Joe, I'm going to dust off my old chops here. In addition to making a living touring North America in the 70's I came off the road and went to work at one of the larger booking agents as a union subagent. Everything we did was union contracts. I know what it takes and how to sell an act.

One question. Are you a good singer and a charismatic performer? By good I mean American Idol good. You wouldn't believe how good some of the acts I used to book were. If your vocal and performing chops are that good then great, I could put you to work right now doing singles assuming you have your instrumental act together too. Not a singer? Forget it.

My good friend Eddie Greely who died a few years ago was a graduate of the UCLA School of Music. His father George was a very famous movie orchestrator in the 40's. You can Google him. Eddie had perfect pitch and could sing like Sinatra plus do classic rock like Mustang Sally and the like. Shortly before he died he was making about 3,500-4,000 per month doing singles in retirement homes for $200 each. Since this is SoCal he was driving all over the place from Sherman Oaks in the valley down to Newport Beach sometimes doing two gigs per day. He was putting 25-30K on his car a year. He could only do that because of his skills as a pianist and a vocalist. He also worked in a classic rock show group at night on the weekends but those gigs were only occasional. Doing a single is the only way to make a living but there's not much fun in it. No buddies on stage to interact with and all that.

People play for free because if they didn't they wouldn't get to play out at all. I know the union line very well Keith but the union is basically dead out here.

Music is a performance art, without an audience what's the point? There's thousands of highly skilled music grads coming out of schools every year chasing very few paying gigs. If you're not an Eddie Greely or Johhny, oh yeah I didn't tell you about him, you have no chance. Johnny is even better than Eddie but he gave it up and is making about 150K as a longshoreman in the port of Long Beach. Johnny toured with some big name rockers as a drummer plus plays his butt off on guitar and man, what a voice. I mean a seriously killer voice. Gave it up in the mid 80's, no money any more.

That's it in a nutshell.

The dichotomy between all those music grads and yet saying live music is dead is something isn't it? All these Youtube vids of child phenoms proves good music is not dead but yet it is dead as far as local places to hear it or play it live is concerned. It's evolved to the same status as classical music. Jazz will always be around, it will continue to be taught but the only way you hear it is on the one radio station out of dozens that still plays it or the occasional big concert at Royce Hall or the Hollywood Bowl.

Bob

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