Getting on the bottom rung

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:12 AM

The food in those places is as plentiful as the generosity. Mind you, the best Folk Hospitality I've had in recent years was Wendy's hot pot at the KFFC - generally you're lucky if you get a bag o' crisps. We did at gig at the Green Note in London a few weeks back which was very cool on the food front although I was suffering from near-vaso-vagal heatstroke to such an extent that I couldn't figure out what to do with the edemame beans. In Blackpool its a multi-culti buffet (not good for vampires) with as much fish, chips, pizza, yorkshire puds, chow mein, egg fried rice and curry as you can eat. Trick is, not to spill any down my spandex costume during the apres-gig pig-out...

Then there was a craft brewery in Todmorden where I did a solo storytelling gig as part of a literature fest a few years back & found heaven afterwards in jugs of beer, bread & cheese around a table with hosts and punters. Is that place still there? God I hope so. Utopia. After my set the proprietress came up to me and demanded to know why so many of the characters in my (all traditional) stories were disabled. I tried explaining about the essential outsider nature of the Indo-European folk-tale as a whole, but as I did so she proceeded to take off one of her legs and hand it me. 'I don't give my leg to just anyone,' she said, as I sat there, dumbstruck. Yeah. Utopia!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:22 AM

But I'll promote myself a bit more, in the flesh as well as online (I'm no stranger to self-promotion online. How will we ever Know?
john

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Like a complete unknown
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:56 AM

"How will we ever Know?"

You never will! You may hear that Fred Bloggs (or whoever), formerly better known among a small circle of friends in Wath-on-Dearne (or wherever), has done the odd paid slot and sold a few downloads and is widely thought to be "quite good", but you'll never know it was me. Put it another way, now that I've owned up to being a snivelling fame-whore with a weirdly passive-aggressive aversion to asking anyone for anything, there's no way I'm telling you who I REALLY am. I just have to hope nobody's sussed me already (or if they do that they keep quiet).

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 06:58 AM

johncharles - you're exhibiting the sort of folkish belligerence that's guaranteed to put off the likes of our Getting on the Botton Runger. God knows - it's enough to put off even the most hardened pro...

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:14 AM

yes I was somewhat insensitive in the way I put that. I am not the belligerent type. I was really thinking that if people on mudcat saw some of Like a complete unknown's performances they might give honest positive feedback - unlike youtube which as you have pointed out can be an unforgiving environment in which to share your work.
john

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:31 AM

I think the best thing to do here is share experiences & anecdotes, and maybe realise the best advice is not to take any advice other than to be true to yourself & do it your own way. In my experience, Folk isn't too friendly a place to be. That this rule is proved by Very Signifant Exception is A) Why I'm still folkin' 40 years on from First Contact, and B) Steadfastly refusing to compromise my art in the face of the MOR tendancies which I feel run contrary to the spirit of traditional song.

Last night I took part in a session that ranks with the best ever in 40 years. My wife sang Alison Gross to the accompaniment of hurdy-gurdy, Jew's Harp & a legion of voices & melodeon drones. Dave Peter's sang Spencer the Rover and we tore the place apart. I sang The Collier's Rant as an elegy to my old marra Frank Williamson who left the planet a few days ago. No music is better than this sort of raw feral seance with the soul of traditional song. Everyone there sang & played beautifully. Another Utopia, right here on earth. And the only applause I heard was my own in the appreciation, gratitude & utter wonder at the brilliance of my fellow sessioneers.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:34 AM

I keep thinking if the cheese goes through somewhere where a dog has been doing its business, or having a wee - well you wouldn't fancy it. But the thing is, you wouldn't know if you saw it in the shop afterwards, if it had been rolling round in unsavoury places.

When you go to Lancashire/Cheshre - their ethnic cheese is quite expensive. Whereas in Yorkshire - Wensleydale is always very reasonable.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Vic Smith
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:59 AM

Towards the top of the thread, Anahata wrote:-
Make a demo CD.

Personally, I have become a bit wary of demos. There was the guy I booked a few years ago and when, at the end of the evening, I said that his guitar style on his demo was different (and by that I actually meant much worse), he admitted that it was another guitarist on the recording, but nowhere on the demo was this stated.

