Gigging members, opinion wanted

[stringsthings]

Slightly off-topic:

There will always be critics of musicians.  As musicians, one of our jobs is to figure out how to deal with them.
For me, I make every effort to not take negative criticisms personally.  I think that in 2018, the abundance of social media
may have made some musicians more sensitive to criticism than when I started out.  I"m pushing 60, but I've played in paying bands
since my early 20's.  I tended to focus on what the band was playing more so than on the audience.  It led me to a place where I was
my own worst critic.  "Are we playing good music?"   "Do we sound good?"  "What do we sound like as a collective of people with instruments?"

The advantage?  If I was happy with how we sounded, I could take negative criticism much easier.
disadvantage?  probably missed out by not interacting with the audience, but I let the lead singer do that

[Aentons]

There is an excellent tutorial for how to handle these type situations. Please see the Fear performance in the documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization"

[bamslam69]

( Not in a gigging band currently )

I agree that there's a good chance it was a heckler.  Heckler's are a real PITA unless you're a band
that can afford security.  ( which the majority of us cannot )

The last guitarist/vocalist that I played with was great with mean hecklers.  He'd beat the snot out of them, if possible.
They didn't come back.  I guess it just comes with the job.  Not pleasant at all.

On heckling, Tim Rogers, the frontman for You Am I, is great with hecklers. I mean, it's NOT a You Am I gig until Tim fires up at someone in the crowd. Very entertaining.

[movinginslomo]

There is an excellent tutorial for how to handle these type situations. Please see the Fear performance in the documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization"

HAHAH I don't have Lee Ving's balls

[Muadzin]

I disagree with the louder crowd. Even if you're playing rock music you're not playing a stadium and its no longer the 1960's/70's, where you had to turn up your amp to get a decent sound. Ideally live music should be loud enough for people to have a good time, not to make their ears bleed. We're musicians, we like things loud. But our tolerance for loud is probably different from most people. Probably why so many of us end up with hearing damage.

I know this soundengineer who is also a bass player, and his philosophy as to mixing bass in a mix is to mix it just as he likes it to hear, but because he knows he's biased in that regard, he then pulls the bass a little back in the mix. I think this should apply to live mixing in a small venue as well. Have it just the way you want it, then pull it back a little.

[tone seeker]

I've been there before, but with an "eye candy" female vocalist, the drinkers just begin to stare!
We just kept playing, and ignored those people (and the guy who kept shouting "play Mustang Sally!" I hated
that guy!)


But! We would take a hit, and hire a sound guy, using all his setup, for the gigs. He would charge $175.00, to
$200.00, a show. He had all the cool new stuff (still does), and could make us sound good, on a bad night. It
was pricy, but he had a preset board, for all the place's we would play, so everything was already dialed in. I
could look at him, for a split second, and he knew exactly what I needed. He was like a soundman psychic!
It was worth every penny, for him to do sound!

[Zigcat]

I've been there before, but with an "eye candy" female vocalist, the drinkers just begin to stare!
We just kept playing, and ignored those people (and the guy who kept shouting "play Mustang Sally!" I hated
that guy!)


But! We would take a hit, and hire a sound guy, using all his setup, for the gigs. He would charge $175.00, to
$200.00, a show. He had all the cool new stuff (still does), and could make us sound good, on a bad night. It
was pricy, but he had a preset board, for all the place's we would play, so everything was already dialed in. I
could look at him, for a split second, and he knew exactly what I needed. He was like a soundman psychic!
It was worth every penny, for him to do sound!

My old band made $200 one show. Once...

[lars]

Years ago a co-worker of mine sang a reply to somebody who was making an unreasonable demand on a job site. It was one of the most melodiously punk lyrics I've ever heard sung:
"IIIIIII.........DOOOOOONNNNN'TTTTTT.........CAAAAAARRRREEEEEE!!!!"
Que the shot of Jager and jam on!

