Is the Club scene as bad all over as it is in New England?

Travis Bolding · Post by **Travis Bolding** » 8 Apr 2001 11:10 pm

Hello guys! Nice to meet all of you! Until I found this forum, I was beginning to think there was just a handful of us left. PSG players are few and far between. This is my first post, so here goes...
I played 4 or 5 nites a week for 15 years in SE Kansas area, and the pay was always upwards of $80 a nite. When my son started playing football I dropped out of the music scene so I could make all the games. I didn't want to join a band during the off season just to have to quit during football, so I just gave it up. Still, I practiced every day so I wouldn't lose my chops. Now, after 10 years, I'm ready to PLAY! I'm not having a problem finding bands that want a pedal steel. The problem is finding a band that can afford one! Money is so tight, and most of the band members rely on money from gigs to make ends meet. I set in recently with a band in Oklahoma City that plays western swing and all the good old Ray Price, Faron Young, Buck Owens tunes. The kind of stuff that makes a PSG player's mouth water. And they are an EXCELLENT band (twin fiddles...I'm in Heaven). I decided I couldn't let these guys get away from me, so I'm playing pro-bono for the time being, 8 gigs a month. I started playing because I loved the instrument, and it was very good to me for several years. I guess I'm just giving some back. Just glad to be pickin' again!

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 9 Apr 2001 5:47 am

Jack, what I meant is that for years, people have thought that bars are the only places that you could get work, outside of opening acts and concerts. A couple of years ago I read a book called something like "22,000 jobs in the music industry". It gave very imaginitive ways of marketing yourself or your band that I had never thought of. Mostly they're specials and one-nighters but it brought home the fact that often we musicians have tunnel-vision with regards to marketing ourselves.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 9 Apr 2001 7:36 am

Welcome to the Forum, Travis!

Peter Dollard · Post by **Peter Dollard** » 9 Apr 2001 8:30 am

I think what we could all agree on(at least in my area of Sacramento)is that the clubs that had live country bands have dropped from ten to one in a space of fifteen years. This is just a fact. Now there were a certain percentage of people who played here on the weekends and enjoyed the additional check. There were also those who played five nights a week and eeked out a living doing it. One can certainly blame the people left for not looking in different places to play outside the area but at the expense of their day jobs many simply couldn't afford the financial hit. Off hand I can think of only three people I know who are playing and making any kind of money on a consistant basis playing country music in and around Sacramento. Certainly if one were to pack up and move and organize a top band where everyone was willling to roll the dice the chances would increase for success but one of the perils of age is indifference. I'm sure there are people like Bob(in New York) who have survived this but I would say there they are the exception rather than the rule. My hat is off to them.

Joe Casey · Post by **Joe Casey** » 9 Apr 2001 12:26 pm

Pete from Sacto My home town,When I left Sacto in early 61 we had several places on Franklin BLvd one was the Jumping Howdy club where buddy Jack Vaughn was holding down the fort for 5 nights then we had all the places out in N.Sac like the Belle Ave. Corral. Jack Mcfadden who was a sac resident and booking Buck Owens brought him up a couple of times by himself,he also had Del Reeves,Rosie Maddox and Freddie Hart..those were the times. Of course there still is the old El rancho across the river isn't there? Sac has at least a million in and around population and doesn't that say something for the state of our music?

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CJC

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 9 Apr 2001 9:57 pm

Interesting thread.

The guys that actually play steel say things are going well and are playing some of the most interesting and enjoyable music ever played on a pedalsteel. Some of them even play country music !

Anybody out there that wants to play the pedalsteel has a world of opportunity and fun waiting for them. Now, it might not be on a 3 inch high stage behind the pool table just left of the ladies room but that scene wasn't for everybody in the first place.

Travis,
Welcome !
The world needs more steel players out there playing and showing people what a great instrument we got going here.

Bob

BTW: I should probably clarify something.
I am more interested in checking out new forms of music on the steel than I am in country music. My favorite and best paying work is well outside of the traditional steel gig.

