Are you a musician in a band or an acoustic solo act trying to gig and can’t figure out what to do? I can come up with a lot of suggestions! There are plenty of ways to go out and keep gigging. You just gotta set your mind to it and be creative.

Here are several quick suggestions to help you:

• If venues reject you? Fuck ’em. Move along. – Keep going until you find the one that will care for you and your music! This is part of how I got myself out there. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of rejections. I kept asking for gigs until I found the one that liked me.
• Set up your own shows – You don’t need to go around asking for gigs from other bands, when you can easily set up your own. I did it all the time. All you have to do is talk to the owner of the club or cafe that you’re good at setting up shows, and they’ll be interested in working with ya. I’ve had experience setting up my own shows, lots of times.
• Set up your own music festival – I see bands do this all the time. A lot of them set up their own music festivals ’cause it was the only way for them to play out and get recognized for it. It may cost a lot of money but it’s worth it, if you want to gig out.
• Play house concerts or house parties – This always works. It may not be at an actual venue at a bar or a club, but a live performance at a home is still a gig! Bands put on house concerts all the time. People love this stuff. It’s great for the die hards who follow your music. Live music doesn’t always have to be at a club or a small theater. Live music can be anywhere! Remember that!
• Put on live internet streaming performances – With the use of technology today, why not have a live internet gig? People watching live on the internet is still an audience, in my opinion. It may not be in person but it’s still a live show. In 2013, I’m planning on doing something like this, so stay tuned.
• Take your music out on the road! – You don’t need to be stuck here, playing music in Albany! Go on tour under your own budget. I can understand why more bands and artists around here are starting to tour ’cause there ain’t shit for places to play around here.

There are always different ways to share your music for your live audience and your fans. Just gotta use your brain a little bit.

Kev

I’m seeing discussions in facebook lately of musicians complaining about how this music scene is lacking. It’s getting tougher for bands & acoustic solo artists to book everywhere, nowadays. I’m seeing that a lot of musicians around here are admitting that they’ve been getting rejected by a lot of venues. A lot of musicians just get gigs around here from other musicians, just word of mouth, when a band needs an opener, musicians will ask to get on those gigs. They would either ask other bands to get on gigs, or the bands will ask them. Either way. Venues don’t reach out to bands to ask them to play on a gig. Don’t usually work that way anymore.

The only time when a venue wants to book a band and flat out ask them, is when a band has a large following. Those are the bands that seem to be getting all the gigs, these days. Even the popular and more successful bands struggle to get gigs too.

Even if I try to get myself back out there, if I want to gig again, I’m probably going to have a tough time getting on a gig too.

Several years ago, when I was gigging out like crazy, I had no problem getting gigs from venues. I’ve asked plenty of venues for a gig and they actually accepted me. Venues such as Cafe Lena’s for Wednesday night “Emerging the Artist Breakout Series”, King’s Tavern, Backstreet Billiards, the Coffee Planet, Slow Jed’s, etc. As far as Valentine’s goes, I didn’t ask the venue to do their evening “Happy Hours”, there was a musician already doing those shows who I befriended with and I asked him to help him out booking the shows, so I can play there myself.

There are so many bands and artists in the Capital District trying to get gigs, but none of them get much around here anymore.

If you’re struggling, there are still ways to get gigs. Like I said before, try asking to be the opener of their show. Tell the venue that you’re willing to play for free, or if you want, you can even set up a home gig and have a small audience at home, that always works too. There’s always ways to play out. You can even do a live internet streaming show, which I plan on doing when I think of a plan.

Musicians struggling to get gigs around here, it’s just further proof that there is no music scene here. Everyone’s always accusing me of not doing much in music. This could be part of why I don’t do much ’cause there’s no place to play out anymore. So what’s the point of going back out, anyway, ya know? I’ll be lucky enough to even get a 1 gig or two in 2013, even if I tried hard to get a lot.

I understand musicians want to play live a lot ’cause that’s what we do this for. Perform in front of an audience, and believe me, I love performing too. It’s just sad that musicians get forced to get stuck doing nothing ’cause a lot of places don’t have live music anymore. Venues are closing down, bars/cafe’s stopped having live music, venues are getting even more strict with their booking policies, etc. Soon, everything will be “pay to play” gigs, because of the economics.

I may not like the bar & club scene, but I do play them anyway ’cause I just want to perform in front of people.

Performing live is awesome. I too wish we could have a better scene. It’s just proves that bars, clubs, cafes, etc. don’t care about you or your music, they just want a large draw. If you don’t have a large draw, no show. It’s pathetic the way these so called, “venues”, handle the booking but it is what it is. All they care about is the money. It would be nice if this scene was more music appreciative and positive, which is far from it.

Kev