of just $75. Obviously, i f he plans on feeding his

family, he’s going to have to make more than that. He can either cut back on

his advert ising, which in his mind means draw less people, make less money

and eventually go out of business. He could try cutt ing back on staff , but again,

without adequate staff , his drink sales wil l drop. About the only two things he

can do to try and survive is to either start hiring cheaper bands or charge more

at the door. If he charges more at the door, he knows he’l l scare off a lot of his

regulars. But he does have 22 dif ferent bands all ca ll ing to work on Saturday

night. If he just tel ls each of them he’l l only hire the bands that are wil l ing to

work for $400, he’s sure to get at least a few starving bands that ’ l l agree to it .

He’s now taking home $175. And he’l l make that on Thursday, Friday and

Saturday four t imes a month. He’l l now take home about $2100 a month. It ’s not

much, but at least he’l l get his rent paid and can go around town tell ing

everybody he owns a club.

60

And then you give him a call. You tell him your band is the best in town

and you don’t work for a penny less than $600 a night. What do you think he’s

going to do? He’l l just assume the extra $200 wil l come off the budget he’s set

aside to buy school clothes for his kids and say no. If you can get him to l isten

long enough to consider how much more business you can draw for him, there’s

a remote chance you’l l convince him. But the chance is very remote. You’re

asking him to gamble on your abil i ty to produce. From a club owner’s

perspect ive, considering the promises he’s been hearing f rom every other band

in town over the course of his 30 years in the business, that ’s not a safe

gamble.

But there are ways you can take the gamble and st i l l make the money.

Most owners won’t tel l you this, but in their mind they’re hoping to pay the band

with the money they make at the door. In the above scenario the club owner

made $400 at the door and that’s what he offered the band. If you started

working for him and after 3 weeks he found you consistent ly brought in 150

patrons a night, at $4 a t icket, that would add up to $600. He could afford to

pay you $600 a night. Unfortunately, i t rarely works out that way. If you offer to

work at $400 and he suddenly starts making an extra $200 at the door, you can

probably plan on working for him for a long t ime, but you’l l rarely f ind an owner

that ’ l l volunteer to give you the extra money.

This is where creat ive negotiat ing comes in. If you know you can draw a

big crowd. If you realize your mail ing l ist wil l guarantee you at least 50 people

above the crowd he normally gets, then you might offer to work exclusively for

the door. He doesn’t have to pay anything, you just keep whatever the doorman

makes. Which brings up two important factors in this kind of negotiat ion. The

club owner is going to make money only based on the number of people in the

club. If there are 200 bodies in the room, he’s going to sell more drinks. If the

doorman works for the club, it ’s def initely to their advantage to let “f riends” sl ip

in. The regulars might even expect to be allowed to “sl ide” on the t ickets.

Suddenly you’re going to look around and f ind 300 people walking around while

the club owner tells you only 100 bought tickets. It might make for a good

crowd, but ult imately, the club is stealing your money. The only way around this

is to make sure everybody pays a cover. You can either have someone that

61

works for you at the door, or at the very least, you can have the various band

members take turns “hanging out” by the door before the concert. While you’re

playing, have a f riend or spouse watch for you.

Another way to keep some control is to print up t ickets. Use your

computer and make up some nice, souvenir quality show t ickets that l ist the day

and t ime of the show, the club name, your band name, and even band contact

information. It ’s l ike giving your business card to every person who hears you

play. You can even buy pre-perforated t ickets, with numbers on them, at most

paper supply houses. On the back of the stubs you can include an area where

they can write their contact information to qualify for a door prize (and thus give

you names for your mail ing l ist). Give away t-shirts, CD’s or f ree “t ickets for 6”

to next week’s concert. The deal here is that you’re handing the doorman a

counted (and numbered) amount of t ickets. At the end of the evening, he’s

responsible for giving you either a t icket or its cost. If 150 t ickets are missing,

he needs to come up with whatever they would cost. If you go that route, you

st i l l run the risk of having a few of the regulars sl ip by. Again, try to glance over

at the door every now and then and, if the number is small enough, have

someone walk around and do a head count just as your show begins. If the

totals don’t match, call the owner and complain.

One f inal considerat ion when working for the door, is to make sure it ’s

the only door. Many clubs have back doors that open into restaurants or the

back parking lot. It ’s not uncommon for club owners to post someone at the

f ront door to take t ickets while those “in the know” wil l sneak in f rom behind.

The club owner and employees don’t care, so as long as you don’t not ice,

they’l l feel they simply made a bit more money by looking the other way. If you

mention something, they’l l probably act shocked and make a comment about

how they usually lock that door, and have no idea how they could have missed

it . If this happens, you might be well served to insist that your person take the

t ickets at the f ront door. If you don’t , chances are pretty good that the people

who used to walk in without paying f rom the “members only” entrance wil l

probably be allowed to “sl ip by” at the f ront door. If they aren’t , the club stands

the chance of losing some of its regulars.

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Another variable you can ask for is a percentage of the drinks. This one

is a bit more complicated. It does ask for a raise, but it al lows you both to share

in the risk.

If you can convince the club owner that it would be to both your advantage

to get more people in the door then you might suggest something l ike this.

Instead of charging $4 a person at the door, you’re only going to charge $2.

Typically the club plans on gett ing 100 people a night in the door. If 100

people typically drink $700 worth of drinks, which costs the club $80 to

serve, the club owner knows he brings in about $620 a night in drink prof its.

Suppose 200 people walked in? What’s going to happen now? That $620 wil l

now suddenly shoot up to $1240. He’l l have to pay the same price for al l h is

expenses, so basically, that second half becomes pure prof it . Should you be

able to keep some of it? If you mutually agreed to gamble on drawing bigger

crowds by cutt ing your door cost down, you most certainly would. But look at

the math here. Suppose you set up an arrangement where you are wil l ing to

cut the door in down to $2 and agree to split any drink sales over $620. He

may not catch it , but you just got him to pay the cost of the drinks out of his

prof it . If $700 worth of drinks cost $80 in materials, then he’s paying 11% of

his prof it in materials. If you split the drink prof its over $620 in half that

means he’l l only make $350 when he sells $700 in drinks. If i t costs him $80

to do that, he now is only keeping $270 in pure prof it . That means he’l l end

up paying about 23% of his prof it in the second half for materials. But

considering that the second half is pure prof it , chances are he won’t care.

Basically, he’l l end up with an extra $270 prof it in the deal. In your case, if

200 people showed up, you would make the original $400 at the door and

add to it another $350, so instead of sett l ing for a f lat $400, you now took

home a total of $750. And if you’re good, the club wil l love you, and keep

you around, and your following wil l grow. At the rate shown above, every

new person that walks in the door wil l make you $2 at the door, and an

average of $3.50 per person in drink sales. So effect ively, af ter you get the

f irst “normal” 100 people in the door, and make $200 prof it , you’l l start

making $5.50 per person at the door.

63

And how wil l the club owner feel? Remember his original “budget”. Af ter

sell ing the expected 100 t ickets and paying his bi l ls he planned on taking

home $175 a night in prof it . Your l i t t le package (provided you beat the

bushes enough to bring in 200 people) wil l now ad an extra $270 a night in

prof it . His monthly income wil l now go f rom $2100 to $5340. Do you think

he’l l feel cheated? Heck, if you bargained in $1000 of his prof it into

advert ising (which wil l help bring in your extra 100 people), he’d st i l l end up

making more than double what he was making before. It takes some creat ive

f inancing, but it ’s a win/win situat ion that does nothing but focus attent ion

where it should be, on adding more customers to the club.

If you opt to try and get some of his money for advert ising, don’t ask him to

simply wr ite a check for $1000. Instead, suggest that considering the fact

that we’re now talking about money that doesn’t exist unt i l af ter he makes

what he would have made before, i t ’s only fair that he be wil l ing to take $1

per customer (which wil l come off the $5.50 prof it per customer he’l l be

making), to advert ise. Explain that in the long run, that should again

translate into more customers. Most club owners wil l be able to see the

advantages of this, considering they’ve been playing that

advert ising/customer number game for years. And when they realize they’l l

st i l l take home more than they would with any other band, while making their

club more successful, they shouldn’t have a problem with it . At $1 per

customer, t imes 100 extra customers a night, t imes 3 nights a week, t imes 4

weeks would buy you an extra $1200 a month to advert ise with. How about

suggest ing you use that money to pay for a b il lboard in town, that ’ l l make

you the “stars” in the area, while st i l l having both you and the club continue

to do the advert ising you normally do anyway.

And more customers pay off in several hidden ways for you as well. Nothing

makes you look more l ike an “in” group than a sold out house. In fact, as a

rule of thumb, you wil l never really be a “successful” band unt i l everybody

watches people being turned away at the door. If you can f ine tune this

system unti l you guarantee to have to turn away, say, 50 people at the door

every night, you have now established yourself in the eyes of the customers

as the band that really sells. You can now afford to raise the door to, say $3

64

a person and hope not to discourage more than 50 people. If you do that

long enough, you’l l be back to turning people down, and making t ickets to

your show the “hot thing” around town. The club owner wil l love you for

giving him the maximum amount of drink sales he could possibly plan on and

you’l l end up with a kil ler mail ing l ist . You’l l a lso make much more in CD and

t-shirt sales if people see you turning people back at the door. And you

might want to consider moving around.

Once you can prove to a club that you can sell out and pull the big crowds,

you might want to plan moving on to the next town and working the same

deal. Showing the numbers to any club owner wil l probably make him drool.

He’s almost sure to let you make the same deal with him. And once you do

that you’re start ing to establish a second mail ing l ist somewhere else.

You’re also taking back the power behind your performance. If you stay at

the same club for a year, there’l l a lways be a question as to whether it ’s

your group or the club that ’s drawing the crowds. If you stay long enough to

establish a loyal fol lowing, and you have all their names in your mail ing l ist ,

you can now comfortably go down to the next town and start over. It ’s a

subt le way of tel l ing everybody that no club “owns” you. You’re tell ing club

owners everywhere that you don’t need them half as much as they need you.

You suddenly f ind yourself in place to take advantage of the second “must

remember” principle in negotiat ing.

The second point you must never forget if you plan on being successful is

that the minute you lose your walking power, you lose your abil i ty to

negotiate. As long as you feel you “must have” this deal to get your b il ls

paid, or to make it in the business, you’ve given away your power. If you

ever reach a moment when you feel you’re gett ing too emotionally or

f inancially dependant on this deal, you need to f ight it . Refuse to let any

deal own you, because if any deal ever owns you, then every deal eventually

wil l . Club owners wil l sense your hunger and wil l offer you bottom scraps.

You’l l get a reputat ion of being wil l ing to “sett le” for whatever you’re offered,

and you’l l never be able to pull out of i t . This is where most bands l ive, and

gett ing labeled as “one of the crowd” is a hard place to be. Be sure you have

your budget well organized so you have a f inancial net to fall back on, and

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be sure you don’t become dependant on any single club or individual for

your success and you’l l soon f ind the doors opening before you wil l offer far

greater rewards.

Neil Diamond brags about how he has sold out every show he’s done for the

past 20 years. Yes he’s a great performer with a lot of very popular music,

but he’s also playing with numbers there. He only does a single show in

larger cit ies once a year. If he were working the same club week af ter week

for a year, few people would f lock to see him. Oh, he’d have a solid

following, but if you knew you could catch his show any Saturday night this

year, you wouldn’t feel motivated to rush out there every Saturday night.

When you realize you’l l only get one chance this year to see him (his

schedule only includes mult iple nights in towns where he knows he sells out

quickly), then you’l l be wil l ing to pay whatever he asks for. Tickets to his

shows have ranged as high as $800 each (at his bicentennial New Years Eve

show in Salt Lake City), where he sold out months ahead of t ime.