Then there are the number of young performers who are fine singers and musicians but when you see them live turn out to be "shoe gazers" with no audience communication skills.

Seeing performers live is the answer. If I am booked at a festival, I never forget that I am also a club organiser and try to see as many other acts as possible, however heavy my schedule is; my record was over 90 a few years ago at Whitby. It's not just checking out people that you have not seen before. Previously, you may have caught someone on an off day; many young performers are improving all the time; some established acts end up resting on their laurels and just coast along. For me, it is very important that the people that I book are talented, sincere about their music but also able to put it over well.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 09:10 AM

Vic, all the points you raise soundly reinforce why someone like me
should aim realisticly for an internet only presence
as a 'recording artist' entity...

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 10:14 AM

I think that this thread might be better attended if cookies and identities were automatically stripped and posters given identities for the purposes of this thread only. This would facilitate frankness. At present I am reluctant to say anything substantive lest on the one hand I sound like Kevin the Teenager or on the other hand an arrogant self-satisfied know-all, or indeed a pompous twat.

And NOBODY had better dare ask what is different about my posts on this thread. Grin.

There are, however, a number of people who do get bookings who are gobsmackingly awful (some with egos so large to compensate that I will be off out of the door on sight), a larger number of perpetual floorsingers (or players) who are also so, and a number of apparently perpetual floorsingers (or players) who are just wonderful but don't get the big stage bookings.

I am a little saddened by the repeated preference for "entertainers" above musicians or singers.

I would also say that serendipity may make two adequate of better floor players into much more than the sum of their parts as a duo. It's worth thinking about, perhaps particularly if one plays no instrument at all.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 10:20 AM

There's also the strategy of waiting around until all the performers getting the bookings die.

It probably won't do you any good but it's a strategy. The audience may also be dead by then!

Getting older,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,John Foxen
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 11:23 AM

Even if you get onto the bottom rung there's still a long, long way to go.
Recently we (Foxen) were asked to do an opening spot at a local festival (unpaid of course). There we were at 11am on a Saturday in a small tent in a corner of a field playing to a dozen or so people.
Afterwards the MC announced: "It's always good to have someone reliable to do the seagull shift -- when only the seagulls are there to hear you."
Refreshingly honest but it could have been depressing. It wasn't because of that dozen in the audience two couples who had heard us play at different clubs had come specially to see us. What a fantastic compliment to get appreciation for something you actually enjoy doing. What better way to spend time than singing and playing which can be its own reward.
I can only say to our Unknown that you have to keep pushing (but nicely not arrogantly) and be grateful for the seagull shifts.
PS By the way Blandiver, was the Penguin quoting the Silkie or Ward The Pirate:
"Go home, go home, says Captain Ward
And tell your king for me,
If he reigns king all on the land
Ward will reign king on the sea."

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 11:37 AM

well i for one, am agog to hear what the world's been missing out on. You're a bit of a spoilsport - not letting us hear you - after all this argie bargy

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 12:37 PM

By the way Blandiver, was the Penguin quoting the Silkie or Ward The Pirate

You learn something new every day! Thanks for that muchly. Of course I didn't mean it was a conscious thing, but it does resonate beautifully with The Great Selkie. I like it when such resonances occur from seemingly disparate parts of my life.

Having figured out who Mr Kevin Bottomrung is I can't honestly believe no-one else has. I'd say it was obvious from the get-go.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Mr Kevin Bottomrung
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 01:02 PM

Al, johncharles, anyone else who's curious about who this guy channeling his inner teenager actually IS--I think it's highly likely you've seen links to my music on the Cat before now. I would rather not make a link between my music and this thread, however. I mean, imagine the scene: you're at a festival/in a singaround/in a singaround at a festival/whatever, and you've just been graced by my dulcet tones. Your neighbour turns to you and says, "Who was THAT?" Ah, you reply knowingly, that was Fred--you remember, that guy who posted on Mudcat all about how nobody would give him a booking and life's not fair. "Oh right," replies your neighbour (who appears to have turned into Father Dougal), "it must be terrible having an attitude problem like that."

