The Steel Guitar Forum

Our drummer made up a jar labeled, "GRATUITIES" and folks tipped less so we went back to "TIPS" and the tips started again...Go figger!

I can't help thinking that something clever on the jar would make folks chuckle and be more giving.

Maybe.."TIPS! HELP KEEP OUR CHILDREN FROM BECOMING MUSICIANS" <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jack Francis on 05 October 2004 at 04:30 AM.]</p></FONT>

I saw one at Dairy Queen the other day that said "Cashier's College Fund" - it was full. There might be something to your theory.

Don

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My favorite baseball team is the Minnesota Twins...
-------- ...my second favorite is whoever is playing the Yankees!

.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 17 November 2004 at 08:33 PM.]</p></FONT>

"ARE YOU FEELING TIP$Y?"

The guy I've been playing with doesn't use a tip jar, but says this line at every gig:

"We do take requests, just write your request on the back of a 20 dollar bill and bring it to me, personally. And I'll tell you what, if we don't know the song, we'll give you half your money back."

Is usually good for a laugh, but not tips.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ben Slaughter on 05 October 2004 at 08:17 AM.]</p></FONT>

Tipping is NOT a city in China.

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Well there was once a "NO $PITTING" sign on a spitoon/tip jar in one band I was in. Folding money and used Skoal/Red Man should never be an issue, but I can remember one time...ugh.

Also, how 'bout "Drummer Charm School Fund"

I once worked in a coffee shop where the tip jar read:

Tips backwards is SPIT!

seemed to work great.
brian

<SMALL>Brian of Seattle: "I once worked in a coffee shop"</SMALL>

A coffee shop IN SEATTLE! What will they think of next

At a coffee shop on Granville Island, Vancouver reads a sign (beside the Tip jar):

'Children left here will be used as sandwiches and eaten!'

A band I was in a few years back had to get rid of our jar after the bass player barfed in it during "Tulsa Time" - bad chicken salad I reckon. Before that we just taped a $1 bill across the front of it in case the customers couldn't read. I played more than one place where the customers would come up onstage during our break and steal the tips right out of the jar. Nowadays around here it's considerd tres gauche to put out a tip jar because it suggests that the band isn't being paid very well......... -MJ-

<SMALL>Nowadays around here it's considerd tres gauche to put out a tip jar because it suggests that the band isn't being paid very well</SMALL>

... and their point would be...?

<SMALL>.....it suggests that the band isn't being paid very well.........</SMALL>

In NashVILE,its a way of life!(unfortunately)

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<font face="monospace" size="3"><pre> ~ ~
©¿© It don't mean a thang,
mm if it ain't got that twang.
www.ntsga.com</pre></font>

Tip the Musicians
But Don't Knock Them Over!

<SMALL>... and their point would be...?</SMALL>

We maybe cheap S.O.B.'s, but we don't want the carriage trade to hear about it,
before they pay the bill for the $7 hamburger and $4 beer.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 05 October 2004 at 01:54 PM.]</p></FONT>

David, your "tip the musicians, but don't knock them over," reminded me of a show I played in Downtown Houston. There was no stage and we were set up in a little corner which wasn't so bad. This drunk woman gets up and starts doing the, "I am drunk and shure can dance, 'dance'," one I have done a few times myself, but she lost here footing and plowed right into my microphone stand, and she went head first into my chest. She took me down like a linebacker from Ole' Miss. I'm 6'1" and about 210, and this little woman hit me like i 98 pounds. I was playing lead guitar that night, no steel, thank God. I jumped up after being layed out and didn't miss a note. Good Times!

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"Keep on Keepin' on"

I met a guy while gigging around Yellowstone Park who sold old bottles and jars. He engraved mountain and outdoor scenes on them and filled them with different colored liquid, and they looked cool.
Anyway... he came in one night, and he had made me a cool tip jar that had a scene of a scantily clad lady lying Cleopatra style on a couch. It was cool!
I used it for a few years and it worked really well (I was doing a solo gig at the time).
One night, a guy danced backwards and both his heels hit the edge of the stage at the same time and he fell onto the stage. he fell straight back and hit the back of his head right on the rim of the tip-jar, and the jar broke apart into several big pieces.
This guy cut his scalp, but was O.K., but that was the end of that jar.
I had gotten at least one $100 tip in that jar (some rich guy wanted to hear Devil Went Down to Georgia, and when he flashed the $100 bill, I instantly knew the song!), and made alot of tips in general over the years with that jar.