If you cont inue to work the same club, eventually the crowds are going to

start taking you for granted. Oh, you’l l get the groupies that show up weekly,

every week, but many wil l want variety and wil l t ry other clubs every now

and then. If instead, you start developing, say, 10 clubs around your area (or

on a tour), you’l l eventually f ind yourself with a solid fol lowing in several

dif ferent places. Now, suddenly, no club owner wil l feel powerful enough to

do anything but hope you’l l consider doing his club. It ’s a great negotiat ing

place to be. It takes a bit more work, but up the road, it ’ l l t ranslate into much

higher paying gigs and a larger mail ing l ist you can parlay into other

ventures.

Another opt ion you might want to consider when booking clubs is to do

something called “four wall ing”. It basically means you rent the club out and

take all the prof it . This doesn’t usually work real well in typical nightclubs

unless you know you can draw a powerful fol lowing. Suppose you’ve been

working an area for a while and you know you can count on, say, 300 people

at every concert you do. This kind of fol lowing wil l only happen if those 300

don’t feel you’ve saturated their market. If they know you’re doing clubs

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around town every week, they aren’t going to f lock down to see you when

you four wall somewhere. If , on the other hand, l ike Niel Diamond, you plan

on only showing up in a town where you’ve established a solid following for,

say, 2 weeks every August, you may f ind you can plan on drawing 200

people at every show. Once you establish that kind of fol lowing, you’re

probably ready to four wall.

Basically, you call a club and ask them how much they would charge you to

rent the place for two weekends. The club owner is going to f igure in what

he’s always hoped on making and charge you for it . If we started with the

model we laid out above, you’l l remember the club owner made $1100 prof it

a night. Out of this he had to pay his expenses. Since he’s not going to have

to pay for advert ising, you can now knock $200 off the total. He’l l probably

also be wil l ing to take the $700 prof it he planned on making in drinks and

split a part of that with you. In effect, you could probably get him to agree to

a guarantee of $300 drink sales and then a f lat fee of $1 per drink af ter that.

Basically, the f irst 300 drinks bought throughout the night are prepaid, and

then the club makes an extra $1 every t ime a drink is sold.

Four wall ing is very common among the “big name” bands who only consider

clubs that ’ l l let them four wall. In a typical deal, using the numbers we

worked out above, you might be able to convince a club owner to agree to

take a personal prof it of $200 (as opposed to the $170 he’s now taking). You

would then pay for the staff and overhead for the night, which worked out to

$245, bringing your total up to $445. Finally, you’re guaranteeing $300 worth

of drink sales, so you now make your total $845. Basically, by giving the

owner $845 you get the club to do as you please, including the f irst 300

drinks. Af ter that you start making whatever you charge over $1 per drink

(remember, in our original model, the owner was buying drinks at 11% of

their cost, so a $2 drink would have ended up costing him just $0.22.).

Now let ’s do the math. You know you can plan on gett ing, say, 200 people in

the door while charging $3 cover. You now start with a $600 prof it . As they

buy drinks, say, at $2 each, they pay the bar tender the way they normally

would. If the typical 100 person crowd in our original model spent $700 in

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drinks, then a 200 person crowd should spend $1400. So now your prof it is

up to $2000. With 200 people in the room, you’l l probably sell some CD’s

and t-shirts, but lets assume you didn’t . Out of your $2000 you have to pay

the original $845 cost for the room. You’l l probably want to toss in another

$250 or so to mail to your l ist and take an ad in the local paper. You ’l l a lso

want to put lots of t ime into distribut ing f lyers and posters around town. But

if you add $845 to the club and $250 for advert ising, you’re st i l l taking home

just over $1000 prof it for the night, which sure beats the $400 the club would

have normally offered you.

Four wall ing depends on your abil i ty to draw a crowd. Obviously if you only

drew the same 100 people the club owner usually draws, you’d now be stuck

making a whooping prof it of just $5. The good news is, that the f irst 100

people in the door would end up paying all your overhead. Af ter that, your

ledger sheet would work out to $10 prof it per person that walked in the door

($3 at the door and $7 in drinks). If you were capable of drawing 300, the

club would have st i l l paid you $400 (and maybe a $50 bonus), but by four

wall ing you’d take home $2005. If you can draw the crowd, because of the

sharp posters, good media relat ions and heavy footwork, then four wall ing

may be the t icket for you. It may be a goal to shoot for.

If you’re wil l ing to take the t ime to put it together, the day wil l come when

you can comfortably call any club in any of your well marketed areas and

offer to four wall a show. They’l l love it and you’l l make an incredible prof it .

Once you start tapping into other markets available to you (we discuss them

in chapter nine), you might reserve your 4 wall ing dates for t imes when you

know you aren’t making the big money elsewhere. That’ l l again make yours a

show that ’s more in demand. Remember Niel Diamond? You need to be

around of ten enough so they don’t forget you, but rarely enough so they

don’t take you for granted.

A real exot ic way of four wall ing is to create your own club. Several cult ic

music styles in many of the larger cit ies make a great l iving by rent ing old

warehouses around town and doing their own thing. The “in crowd” is on the

“secret” mail ing l ist and f inds out where they’re going to be f rom week to

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week. The part ies are just that, part ies. The bands play some wild music and

the room is done up with fancy lasers and plenty of special effects. There’s

more smoke machines and bubble blowers than most haunted houses and

the bar serves all kinds of special drinks (with names ref lect ing band

members or music styles, l ike “Nick’s Orgasm” or “The W ild Ride”). Drinks

are catered by a local bar. They take a small port ion of drink sales and make

it their business to keep minors f rom drinking.

Since they’re rent ing the warehouses f rom week to week, and moving around

town, it gives the feeling that they’re l iving on the f ringes of legality.

Unfortunately, in many cases they are, but eventually end up paying for it . If

you can keep it legal, but design the room to meet the specif ic l ikes of the

kind of crowd you typically draw, you’l l f ind it much easier to establish a cult

fol lowing.

These underground clubs in New York, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles

typically get young crowds to f i l l a 500 to 1000 person room at $10 to $20 a

shot. W ith that kind of money, they can afford to offer one heck of a show.

The fact that the club moves around f rom area to area offers enough variety

to make their fol lowers consider it a privi lege to be considered one of the

“secret few” who know about these “hot events”. They buy the t-shirts, own

all the CD’s and beg for the chance to get f riends added to the “insiders

l ist”. It ’s the classic model for any teenager looking to prove he has his own

“private club”, where grownups aren’t al lowed.

More conservat ive groups may not be able to put together packages that ’ l l

sell as emotionally as a punk or heavy metal band might, but he concept

may st i l l work for you. Instead of looking for the “wild, loud and crazy”

feeling, maybe a beach club scene might work. Rent ing a warehouse and

sett ing it up with a large sandbox complete with volleyball and Frisbee

competit ions and f ruit drinks served to customers sit t ing on lounge chairs

under umbrellas might draw a lot of the baby boomers to a Beach Boys type

concert. A dark room with X-mas l ights made out to look l ike stars and

silhouettes of a city skyline along the walls might make for a cozy romantic

evening for a Frank Sinatra style concert. Basically, by owning the room, you

69

can make it exact ly what your style of music cal ls for, instead of trying to

create the atmosphere you’re looking for while surrounded by dart boards,

pool tables and guys pract icing their pick up l ines. The problem with this

kind of package is that it takes some doing to get the momentum going. You

need to really be able to produce one heck of a show to establish a loyal

fol lowing. But if you have a good, say, 200 person mail ing l ist , and you send

out a sharp brochure invit ing them and one guest each to a special “for our

family only” concert, you should be able to get enough people in the f irst

event to be able to afford something decent. If you give them an experience

they can’t f ind anywhere else in town, when you do next month’s show it ’ l l

be much easier to sell out and start developing your solid following.

One f inal variat ion on this same theme might be to open your own club. No,

you aren’t agreeing to manage and run the place, you’re just working out a

partnership with someone who is. Find the bar tender at a better club in or

around town. Offer to split the start up costs on a club. Basically, you’re

going to create a club that ’s tailor made for your style of music and then

look around for other bands to play when you aren’t around. The beauty of

this kind of arrangement is that you can offer f ree talent for a while to get

things going. Remember the original model? The single biggest cost for an

evening was the talent. If you can do it for f ree, or get bands you’re f riends

with to work at a discount to help you get going, you’l l eventually end up

with a steady income coming in thanks to someone else running the club.

You’l l need equipment and a l iquor l icense. Find a club that ’s about to go

out of business that has both and offer to help bail them out.

Together you’l l come up with a down payment on a nicer location and move

everything over there. You’l l then contact your mail ing l ist and tell them

you’re opening a club that was tailor made for your music. Invite them to

come to the “beach party” at your new locat ion and help kick things off . It ’s a

party for “club members only”. It shouldn’t take too long, if you do it r ight, to

start gett ing a solid fol lowing. The partner wil l love making more, in the long

run, than he did as an outsider, and you’l l end up keeping, say, 20% of the

net prof it for having helped get things going. That means, in our original

model, where the owner would have taken home $445 a night for a 200

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person room (including a generous allowance for the performer), you would

now end up making $89 a night to do nothing. In our 3 busy night a week

schedule that would add up to a steady weekly income of $267. Your take at

the end of the year would come out to $13,884, just for doing a few shows

up f ront and helping to pay the down payment. If you allow your f ree shows

to help the club get on it ’s feet (maybe one weekend a month for a while

where the amount you might have made goes to paying the rent), then you

have a minimal out of pocket expense involved in gett ing things going.

In fact, if you l ined up, say, 4 clubs in four dif ferent cit ies using this same

model, you would now be making $54,656 a year (to do nothing). You might

give your f irst club a year to get off i t ’s feet. That would allow you to only

have to “donate” one weekend a month to the cause, which would give you 3

weekends in which to make your prof it . Once the club is up and running, with

it ’s own following, then you could start up on the second club. 4 years later

you’d be in business. Not only would you have a steady, residual income of

$54,656, but you would also have plenty of clubs to work at. You can now

call any t ime you want to and put yourself on the schedule. Any t ime you

have an empty weekend coming up, you have 4 choices to pick f rom.

You also have a month worth of work you can l ine up in a mini “tour”. You

can obviously do it yourself , maybe once or twice a year. But you can also

offer it to other bands. Imagine picking out 6 good bands and offering to give

them two one month “mini tours” a year. Guaranteed, no quest ions asked.

You show up each April and October, and we’l l g ive you 4 weekends worth

of solid work. Bands would love you. And you would end up with a full

schedule. With that kind of bargaining power, you can now demand that the

bands clean up their acts and l ive up to a standard you set for them (which

would raise the standard you’re offering in your clubs). Anybody who can’t

measure up wil l f ind there’s a long l ine of other bands wait ing to take their

place. You might try start ing with 12 bands once a year and eventually pick

one or two to do twice. Let the other bands know you’re looking for anybody

who can do a great job to move up to a “2 t imes a year” slot and watch what

happens. You might bump one band up to where they’re doing two weeks at

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each club which wil l now translate into 4 months a year of solid work. Again,

you’l l have all the others begging to do whatever you ask.

If you plan on sett ing up a tour schedule (or even if you simply plan on

gett ing better, out of town bands), you might consider, as you build your

club, including a small 2 or 3 bedroom apartment somewhere upstairs or in

the back. It needs to be complete with kitchenette and bathroom (with a

shower). Make it up nice, with a television, l iving room and a l i t t le space. It ’s

really an excuse to draw bands in. Call i t your condo and make bands feel

l ike “stars” when they’re there. Your mini “tour” groups can basically sleep in

their own space, get dressed and walk a few paces to the performing stage.

It ’s l ike l iv ing in luxury. And the small space that would probably have

become storage, wil l now save you $100 or so in room fees every night an

out of town band comes by to play. If you f igure each band wil l p lay on

Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, you’l l be saving yourself $300 a week

or $1200 a month. Heck, for that amount, you can probably afford to buy the

whole warehouse you’re making into your club. Just be sure you aren’t just

throwing something together. Remember what it fe lt l ike being a band that

wasn’t appreciated. People expected all four of you, with your equipment, to

somehow cram into a Motel 6 somewhere. Imagine the loyalty you’l l

generate by just taking a day or two to f rame in and panel a row of rooms,

so each member can have his or her own “space”.

We’ve discussed pretty much all the opt ions you have when booking a club

except one. What are the logist ics and how does the system work when you

decide to approach a club as a touring band? In the next chapter we’l l

discuss the ins and outs of touring. Is it cost effect ive? Can you manage the

stress? How do you juggle the “at home” issues l ike rent, phone and so forth

while on the road? Chapter 6 not only discusses the specif ic problems faced

by performers on the road, but it also gives you some insider’s advice on

how to survive the unique problems and situat ions you’re sure to come

across when you become a “road warrior” .

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Chapter Six

Taking It On The Road

Is touring for you? Can you afford it? Wil l you make enough money to

make it worth the hassle? This chapter discusses all the steps involved in

the touring process and how to make the most out of the experience.

Probably the best place to begin is to try and f igure out why you would want

to tour in the f irst place. You probably have your set of clubs you’ve been

doing for a while locally and really can’t imagine why you’d want to ad travel

expenses to your already high overhead. Truth be told, it ’s precisely

because you f ind yourself in that situat ion that you should consider touring.

Let ’s face it . Most of the clubs around the country are used to paying barrel

bottom prices for their bands. They cater to local guys who can’t wait to get

their stage t ime, and treat you that way. The bigger clubs, the ones wil l ing to

pay for touring bands, don’t usually consider local groups. And they really

shouldn’t . Why should a club owner pay you $1200 for a night when he

knows all the locals have been watching you play at that $400 club down the

street? How could he possibly consider making his typical $10 cover charge

when you’ve been working at $2 a person? If you have a local reputat ion of

being a bargain basement band, it ’s going to be hard to suddenly get into

the bigger clubs. And if you do, you’re probably only going to get a week or

two a year. If you do the math, two $1200 shows may be good for your ego,

but they won’t pay as much rent as 40 $400 shows wil l .

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If you want to consistent ly make the higher scale, you’re going to have to go

to where the clubs are wil l ing to pay for it. And when you do, you’re going to

discover a really strange phenomenon. For some reason, nobody believes

anybody important l ives in their town (unless you happen to l ive in Chicago,

L.A., or New York City). If a club owner, or even club patrons think of you as

the “local” band, you’l l f ind you’l l never quite match up to the “big guys” f rom

out of town. Well, the same is true when you start traveling. The fact that

you can advert ise that you’re f rom somewhere else suddenly makes you

sound l ike a pro. The fact that you can call a club owner and tell them you’re

booking a tour and wil l be passing through his town on a given week wil l

score far more brownie points than tell ing a local owner you l ive in town and

would l ike to work any t ime there’s an opening.

And any club wil l ing to hire a touring band, realizes they have expenses.

They can’t af ford to stay on the road unless they’re making enough to pay all

their bi l ls (both traveling and back home). If you’re touring, you can’t afford

to have a day job, unless you’re a writer or some other profession you can

take along with you.

But before you make the big jump and decide to quit your job and start

t raveling with the band, it might be a good idea to try and f ind out if you ’l l be

able to make it . Let ’s walk through the ent ire process of gett ing a tour

organized.

Hopefully you took the t ime to create a sharp promo package and web site.

If you did, you’re well on your way to stardom. Begin by pull ing out a map

and routing a tour. Start in your home town and trace the trip you plan on

taking. You’l l probably want to make your f irst tour run about 2 months or so,

so you can get your feet wet. Trace a circular route that takes you around to

8 or so larger towns. Make sure the towns are no more than 400 or so miles

apart. Driving for 3 days between gigs can get old real quickly, and besides,

you usually end up having to pay for the hotel rooms on the way, that can ad

up to a small fortune.

74

Now set a t imef rame during which you plan on touring. Block in a t ime, at

least 6 months in the future. Check with the band and come up with a period

you can all get off .

And then start making phone calls. If you have internet access, search each

of the cit ies for local clubs. Make up a l ist of 5 or 6 of the ones that sound

l ike the kind of club you might be interested in (i.e. if you play country

western, the “Blue Jean Cowgirl” is probably going to work out better for you

than the “Hot Diggit ty Club”). Start call ing some of the clubs. Try to catch

them around 3 or so in the af ternoon, before the dinner crowd starts coming

in, and af ter they arrive (or f inish lunches if they serve them). Don’t ask for

the owner. Not yet. Ask whoever answers the phone if the club hires touring

bands. Considering the small number of clubs that usually do, your chances

are pretty sl im. If they tell you they don’t , ask if they know of any clubs in

their town that might be interested in hiring a touring band that plays the

kind of music you play. Stress that it probably needs to be a bigger club.

You’re going to f ind that most people in the business know what’s going on

around town and won’t mind te ll ing you. Make a l ist of any clubs they

recommend, and then ask if they might happen to know who books the club.

At least half of the clubs wil l know the owners name or who books for them.

If you don’t get any leads doing it that way, try looking up the local Chamber

of Commerce. Ask them if they know of any local clubs that might be

interested in your act. Finally, if al l else fails, t ry call ing some local agents

and entertainers and asking them. Some may be hesitant to give away work,

but you’re going to f ind that most of them wil l be more than happy to offer a

helping hand.

Once you have a l ist of clubs along your tour route, and hopefully at least a

few contact names, start giving them a call. If you don’t have a name, just

ask. Find out who the booker is and get a hold of him or her. Explain you’re

in the middle of planning a tour and wil l be passing through their town on,

say, the week of March 27 of next year. Find out how of ten bands play

(during the week, weekends only, etc.). Discuss price and come to an

informal agreement. If they can afford enough to make it worth your while,

explain that you’d love to send out your promo material for them to consider.

75

Suggest they look over your web site today, and offer to express mail your

package to them. Paying the $12 or so to mail i t wi l l say several things. It ’ l l

say you’re interested in being eff icient and gett ing things done. It ’ l l a lso

show you aren’t af raid to spend a l i t t le money if that ’s what it takes to meet

their needs. Ult imately, it ’ l l be well worth the effort . Remember, if you’re

booking your show at $1200 a night for, say, three nights, you’re trying to

sell a $3600 package. With that kind of money at stake, $12 is a bargain in

promotional overhead. Heck, that ’s about how much auto dealers make on

each car they sell, and look at all the advert ising and promotional packages

they’re wil l ing to toss in to get it . And most of them don’t seem to be doing

too bad.

The concept to keep in mind here is that you’re not trying to just sell a

$3600 package. You’re actually hoping to establish a relat ionship with a club

that ’ l l be wil l ing to pay that much maybe twice a year. If you consider the

few clubs that can afford that kind of money, when you f inally f ind one that

can, you better roll out the red carpet and treat them right.

One last considerat ion you’l l need to work out before you start making calls

is exact ly how much it ’s going to cost you to l ive for a week. How many

people are in your band? How much wil l meals cost? How many hotel rooms

wil l you need to pay for along the way? How much wil l gas and vehicle

upkeep cost? Add an extra 20% or so to whatever total you come up with for

a weeks run to keep around in case of emergencies. Once you f igure out

how much your expenses wil l be, then you need to f igure out salaries. If ,

say, your overhead wil l work out to about $900 a week and each of the 5

band members agrees to work at $200 a week, you now know you’l l need

around $2000 just to break even. If you decide not to take anything less than

$3000 for a week’s work, you’l l end up making a l i t t le extra to put in your

promotional and/or equipment budget for next year. If you do 8 weeks, at

that rate, you’l l end up with $8000 in the band’s promo account.

Have your promo packages ready to mail. They should be assembled and

wait ing only for you to write up a nice cover let ter that calls the owner by

name and thanks him for considering your band. On the cover, in big, bold

76

let ters, mark “This Is The Package You Requested”. It ’ l l keep your package

f rom gett ing tossed in the corner and forgotten. If you run down to the post

off ice ahead of t ime, you can pick up a stack of Express Mail boxes to pre

package your stuff in.

Be sure your phone number is in the package, and be sure you include

available dates in your cover let ter. Something to the effect of “We’re

contact ing you this far ahead so we can both hopefully be f lexible with our

scheduling. At this t ime our rout ing takes us through Columbus on the week

of May 12 or we could route ourselves to pass back by on the week of June

2”. Be sure you also stress that although you might be contact ing other clubs

in his town about booking these dates, you wil l be wil l ing to guarantee

whoever signs you up f irst an exclusive arrangement. You won’t perform for

any other clubs in their town throughout the year. You should reserve the

right to do private events in town, but you won’t accept any offers for public

appearances at competing clubs.

That last clause wil l do two things. It ’ l l scare the owner into act ing quickly

(before someone else books you), and it ’ l l te l l h im you won’t be available to

him unless he agrees to your terms. Both wil l make it much easier to

negotiate in the future.

Finally, include in your package a contract for your performance. In it you ’l l

want to explain that you do expect them to provide housing for you and your

band. You might also include a clause in there that says the club is

responsible for buying dinners (at their restaurant) for all the band members

each night you perform. Finally, you may want to request a deposit on your

cost. Depending on the part of the country you l ive in, this may or may not

be the norm. There’s nothing wrong with asking for a 50% deposit and

including a clause in your agreement that states that if the club cancels

without giving you a 30 day (or maybe 60 day) not ice, you get to keep the

deposit to help cover your expenses. Remember, you’re the talent that ’s

going to make it possible for them to stay in business. There’s nothing wrong

with sett ing the standards you’d rather perform under. Leave the show dates

and t imes blank. If you specify that “A 50% deposit is required in order to

77

validate this agreement” you’l l be safe if you mail the contract out to them

signed. Unless they can prove they paid you (which means they mailed you

a check and you cashed it), they can’t hold you to the contract. Being able to

sign your contract up f ront makes it much easier for them to simply sign it

and drop it in the mail with the deposit .

Give the club about a week to look over your material. Be sure you include

samples of any posters, f lyers, and other material they’re going to be able to

use to promote the show. If they haven’t called you within a week, you call

back and check to see if they got your package. At that t ime, ask if they’re

interested in booking your act. If they are, ask them to sign your contract

and drop it in the mail with a deposit . Be careful here. It ’s real easy to spend

the deposit now and then spend the ent ire tour struggling. If you can afford

it , just put the deposit in the bank and leave it there. Later, when you start

the tour, use it as a buffer (use an ATM card if you need money). And try to

l ive on the balance you’re gett ing paid by the clubs.

If the club needs another contract for any reason, offer to fax one to them.

Technically, a faxed signature won’t hold up in court , but people in the

industry do it al l the t ime, and nobody ever seems to challenge it .

Once you start booking weeks, you may f ind you’l l need to do a bit of

f lexing. If , say, you can’t f ind an interested club in one of the larger towns

along the way, you may check to see if you can either skip that town and

immediately move on to the next one, or maybe lower your price a bit and

f ind a smaller club in or around that town that might pay enough to cover

your expenses during that week. If you f ind you’re going to be in a town and

have to pay your own expenses, pick up one of the local shopper type

magazines (or the Sunday version of the local paper) and start looking

around for hotels that offer weekly rates. You should be able to f ind a half

decent one that’ l l rent you a room for under $250 (depending on the part of

the country you l ive in). If you f ind a club that can’t afford to pay for your

room, you might check the area and see how much it ’s going to cost you to

pay for a hotel. If you feel i t ’s st i l l within your budget, you can go on and

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take the show. You might ask for a l i t t le bit of f the door to help pay your

expenses.

