RE: tough crowds

[ArsOcarina@aol.com]

Hi all,

I'm coming into this thread late (as per usual) but no matter.

Doing club gigs. Hmmm. I generally don't do them anymore. 
I'm too selfish -- and too old too, but that's besides the point.
I have my own motivations for doing the music I do anyway
and hardly any of them have to do with commerce, alcohol
(or caffeine) consumption or similar/related concerns.

Pity the poor club owners though. They've got to make a living too. 
It's pretty damn rare that you'll find a club owner that is REALLY 
in it for the "love of the music." For putting up with us whinny 
musicians, querulous customers, piss and barf who knows what 
all else I'm not sure even money would be enough, quite frankly.

People (audiences) come out to clubs for a variety of reasons
more of them having to do with their social habits than with
any cultural (artistic) consideration. They wanna party. They 
wanna dance. They wanna get falling-down pissed, drunk.
They wanna talk. More power to them I guess. 

A club owner and his customers have a commercial relationship
that benefits both quite well as long as things are working well.
Music can be a good lubricant in their relationship as long as it
serves THEIR mutually cross-feeding purposes and doesn't
go off trying to do something on its own -- as if it actually
meant something on it's own. Then it becomes an irritant.

As entertainment and/or diversion it's plenty fine -- as long as 
it doesn't go get a big head and start thinking of itself as "Art."
If it does, watch out! Heheh. There'll be trouble brewin' fer sure.
Neither the club owner nor the club audience much appreciate
anything that thwarts them in the pursuit of their real goals -- the 
exchange of money for a few moments of stuporous release.

If you take yourself a little too seriously as a musician and start
thinking of what you do as "Art" you'd be better off playing in an
art gallery, rented theater, legion hall, or some fan's living room 
(or basement) than in the typical club. There's always the a-typical 
club, but there's no counting on one being available in your area. 

For any musician whose reasons for wanting to get into music 
in the first place are merely musical ones, a bar is not the best
venue to be. You've got to be the sort that's really into it for
the party, the drinks, the promise of sex, or the minor local-celeb 
hero-worship. And, you've got to actually LIKE your audience 
and want THEIR esteem more than your own self-esteem.

Loopers don't tend to be that sort . . . I don't think. They tend to 
be thoughtful, but still pretty much, self-communing shoe-gazers
for the most part. I know I'm like that mostly . . . still. I'd be much
happier doing intermission music at a poetry-reading than the "life
of the party" at the beginning of someone's weekend-long bender.

Finding the right audience for your music can be the hardest
part of making music. If you make music for only yourself
and your own unique motivations, perhaps there are times
when you may be that music's only possible appreciative 
audience too. Sad, but it's something to think about.

It's something I wonder about a good deal. Much of what I   do
musically would be a better soundtrack for a torture session 
than a poetry reading -- but then some folks would consider 
those occasions to be synonymous anyway.   It seems to me
that the CD -- and now the MP3 -- offer the best hope of an 
audience for mutant, mis-begotten musical forms. 

I'm   trying to learn to be happy with that.

Cheers,

tEd ® kiLLiAn

"Different is not always better, but better is always different"

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