[brianq41369]

Nobody tells me to turn down, music is music, go outside if u can't hear yourself talk, it's probably bs anyway. Stand your ground, don't turn down- especially if you're getting paid!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[gordo]

I read an interesting article the other day that stated musicians have different hearing than the general population so the term "it's too loud" is relative.  Most people think of anything but the singing as clutter, whether or not they realize how much it influences your opinion of the singer.  Guitar solos become more visceral as opposed to how we picture them.

Slash realized that the "hero" market consisted of opposing perspectives...the faction that appreciated the wicked chops ...and the faction that was just learning guitar and wanted to be able to play "Sweet Child..." with a minimum of effort.  Think of all the previous guitar bands he learned from: pretty much anything before 1980.

So to wrap this twisted post up:  assholes are assholes, but don't think for a second that you hear music like the man on the street. 

[alanp]

I read an interesting article the other day that stated musicians have different hearing than the general population so the term "it's too loud" is relative.  Most people think of anything but the singing as clutter, whether or not they realize how much it influences your opinion of the singer.  Guitar solos become more visceral as opposed to how we picture them.

Funny you should mention that -- one thing that annoys me about modern pop music is how the singer never seems to shut their yap for longer than it takes to get another lungful of air. My theory is that they have to continuously sing throughout the whole song to cover up how uninspiring the actual music itself is.

[stringsthings]

Years ago a co-worker of mine sang a reply to somebody who was making an unreasonable demand on a job site. It was one of the most melodiously punk lyrics I've ever heard sung:
"IIIIIII.........DOOOOOONNNNN'TTTTTT.........CAAAAAARRRREEEEEE!!!!"
Que the shot of Jager and jam on!

[Muadzin]

I read an interesting article the other day that stated musicians have different hearing than the general population so the term "it's too loud" is relative.  Most people think of anything but the singing as clutter, whether or not they realize how much it influences your opinion of the singer.  Guitar solos become more visceral as opposed to how we picture them.

Slash realized that the "hero" market consisted of opposing perspectives...the faction that appreciated the wicked chops ...and the faction that was just learning guitar and wanted to be able to play "Sweet Child..." with a minimum of effort.  Think of all the previous guitar bands he learned from: pretty much anything before 1980.

So to wrap this twisted post up:  assholes are assholes, but don't think for a second that you hear music like the man on the street.

FINALLY someone gets it.

Also, in the end we're supposed to be entertainers, not musical masturbators. It's our job to entertain, so that people who have worked hard come in to unwind and enjoy themselves. And especially in this day and age we should be happy that anyone still goes to see a live band, for they can easily book a DJ instead, who just presses play on some CD's and the audience would still come, if not more. Cheaper for the venue, audience doesn't care. So if still being able to get gigs means you have to turn it down, you do. Because people don't listen to music like they used too. A Pink Floyd would never EVER become as big in this day and age as it did in the 60's and 70's. Listening to music is something that audiophiles do. For most people music is a like a soundtrack in the backgroud of their lives. Something they put on while they do other stuff, or talk to each other. Which is why audio quality doesn't matter that much these days, as people listen to music from youtube, or worse, from their smart phones.

Funny you should mention that -- one thing that annoys me about modern pop music is how the singer never seems to shut their yap for longer than it takes to get another lungful of air. My theory is that they have to continuously sing throughout the whole song to cover up how uninspiring the actual music itself is.

The way I see (and hear) it is that the beat is more important then the other instrumentation. Because who needs intricate orchestration and well thought out chordal progressions when you're just dancing to it half drunk on the dance floor? And the hook has to come in way earlier then before, as people no longer have any patience to give a song a chance. 10 minutes before the singing even starts like in Shine On You Crazy Diamond? That's the kiss of death these days. Better start the song with the chorus first so they get hooked and not click 'next song' instead. And I've noticed that a lot of singers constantly call out their own names and those of their fellow singers in their songs. Probably so a listener who hears something on a party and thinks 'cool song' knows which artists to google for. Which is actually not that stupid if you ask me.