Best City For Gigging?

[BassBrass]

Commercial radio also supported local music. It was a really strong scene here until the late 90s when the two commercial stations that supported local music changed hands, one college station went from genre-specific program blocks to “genre blind” programming which meant rock (so the reggae, folk, hiphop, acapella and jazz fusion shows vanished) and an NPR station switched from music to news/talk (axeing classical, jazz, folk and blues). The death of the “alternative” newspaper the Boston Phoenix was another blow.



I’ve been making the same money since I started playing here in the 1980s. What was barely OK money forty years ago is like no money today, I’m lucky if I can cover my travel expenses.

You are right, I happened to be in a band that won the WBCN Rumble in 05, and that was Clearchannel connected to the major city wide booking agency. With all the clubs, major acts always needed opening acts, and there was the opportunity (until you became a weekend headliner yourself). The money being made in the Boston area is in Teaching music.
A guy like Warren Senders (acc bass player and teacher of Southern Indian singing) also is "a man with a sign" on Youtube, has students all day everyday, the demand is high. There are other kinds of music that can be earners, like Irish or Greek, or Indian, Caribbean, Fado, Mariachi, etc etc but that's also a wedding band for those ethnicities. Con Salsa is still on wbur 90.9 Saturday night as it was when I lived on Queensberry Street. You can't replace a Tony Cenamo or a Gene Shepherd (both on wbur in those days)

Actually both NPR stations changed formats. I know people who were eliminated from GBH after they built their new complex in Alston (infamous board member) and basically fired a whole generation of producers, went to a Talk Show format (which does support local musicians) as does the new Arts show. WGBH 89.7 has excellent jazz programming these days. They are carrying on from the late Eric Jackson. Unfortunately, Brian O Donovan couldn't be replaced, so Celtic music weekends are now gone from GBH.

 

[dune]

Mustang Sally, CCR and Brown Eyed Girl is boring everyone into retirement. Or as a bar owner said, 75% of the bands share 75% of the same sets. They simply won't learn different material. Today being Sunday and a slow day traditionally, there is only 73 bands booked.

Weren't those same selections boring everyone into retirement 30 years ago?

 

[Michedelic]

any tips on who/where to schmooze for gigs in vegas? leaving the rat race soon and was thinking about retiring to vegas. would be nice to just be a "hired gun" and play out to various bands/gigs/situations. playing "la grange" by zz top among other staples a few nights a week sounds like a plan...

What if the crowds want to hear Nirvana or Nickleback(or Taylor Swift)instead?

 

[brianrost]

WGBH 89.7 has excellent jazz programming these days. They are carrying on from the late Eric Jackson.

No more 5 hours 5 nights a week of Eric though, plus long blocks of jazz on the weekends including the excellent “Jazz Decades” with Ray Smith (RIP) which aired for an hour every Sunday evening covering the earliest days of the music. I had a residence gig for many years on Sunday and would always tune in for the drive in. I learned an awful lot about the roots of jazz from that show. Ray always played exactly 12 sides which in the days of 78s were seldom over 3 minutes each, the remaining 20+ minutes was him talking about those artists and the historical context. WGBH offers a 24/7 online stream of jazz (all music, no DJs talking) but the amount of jazz played on 89.7 itself today is miniscule compared to the old days.

I miss the music on WBUR (the other NPR station), too, but mostly it was nights and weekends, folk, latino/salsa, jazz while weekdays was mainly talk and news. Great memories of driving home from gigs on Saturday nights and hearing the growl of “Cennamo here!”.

There’s still strong support for classical music in Boston, thanks to WCRB, the BSO and the conservatories. But I really miss waking up to the sound of singing birds on Robert J. Lurtsema’s show Morning Pro Musica which ran all morning 5 days a week.

I know things change over time, I moved here from Connecticut in 1981 largely because of the music scene and was lucky to experience about 25 years of great radio and press, now that’s all gone.

Even if the scene has shrunk, there is still so much music in the metro area…folk and bluegrass, jazz, classical, hiphop, soul/R&B/funk, rock and blues can all still be heard live which is more than most cities can claim.