Once you book your tour, arrange to have an advance person go hit the

towns a couple weeks before you get there. It ’s their job to put up posters,

f lyers, the works. Don’t tel l the club you plan on doing this. If you do, they’l l

assume they can cut back on their advert ising budget and basically take

money out of your pocket. Let them promote the way they would have

anyway, while your person is busy trying to arrange radio appearances for

you and putt ing out advert ising all over town. If you can sell a good crowd,

the owner wil l have no problem scheduling you in the next t ime you’re in the

area. Be sure to have a door prize of some kind so you can get a good solid

mail ing l ist for the area that’ l l let you gather your own crowd next t ime you’re

around. You might also consider f inding a local charity and offering to give

them all the money you make f rom poster and picture sales. You then sell

pictures at a dollar a piece, and offer to sign them. Basically, you’re

suddenly going to become the stars around town, and the fact that you’re

giving money to the charity wil l certainly help to get your name in the local

papers and radio. In the next chapter we’l l cover all kinds of ideas on how to

work the media, but for now, just remember that gett ing the f ree publicity is

your advance man’s job.

Before taking off on tour, gather the gang together and have a good heart to

heart. Discuss the issues you might come across while on the road. Make up

some general rules. No angry arguments, each person has their dut ies, what

are your policies going to be about bringing home groupies, how about

gett ing drunk or wasted before a show? Figure out as many potent ial

problems before the fact and work them out. Being on the road can be a

long, extended vacat ion or it can be hell. And it al l depends on the att itudes

you each agree to have.

Before loading up the band to take off , be sure what you’re taking is up to

par. Do the clothes you wear look good enough for a “professional touring

band”? Does the logo on the side of your speakers need to be repainted?

Make sure you’re sharp. Remember, this f irst tour is the make it or break it

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moment. Every club owner along the way is hoping you’re good. Heck,

they’re bett ing you’re good. Let them down and you’ve effect ively cut your

own throat. Do a good job, and you can plan on repeat ing the gig on a

regular basis.

The f irst one’s the tuffy. You had to work hard to book it and you’re being

carefully watched all along the way. Af ter you pull i t off , The second t ime’s a

piece of cake. You’re simply going to call up and rebook. You’re then going

to go back and do it al l over again. If you cont inue to bring in the numbers,

most of the clubs wil l be f ine with you coming back. You can probably afford

to plan on traveling through the same areas maybe as much as twice a year.

If you do it any more than that you’re probably going to become to common

place. You won’t be as much of a novelty and you won’t draw as big a crowd.

As you travel, be sure you actually schedule in leisure t ime. Give yourself

t ime to go to the beach or to rent a boat at the lake and go f ishing. Do stuff

that let ’s you take a break. And look for ways to enjoy what’s going on.

You’re l iving every band’s dream. Don’t make it a nightmare.

If you’re going to have to pay for some of your hotels as you travel, keep

your eye out for the state welcome centers, usually found within 5 miles or

so of the state borders. Go into the welcome centers and pick up the l i t t le

travel booklets that l ist discounted prices on hotel. You’l l usually f ind some

of the best deals anywhere in here. Call ahead of t ime and make sure they

have rooms available, and don’t forget to negot iate. These guys are used to

sell ing one room at a t ime, for, say, $32 a night. If you call and explain that

you need 3 rooms, but normally only plan on paying $80 a night, they’l l

probably jump on it . If you pull into a hotel and not ice there aren’t many cars

in the parking lot, that ’s a good t ime to try and negotiate price. These guys

know that a room that spends the night empty is simply wasted money. If

half the hotel is going to be empty tonight, they’re probably wil l ing to give

you a good price just to make something off of i t . Most desk clerks have

been told they can lower their price down to a certain amount. Find out what

it is and get the best deal possible.

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You might also consider joining AAA. They offer excellent travel guides for

the various towns that’ l l g ive you some ideas of things to do, but more

important ly, they’re the old t imers in the travel industry, and most hotels wil l

of fer AAA discounts.

Another opt ion to consider when shopping for a hotel is their breakfast

policy. Do they include breakfast? And if they do, what’s on it? Paying an

extra $5 per person for a breakfast that only ads up to a couple doughnuts

and a glass of orange juice is hardly a deal. You can buy several dozen

doughnuts and a gallon of OJ for less than $10. If they offer a larger

banquet, or a breakfast card at the hotel’s restaurant, now it may be worth it

to pay a dollar or two more per person.

While you’re on the road, someone has to keep track of business back

home. Someone has to check your mail and pay your bil ls. Someone has to

keep an eye on your phone and be available to negot iate deals with local

gigs if they come up. Find a person you can trust (both to be dependable

and to hear the details of your business). Give that person the key to your

mailbox, and forward the phone to their house. Hopefully you’ve arranged to

have a cell phone. If you have, they can call you if something comes up that

needs your personal attent ion.

It might be a good idea to make it a policy to mail back some of the money

you make each night to your account back home. It ’s hard to keep money

that ’s burning a hole in your pocket. Many clubs pay you in cash. Walking

around town carrying thousands in cash is more of a temptat ion than most

can handle. If you open a specif ic account dedicated to paying b il ls and

working as an emergency buffer, you can give the person back home,

responsible for your bil l paying, a checkbook they can pay bil ls f rom. If you

really trust them (it ’s someone’s spouse or close relat ive) you might just

open the account in their name, so they can write checks. If not, you can

simply sign a certain number of checks and have them f i l l them out as

needed. As they do, they need to l ist accurately where each check went and

how much it was for.

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There are a bunch of things that ’ l l a l l fa l l in place as you travel.

Temperaments wil l start meshing better than they ever have in the past,

you’l l soon get the sett ing up and striking thing down to an art . You’l l

eventually get used to being treated l ike a star, both by the staff at the

locat ion and by people who came to see the “touring band”. Heck, people

wil l be stopping you around town to tell you they think you’re great. Most of

the details wil l work out f ine. The one item you want to quickly move to the

top of your l ist of priorit ies, the single most important item on your ent ire

agenda has got to be having fun. Yes, it ’s business and you’re p il ing a

bunch of responsibil i ty on your shoulders, but if you aren’t enjoying the ride,

it ’s going to ref lect in your music, and the interact ion of band members. Get

the job done and do it well, but be sure, above all else, to have fun doing it .

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Chapter Seven

Working The

Media

If you’re really honest with yourself , you’l l realize that a lot of the motivat ion

you have for being in a band is self serving. You want to be famous. You

want your girlf r iend to think she’s dat ing a star. You want the cashier at the

grocery store to take your check without having to check your ID. And that ’s

okay. Heck, someone has to do it . Why shouldn’t i t be you?

And if you really want to be famous, it almost certainly demands that you

end up dealing with the media. Your music wil l need playt ime, and you’l l

need to do guest appearances. The local music scene wil l need to know you

are both available and regularly appearing in all the right places. And there’s

a long l ist of ways you can go about gett ing it done, so hang on, and let ’s

get busy.

We’re going to deal with the top 4 media out let sources here, print media

(newspapers, magazines, etc.), on l ine media (the internet), radio and

television.

But before we dive into the individual mediums and the various opt ions

within each medium, it ’s very important that you never lose sight of the fact

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that in reality, a successful promotional campaign coordinates all your

exposure. If a cl ient sees your ad in the paper the same day he hears you on

the morning talk show, now suddenly you sound l ike you’re everywhere. You

must be important (read “famous”) if everybody wants to talk about you. So

look at the various tools available in your quest for exposure, and then

f igure out a way to best tap into as many of them as you can at the same

t ime. Dedicat ing a month to gett ing in the newspaper and then shif t ing your

attent ion to radio is promotional suicide. You’d be much better off taking a

month to carefully plan how you’re going to do it al l, print ing up the press

releases you plan on sending out, organizing the ads you plan on running,

call ing the contacts and arranging for interviews, all scheduled to begin on

the same day next month.

With that in mind, let ’s break them down:

As you promote yourself to the print media, there’re three ent irely dif ferent

areas where you’l l want to aim your efforts. Most newspapers and tabloids

include a “calendar of events”. It ’s a single spot that allows local people to

see what’s happening this coming week. It ’s a very powerful source of

exposure. To get yourself l isted, simply call the paper and ask what they

require. Some want you to mail in a not ice once a week announcing what

you’re doing that week. Others wil l let you fax it in. A few even let you call in

and leave your message on the answering machine. Most of them wil l

require that you renew your l ist ing, before a deadline weekly, so you might

as well assign someone to do nothing but mail out the not ices, say, every

Monday morning. Do this with all the newspapers in town. Tell them where

you’l l be this coming week. It ’ l l let the regulars, who don’t normally go see

you, know there’s a concert going on somewhere. As a side note here, some

radio and television stat ions also have community calendar segments. Most

notably are the PBS and NPR stat ions. If they do, include them in your

weekly mail ings. It can’t hurt .

The second place you can look for exposure in the paper is by buying it .

Taking out an ad that promotes your show. Unless you’re doing real well,

you probably don’t want to spend the money this typically costs. There’s too

84

many ways you can get f ree press for you to have to spend $100 or $200 a

week on an ad. If you are well enough known, and do enough shows to merit

taking out the space, then be sure you buy it in bulk. Ask the paper to put

you on a weekly contract that you plan on running indef initely. That ’ l l drop

your cost down considerably. You now have done two things. First , i t ’s

bought you leverage you can use when talking to club owners. You can offer

to use your space to promote upcoming shows. Unfortunately, if you do this,

chances are the club owner wil l simply cut back on his advert ising, assuming

yours wil l just save him money. A better way to do this is to keep it quiet.

Don’t say anything to the club owner. Let him do his normal advert ising and

you run your ad as well. Now suddenly the owner is going to f ind more

people showing up than he’s used to and assume you’re a better draw than

the rest of the bands. In the long run that ’l l go much farther towards repeat

bookings.

The f inal goal in your newspaper advert ising campaign is to get art icles

writ ten about you or the band. You do this by doing something that ’s

newsworthy. The fact that you’re another band, with 4 people, appearing in

one of the clubs in town, playing the same kind of music is hardly news.

Even the fact that you come out wearing diapers might get a react ion f rom

the crowd, but wil l do nothing for the newsroom. It ’s not about the kind of

music you play, or how wild you act. It ’s not about how of ten you do shows.

The real issue that ’s going to get you f ree art icles is what you’re doing that

interests the community. Suppose you agreed to donate half your take for

the following month to help that homeless shelter downtown. You may walk

out losing $1000, but you’l l get much more than that in f ree press. People

around town wil l feel you’re trying to help out, you’re the good guys.

Reporters wil l want to know why you’re doing it , and the community wil l feel

you’re the kind of band they want to keep up with. How about doing the

longest non stop concert in the history of your town (which wil l probably only

need to run, maybe 6 hours). Offer a small percentage of your take to a local

charity and do a 24 hour marathon of music. People wil l want to f ind out

more. I mentioned earl ier that locat ion and kind of music don’t matter. And

that ’s true, at least as you get started. Once you’ve done a few of these

85

other packages, and more people get to know you, then you’re suddenly a

local celebrity. Now you can plan on gett ing press every t ime you’re seen in

public (but that ’s way, way up the road, so don’t bank on it quite yet).

The easiest way to visualize the impact you’l l have on the press when you

send in your press release is to take a good, close look at the headline on

the top of the page. What does it say? “Band W ill Appear At Local Club” isn’t

going to draw too much interest. “Band Won’t Stop Playing” wil l probably get

an editor to read the story about your proposed music marathon.

The basic promo package here would be a press release, a bio sheet and a

promo picture. The press release should be done up on a plain sheet of

white paper (stay away f rom fancy letterhead and photocopied pictures). On

the top lef t hand corner of the page you’l l want to put, in t iny letters, a l i t t le

capt ion that reads “For Immediate Release” or, i f your press release is

dated, this is where you state it by writ ing, “For Release On Or Before June

22”. On the top right hand corner you’l l want to include a small, two l ine

capt ion that reads: For More Information, Contact: Jeff Smith, (432) 123-

4567. Stay away f rom that typical who, what, where, etc. l ist . It gives most

editors an excuse to glance at the sheet and decide it isn’t worth reading. All

you want across the top of the page is the t iny release date and contact info.