I don't think this thread reflects too well on (the real) me, basically.

Blandiver - hullo der! No guessing in public please, that would be just so unfair.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 03:02 PM

well that's okay - but it leaves those of us who DO stand up and be counted and say - well actually everythings not hunky dory. There most definitely IS something rotten in the state of folk music, very isolated. Open to attacks upon our integrity and genuineness.

None of which matters, Blandriver and I do have that much in common - we could never be confused with the middle of the road - even if we were singing My Way. you see me, and you know its a pretty weird road I'm travelling, whatever my postion on it.

If you feel like you do - why don't you want to grab the world by the throat, and say - listen you b------ds! Don't creep through the world - its not dignified for a human being. And what if people DO think you've got an attitude problem. Bollocks to 'em! You've got right to express how you feel.    That's what our parents fought the nazis for. Don't let the nazi buggers get a toe hold just by calling themselves folksingers.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:25 PM

Assuming that you know a fair number of songs and can sing them well—and can play some kind of accompanying instrument well—and can put together an interesting, cohesive program. You want to sing anywhere and everywhere that you can. This includes, at first, parties and get-togethers with friends and relatives, volunteering to entertain at hospitals and retirement homes—even busking. Sing at every opportunity.

My first "big break" came when an acquaintance of mine who had heard me at a number of "hoots" (folk singers' jam sessions in private homes), and who was programming for a local educational channel (which I didn't know at the time), asked me to do a television series on folk music. I wasn't sure I was ready for this, but he assured me that I'd do fine. So I swallowed my panic and did the series. I sang songs and talked about their histories and where they had come from. Academic, but lots of fun, and a fair number of people seemed to like the show because the station asked me back a number of times.

Coffeehouses were just starting to open up around Seattle, and a local theater owner, who was also opening a coffeehouse, had seen the television show, called me, and asked me to sing there regularly three nights a week—for pay!

Then—a couple of fellows who heard me at the coffeehouse asked me to do a concert at a local university. Then it happened again. And again. I sang at several colleges and universities around the Pacific Northwest, a couple of them on an annual basis. And over the ensuing years I sang regularly at some five different coffeehouses in the area, all for regular pay (different from some coffeehouses on the East Coast where the singers sang for tips—called "basket houses").

During the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, I sang, along with about a dozen other singers, at the United Nations Pavilion every Sunday afternoon. We donated our time and talent. But—every week or so, one of us would get hired to sing at some event or other by someone who had heard us sing at the Pavilion. I was asked to do more college concerts, and I got hired to sing at the Port Angeles Centennial and the Port Townsend Arts Festival.

Each of these gigs led to other gigs.

The point of all this is that   a) you've got to be a reasonably good singer and entertainer in the first place;   b) and then, you have to give people an opportunity to hear you, even if it's a small venue and doesn't pay. Every time you sing somewhere, it could be an audition, so give it your best. The educational television series didn't pay. But a lot of people saw the show.

Talent is important. But as someone said, "Talent is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration." Practice. Learn. Work at it.

It IS a matter of being at the right place at the right time. And you must be ready when that time comes.

####

If you're singing folk songs (traditional songs), you don't have to confine yourself to singing for groups of folk music enthusiasts. In fact, this can prove to be something of a dead end. Think "incestuous."

Sing for other groups. If I were to do it all over again, I would bone up on some of the oldest and earliest traditional songs I could find, get myself a period instrument such as a Renaissance guitar or a Baroque guitar (either or both would be easy enough for me to play because they're tuning is essentially the same as a modern guitar), which would give the whole thing a bit of panache, then I'd attempt to appeal to aficianados of Early Music.

I didn't become famous or make a fortune, but I did become fairly well-known around the Pacific Northwest—and I made a decent living at it.

And thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:52 PM

Don - It WAS a lot easier back then - MY First spur to think about getting Club gigs in UK was my local club booking a guy who didnt seem to much better a musician than me , nor much better a singer ! But that WAS in the Mid Sixties !
Now , at least in UK , there are some 'Orrible Good youngsters with degrees In Folkology looking for bookings in a steadily dwindling number of venues , especially since the recession !