 

[brianrost]

Mustang Sally, CCR and Brown Eyed Girl is boring everyone into retirement.

There was a blues club in Worcester MA whose booker would look at the song list first after opening up the envelopes from bands seeking gigs. If she saw Mustang Sally on the list she immediately tossed the envelope in the trash can. I still recall a night sitting at the bar watching her toss about every other envelope, filling up the trash can in about five minutes.

 

[dune]

There was a blues club in Worcester MA whose booker would look at the song list first after opening up the envelopes from bands seeking gigs. If she saw Mustang Sally on the list she immediately tossed the envelope in the trash can. I still recall a night sitting at the bar watching her toss about every other envelope, filling up the trash can in about five minutes.

Now, that's how it's done!!!

 

[Pocket Dave]

Damn. Tough crowd.

We shouldn't be working at all - We obviously got no shame.

 

[BassBrass]

No more 5 hours 5 nights a week of Eric though, plus long blocks of jazz on the weekends including the excellent “Jazz Decades” with Ray Smith (RIP) which aired for an hour every Sunday evening covering the earliest days of the music. I had a residence gig for many years on Sunday and would always tune in for the drive in. I learned an awful lot about the roots of jazz from that show. Ray always played exactly 12 sides which in the days of 78s were seldom over 3 minutes each, the remaining 20+ minutes was him talking about those artists and the historical context. WGBH offers a 24/7 online stream of jazz (all music, no DJs talking) but the amount of jazz played on 89.7 itself today is miniscule compared to the old days.

I miss the music on WBUR (the other NPR station), too, but mostly it was nights and weekends, folk, latino/salsa, jazz while weekdays was mainly talk and news. Great memories of driving home from gigs on Saturday nights and hearing the growl of “Cennamo here!”.

There’s still strong support for classical music in Boston, thanks to WCRB, the BSO and the conservatories. But I really miss waking up to the sound of singing birds on Robert J. Lurtsema’s show Morning Pro Musica which ran all morning 5 days a week.

I know things change over time, I moved here from Connecticut in 1981 largely because of the music scene and was lucky to experience about 25 years of great radio and press, now that’s all gone.

Even if the scene has shrunk, there is still so much music in the metro area…folk and bluegrass, jazz, classical, hiphop, soul/R&B/funk, rock and blues can all still be heard live which is more than most cities can claim.

Lurtsema's birds are preserved, and Wed. was my favorite theme. The first time I noticed him was while staying in a cabin on Black Pond CT. c1973? Robert J. Lurtsema's Wednesday Birds and Theme (youtube.com) There's still an awareness that the creative arts are a quality of life issue which drives all other economic activities.

Ray Smith's show was a wonder. Sometimes he'd do a show of all female bands, and they rocked. It's why I appreciate Tuba Skinny because they are doing it the old way.

 

[edwinhurwitz]

There’s still strong support for classical music in Boston, thanks to WCRB, the BSO and the conservatories. But I really miss waking up to the sound of singing birds on Robert J. Lurtsema’s show Morning Pro Musica which ran all morning 5 days a week.

I agree with all of your statements, but especially this. Those birds were iconic, along with the epic long pauses in Lurtsema's delivery.

And, of course Click and Clack, the Magliozzi brothers, on Car Talk. My dad used to take our car to their garage way back in the day.

WERS was also a favorite. My band in the early 90s, Shockra, used to play on the air regularly and they really pushed our shows.

There's lots I miss about Boston.

 

[5StringBlues]

Once I played a shuffle, made it swing, made it swing against time. Once I played a rumba, now it's done. Buddy can you spare a dime??

 

[Sonoma Bass]

Some years ago the TalkBass "Humor and Gigs Stories" forum had tons of stories and pictures of gigs by TB members. That forum has mostly been a gig story ghost town since covid hit and even before. This "Best Cities for Gigging?" thread is an example of how 10% of the content addresses the question about what's happening now while 90% is about "gigs in years past...." The evidence seems like we're mostly living on the evaporating fumes of playing live music vs. the real deal.