Then you want your headline. In bold print, across the top of the page, you

want a one l ine capt ion that gets their attent ion. About 90% of the success

of your press release wil l probably depend on how well you write this

headline. It needs to shock, entertain or confuse the editor. It has to make it

next to impossible to put the release back down. But most importantly, i t has

to be true. Don’t make statements l ike “We’re The Best In The World! ”

unless you have a Nielsen Report in your hand that states that. Headlines

l ike “Band On The Run” or “Big Band Does Lit t le Concert” won’t cut it . They

may be cute, but they don’t aim at a story. Headlines l ike “Band Takes It All

Off ” that then tells about how everybody in the band is going to confess their

drug habit at their next concert, and plans on making a commitment to stop

immediately (including signing into rehab treatment if needed) wil l probably

make nat ional news. “Someone Shot The Band” followed by a story about

how you’re performing for a local blood drive would get the press’ attent ion.

86

The release itself should NEVER be more than one page long. In fact, that ’s

one page, start ing about a third of the way down the page, and double

spaced. Not much room, is it? The good news is, your goal here isn’t to tell

the ent ire story. THE ONLY PURPOSE for a press release is to convince the

reporter or editor that they should give you a call. All you need in your

release is enough information to make it obvious that it ’s worth their t ime to

talk to you. Information about the abused kids at the center you’re

support ing, and how one of you was abused as a kid should be enough to

spark interest. Explaining that you plan on playing, non stop, unt i l one of the

band members falls to the ground wil l make the marathon idea sound

fascinat ing. Just get their attent ion and convince them that they should give

you a call. Remember ALWAYS to think f rom the readers perspect ive. You

may think it ’s great that you guys have been together for 5 years, that

means nothing to the general public. The fact that the lead guitar and

drummer both tried dat ing the same girl before you guys got started, and

couldn’t stand each others guts for the f irst year you were together makes

for interest ing trivia. Always ask yourself how you would feel reading this

stuff about a band you’ve never heard of (nothing personal, but there

probably are a few newspaper readers out there that haven’t heard of you).

You also need to include a general bio sheet. That ’s information about the

band, the various members and some of the more impressive gigs you’ve

played. A sneaky way to sound important here is to put all your playing t ime

together. If the drummer has been drumming for 10 years, the lead has been

playing for 8, the base has done his thing for 12 and the singer has been

singing for 15 you can run a l ine near the top of your bio that reads “Nearly

Half A Century Of Experience On Stage” and then go on to explain the exact

breakdown. It ’s the kind of stuff papers love to print. This bio has one

purpose, and one purpose only. It has to just ify the press release. It has to

make you an authority or a qualif ied spokes person for whatever it is you

said on the press release. If you’re promoting a tour your heavy metal band

is going to do of local senior centers (if you could tone your music down,

that would be enough of a culture shock to get plenty of f ree press), you

might include in your bio how Bobby worked for a year as an orderly at a

87

senior center. The fact that Jim studied Psychology in college might be

relevant. The fact that Tom majored in Animal Husbandry would do nothing

but make Tom feel his name got l isted (and waste valuable space).

Finally you have your press shot. We talked earl ier about the importance of

gett ing a good shot and how to go about doing it . Be sure your picture is

newspaper quality, both in the quality of the picture you send in and the

appropriateness of the pose. 4 guys mooning the audience may do great as

a picture at the door of the “We Be Crazy Bar” but it ’s not going to make the

Daily Press.

The second place to go for good exposure is the internet. If you don’t have a

web site, get started by putt ing one together. There’s plenty of f ree web

space out there. Take advantage of it . It helps draw crowds. Then be sure

you get l isted in all the local “what’s happening around town” bullet in

boards. If you call your local Better Business Bureau or Chamber of

Commerce, they’l l probably be able to tell you of any such l ist ings. Your

local newspaper probably has an online bullet in board as well. Find out what

you have to do to l ist your event and have the same person that ’s mail ing

out calendar l ist ings to the papers plug in your l ist ings on l ine every week as

well. Many people go on l ine to f igure out what they’re planning on doing

today.

Finally we come to the biggie. Radio and television t ime. The good news is,

what you do is perfect for airt ime. The bad news is, how you do it probably

isn’t . Think about it . How many bands out there play exclusively to their own

crowd? Their circle of f riends think they’re great, and their girlf r iends attend

all their concerts, but how do they look? How dynamic is their presentat ion?

Unless they can really command the attent ion of a single person sit t ing in a

room, chances are they aren’t going to do well on television. The typical

television studio may look great when you watch it at home, but actually is

l i t t le more than a warehouse with a small set in the corner and two cameras.

Your ent ire audience wil l be composed of 8 or so people all busy doing their

own job. And the “crowd” at home wil l usually be composed of one or maybe

two people “sort of l istening” as they munch on popcorn. You don’t have the

88

yell ing mob making your every move look great. A stat ion manager who

agrees to put you on has to believe, without a doubt, that you can capt ivate

the attent ion of anybody who hears you. Are you the kind of group a person

would l isten to by themselves in their car? Does your presentat ion draw the

individual in? These are crit ical issues that keep the vast majority of bands

f rom ever gett ing a chance to appear on television. Heck, even some of the

“big” name bands, who go on because of their fame, are often not allowed to

play on the nat ional talk shows. Yes, we want to hear what they have to say,

and we want to feel l ike we know about their l ives, but the producers don’t

want to risk having people switch channels by allowing them to perform.

Make yours a marketable act. Be sure your lyrics mean something. Work on

the way your group interacts (the l i t t le jokes, the “other stuff ” that keeps you

alive). There have been groups that have stayed very popular on the talk

show circuit . Groups l ike the Smothers Brothers who did more comedy than

they did music. People l ike Frank Sinatra whose voice was legendary and

whose lyrics had something to say. MTV may have popularized a lot of the

other groups, but that never got them any exposure on the mainstream

media. Be realist ic here. If you want to go big, you can either do it by

commanding incredible mobs because of the promotion you’re doing, or by

offering a show everybody l ikes, and the media is anxious to show off .

Radio t ime in part icular can make or break you. It breaks down into two

categories as well. They can play your songs and they can interview you.

Gett ing them to play your songs isn’t as hard as it sounds. Be sure you have

a decent looking CD with your songs on it (we’l l ta lk more about that one in

the next chapter). Mail i t out to the stat ion. Actually, call the stat ion and ask

for a l ist of programs. They’l l mail you a sheet of paper that l ists every DJ

and some of the other important people on the stat ion. Gather up any

publicity you’ve gotten in the past and put together a press package

announcing the release of your new album, “Just Me”. Now mail a copy out

to each of the DJ’s individually. Most won’t l isten to it , but if you can get one

of them to, and you’re halfway good, it may parlay into airplay or an

interview. You can also send out a press release announcing the release of

your CD (af ter you’ve mailed it to them, so they vaguely remember the

89

name). Don’t just announce “We Have A New CD” as your headline. That ’s

boring and self serving. Instead, try f inding what makes your music unique

or personal and play off of that. A headline that reads, “Band Bears All” and

then talks about how hard is was to put your feelings about the world into

words wil l go much farther. Or how about “Band Refuses To Be Heard”

followed by a story about how your music is only a gateway to a long l ist of

stories you aren’t ready to share. That’ l l get a DJ’s attent ion. It ’s almost l ike

a challenge for a DJ to try and f igure out what those “hidden secrets” really

are.

But the real secret to gett ing local playt ime is to get enough people lobbying

for you. As you f inish your concerts in town, do a heartfelt plea to the

audience. Something along the l ines of , “We’ve pored our hearts out to you,

and exposed our l ives. You’ve been good to us and made it worth our t ime.

I’d l ike to take this moment to announce that our new CD is just hit t ing the

market. If you’d l ike a copy, it ’ l l be on sale af ter the show, but more

important ly, I’d l ike to ask a favor of you guys. We just mailed out copies of

our CD to all the local radio stat ions. It ’s not easy competing with the mil l ion

dollar ad agencies that promote those big guys. If you l iked our music, do

me a favor. Call your favorite local stat ion sometime this week and ask them

to play one of our songs. They’l l have every song on our CD. If you’d l ike a

l ist of what songs they are, and the local numbers for all the local radio

stat ions, we’ve got a printed out sheet up here you can pick up. If you tell

them you want to hear our music, they’l l probably l isten. If you don’t call in

and request us, we’re probably mail ing out the worlds most expensive coffee

coasters.”

If you call in trying to fake being a l istener, that ’s generally considered to be

in poor taste (not to mention unethical, and sure to eventually come back

and haunt you). If someone who actually heard you in concert thinks you’re

hot enough to call in a request, that ’s perfect ly legit . That ’s why the stat ion

plays the music in the f irst place, isn’t i t? To give the local l isteners what

they want to hear? There’s nothing wrong with tell ing an audience that l iked

you that your CD is at the stat ion and they don’t need to be shy about

request ing it . Most DJ’s are forced to take a CD that was rated by several

90

music stores in New York City and use that as a gauge to decide what to

play. Local requests are far more inf luent ial than some impersonal “someone

else told me your audience wil l l ike this” l ist .

Another secret to gett ing your name out around town is to be sure you

promote heavily at all the local record outlets. Go on and pay for a nice

cardboard CD display case. Then use it to promote your CD. Offer to leave a

number of your CD’s on the counter at the local music stores on

consignment. To do this you sign a contract that states you’ve lef t , say, 20

CD’s with them. They agree to sell them at the l isted price and keep a

commission for every CD they sell (give them 50% or so). You check back

with them weekly and have them sign for any new CD’s you place in your

display. Once a month you invoice them for the total number of CD’s they’ve

sold (get a clerk to sign for every CD that’s miss ing when you bring new

ones in). If you do this enough, you’l l start gett ing your name out. Even if

you don’t sell a single CD, everybody wil l assume someone else is buying

them when they see the display on the counter. Be sure you plug the counter

displays during your shows. Mention that your CD’s should be available at

all the local music stores. Having people come in and buy them is the single

easiest way to get stores to allow you to keep them on the counter. Radio

stat ions are in the music business. Every DJ in there has at least on music

store where he or she’s a regular. If they cont inue to see your display (and

people buying it) i t won’t be as much of a shock when he gets a call asking

for your songs. Again, it ’s part of the “complete” package.

If you can’t f ind a good looking display box at your local box company (look

in the yellow pages), you might try contact ing one of the suppliers on l ine.

One of the big ones is: Oasis CD Duplication, 657 Zachary Taylor Hwy, Box

721, Flint Hil l , VA 22627, www.oasiscd.com. They specialize in making

copies of your CD but offer a good select ion of display boxes. Cactus

Containers wil l cost you a bit more per box, but does excellent display units.

You can f ind them at 684 Ranchero Drive, San Marcos, CA 92069,

www.cactuscontainers.com.

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Gett ing to appear as a guest on the air is a bit more dif f icult . Bands are

notoriously boring. It ’s a fact. Most DJ’s cringe at the thought of bringing on

4 guys that are going to talk l ike 1s t graders. But that ’s the good news. Most

bands are boring. If you can manage to work on your online presentat ion

enough to really make t ime with you fun, you’re going to quickly become the

only show in town. Watch the fascinat ing guests on talk shows (stay away

f rom MTV – that stuff doesn’t sell to the mainstream). Watch how guests on

the tonight show, or the late show keep the audiences fascinated. Their

honesty, their personality, the way they talk, the jokes they tell, the whole

package. Pull out your video camera and do your own talk shows. Pract ice

being funny. Listen to some of the talk radio hosts. These guys are capable

of making non mechanics fascinated with an auto show. It ’s not because of

what they say, it ’s because of how they say it . Listen to how they have fun

on the air, and how you, as an audience are invited to laugh with them.

Pract ice being relaxed and out of yourself . Where bands are very dif f icult to

sel l to on air personali t ies, comics get calls across the country for DJ’s

begging to have them on as guests. The dif ference is how you come across.

Comics usually make the DJ, and his audience, laugh. Bands usually want to

talk about their CD. Get a good reputat ion of being fun to be with, and the

local DJ’s are going to l ine up to have you on their shows.

A l i t t le trick that ’ l l really make you the celebrit ies around town is to set up a

partnership with one of the larger stat ions in town. Go down and talk it over

with the stat ion manager (or program manager). Offer to perform at all their

l ive remotes for a low, set fee. Basically, i f you typically work, say, for $800

a gig (4 hours), that works out to $200 an hour. Granted you have to set up

and strike, but basically $200 an hour is the fee most people wil l assume

you’re charging. Suppose you agreed to work for a radio stat ion, every t ime

they had a l ive remote, for up to 3 hours. And you offer to do it for just $100.

Do you think they’re going to jump at it? The catch is, you want them to give

you an extra $200 credit towards an advert ising package you can use any

t ime you want to.

Now let ’s look at what happens here. The stat ion goes down to the bowling

alley that ’s having a grand opening. They offer not only to provide 3 hours of

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plugs by on the scene DJ’s promising f ree goodies and l ive airt ime to

anybody who shows up, but also, included, for “just” $100 an hour, they’l l

have you guys show up. They explain to the bowling alley that that ’s less

than half your normal cost. The bowling alley was probably going to have to

pay for entertainment anyway, so they’l l jump at the offer. You’l l get just

about enough to just ify sett ing up in money, but the rewards wil l be far

greater than a full paying gig would have gotten you. The radio stat ion is

hoping their program wil l be a success, and wil l help sell other l ive remotes

around town. How can they do that? Do you think they’l l draw a lot of

attent ion if they say they’l l be at the bowling alley? Probably not. But

suppose they mention that a band wil l a lso be there? Now it ’s start ing to get

interest ing. But not much. They need to somehow convince everybody that

it ’s not just any band. And how do you think a radio stat ion would go about

doing that? They’d invite you to be on the air, they’d start playing your

songs, they’d mention your name every t ime they mention the l ive remote,

they’d end up giving you, f ree of charge, thousands of dollars worth of f ree

publicity. And then, the day of the show, when the DJ’s are sit t ing around

trying to f igure out something worth talking about while a bunch of l i t t le

kiddies are asking where the bathroom is, guess who the “celebrit ies” they

can interview wil l be? Heck, if they can make you look good, it ’ l l make them

look good. They’l l get busy trying to convince your town that “The Star

Chasers” are hot stuff , and wil l be around to meet you if you come down to

the bowling alley before 4 o’clock.

You couldn’t ask for a more powerful promotional package. And it only cost

you a bit of your t ime, t ime you might have spent in your garage rehearsing.

And it ’s going to keep on happening. The same people l isten to that stat ion,

and every t ime they do a remote, it ’s going to be your show. And as an

added bonus, a bit of icing on the cake, every t ime you do one of these gigs,

you store away an extra $200 worth of promotional money. Once they make

you famous, and clubs around town are discussing having you come in, you

can now charge them more because you’re more of a draw. And then, almost

as an af terthought, you can either offer to work for a drink percentage and

all the door or offer to sell them on air advert ising. Either way, when you do

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your gig at the local club, you can now afford to advert ise it heavily (based

on the accumulated $200 bonuses). If you can’t sell out by promoting l ike

crazy to the very people that have heard the stat ion plugging you as the

hottest thing in town, then maybe you should consider se ll ing used cars or

something. Even if the stat ion hadn’t plugged you at all, the added people

coming in to your club show based on this added advert ising would probably

more than pay for the extra $300 you would have made at the l ive remote if

you had charged your “going rate”.

Those are the tools. The trick is to work them together. Begin by ordering

the display boxes. While you wait for them to arrive, write up some good

press releases, but don’t send them out, not quite yet. Call al l the local

stat ions and ask if they have a fax machine. It ’s the industry standard for

sending out press releases. Radio and television stat ions depend on the 20

or 30 press releases they get daily about news stories, or professionals

capable of talking about things going on in the news to keep their shows

l ively. You’re going to offer to “spice things up” by bringing in a local f lavor.

Collect the fax numbers as you also compile a l ist of all the local newspaper

and online bullet ing boards. You might even call the local paper and f ind out

if they’d be wil l ing to trade advert ising for 4 hours of your t ime at their next

Christmas party. Many wi l l jump at it . If they do, accept the trade, but keep it

on the back burner for now. No self respect ing editor is going to run a story

about you on the same page with a half page ad for your band. It ’ l l look l ike

you traded the story for the ad space. Wait t i l l the f lame starts to get

smaller, and then sneak in your paid advert ising.

Once you’re organized and ready to roll, f ind a larger local club and explain

to the owner that you’re gett ing ready to announce your upcoming CD and

plan on saturat ing the local media. Ask if they’d be wil l ing to hire you now

(at your going rate) with the understanding that 3 months f rom now you plan

on 4 wall ing his club (paying rent and getting all of the proceeds). For now,

explain that he’l l benef it f rom all of the promo you’re planning on hit t ing

around town. Don’t tel l him that you also hope to get his audiences call ing in

song requests and buying records at the local music store, but that wil l a lso

f it in nicely with your overall package. Try to sell him on lett ing your run for

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at least a couple weeks. Explain that even the people that see you this week

wil l be impressed when they suddenly see your material al l over town.

They’l l remember having seen you and will probably want to come back, and

bring a f riend, now that you seem to be the “hot t icket”. Once you’re booked,

go on and get organized. Send out your calendar l ist ings. Set up the l ive

remote deal with a stat ion. Go down and talk personally to the program

manager. If he or she can sense that you’re fun to talk to, that the DJ wil l

love having you on the air, chances are good they’l l be wil l ing to help you

announce your new CD.

Give yourself a specif ic “kick off date”. And then go at it with all you have.

Remember, fame is f leet ing. Unless you keep the pressure on, it won’t take

long for you to become last weeks news. Do your CD. Organize the charity

fund raiser for the local “save the park” foundation. Offer to do a f ree

concert that ’s only open to local veterans and their guests to help celebrate

the 4th of July. Come up with ways to make your press releases sizzle, and

keep them coming in. Before too long, you’l l be a local celebrity. If you’ve

put together a tour, you might try mounting the same kind of package in the

other towns. An unconventional band of 4 longhaired guys did that once in

an insignif icant town called Liverpool. The locals are st i l l ta lking about them.

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Chapter Eight

Record Production

We hinted in the last chapter at the importance of having a CD. But that ’s all

we did. We just barely hinted at how important it really is. This chapter

offers more hints at how to use CD’s to market yourself and how to go about

ending up with one. There’s plenty of “must know” information in here, so

don’t skip it just because you have a CD you put together last year.

I guess we should probably begin by admit ing records are a thing of the

past. Except for a few DJ’s who l ike to play with them, records are ant iques

stored away in garages somewhere. We’re ent it l ing this chapter record

product ion because most of the industry st i l l calls it that. There’re “record

studios”, there’re “gold and plat inum record awards” there’re even “record

labels”, but nobody makes records any more. So we’re really talking about

audio cassettes and CD’s here.

And that ’s a big dist inct ion. Records are hard to make. You have to own

some serious equipment in order to end up with a high quality record. CD’s

and audio cassettes can be produced at a relat ively low cost by any

dedicated hobbyist. Which opens up a whole new dimension to the industry.

Homemade CD’s. Are they as good as the larger labels? What are the

advantages of making your own? Why would anybody hold out unt i l they are

“discovered” by the big guys? We’re going to talk about all of this in a

moment, but f irst , let ’s discuss the advantages of having your own CD.

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Obviously, i t ’s good for your ego. Your mother loves to show it off down at

the Bingo Hall and it makes you extra money at the end of a concert. But

having a CD does much more than that. We’ve already hinted at some of the

advantages. If you’re hoping for airplay at the local radio stat ion, a CD is

pretty much a must. If you hope to get represented by anybody, you better

have a good CD. Agents aren’t too excited about walking up to a major

casino or cruise ship holding a homemade cassette tape that has a couple of

your songs on it . Having a CD, just be implicat ion, makes you a star. The

fact that your picture is on the J card of your CD, and that people can go

into record stores and f ind it , makes you more than just some guys who

worked up a song or two in the garage. It ’s possible to stay busy without

having a CD, but it ’s all but totally impossible to become anything other than

a generic band working for low wages without one. CD’s are pretty much a

necessary part of any successful music career.

And with the cost of high quality CD studio equipment constant ly going

down, it isn’t that unreasonable for you to think about cutt ing your own. You

can get a digital, top quality home studio for under $500. And you’l l be on

your way. No, it doesn’t mean you’l l h it the big t ime right away, but with the

large number of bands that regularly cut their own, it ’s not going to hurt your

chances of gett ing a bigger contract. In fact, being able to hand an agent or

record studio a CD, even if i t ’s something you put together yourself , shows

you’re a bit more than a simple band.

But if you plan on doing it yourself , don’t cut corners. You’d be better off not

doing a CD at all before you put together something that looks sloppy or

homemade. Go on and pay to have professional, 4 color J cards made up.

You might even consider paying a company l ike Oasis CD Duplicat ion (which

we l isted in the last chapter) to print up the labels, duplicate the CD’s and

print your covers direct ly on the CD’s. Even if you recorded them yourself ,

this wil l g ive them the professional touch.

Of course, for what it costs to rent a studio (some good ones in larger cit ies

can run as low as $30 an hour), you might decide to pack up your gear and

do it up right. You’l l get good music, in a room built for good acoustics,

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without any chance of outside noise. And they’l l g ive you a top quality digital

recording which wil l make the copying much better. Nothing is going to ki l l

your image worst than to have a CD f loat ing around that just doesn’t sound

that good. All the people who might look at the CD for an audit ion of your

band (the club owners thinking of hiring you, the music store owners,

wondering if they should carry your CD, the agents, managers…everybody

you come in contact with in the business) are going to l isten to a bad CD

and completely miss the music.

So before you move on to the big t imes, and allow a major label to take your

songs, you can either do it al l yourself with your own equipment, or you

could do up a professional CD at a studio on your own as well.

Something you want to be very careful about when cutt ing a CD is to

NEVER, EVER steal copyrighted material. It just isn’t worth the hassle. It ’s a

guarantee that you can never get too big. If you do, someone wil l pull out

that one CD, and you’l l end up in court. Be sure you have the right to record

anything you put on your CD. If i t isn’t an original, contact the publisher of

another CD who used that song and f ind out who owns the copyright.

Contact that person or company and f ind out what you need to do to be able

to use the song. Some labels wil l require that you pay a fee. Some may feel

the song is old enough that they’l l just grant you permission. But regardless

of how it happens, be sure you get a signed letter that says you can record

the song and keep all the money you make f rom it before you use it .

Gett ing a stack of CD’s neat ly sealed in their cases means nothing unless

you can start sell ing them. If you have a web site, be sure you begin by

l ist ing it . You can also plan on sell ing quite a few at your shows. But don’t

l imit yourself to the old stand by’s.