Good Advice though - Open Mics in Pubs are at least good Practice , even for Unaccompanied singers .

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Tony Rath aka Tonyteach
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:27 PM

Amen to Mr Firth - Totally agree with him

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 05:44 AM

Oh that cheese. I though you meant the popularist drivel we do on Saturday nights - like our celebrated medley of the hits of Peters & Lee (for which I wear shades, natch); he only time, indeed, you'll see Rapunzel & Sedayne holding hands on stage. Goes down a storm.

Anyway, back to Ye Ancient Cheese Lore o' Chester. And bear with me because this is really interesting, and possible offensive to those of a more delicate cast of mind. If easily offended I suggest you stop reading now...

All the cheese rolled in Chester (& Coopers Hill in Gloucester) is well wrapped up & thorougly waxed; indeed, truckles for rolling are double-waxed, not because of the dirt however. If a cheese gets rolled too much it turns into butter - albeit a very sour sort of butter traditionally held to be only fit for pigs & whores. Pigs can't get enough of it, this rancid pig butter which is often mixed with acorns as a special treat for our rare old breed pokers - such as the very rare Old Cheshire 10-Spot Markle; see recent feature on BBC's Country File. In the middle ages pigge buttere was used as a bait in wild boar hunting. Folklorists aren't sure what came first - the sport of cheese rolling, or the task of cheese rolling to make pig butter as bait and feed. It's easy to imagine those over-worked folk-singing fuedal peasants of yore making sport out of their daily grind, complete with obstacle courses, such as we see on the streets of Chester. Indeed, if you carefully persuse the vivid marginalia of The Luttrell Psalter, where scenes of everyday seasonal peasant life, copulation, labour & childbirth are depicted to often hilarious effect, there too you'll scenes of medieval cheese-rolling, though for chore, sport, or both it's difficult to say.

From written sources we can say tha in the 14th century Pig Butter was also used as a dressing for the Cheshire Bagpipes & as 1532, ye verye olde putride pigge buters were being used as a 4-in-one folk-ointment (salve, lubricant, 'exciter' and contraception) by the folk whores of Gloucester. It is reported that many of the lasses at the end of the shift would find a 'yearling pigge' to clean out the leavings of the night's labours, thus giving them more pleasure than any human snout ever could. Such horrid bestial practices were common amongst the folk peasanty during the middle ages (God knoweth), and we shouldn't judge them by the folk standards of our own time, though in certain rural regions of England 'pigging' is a prefered alternative to 'dogging' to this day. Very much a spectator sport though, and not considered folk at all really, which is a shame really, I think. But there you go.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:21 AM

Can I just apologise for certain aspects of that last post? It's early Sunday morning & I'm nursing my second hangover of the weekend. From bottom-rung to bottom o' the barrel...

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:25 AM

Blandiver - that is the fiendlishly amusingest thing I have read in ages - I snorted & I am not even an pigge.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 05:34 PM

" the popularist drivel we do on Saturday nights - like our celebrated medley of the hits of Peters & Lee (for which I wear shades, natch); he only time, indeed, you'll see Rapunzel & Sedayne holding hands on stage. Goes down a storm."

Video proof please!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:21 PM

Down here in Dorset, they have this vinny blue stuff (which the loacals are very proud of) - I can well believe its been all them places.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:48 PM

Thomas Hardy's mid-morning snack in his study was a Dorset knob (a hard roll from Moore's bakery in Morecomebelake), a wedge of Blue Vinny and a glass of claret.

And look where it got him...

[The Health Police once tried to get Blue Vinny banned because it was unpasteurised - but they failed].

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 07:28 PM

You say you aren't a great musician. Two responses spring to mind.

1. Woodie Guthrie wasn't a great guitarist, and in fact many top class entertainers aren't. But they are entertainers, so they manage to engage an audience to the point that only the purist will actually notice their playing.

2. The way to improve is to find venues where there are musicians much better than you.

Join in and learn to do what they do. You will be surprised how much and how quickly you improve.

But please, please, please ask them first and explain what you are trying to do, and join in very, very quietly until you are sure you have the right key and know what version of the tune is being played.

