Ryan's Gig Guide - April 2018

WWW. R YA N S G I G G U I D E . C OM rgg Apr 2018 - p.8 BookThemAndTheyWill Come I was once witness to an eighties pop star performing to fifteen people in a thousand capacity venue which today is derelict due to the morons in charge of it being ridiculously lame and spend- ing zero money on advertising anything they attempted to set up.Truth is that if you book a band expecting folks to turn up without advertising the gig or heavily promoting the artist then you are heading towards disaster. In some cases bands who insist on being paid weeks or months before a show have no incentive to promote it; they've al- ready pocketed your money so they're probably less inclined to help spread awareness of the event. Right Time Right Place This over repeated nonsensical myth pro- motes pure laziness by painting the il- lusion that musicians bumble around holding an assumption that some mag- ical opportunity could possibly fart out of the sky to boost their music career if they are in the right place at the right time or that if they are lucky, repeat lucky enough, then they may get no- ticed by a powerful figure in the music industry.The darker deeper side of this is that it gives the general public a false impression that success can only hap- pen in the music industry through chance alone; no matter how hard a musician works. Everyone Is Equal In A Band Really? I adore hearing members of up- coming bands proudly state this. I'd guess that the majority of music videos focus on the vocalist; mainly because most songs have lyrics, the singer is normally at the front and words often come out of a mouth.The "Everyone is equal" card is frequently ignored when it comes to individual band members having to fork out cash to maintain their music careers or to pay for mer- chandise, recording time, rehearsals and promotion which is often said to be "Someone else's job; I just play guitar in the band". Normally it's the song- writer of the band (Yes, that's correct; bands often contain one main song- writer) who receives the brunt of fi- nancial responsibility because other equal members can't process or fathom out why they should invest money in their band or its future. All MusicWelcome Countless websites, magazines, venues, festivals, labels, radio stations and pro- moters love to boldly declare phrases like "We Support All Music" but in re- ality they can't possibly do that. For ex- ample, some venues refuse bands because of age restriction laws; some songs aren't accepted by radio stations because of derogatory and offensive lyrical content or poor production quality. There's always a human factor somewhere; the person reading your polite gig enquiry email may be an utter bigot, perhaps they personally detest you because they have a sister that you once dumped, or even simpler still; they just don't like or want your music. MYTHS OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY by Nick J. Townsend