Find out who buys the music at your local music stores. If you put together a

decent looking display, many of them wil l be wil l ing to allow for your lack of

fame. A good looking package makes you look famous. Try to get them to

buy a stack of CD’s in the display for a set price. At f irst they’re almost sure

to say no. Large, nat ional corporat ions do nothing but predict the sell ab il i ty

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of major CD’s. You won’t stand a chance next to the nat ional names. So

chances are you’re going to need to sett le for offering your CD’s on

consignment. If you do, be sure you take the t ime to put, in writ ing, exact ly

where your display is to be located. Many store owners feel they are much

more interested in displaying the merchandise they’ve already paid for and

stand a chance of taking a beat ing on. It ’s not uncommon for consignment

merchandise to suddenly end up in some far corner, hidden behind a sign of

some kind. And then, when you come back a month later, the owner

complains that he’s only sold 2 CD’s all month. If your display looks real

sharp and the CD’s look as good as anything else in the store, try and talk

him into let t ing you put them on the main counter somewhere. Explain that

you’re wil l ing to leave the stack with him, as long as he’s wil l ing to

guarantee them a fair chance of sell ing. Once he agrees to it , insert in your

agreement a l ine to the effect of “merchant hereby agrees that as long as

there are any CD’s remaining in the display case, he wil l keep the ent ire

display case, with any remaining CD’s in a location no farther than 15 inches

f rom the main cash register. “

A l i t t le trick you might try when offering these packets is to always leave the

display part ly empty. If i t comfortably holds, say, 10 CD’s, then make it ’s

“maximum” capacity 8. People may shy away f rom buying the f irst CD off the

rack of someone they’ve never heard of . If i t looks l ike a few people have

already bought their copies, maybe it ’ l l be safe to try.

Another point you want to work out up f ront is how much you plan on making

on your CD sales. A couple of factors play in here. If you decide to sell your

CD at a bargain, hoping to sell a lot of them, you may f ind yourself actually

hurt ing your sales. Would you consider a CD you paid $5 for as anything

worth l istening to? All the “good guys” charge $18, $20 even $30 for a CD.

Be sure your retail price is on the label, and price it just a tad bit below the

market value for big t ime stars. $12, maybe $14 may be good. People can

easily afford that and it yells out quality.

Once you decide on a retail price, be sure you offer the store as big a

commission as you can comfortably afford. Figure out your total cost, per

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CD. Give yourself a small prof it ($2 maybe $3 per CD) and offer the store

the rest. You aren’t doing this to become f i l thy rich. Your main goal here is

to get a lot of your CD’s out and around town. The more the dealer makes

per sale, the more he’l l p lug your CD. It ’ l l end up being played in the store

and the display wil l a lways be prominently displayed. A 50% commission on

a CD sale is about average. If the CD is reta il ing at $12, then the music

store should be making at least $5 or $6 each. Yes, you had to pay for the

CD, but they have to pay the rent, the salaries of the sales force, the cost of

the ads in the paper, the electricity, the phone bil l , you get the picture.

You can also carry your sharply displayed case to other shops around town

and set up the same kind of deal with them. The hallmark shop in the mall,

the restaurant down at the truck stop, the gif t shop at the airport . Any place

that sells nick knacks or generic merchandise might consider making a pure

prof it on a consignment deal. And whether or not they sell a single CD, you

end up with all kinds of promotional “mini signs” all over town.

Once you have a decent CD cut, i ts t ime to start promoting in serious. Give

it a month or two to ride and see what kind of react ions you get. Get in the

habit of let t ing people know they won’t hurt your feelings by being honest.

The last think you want here is a bunch of well wishers ly ing to you about

the quality of your CD. You desperately need to know the truth. Ask people

to let you know. Get other bands to give you their honest opinion. Wait and

see how well they sell down at the music store. Watch carefully to the

react ion you get when you mail i t out to the radio stat ions. If they don’t l ike

it , don’t worry about it . You haven’t committed any great crime here.

Carefully analyze what’s wrong and work on it . Fine tune the CD unt i l you

have a guaranteed winner. Don’t just assume it is because your girlf r iend

told you so. Find out.

If i t ’s passed the test of t ime. If enough people bought it and the reviews

were nothing short of great, then it ’s t ime to start sending them out to the

big guys. Put together a special promo package designed specif ically to sell

you as a band. It ’s a lot l ike the one we did in chapter 2, only this one

includes more quotes, a breakdown of how well your homemade CD is

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sell ing in and around your town, a l ist of any radio and/or television

programs you’ve appeared on and any larger gigs you may have played

(featured act at the 1996 Arkansas Bluegrass Festival).

Once the package is put together, start a market ing campaign aimed at

gett ing your name out to the industry players. Mai l i t to all the larger

agencies that represent acts l ike yours, and forward copies to all the major

record labels that run your kind of music. Send it out to every music group or

singer that plays your style (if they l ike it , they’l l remember how hard it was

breaking in and may hand deliver it to the right people for you). Saturate the

market. Mai l i t also to every radio stat ion for 400 – 500 miles of your

hometown. You’re hoping, at the very least, that they’l l remember your name

when you show up in their town. Your goal here is to get some exposure. It

doesn’t matter if they actually play it or not, you just want them to know who

you are. And the quality of your promo package wil l go a long ways in tel l ing

them if you’re a homegrown band or a bunch of guys serious about what you

do.

And then one day, on your way out to dinner, you’l l get that incredible call.

One of the “Big Guys” heard some of your stuff and decided to call about a

possible record deal. What should you do?

First of all, relax. If they’re call ing you, chances are they have some reason

why they think you’re good. They probably are going to want you to send off

a demo tape. In as calm a voice as you can, tel l them you’l l be glad to and

get their name and address. As soon as you hang up, before you start

looking for your CD, get on the phone and start call ing some of the larger

music agencies. This isn’t the kind of thing you want to deal with alone.

There are a mil l ion t iny loopholes in the typical record contract that can get

you into all kinds of trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing. How much

of a royalty should you ask for? Who holds the copyright? What about

foreign publicat ion rights? There’s all kinds of variables here that wil l a l l

work against you unless you have someone who knows what they’re doing

on your corner.

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And even if the record label eventually decides you aren’t what they were

looking for, this could be your shoe in the door that ’ l l get you moving in the

right direct ion. Whereas most larger agencies would never let you past the

recept ionist as long as you were some local band in Thermopolis, W yoming,

when you call te l l ing them you just got a call f rom Mercury Records and

they’re interested in gett ing your demo, you’l l probably f ind a top notch

agent immediately assigned to represent you. Yes, they’l l probably end up

with 20% of whatever you make, but 80% of $40,000 works out to quite a bit

more than 100% of $10,000. Let them work the label. In fact, the very fact

that an agent they know calls representing you wil l add a l i t t le clout to your

package. You’re not just some hick band hoping to make the big t imes.

You’re a represented band negotiat ing a contract. One of the l i t t le “tricks” a

lot of the larger agents love to play is to put your contract up to auction.

They basically send your stuff out to several record labels and get a lot of

interest going. They then start pit t ing one label against the other. Now they

have something to negotiate with. If one label won’t grant you internat ional

r ights, maybe the other one wil l . Regardless, once several labels are in on

the bidding, it ’s a sure thing one of them wil l u lt imately end up with your

record. So at that point you’re pretty much on your way.

If you’re a group and have been playing together all along, you may be able

to simply show up, record a record, and go home. If you’re a singer, or could

use some extra instruments, the label can usually arrange for studio players

to f i l l in for you. These are the old pros, the guys that regularly play music in

the background while the singers of the world do their thing. Work with them.

Don’t be too pushy. Instead of insist ing you know exact ly how your music

should play, be wil l ing to get some of their opinions. Knock the tune around

a bit and ask for input. You know what you’re looking for, they know what

sells. Somewhere in the middle is a gold record (or is it CD?) wait ing to be

cut.

And you better get ready, because at that point, ready or not, you’re in for a

rough ride. If you haven’t been using an agent before, now’s the t ime to

have a good long talk with the agency that represented your record. Find out

if they can organize a tour to help promote the record as it ’s coming out. Ask

102

i f they can schedule appearances on TV talk shows and radio stat ions

around the country (you can call in the radio interviews). Everything you did

to promote yourself locally in the last chapter now goes into high gear as

you start pushing for nat ional exposure.

But the real struggle happens just af ter your record hits the market. Now

suddenly, everybody is expect ing a second album. You put all your best stuff

on the f irst , can you cont inue to produce? This is where f inding quality

songs and good writers pays off . Some groups, l ike the Beatles or Elvis,

seemed to be able to do just about anything on stage and make it work. Most

groups aren’t that fortunate. The vast majority of them are cornered into

trying to come up with more material that matches the quality of the hits

they’ve been riding on for years. It ’s not an easy call, not by a long shot. In

fact, most bands that cut records never make it to the second one. A few do

well on their f irst record, but one shot wonders are almost a staple in the

industry.

Knowing this now, before you’re in the l imelight, expected to produce,

should give you something to think about. Back in the second chapter we

talked about being sure you’re sell ing quality and not just a single good

sounding song. If you aren’t , then you should start working on a style and

image you can carry to the top. Develop it now, before that record company

calls and asks you to hang on to a raging bull. If you have the material and

quality now, before you get there, you’l l be ready when the t ime comes. But

only if you’re ready now, when nobody but you knows why you’re taking the

t ime to do things right.

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Chapter Nine

Playing For Money

We’ve come a long ways since we started this book. We’ve talked about

agents, managers, contracts, record deals, working clubs and traveling. And

yet, we haven’t even touched on half the story.

There are more than a few bands out there that do nothing but play clubs

week af ter week. And, truth be told, they’re cheating themselves out of the

l ions share of the earnings in the industry. In this chapter we’re going to

touch brief ly on a l ist of markets available to you if you’re wil l ing to dig a bit .

It ’s a l ist of new places to work, and it ’s a l ist with few bands competing for

the posit ion. Instead of l in ing up with another 30 local bands hoping to get a

gig at the one club in town, you can always turn to any one of these ideas to

get some extra work.

Let ’s begin with the seasonal work. Most bands have found a few extra gigs

during the Christmas rush, but few actually promote to this market well

enough to be able to charge what they should be charging. Remember, it ’s

all about supply and demand. If you get a call f rom the only company in town

wil l ing to use you to do a show, You better instantly agree to whatever they

have to offer. If , on the other hand, you happen to know there are 5

companies that all want your show on a certain Saturday night, now

suddenly, you’re in a posit ion where you can afford to negotiate. You might

even be able to simply set your price, higher than the rest, and sit back and

watch them f ight.

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To sell Christmas season shows to the corporate market, you’l l need to get

started sometime around April. Go down to the largest l ibrary in your town

and ask for the guidebook of local employers. It ’s usually published yearly

by a local newspaper. It ’ l l l ist the top employers in town (it ’s usually used by

people looking for job). You’l l want to f ind the larger companies (the l ist

usually shows the top 50 or so employers in any given area). If the company

has over 100 employees, chances are, they do something for Christmas.

Make a l ist of the individual companies, their addresses, phone numbers and

how many employees they have. Call sometime around May and ask who’s in

charge of their holiday event (be sure you don’t use the term “Christmas

Party”, every now and then you’l l come across a Jew or other ethnic group

that’ l l take offense). When you f ind out who organizes the party, ask them if

you can send them a promo package for your band. Be sure you f ind out

what day their party wil l take place. There’s usually only 6 to 8 weekend

shows a year, and most companies want to use one of them. If you have a

computer, be sure you get yourself a good database program (l ike Access),

that ’ l l let you cross reference individual variables. As soon as you sell, say,

December 12th, you’l l immediately want to call al l the other December 12

possibil i t ies and tell them you went on and took a show. That ’ l l warn them

that they better start looking elsewhere. It’ l l a lso score you some points. The

company wil l assume you’re good (you were good enough to not have to wait

for them to make up their mind). Next year they might call you early to try

and beat the rush.

Af ter sending out promo packages, give the companies about a week before

you call back to f ind out if the package arrived okay. As soon as they

conf irm that it has, ask if they’ve had the chance to look it over, and if

they’re interested in discussing their event. They’l l probably tell you they

need to wait for a board or committee meeting to approve hiring you. Ask

what date that ’ l l take place and offer to contact them a few days af terwards.

