[Dixielandjazz] Re:gigs

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Hi Dan:

I will attempt to clarify my off the top of my head comment,

I started playing High School dances back in the early sixties at about 
$350.00 to $500.00 for a good one with a four or five piece guitar band 
when surf music was the rage, and Louie Louie, and Liar Liar were the 
top hits of the day along with the Beach Boys.    I actually booked 
about 150 high school dances a year at this price level and then got 
the Big Gigs at the end of the year for the Prom's  which paid 
$1,500.00 to $3,000.00.     Twas not a bad living in those days.   I 
made a good reputation for providing good music for the market and what 
the kids wanted at the time.   Not OKOM by any means, I had not even 
heard of OKOM by them and the only thing I knew that would qualify was 
Louis Armstrong, who was my idol because I had played Trumpet in High 
school and actually met him.   Other than that concert where I met him 
I knew no other OKOM musicians because of course they were "OLD MEN".   
Guys Like Turk Murphy and Lu Watters  were popular with the "Old Folks" 
but I hade no exposure to them because they played Bars and teenagers 
were not allowed in them.

I got my first real listening experience on OKOM when I played a rock 
club next door to Clancey Hayes club on Broadway in Oakland (circa 
1965) which by the way was packed seven nights a week as I recall, as 
was the rock joint we were in.

We had a larger going out every night audience in those days and a very 
broad range of music to choose from, lots of clubs were doing great 
business with Blues, Jazz, OKOM, Swing, Big Band and rock of several 
styles.   They are ALL gone now, drinking laws ran most of them out of 
business and most of their clientele moved to the suburbs as the young 
folks got married and started raising families away from the big 
cities.   with the older folks moving away from the cities they took 
the audience for the OKOM Dixieland clubs away.   For a few years there 
was activity in the chains of suburban Pizza parlors for it, and even 
that dwindled down to usually no more than a Banjo player for most of 
them.

I attribute this to the non-promotion and marketing of the music and 
the bands themselves, and letting the establishments get away with jut 
having a sign that said "Live Music" tonight   of "Band tonight"   So 
the OKOMer's failed to see the importance of marketing themselves, and 
the union of course tried to convince everyone that all musicians were 
equal and the same and should be paid UNION SCALE.   This was fine for 
some but terrible for others who were spending money to promote 
themselves, getting their name in the paper photos and interviews etc, 
and becoming local celebrities and well respected as entertainers.

The average non promoting laid back musicians just could not get any 
respect because they were not doing anything to earn it and push 
themselves into the limelight like the Entertainer types, and hot dance 
bands.   Remember people still DANCED in those days which is what 
launched this music to it's greatest popularity in the first place.    
In the Sixties I noticed a trend towards the I am so Hip scene and I 
want the audience to sit and pay attention to me because I am a great 
star player attitude and so much cooler than those other cats. etc.   
We all know the attitude thing.   Except for those that still have it, 
they never learned from their mistakes and they also never realized it 
when their audience also left town and did not come back.

I watched Turk Murphy going broke at McGoons while 14 nightclubs I 
booked exclusively on Broadway were packed seven nights a week with 
cover charges and two or three drink minimums.  Those clubs were 
entertainment rooms, albeit they did degenerate with the Topless craze, 
which I did not start, nor like from a business standpoint.  I did not 
mind the shows until they got so sleazy that even decent folks who 
would tolerate naked breasts on a stage stopped going there.   The 
attempt to turn North Beach into Las Vegas was fine until the wrong 
folks bought the clubs and ran them into the ground as sleaze joints 
with professional pick pockets and such as waitresses, and doormen, 
bouncers etc.   I used to have some very good bands playing that street 
with many styles of music and the area was booming and interesting as a 
  world class night life center for about 8 years.   We had Vegas style 
show bands, a Big Band, Folk band, Comedy, and The Jazz Workshop,  with 
acts Like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, El Matador with acts like Chet 
Baker and Marion McPartland, Basin Street West, where I promoted Miles 
Davis, and Count Basie and Mr. D's where I booked Tony Bennet, Greek 
restaurants with Greek music, Italian Restaurants like Enricos with 
Italian Entertainment, a Morrocan restaurant with Middleastern 
Entertainment with Belly Dancers,   All class establishments,  Bimbos 
up the street with First Class shows, like Buddy Greco The Village up 
the Street where I booked Harry James Orchestra and Buddy Hackett,   I 
also had the Peppermint Tree up the street with top Soul and Rock bands 
for the teenagers.

The country moved into the economic attitude as the population started 
moving into urban sprawl that we must charge more money to less people 
to make a profitable business out of our clubs, I actually saw some of 
the owners put a wall down the middle of a club and open another one 
next door to make it appear more intimate on slow nights.  They did 
however double the cover charge and double or triple the price of 
drinks to the point that nobody but unsuspecting tourists would come 
there and spend any money.

Now then,the urban areas started building Performing arts centers, and 
developing city orchestras and local theater groups and nobody was 
driving back into the city night after night to support the larger 
places.   They built their local orchestras with mediocre run of the 
mill musicians, and the local wannabe actors and actresses who had day 
gigs as Doctors and Lawyers and Business owners Car Dealers, local 
drama class teachers and developed their own little circle of local 
stars of "Pretty good" entertainers and musicians and stopped bringing 
in High caliber acts and Performers who could attract fans and paying 
them their going rate.   Now you have a decade or two of this and the 
folks in the urban area actually start to believe that their local 
cheaper acts are Stars because they have been in the local newspaper 
and become celebrities in their own minds.

