Exposure doesn’t f$&%ing help!!!

Why hello there… My apologies in advance, this is more of a rant than an information piece. BUT an important message, none-the-less.

I just want to make something good and clear to all the promoters of the area…

When you offer an artist a “meal and drinks” for a performance, you are doing the equivalent of sitting them down in your nice comfy office chair, dropping your dacks and dropping a big steamy s#&t on their heads…

Even if that performance is to open for a major international act, it is still insulting your friendly local singer/songwriter or band.

There has been this thought process going around for many years that because you have coughed up more money than sense for a bigger act for your venue, you can justify that someone else doesn’t get paid for their work when in-fact, you should pay them more!

An artist who is booked to support a major act generally gets quite excited and focused for the period of time leading up to the gig. They rehearse more, sometimes bring in some friends to make the performance better. Their whole life revolves around making sure that gig goes well… Why the hell do you think you can say to them “I’ll pay you nothing…. But you won’t go hungry!”.

Musicians, not unlike plumbers, electricians, teachers, librarians and many other professions are masters of their trades. Let’s flip the tables… If you were a plumber and were asked to go fix an overflowing toilet at Shane Jacobson’s house, would you take the gig if you were told “For famous international actors, we only offer a meal and some drinks”?

Come on fam…

This long-running attitude devalues the industry and teaches future generations of musicians that it is ok to get nothing for their trade. This kind of behaviour breeds a generation of people who are scared to make a living because they think free work is the way to go just because the calibre of the job is higher than a family members request…

I’ll cut it there… I have made my point… Don’t piss the musicians off by offering them some food or exposure for their work, cough up some actual money. If you can find tens of thousands of dollars for a headline act, you can afford at-least a few hundred for an opener…

Shade out…