Keep all the contacts happy and well supported. Remember, this is the same

l ist you’l l be call ing back next year. If they feel you’re professional and

ethical in all you do, they may decide to use you next year (specially if they

aren’t pleased with the band they ended up with this year).

105

Many of this same group of corporat ions wil l a lso have several events during

the year when they may f ind your services helpful. Conventions, elaborate

training weekends, company summer picnic, etc. If you end up being booked

on a part icular date and have to call to cancel other possible clients, be sure

to ask if they ever do any other events where they could use a band. The

person in charge of the holidays wil l usually also know enough about the

other events going on with company to be able to tell you what other events

they put on, the dates, and who the contact person is. Get all that info and

store it . Mark your calendar for 4 to 5 months before each event. At that t ime

you’re going to call back and explain that you’ve heard the company might

be needing a band for their upcoming “We Thrive On Doing The Mundane”

day celebrat ion. Offer your services and get going.

In some of these cases, you might even be able to cut a “package deal”.

Basically, i f they a to use you, say, 3 t imes a year, you’l l agree to give them

a discount on this f irst show. Most companies wil l jump at that deal. Just be

sure you get a deposit on all of the shows before gett ing started on the f irst

one.

Another way to go about booking your holiday shows to call the Sales and

Catering departments of larger hotels in your area. A lot of these guys and

gals do nothing wait for people to call in looking for space for an event. They

then try and construct a “package” for them. Stuff l ike how many rooms

they’l l rent for the night, what kind of food, etc. al l go into the negotiat ions.

If you make sure they have a full promo package available (be sure you drop

off several), you can let them offer your services to their cl ients. They

typically wil l do this and not charge you a commission. It looks good for

them to offer quality packages, and a good band would def initely be a part of

what they’re sell ing.

A l i t t le trick that works out well here is to offer to do your show for the hotel

employees in exchange for, say, 10 nights stay at the hotel. No, this isn’t

about trying to accumulate a bunch of hotel nights, it ’s about making the

hotel feel you’re worth something. Once you do your show for all their

employees, and everybody is busy talking out how much fun they had and

106

how good you are, the sales and catering people wil l feel conf ident

recommending you. The reason it ’s usually safe to offer to give away your

show to hotels is because they tradit ionally offer their holiday party when

they’re sure nobody else wil l . Monday af ternoon, Sunday at 1 P.M.. They go

out of their way to schedule their event when their employees won’t be busy

working other part ies, so you can pretty much assume their holidays won’t

conf l ict with yours. You’l l get a lot of mileage out of this deal, and a few

extra hotel nights tossed in for good measure.

Another very busy event in some towns nowadays is the Post Prom lock in

part ies. They usually take place between May and June of each year. High

school seniors who are graduat ing are invited to an all night party designed

to keep them f rom gett ing drunk or in trouble. If you start call ing schools in

September, just as they start the school year, and f inding out who’s in

charge of the event, you’l l usually be able to get your name l isted as a

possible band. Again, be sure you mail in your promo package so you can

give them a good idea of what you have to offer. One of the advantages of

working the Post Prom part ies is that the school usually repeats the party

every year. If you did a halfway decent job, chances are you’re a shoe in for

next years event. It ’s steady work without having to dig too deeply.

High schools also coordinate class reunions. Again they happen every year,

but each year it goes to a dif ferent crowd. There are usually organizat ions in

most towns that put these reunions together. Find out who the person in

charge is, and get a press package to them. If they l ike you, you can pretty

much count on doing the job yearly. In fact, many of these companies

coordinate several class reunions every year (for dif ferent schools). Gett ing

on their “A” l ist is a great way to stay busy.

Another very busy market is the wedding recept ion group. They all need to

look good, and you can offer the “class” that sets them above the classic

D.J. To break into this market, t ry print ing up an elegant looking brochure

specif ically designed for weddings (with pictures of your group performing

during wedding receptions). Leave a stack of them at the tux shop, various

print shops around town (where people would print wedding invitat ions), at

107

all the choice wedding recept ion locat ions (hotels, that l i t t le cottage by the

lake, etc.) and give a few to each preacher in town. They all are called

regularly to do weddings and might have your brochure available when

couples call.

State fairs also book bands regularly. You’l l want to contact them about 8

months before fair date and start negotiating. Most wil l want to hire you to

do a single song (or maybe 10 minutes) on a stage somewhere. If you f ind

out who the sponsors are for the stages (it ’s the Budweiser stage), you can

call them and offer to do an extended concert. If they let you do it , you can

all agree to wear

Bud t-shirts, which is really what their into it for. Now suddenly you’ve

become the Budweiser band, and as you go f rom fair to fair, you may be

able to arrange to have a let ter move ahead of you te ll ing the fair that you’l l

be doing a 3 hour concert on the Bud stage.

Keep up with the local department of recreat ion. They usually have

something to do with street fairs, carnivals, etc. in your home town. All these

events need entertainment, and if you can arrange to do your shows at a

slight discount in exchange for the right to give out handouts promoting your

upcoming show at the local club, they’l l probably jump at the chance to

include you on their regular schedule.

It wasn’t that long ago that all the Casino work in the country was l imited to

Nevada and At lant ic City. But things have certainly changed. Casinos are

popping up everywhere where there’s a river or lake that can off icially keep

them off state property. And every one of them has a serious need for

entertainment, 24 hours a day.

Try call ing any casinos near you and asking for the Entertainment Director.

Explain who you are and the kind of music you do and f ind out if he’d mind if

you send out a promo package. Be sure you get a def inite commitment on

his or her part . These guys get tons of unsolicited packets a week. If you

can’t f lag yours as being special, chances are it ’ l l end up in the stack of

“maybe someday” stuff . If you have a sharp web site, this might be a good

108

t ime to mention it casually. If he takes the t ime to look at it before your

package arrives, he might be a bit more motivated to hear what you sound

l ike. Casino gigs can range f rom a duo singing oldies on a small platform in

the corner of the slot machine area to a full orchestra doing a major show in

the main ballroom. The advantage of these satell i te casinos around the

country is that most of them don’t draw the crowds to merit the caliber of

entertainer the MGM in Vegas might. Knowing that, casino entertainment

directors aren’t quite as select ive. They’re much more wil l ing a to allow an

unknown to get a break. Go in there, do a good job and you’l l end up with all

kinds of work. These guys have plenty of money. Just convince them you’re

dependable and you can probably set your own hours.

Another of ten ignored market is the Cruise Ship venue. Every cruise ship

includes on board at least one major show room where they schedule

occasional dances. Working cruise ships is a very competit ive market. You

have to look sharp and play generic music (top fort ies, oldies, etc.). People

won’t be on board long enough to develop a following for your personal stuff .

The exception here, of course, is that truly fun groups (l ike the Smothers

Brothers) who put on a show of their own tend to go over well. Groups that

do musical bits without singing are also very popular with cruises that cater

to several nat ionalit ies, where language is always a problem. The problem

with working cruise ships is that everybody wants to do it , and the cruises

know that. They don’t pay that well and often require band members to

double as stewards or bar tenders when they’re not on stage. Another

problem with cruise ships is that they ask for longer term commitments

(usually 3 or more months). It may sound l ike an extended vacat ion, but to

an entertainer it can be economic suicide. Not being able to keep up with

your contacts and fans for 6 months is a sure formula for disaster. When you

get back, you might as well plan on start ing over.

The upside of doing cruises is that all your basic expenses are paid for. You

may not be gett ing a fortune per week, but you’re not having to spend any of

i t . When you walk off , six months later, you’l l end up with a half year’s worth

of salary ready to use to get yourself going.

109

Any place where people are gathered is a potent ial market. If nobody else is

doing it , i t gives you the advantage.

110

Chapter Ten

Thanks For The Memories

You have the tools you’l l need to push towards the top. The day may soon

come when you’l l be driving down the f reeway and suddenly you’l l hear

somebody playing your song. You may get called to cut a record and move

on to fame and fortune, but then again, probabil i ty says you’l l never make it .

And it may not have anything to do with your talent. You may be a great

band, with plenty of f resh, capt ivat ing material. But the world may not be

ready for you yet. Or you may get started on the fast track only to f ind that

your drummer falls in love and decides he doesn’t want to go on the road.

It ’s a crazy business where the only sure thing is that there are no sure

things. You can show up for a gig only to f ind the club shut down last week.

And then one day you’l l be sit t ing around in an old folks home somewhere.

The guy sit t ing next to you wil l readjust his dentures as he brags about how

he worked for Sears for 28 years. That lady whose room is down the hall wil l

smile as she mentions how she had a good, steady job that kept her at her

desk for 40 hours every week for the past 46 years. One guy remembers

meeting a president, another once traveled to Paris, and the English

professor brags about f in ishing his incredible novel. He then turns in shame

as he admits it never got published. And then everybody turns to ask what

you did with your l i fe.

111

And you stop and thing about it for a moment. You remember struggling in a

garage to get those chord changes just right. And you remember how good it

felt the f irst t ime you stood in f ront of a crowd and performed. The warmth,

the connect ion. It really didn’t matter how rich you were or what kind of car

you drove. All that mattered was that you were with f riends, with people who

paid to hear you do your thing, people who came to you to f ind an escape.

And there in your audience were people who had worked for Sears for many

years, and there were secretaries with 40 years experience, and there were

even a handful of world travelers. But when they came to the end of the day,

when all their work was done, they used their hard earned money to come in

and watch you do what you do. They lef t their homes and their jobs and they

joined you for a few moments.

And you’l l th ink of the t ime the van broke down while you were on the road.

You’l l remember four guys keeping each other awake with their snoring.

You’l l remember holding Tommy up while his drinking tried to buckle his

knees. You’l l remember traveling 3r d class across the country and having a

blast doing it . And you’l l turn to the seniors wait ing to f ind out what you did

for a l iving and you’l l te l l them the truth. You’l l te l l them you did exactly what

you wanted to do. You enjoyed all the ups and downs along the way, and

walked out a better person for it al l.

A talk show host once asked Kenny Rogers what was the most excit ing t ime

in his l i fe. Was it the moment he realized he had his f irst mil l ion dollars

saved up? Did it come when he bought his f irst house, his f irst yacht? Of all

the precious moments in his l i fe, which ones did he treasure the most?

Without hesitat ion, Kenny answered that his l i fe was most complete, most

excit ing, when he was street performing back at his start . When he counted

the penny’s being dropped in his had and hopped he’d make enough to be

able to pay for one more week in his hotel. It was that t ime in his l i fe when

he pit ted his talent against the world and kept on winning. The victories may

have been small in the eyes of many, but to him, every one of them was but

a step in the right direct ion. Kenny Rogers, who at the t ime of the interview

was the highest paid performer in the world, most fondly remembered

struggling to buy his dinner.

112

No, it ’s not about becoming f i l thy rich, it ’s about f inding out just how rich you

are right now. It ’s about realizing you’re doing what many can only dream

about. It ’s realizing that right now, where you are, you’re much happier than

the l ikes of Elvis Pressley, Janice Joplin and a host of others who found that

money and fame weren’t the answer. Don’t ever cast your sights on fame

and fortune. Those who have gotten there wil l te l l you they miss the very

struggle you’re going through now. Cast your sights instead on milking every

day for all i t ’s worth, on enjoying every t iny victory, and on creat ing the

kinds of memories most wil l never understand. You may never reach the

stars, but when you f inally sit , at the end of i t a l l , you’l l know without a

doubt that you’ve f lown much higher than most. So enjoy it now, while you

can. Work hard at it , and stay focussed on doing the best you can. But

above all else, learn to appreciate what you’ve got right now, where you and

the gang are right now. Those are the t imes Kenny Rogers, Elvis Pressley

and Janice Joplin all wish belonged to them.

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