via craigslist | musicians in houston on 7/27/09
Attention touring bands - Stay away from this club unless you feel like you are ok by getting ripped off. This "Pay to play 'club is even worse than the clubs in Los Angeles back in the day which most have even lightened up now. Asking each band that they need to bring in 25 people 'PER BAND!' before they get any of the door is crazy.
Even then, your pay is only 50-50 split of the people that "you" draw if you draw at least 25 people. That means YOUR BAND must draw at least 25 people before you see a dime, not to mention that you dont' even get 1 fuckin' free shitty budget beer? You get a whopping $1 off on beer only and no food discounts for touring bands - and adding fuel to the fire is that we tip out the bar tenders and REMIND people to tip them out while we are on stage. If you are an out of town band traveling far, we suggest that you bypass Fitzgerald's and maybe Houston altogether unless you can get into a cool small band friendly dive bar that has gigs that will flow you beer and pay you from the door regardless of how many people show up. Fitzgerald's actually asks patrons who you are coming to see and they 'log it' - but how would you ever know if they are telling you the truth or not when it comes to pay-out at the end of the night? There's no way of knowing unless someone that represents your band stands by the door and counts them as they do. If you are a local band and can draw decent that's great but smaller touring bands that come from West and East Coast are the ones that suffer (The area's that drive the music industry). They need us out of towners because the fact of the matter is that few cities can only book so many local bands continuously to fill all of their slots.
What it really comes down to is that when you are in a van touring is any gas money is gas money. A couple of beers and a few bucks for gas after driving hundreds to thousands of miles isn't asking for much.
Most clubs give each band member at least 2 drink tickets each and most are even a bit lax on that if you put on a good show, and most 'smaller' clubs will pay the bands 75 to 100% of the door, or % of the bar. What you get from Fitzgerald's is the middle finger.
Fitzgerald's has 2 stages, the 'main stage' which is up stairs and the 'lounge' downstairs. They slam as many as 8 or more bands on a bill. They draw more people that way but chances are slim to none (unless you are a larger touring act or local band that can draw maybe plays the club once every 2 months) that any less than that fewer people will show up and they bank that your band won't get paid even if 200 or even if a 1,000 people show up (You better have someone stand at the door and count!) . At $10-15 bucks a head with patrons and band members spending a ton of money of drinks and food the club ends up makes a killing on us all, and all (or most) of the bands will get jack shit. So do yourself a favor and stay clear of this fucked up miser greed thinking club.
This will be posted over and over again on numerous websites. Hopefully this will encourage small and larger touring bands to stay clear of clubs like this. We are all cut from the same cloth so we all need to support one another otherwise it'll just be business as usual. Solidarity!
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to craigslist | musicians in houston using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment