A nation riff hounds??

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:47 am Post subject:

Quote:

2 pool players, i bored looking barmaid and an 80yr old regular sipping a pint and reading a newspaper

Blimey! I wondered who was depping on lead guitar that day! Seriously, we've had gigs involving "three men and a dog" and the standing-on-chairs-cheering crowd (admittedly, in an average-sized pub) but you're right; neither pay the expenses (Elton gets the same money regardless).

F'me, I'd rather do our own songs and take the hit on payment. OTOH, I bought a leccy piano off a guy who did covers three nights a week. I wrinkled my nose when he told me, but he kindof shut me up that he was getting a decent weekly wage playing music instead of working in a biscuit factory; his old job. I used to be snobby about being an "originals" player, but not after I had that conversation.

lee_UK · Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:

As you know Bass, im in an Originals band and a Covers band, I like the process of making a song, i like all the creativity but ive never realy enjoyed the public performance of it, you always get the BS'ers who say oh that was great, you should record a CD blah blah, but i think you get to a certain age and you kind of know you wont be going anywhere with it, but in the Covers band, you can see the effect of all your rehearsing in the numbers that are looking at you and clapping at the end of each song, and the amont of people dancing through your set, and the short term finnacial rewards arent bad either.

sammi g. · Joined: 13 Dec 2005 Posts: 8

How interesting!
The hottest discussion I'm involved in on my 'other' discussion board here is all about whether we should re-start or reform a union to protect those of us earning a few bucks by playing gigs in bars. Whatever the PRS is, it sounds a lot like the RIAA- but they are not bothering with clubs or music stores, probably because they've figured out that is nothing next to the music going on over the 'Net.
However, the idiotic mind-set is the same- Sue Them!!!! As if ANYON E believes anymore that Bruce Springsteen can't feed his kids because of pirating on the internet Laughing

I've been performing my own stuff for wel over twenty years, and never gotten a crumb of help from the industry people, because the stuff I do is not commercial. So- why should THEY be the ones who get to set the rules? the Golden Rule- those with the gold make the rules? I can't dig that.
Of course, there is another difference I'm not proud of, that could be a factor in why music shop owners in the States would never tolerate having to pay to play- most of them are also gun owners! Shocked

1bassleft · Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 3:24 am Post subject:

Sammi, the PRS is the ludicrously-named "Performing Right Society".

It sounds like a therapy group for male porn actors, but it isn't. It's the UK's scavenging device for making sure that money is recovered from venues (live pubs, discos, guitar shops, apparently) and handed out to artists. Pretty complicated; there's something like Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) that collects revenues from radio stations etc and generally muddies the waters (I doubtless have to pay a fee for saying "Muddy" and "Waters" in the same sentence).

They're all quite thick, AFAIK, and just take money off businesses on a fairly flat-rate %, then distribute it on the basis of gawd-knows-what formula. I do know that Simon Cowall (the shrewd "Idol" svengali) long ago made a point of playing the triangle on any recording that passed his way. So he can claim his performer's rights. I do find it highly irritating that I subsidize these people every time I buy a blank cassette or perform in a pub. They are completely incapable of working out what really happens; can't cope with the 'net, so the knee-jerk reaction is to come down even heavier on the soft targets.

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