Gigging
It’s not something I’ve been doing a lot of recently, or at all if I’m honest… I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit recently though, as I had an interesting conversation about it last week. Where to play? What to play? Play for money, or for the music? I think there are two very different paths I can take - I’m sure there is a crossover but honestly I think it’s too hard to concentrate on both.
- Money. I learn millions (not literally, that wouldn’t work…) of carefully selected famous cover-songs. I then get involved with cover bands wherever possible, and play/sing at bars, clubs, and weddings/parties and crank out the hits to keep the dance floor pumping. If you know the right people and get enough work, you can do alright, money-wise.
- Music. I try to wean myself from playing at pubs and crowd-pleaser type gigs, and focus more on my own songs. It’s a lot harder to write a song, than learn a song, but there are gigs out there where you can play at to an attentive, and even interested audience. These tend to be less, or non-paid, with the idea being to get your name and music out, and hopefully get better and better gigs.
Because I’ve only been writing music seriously (as serious as writing songs can be) for the last year or so, I’ve mostly played covers, and played at jam nights and parties, back in NZ and over here. But the whole originals thing makes me think a bit differently - is it my music I want to be playing? What kind of venues and people do I want to be playing to? Ideally I’d like to play somewhere where people will listen and hopefully appreciate my music. I have some ideas in mind, and am hoping to start approaching promoters and venues to get some dates locked down. I do have one gig (17th of September, details right here) and will hopefully get more soon - but they don’t just happen! I have to start somewhere, so am not being picky at all, but it will be interesting to see how this grows.
Stephen
PS. Watch this space for a strongly-worded letter to Network Rail on this subject