booking 101

You know how it is. You work your way up through the ranks, learn a lot of tunes, play a million gigs, collect a bunch of gear, and get better at your trade (read: expensive hobby). There are, in each town or city, certain things you can do as a seasoned musician to beef up your profile, get heard and make a little money – you can be a sideman with established bands and play studio pickup sessions if you’re good enough and your rep is out there, you can start your own band of covers and/or original material and start hitting up the clubs for gigs, or you might be content to work the folk-coffeehouse circuit. All of these are still pretty much hobby-level gigs. Until you pile your gear into your beat up old Microbus/Volvo/Van and hit the road to play for food and gas money, you’re just local talent looking for something to do.  

Me? I never yearned for the road. I played a few short tour stretches across a state and up and down the coast, but that was enough to know that I didn’t want to cross the country on a shoestring or carve out a busking habit. I decided instead to focus on writing and recording songs to the best of my ability and budgetary constraints. I can stay at home, write songs and make records at my leisure, put those records out on iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon and a million other retail sites, and gig at my leisure. My goal is to make a bunch of records, get good at recording and writing songs, and play enough gigs around here to still get my jollies. There’s nothing like playing to a live audience – it shapes and builds and tests your material and your performance skills. It’s an essential practice; you have to play gigs if you want to get better at music, because a live audience is your best feedback.

So let’s talk about that. Here’s something people who don’t book their owns shows don’t know: booking sucks. Gigging rocks, booking sucks. (1) Bookers don’t care about your band, they only care about your ‘draw’ (how many people you can get to come to your show); (2) bookers get a zillion calls, emails, CD’s and promo packages, and your band is just another band; (3) bookers change all the time – they quit, get replaced, move on, trade clubs and venues – so you can never count on the same contact person or contact information – you have to constantly update your network; (4) bookers will low-ball you and your band, will double-book your gig, and will forget who you are even if you just played a good show at one of their venues, so don’t get too comfy; and (5) bookers are your FRIENDS.

Remember number five. It’s important. That popular local band or songwriter goes into the studio every couple of years and hires every musician they’re friends with to be on the session; when a slot opens up at a local club, the booker will turn to their list of friendly, recent contacts to fill the gig. Booker’s won’t leaf through the dusty pile of demos and head shots buried in a box under their desk. They will call or email somebody they have recently had a positive interaction with. So you want to be friends with bookers. Chances are, the booker doesn’t ever listen to the piles of demos, doesn’t come to shows that often, and doesn’t care, so long as the club is happy (makes some money when you play there),  and you are not a pain in the ass to work with (read: calling or emailing every five seconds to see if they listened to your demo yet). 

There’s a line here between getting on the booker’s radar and getting in the booker’s face.  I look at this process as basic social networking. At some point a couple times during the year, I check out all the local clubs I want to play and see if they have contact information for booking on their website. If there’s no site, I just get the number. I make a list of booker names and numbers. Then I make a bunch of calls and say hi, get an email address, ask what the booker wants from bands (CD, photo, press, whatever), and then I try to feel them out for information that will help me get a gig at their club.

I  say something like, “I have a local band named Quincy, we play all originals, we have three studio records out, we’re professional quality, we can do 2 sets of 45 minutes no problem, we’ve played this club and that club and would love to play your club, I’ve heard great things about you, what can I do to make this easy for you and get us on your stage?”  The booker will almost always ask two things: (1) what kind of music do you play, and (2) what is your draw? You need to have an answer for these two questions. Here are my answers: (1) “All original rock band, on the folky side, not too hard, a little like Wilco, drums bass and two guitars”; and (2) “about fifty bodies on a weekend night, sometimes more.”

Most likely, they’ll ask for a CD and maybe a press sheet so they have some quotes and background information on you. You might get a gig, you it might be a trial gig on a weekday night, or on a night with no cover, or maybe opening for another band. If you are friends with other bands in town and think that you could share a gig with them, you might suggest that the booker allow you to set up a trial double booking with a low cover, and then you can get both you and your friends’ band’s friends to come out and support you. Good way to break the ice at a new club with a new booking contact. Otherwise, send the booker what they ask for, ask them if they have an email address you can use to contact them and send digital files (promo pics) to, and move on to the next booking contact. Repeat.

If you’re going to gig, you have to promote. Basic promotion 101: you need a short bio, a good picture of your band, and some press. If you don’t have press yet, you should write a description of your band’s music that is in the third person (“They sound like…” rather than “We sound like…”). The picture of your band should not be cheesy. Let me repeat: not cheesy. You should have a good digital version of all this stuff in several formats ready for emailing. Now once you have a gig, you want to repeat the booking process, but with all the local print media and websites that do music promotion. Do a websearch and get all the contact information you can, and start emailing and calling. Do NOT start sending these people large digital files, because they will not like you filling up their mailbox with unsolicited junk. Tell them you have a gig coming up. Ask if you could send some promo materials. Ask if they would like to review your CD, and if they say yes, send them a copy of it with your gracious thanks and a not that says, “I love reading your reviews and am looking forward to reading your review of our record. Thank you for spending time with our music.”

That’s about it. Keep it up! I go through phases. When I’m writing and recording, I don’t gig, and vice-versa. Right now I’m finishing a record, so I’m updating all of the band stuff: writing a press release about the new record, an updated bio and discography, trying to get a new band pic taken, and starting on the updated contact lists for bookers and press. 

This is just really basic stuff. There is a vast world of networking and promotion out there for any musician, band or songwriter who really wants to make a go of it. I’m just a local singer-songwriter, but there’s a lot of reward and exposure out there that’s really easy to cultivate. It’s worth a little effort. Here are a few examples of basic press and promotion (a little out of date because I’m starting a new cycle, but you get the idea):

http://www.myspace.com/QuincytheBand

http://cdbaby.com/cd/quincymusic2

http://cdbaby.com/cd/quincymusic

http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=5176

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Music/Content?oid=96762

http://tammies.com/profile/ChristopherBeeson