The Steel Guitar Forum

Back in the good ole days.........

every country band in this region tried hard to get a
coveted radio show in order to become better known and as an aid to generating more and more 'dancers' for their summer time events; fairs, street dances, picnics, etc.

Have any of you younger people successfully taken advantage of todays opportunities to acquire a 'free' public service or cable televsion show.

Lot's of folks are strumming guitars and warbling for gospel type shows....... Would it work for your country dance band?

Ray,
For as long as I can remember there have been people wanting "our" band to do a show/dance/whatever for the publicity...............never seemed to work.

Ray, do you have an example of a modern show that is representative of what you're talking about? A couple of bands I've been in have done appearances on local radio and TV, but nothing on a regular basis. Is that what you meant, a recurring show?

YES, Bryan......

Our regular weekly radio shows (of olde) were responsible for generating great crowds for our Saturday night dances. People used to drive in from Medford, OR. and Shelton, WA., after hearing our radio shows.

With cable television offering such a great opportunity to bands.....I was only curious if anyone was taking advantage of it.

No need to sell 'sponsors' to fund the show or anything.

A lot of guitar strumming, piano playing folks are
seen weekly on local cable television....via multiple
channels and repeated more than once. I was just wondering if this was an opportunity missed.

Can you give an example of a weekly showing, currently airing, that features the same band every week?

Raoul has a point,I think.There are a couple of PBS channels here in Metro Denver that do live local bands,but they seem mostly to concentrate on alternative and original bands(ASCAP/BMI copyright issues maybe?) rather than cover groups,or even what most country players would call country bands.There was a used-car dealership here that sponsored a weekly cable TV show with the same (real) country band for a couple of years,but that's the only one I ever knew of in this neighborhood.

Bryan.......

I know of NO bands in the greater Portland Metro Area that have accepted this 'challenge'.

The kind of shows on RFD are similar.....

Some of the stuff on YOU TUBE could be better tailored into a 1/2 hour weekly television show that in turn, would likely be networked throughout the region.

Anymore, you hear more negatives about playing these days than anything positive in nature. As players, we have to go out and generate new interest in our
chosen music field. They're NOT going to come to our doors begging for a product about which they know little or nothing. TAVERNS........are not the answer.......

Portlands' local PBS Station trains people to operate the equipment and produce the shows...."FREE".

When folks come to a band and offer 'free publicity' the bandmembers should unite and run off into the fading sunset. They're wanting something for nothing.

The BAND should create the enthusiasm and energy and with that come the following and income.

Ray, just to clarify what we're talking about here, are you referring to cable access? I'm totally confused

Nowadays, the way to do it is social media, facebook, youtube, twitter, etc.

Ray, seriously, tell me who's handing out these shows and I will call them up...

I think the free access channel around here does some local band venue every now and then, but it's usually not country. Most guys just pound the pavement, send letters, and use e-commerce to advertise. There are more bands than playing jobs here in this area, and everyone knows where they (jobs) are anyway. I know years back my dad's band had a radio show out of Casper Wyoming and later out of someplace near the Teton Park. Moving forward...I used to see a couple of local bands on TV when I lived in Rantoul, Il in the 70,s. There is still RFD TV on cable that does some stuff. I used to watch the Midwest Country show, but it wore off. Same commercials over and over, same entertainers, same bad sound, same bore factor. There IS a local radio station here, WBZI, who will announce for you where your band is playing as long as it is not a commercial venue. It is really tuff to keep a band working and break even the last couple of years especially.

Les Sarnoff used to play recordings from local bands on KINK, Sky River had several feature shows with him in the late 1970's...

More recently Ron Rogers and the Wailing Wind had a video at the top of the rotation charts in Northern Europe for several months last year, of course there's no money in it for us but we had a lot of fun making it happen and now folks who live far, far away from us and who don't know us from Adam know about us and think we're cool

Unfortuantely, you still can't save up enough cool to pay the mortgage....

I've played at the local PBS TV Station with a few different bands over the years.
They are mainly looking for bands that play original music.
They allow a few friends to attend but there is not room for a televised "Dance".
I've seen alot of Portland bands on that station while flippin' channels late at night, but I'm not sure it gets the band much exposure.
Anyone can go down there and check it out and sign up your band to play on TV, as far as I know.

Was surfing the television this morning and guess what I found?

A local television production of a country band that
featured one of Portland's great names on electric
Hawaiian, pedal, steel guitar. The stage lighting was acceptable for everyone but unfortunately, NOT the steel man.

From the local brotherhood of steel guitar players, I finally identified none other than long time veteran musician Doug (Duggie Boy) Jones from out Canby, Oregon, way.

Altho' his image was kept in the dark by the stationary video camera-person, and while the sound was not the best of mixes, one could tell that Doug was doing a super human job of playing that pedal steel.

This production could well have been from way back in 2010 but I'm not sure. Credits showed Pete Ford
and Texas Hold'em on the local media as producers.