The Lady I play with now, has 5 children. She uses a tip jar that has a picture of a Kitten on it, and the words... Feed The Kitty!
She also announces that all tips will be going to the Feed The Children fund.
Her Children!
About a month ago on a gig with her, a guy was in the front row who made it known that he was a big Steel fan. He was still wearing his Pepsi delivery guy cloths, so I knew he had been there since Happy Hour.
On his way out he bypassed the tip jar and put a $20 in my top shirt pocket.
Cool!

I saw Johnny Bush a couple of years ago at Blanco's in Houston. Two obviously inebriated women were trying to dance. Each pass they got closer to Johnny's monitor, finally plowing into it and falling flat on their butts.

Without missing a beat, Johnny said, "I'll have whatever they're having."

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T-To

I-Insure

P-picking

S-Singing

Love Offerings-always a winner

The $100 extravaganza
You count each tip and build it up like the Jerry Lewis telethon and it works. Of course then it goes to the $200 extravaganza.

We've auctioned off songs-really!
They'll keep raising the anti and won't be outbid.

The Money Tree
This is where the customers put bills between the tightly wrapped mike chord on the mike stand so they show. It makes them part of the show. John Shepherd showed me that one.

When the phone rings it's another "phone in" Love offering.

Prime the tip jug and it should be glass or a plastic fish bowl is best so they can see inside.

Play on Lower Broadway for a few years and you'll get the hang of it. Being a good barker is always a plus.


Hey when you work for $20 a tip jug is a way of life. It makes the difference between Scatterred and Smothered or nothing at all.

Great ideas. I had a guy at Fast Eddies in Alton Ill. demand that I do Jimi H. Star Spangled Banner, 4th of July weekend. I told him I didn't know it anymore(6string), but the fifty dollar bill he handed me helped me to remember! I cranked my amp, had the rest of the band clear the stage, and started playing. When I looked up, this dude and his buddies were standing across the room, hands on heart. Turns out they were all old army buds. I almost gave the 50 back! I wish I had a clever tip jar slogan, you guys have some great ideas! JimP

A local group has displayed a 1/2 sized, all white, ceramic appearing toilet complete with simulated water box and a note written in perfect "script"..........

"Put something in the pot"......

Over here when busking or street playing,
after awhile at a spot someone goes "bottling" ,
while the others keep playing a bit.

Well bottling has an interesting and very Ye Olde English meaining.

The guy passing the hat would also
in the other hand
hold a bottle with a fly inside closed with his thumb...
to make sure his free hand wasn't straying into the tip hat ,
before he got back to the guys playing.

If the fly was gone he gets searched or worse.

What is the best nation in the world...?
DONATION!!

I wear my jeans tucked inside my 18" cowboy boots when I played in this one band. One night, I stepped forward on stage to play a bass solo, and this old woman jumps up and stuffs a dollar bill in the top of my boot. None of her friends could stand to be out done, so up they came. My boots had bux sticking out all over!! That was the night the tip boot was invented(at least in our band!). So, after that, when I'd take a bass run, I'd jump up on the rail at the edge of the stage, and sure enough, here would come that same old lady and all her friends! It was catching, other people couldn't get out done, so here they'd come. The rest of the band decided they'd try it, so when ever somebody got a solo, they'd jump up on the rail, pants tucked in! Here would come the tipsters! The drummer didn't make out too good, though.

WOW! I'm impressed, everyone has a different take on this tip thing.

We've never thought to even mention the tip jar other than to say "Thanks", when folks chip in. We kinda look at it as a little bonus since we're not really playing for tips.

We don't split up the tips but use them for recording projects or sound stuff.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Here's one,

"Tipping...not just for COWS anymore"

PP

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The Pickin' Paniolo