Pardon me if this leans more towards “diary” and less towards “of a wage slave rebel” this week.
I was in bed by 8:30 tonight.
I only slept about 5 hours last night, and then I dealt with talent buyers at music venues all day long. It’s the spiritual and mental equivalent of fighting boiling hot gravy; you get ignored and burned at the same time. I was going to sleep.
But then Lincoln (my 5-month old son) decided that 8:30 was a perfect time to scream for an hour straight (so far. ongoing. I’ll let you know if/when it stops.)
And then I got a text to remind me that I hadn’t finished my column for the week. My blog. My whatever this is.
I can’t exactly define for you what it means to be a Wage Slave Rebel, but I can most certainly tell you what it is not: Always getting your way.
Booking is the bane of my existence. I may have mentioned this before.
I love playing, I love performing, and I even love routing and planning tours and budgets and… almost everything about touring. But I loathe the booking and the promoting. There’s a quote from a Woody Allen movie that is apropos: “Show business is, is dog-eat-dog. It’s worse than dog-eat-dog. It’s dog-doesn’t-return-other-dog’s-phone-calls…”
Maybe you don’t know what goes into this process. As I’m in diary mode, allow me to share:
- Find an appropriately-sized venue. (1 hour, average) – This consists of a lot of googling: “Cleveland Venue 150 Capacity” “Cleveland Venue 150 Capacity Still Open” “Cleveland Live Music Venue If It Closed In 1988 How Is It Even Still Showing Up ON GOOGLE.”
- Find a local act to host the night. (4 hours, average) – This consists of going to MySpace.com > Music > Top Artists > within range > 10 miles > (zip code) > genre. I usually start with Indie, mostly because I hate the idea of making money. After hearing 15 different incarnations of Ed Gein’s Love Machine, I switch over to Acoustic,(<- seriously, that’s listed under “acoustic“) then Americana, then folk, then I start wishing I had a liquor cabinet. After I find a band that a.) doesn’t suck b.) is playing out regularly c.) isn’t already playing the week I’m trying to book them for, I send them an e-mail. I don’t even wait for a reply. The first one never replies. I repeat this process about 6-7 times until one e-mails back.
- Repeat Step One: (another hour.) - I go back and approach the first club with the package. As with bands, I don’t bother waiting for a reply. You would think that at some point, I would end up booking 4 different clubs with 4 different lineups, but this has never even once happened to me. I always mail more than one (usually 3-5) and I have never double-booked it.
- Promote The Show (6-7 hours) – I search for all my facebook friends that are nearby and invite them. I send out an e-mail to my mailing list. I find an illegal myspace program and e-mail all my friends that are nearby. (LINCOLN JUST STOPPED CRYING.) I type in 172 Captcha Codes. I drive to the post office and mail the venue 5 copies of posters that they requested, but that will not be up at the venue when I arrive in 2 months. I call my friends in the area. I text some guy whose name I don’t recognize, but who is in my phone and has the same area code as the venue.
So that’s 12 hours of preparation per show.
Per Show.
Not counting the designing and ordering of merchandise, drive to the venue, the set up, the sound check, the hoping that people show up, the 35-40 minutes on stage, the tear down, the selling merch (hopefully), and the drive to the hotel or next town, the inventory of merchandise, and the accounting.
I have 27 of this fall’s 64 shows booked. 37 to go.
Don’t let all this Wage Slave Cheerleading fool you; doing what you love to do is still a lot of work. And still involves doing a lot of things you hate doing. It’s not for the faint of heart.
(But I still wouldn’t do anything else.)
Related posts
- Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: From a Starbucks in Portland
- Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: When Preparation Meets Imogen Heap
- Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: On Tour
- Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: Why I Killed Myself
- Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: A Brief Introduction to my Madness
Hey, I'm JD. Last year, I started Wage Slave Rebel as a resource for those who are dying to escape from conformity and design the lifestyles they dream of! I write about online entrepreneurship, productivity, and lifestyle design.
True that. I don't know many lifestyle designers who aren't obsessed about their work. Of course, everyone who has ever pitched me a product seems to be drinking fruity drinks nonstop.
Man, it's hard being a rockstar! I'm exhausted just reading about all this. And, that was before I remembered that Lincoln must be still crying.
I've found that ever since I started my blog, I have worked more hours and harder than any job I have ever been paid for. It's incredible that doing something that you love takes so much hard work. But, that's the reality. The great thing is that when you love doing it, it just doesn't feel as hard. And, you want to keep going back and doing more. But maybe after a nap.
Everything could be so bad and seem so hard, but it really comes down to that last sentence, "But I still wouldn't do anything else."
Great insights.