Yes it appeared to be cheaper, and they work for less and there are 
many more local events springing up but they are all about non-profit 
fundraisers for any cause anybody wants to affiliate with just to have 
something to do, you know
, those events to "Save the Glow Worm"   Or "Habitat for Rattlesnakes" 
where the drawing card is the EVENT rather than who is performing at 
the event and actually drawing the people.   Again if the act does not 
demand and get Promotion and respectful status then they will not gain 
a larger paying audience being billed as "Live Music"  or entertainment 
on five stages.

The folks who run most of these events have no clue about music or 
musicians and really do not care, musicians have sat back and not 
promoted and taken care of their status in our society for so long now 
that they in many cases simply have no respect at all and so many have 
played so many events for free or less than minimum wage for every good 
fundraising cause on earth that nobody wants to pay them living wages 
in line with all other jobs and professions anymore.

Just take a look around you folks:   How much does it cost you to bring 
in a plumber?  a guys to repair your washing machine?
the mechanic to work on your car?  even the guy who repairs your 
instrument?  Your dentist, Heck the guy who mows your lawn and blows 
away the leaves etc. make more money than most musicians.   The 
musicians who make themost money are those that own music retail 
stores, :)) Hello,

We keep turning out more and more wannabe players from schools all 
around the world but never bothered to teach any of them anything about 
how to actually earn a living, so now we have several million people 
wandering around begging for a stage to try and play to an audience, 
and they will play for anybody for anything they offer.   Nobody seems 
to realize or care that musicians are people too, we (the lucky ones) 
have mortgages to pay, insurance, taxes, dental bills, doctor bills, 
water bills, electric bills, auto payments and insurance, and yes $3.05 
and more gasoline prices.  and on and on.    All the plumbers and 
electricians and carpenters, hotel workers, bartenders,nurses, even 
farm workers etc. have larger numbers in their union organizations and 
fought for them to keep getting increases in wages as inflation crept 
up on our overall economy.   The Musicians union folded their tent in 
many areas and chose to take the easy route to staying in the game by 
representing the Symphonies where the money was from larger groups of 
findable players to collect dues from, and for the most part never 
bothered to address the larger number of musicians breaking into the 
live music scene during the Rock years, and taking the firm stand that 
Rock and Roll is just a fad and it will fade away, never last etc. not 
worth the trouble to deal with it etc,.

well guess what it did not go away and it is bigger and diversified 
even further to day and there are countless kids and adults out there 
with instruments trying to even buy their way onto a stage "any stage" 
just in the hopes of being heard, and many of those stages used to be 
OKOM stages.    Now even those in charge of community events and small 
festivals etc, are turning to the Free often terrible bands to play 
their events rather than paying for professional musicians and 
entertainers, because the professionals are not getting enough dates 
for the buyers and or communities to even recognize the difference 
anymore between "Pretty good" and "Really Good.

I f musicians would once again compete with Quality rather than 
Quantity we might reverse the situation, the simple fact is that there 
are far more opportunities to pay out there in today's market, but they 
are not all in our backyards, however every other house on your block 
has two or three kids with instruments trying to go out and play gigs 
and they will play them free just to get on a stage.   Every time an 
event promoter fills up their event with these kind of acts and old 
timers who gave up on getting paid or never did try to get paid because 
they just  dabbled in music for fun while they earned a living doing 
something else, the market for Paid gigs dwindles downward.

My word selection about "MORON" is based upon the ugly fact that none 
of these folks are or have been paying any attention for thirty or 
forty years to what is happening to and with music all around them 
therefore the sheep are herding themselves and nobody knows where they 
are going, except BROKE trying to support themselves as professional 
musicians.   It is a business, or at least it used to be folks, and if 
you treat it like one it will usually treat you like one.

If that event can afford to rent stages, rent P.A. companies, pay 
security guards, rent porta potties, pay for Police and emergency 
services personnel as dictated by their cities, pay for permits, 
advertising, accounting, legal, labor to set up the stages, and booths, 
and all the other LINE items  in their budget, then the ONLY REASON the 
musicians are not getting paid or are getting paid less than reasonable 
living wages is because they are not demanding to be put into the 
BUDGET in the first place.

I said this over a year ago, If you want to get respect go earn it and 
demand it, people think we all just do this for fun :))
Bandleaders who run good bands, go get yourself on the boards of 
directors of your local Chamber of commerce, community groups, Lions 
clubs, Moose Lodges, Kiawanis, Cancer societies and any number of Non 
-profit organization boards and let your voices be heard, educate these 
folks to this terrible situation and start to reverse it.

The only people that are truly Non profit here folks is many of US, 
everyone else is making a good living off of US but only because we 
have allowed it to happen.

I hope that answers what your were looking for Larry,  Sorry to rant.

Back to my room now,

Tom Wiggins



-----Original Message-----
From: DWSI at aol.com
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Sent: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 07:31:12 EDT
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Re:gigs

   In a message dated 10/4/2005 1:59:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com writes:

Like I  said a while back the folks who are in charge of getting music
have no clue  what they are doing and as long as they can come into
contact with  musicians that are also clueless this is going to only get
worse and  worse.

Sadly,

Tom Wiggins
Tom:

You have made consistently wise and helpful comments about  the band 
scene
for as long as I have been on this list. But this time I am  missing a 
piece of
your logic; perhaps you could fill me in.

How are things so different now (people in charge of getting music and  
those
playing for free are morons) versus back "then," however long ago, 
"then"
was. I grew up playing for fun at high school dances, bars, and at many 
parties.

  No one accused me of taking bread from the mouths of working 
musicians. In
fact,  one of my favorite fun times, was to walk into a beer hall, ask 
to play
the  old upright, and see how long it took to be offered a job by the
management.  What an ego kick that was. Later, when I got regular gigs 
playing
in
better bars  with a real Dixieland band, we never complained about this 
sort of
thing.  Why?

Help me understand how times have changed. Seriously!

Dan (piano fingers) Spink (who has played on both sides of the  line)





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