[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 09 April 2001 at 11:07 PM.][This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 09 April 2001 at 11:19 PM.]

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 10 Apr 2001 2:36 am

Bob,

I think you hit upon one of the main reasons.

I've played many types of music over the years, e.g. I played bass in a New Orleans style dixieland band for a year, did the club route playing guitar in a small group (guitar, bass, drums and piano) doing things like Autumn Leaves, Moonlight in Vermont, etc. But I'm now perfectly content playing traditional country music and have no interest in doing modern rock or some of the newer alternative music things.

Bob Hayes · Post by **Bob Hayes** » 10 Apr 2001 6:36 am

Here I go again. I'm guess I'm just and old Fart at almost 61..But a young kid at heart. The young kids I'm playing with are in thier 40' and '50s. The lead singer OWNS the club! It's one of the biggest clubs in this area..Tri cities SW VA. WE PLAY 2 (TWO) nights a week. And we have to play every thing (even the (OLD) Macha'rena. ZZTOP SKINER all he way to Hank SR, and Bob WILLS.
Basicly they pay me a "Tip"..but that's ok 'cause I want to play..They don't REALY need me...I'm just an extra special instrument..But I'm having fun....I'm not dead yet...So I'll takr what I can get..But the places to play for ANY amount of money and any type of music are FEW and FAR between. DJ's and Kareoke have taken over..so life goes on...Tonight I will be enjoying listening to some MASTERS of the Pedal Steel at the Nashville Super Jam..It is worth the 200 mile drive...Some old farts up there playing their hearts out for the enjoyment of it.
BH GrouchyVet ( not a veternarian)

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 10 Apr 2001 8:23 pm

The question was...

Is the Club scene as bad all over as it is in New England?

The answer is...

Yes.

John Steele · Post by **John Steele** » 11 Apr 2001 8:40 am

B Cole, I respectfully disagree.
When I get hired to play, it isn't to educate people, it's to entertain them. The day I thought otherwise, I'd be out of work for acting arrogant.
Won't "prostitute" yourself by playing what audiences want to hear ?
The nerve of those audiences, telling you what they'd like to hear! You'd think they were actually paying you to play for them or something.
As far as "standing up for what you believe in".. well, that loses me completely. I believe in lots of kinds of music, but that doesn't mean I'm going to play Oscar Peterson licks in the middle of a country tune... or whiney AB pedal licks in a pop tune. I play what I was hired to play.
Maybe that's from two things: 1) respect for those that hired me, and 2) because I can.
I'm sure some people who were raised on a steady diet of Ray Price (which I love) are incapable of playing anything else.

Or, as a friend of mine says, "When all you got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

-John

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 11 Apr 2001 10:58 am

I'm curious how much money folks made last year from playing steel. I made about $3700 last year playing a few weekends a month.
When I played full time during the 80's, the most I ever made was about $17,000 playing nearly every week mostly 5 nighters.
Just curious.
-pb

Gary Lee Gimble · Post by **Gary Lee Gimble** » 11 Apr 2001 11:17 am

Enough to buy a new HWP Mullen, a used Emmons from a banjo shop, a new amp and a pair of bloomers for my wife. Oh yeah, another set of tires for my 'Stang. HATED THAT!
Gary Lee

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 11 Apr 2001 8:41 pm

Mr. Cole. Amherst? Buffalo? Bativia? Niagara Falls? Grand Island? Town Casino? Glenn Casino? Ciro's? The Paddock? Club Lakewood? The Edgewater? The Mansion House? The Signet Lounge(on Chippawa)?

Names and places I played in the 60's, tho I forget some, and not necessarily country music.

Millicent Ave, where I lived while attending U.B. Bob and Ray's music store on Niagara Falls Boulevard where I gave guitar lessons.

Your Host resturants after gigs, and what I miss most of all, Mike's submarines.

Anything ring a bell? Good old days for me.
Ken

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 12 Apr 2001 9:06 am

Yeah,
No hope!