 

[Pocket Dave]

Some years ago the TalkBass "Humor and Gigs Stories" forum had tons of stories and pictures of gigs by TB members. That forum has mostly been a gig story ghost town since covid hit and even before. This "Best Cities for Gigging?" thread is an example of how 10% of the content addresses the question about what's happening now while 90% is about "gigs in years past...." The evidence seems like we're mostly living on the evaporating fumes of playing live music vs. the real deal.

The evidence seems like it kinda depends on the market, type of music, presentation, etc.

 

[smeet]

The evidence seems like it kinda depends on the market, type of music, presentation, etc.

Yes, and there are still venues for Swing Dance Big Bands. But it's not really in the public consciousness any more. Within a couple of years we'll have AI DJ apps that will take requests live and react to the crowd to tailor the music to what the audience wants in realtime.

We would all like to think that people will still prefer live bands to a simulation, but unless you have name recognition, the coming generations may remember the good old days when people made music by hitting and picking and scraping things. And then their neural link to the nanobot DJs in their bloodstream will kick in and they'll forget.

 

[brianrost]

Lurtsema's birds are preserved, and Wed. was my favorite theme.

In 1984, SineQuaNon Records released Dawn Chorus from Robert's collection of bird song recordings.

I still have it on cassette. As an homage to Robert, I used it as the intro to my folk music show on WCUW-FM out of Worcester, MA.

 

[Pocket Dave]

Five pages and nothing about the Dallas/Fort Worth/North Texas market.

Good.

 

[Lance Bunyon]

Five pages and nothing about the Dallas/Fort Worth/North Texas market.

Good.

You just gave a tell.
Wanna play poker Friday night? I'm broke!

 

[Pocket Dave]

You just gave a tell.
Wanna play poker Friday night? I'm broke!

LOL!

TBH, you can gig in N Texas. It's a large area with a decent economy, though housing inside of DFW has become expensive. There's work and there are venues that fill up.

There's also venues that struggle to keep seats filled.

From what I experience, pay scale ranges from $100+tips to $250/player.

Hours range from 3 to 4, start-to-finish.

Your choice based on style of music, willingness & acceptance.

As I've mentioned, my own main gig is an outlaw-country-flavored mash-up of old pooders playing reasonably well to mostly full crowds in medium venues for mid scale. We're somewhere almost every Fri/Sat. When I have a Fri/Sat off, I'm usually able to fill it playing somewhere with someone else.

What we thankfully DON'T seem to have in N. Texas is pay-to-play.

 

[Fuzzbass]

I'm not saying my area is best because I have little to no experience elsewhere. But as a bassist with almost no vocal ability, I still keep really busy* in the Baltimore-Annapolis-Washington DC-Northern Virginia corridor (and I occasionally play in surrounding states: WV, PA, DE). Context: bar/restaurant gigs with cover bands (half-dozen regular, plus subs). I also perform with an all-original blues/funk/rock power trio that can get surprisingly busy, considering: real gigs too, not cheap/freebie showcases.

So yeah: lots of bands in my area, but also lots of venues.


*I'm a weekend warrior, so "really busy" means 50-70 gigs per year

 

[TBird1958]

Seattle was great when I was gigging originals a decade ago. No idea what it's like now. A lot of the venues I played are gone, but many are still going strong as far as I can tell.

There's still a lot of good venues around Seattle and plenty that welcome bands that play originals as well - money, maybe not so much.
When we play Seattle (rarely) we don't expect to make any money, but I can drive 25 miles north and play at a beautiful Tribal Casino and we'll bring home 2K for the night so it's not bad here.

 

[BassBrass]

My first gig ever was at the Rat in 1979.

So you know Mitch. And Granny the soundman who was deaf to high frequencies. 79 is early in Rat lore. I saw RHCP there in 84 playing Baby Appeal... for the 90s Boston experience there's about to be released this memory- I was in 2 bands Billy Ruane helped promote, a very special and loving person with a built in destruct.