Do that and they will be happy to have you along, and you will learn a lot.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 08:50 PM

Yes in Cattistock they have a festival every year called the Dorset Knob Throwing Festival.. That's where I first saw a brilliant young band called the Skimmity Hitchers.

I suppose that means they've been making Blue Vinny a while.( if Thomas hardy ate it) Ithought maybe it was just an unpleasant trick the locals were playing on me.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 03:59 AM

To the bottom rung
My talents I brung
Now on this step, I'm tucked.
I wanted just like you
To make rung two,
But now I really can't be fucked.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Like a complete unknown
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 04:30 AM

I haven't made rung one yet!

I wasn't going to say any more on this thread, but it just struck me that there was a real-life question in the OP. Which is: has anyone actually been in that position, of being accepted as a floorsinger/busker/whatever and thinking "this is all very well, but where's the first GIG going to come from?" And if so, where did it come from--what changed for you?

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:06 AM

What changed it for me was a Don Williams song. You're My Best Friend. I figured - this song is structurally just the same as The Banks of the Ohio, The Cornish Nightingale - songs I was singing for nothing in folk clubs. I entered a country and western competition. Won it. An agent approached me.

It was a steep learning curve. However unlike Blandriver - did get an urge to write to you - because we seem to have had similar sorts of gig experience - i saw a lot of positive virtues in the songs that put food on the table every week.

The virtues were that they were closer to the musical soul of the people of England than the 'arty' presentation of Carthy and Jones and people who at that time were king of the folk clubs.

I also found that Irish people were in a lot of the country clubs and country musicians were often Irish. they had a load of narrative and rebel songs, in the country idiom, which had a special significance for them.

Anyway that was part of my story. I sidestepped the buggers. Got my hit record in germany. Got my guitar technique wherever i can. I don't apologize for what i did with English folk music and what i made out of it. I'm sorry if it doesn't conform to some blueprint, that the folk music fraternity has in their minds. But to be honest I think if most of them met the originators of the Black Velvet band and the Wild Rover - most of them would faint with the vapours.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:13 AM

It all depends whether you want to give the people what (you think) they want or plough your own furrow and hope they come to you. People in the second category are invariably more interesting, as far as I'm concerned, although they are also probably skint.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:16 AM

PS that was a cross-post with Al, not a response! (And I write as a listener not a performer).

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:24 AM

I had been a floor singer for thirty years. Not a bad singer mediocre guitarist. I got together with, a couple of friends about five years ago one of whom is a very good guitarist the other is a fiddler, both of them sing. A small group allows much more variety and depth of sound. It is also good for mutual support.
We started with half hour spots at our club and one or two others - you need to put yourself forward for these.
we practiced weekly and tried to build a large and interesting repertoire, which meant we got get gigs which involved two 45 minute sets with no worries about having enough material.
we set up our own session in a local pub, good practice for playing in public to different audiences. Ask friends acquaintances to help with getting gigs and don't turn any down it is all experience. john

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:31 AM

For my better half the step change was when she won the songwriting competition at Saltburn Folk Fest in 2007 with "The Visitor"....... and got offered her first folk club "main guest" slot on the back of this (strangely at a mainly trad club). This gave her the confidence to ask other clubs/ fests for gigs.

She now does 50 to 60ish paid gigs per year mainly at folk clubs and fests but also increasingly "non-folk" venues - but still doing trad (including unaccompanied) and self penned stuff.

Not a living but it pays for our social life and holidays.......

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:55 AM

we practiced weekly and tried to build a large and interesting repertoire

The great thing about singing unaccompanied is that, if you've got a retentive memory, you can quite quickly build up enough of a repertoire to go on all night.

The great thing problem with singing unaccompanied is that nobody wants to listen to somebody singing unaccompanied all night. There are exceptions, but not many - even Bellamy had his anglo.

For an unaccompanied soloist the two- or three-song floor spot is actually quite a good set-length. As an unaccompanist myself, I dream of the days when the local FC was just getting going and you could count on two or three songs in the first half and another one or two after the break; these days nobody goes there, it's so busy.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 06:25 AM

Sean Cannon used to work unaccompanied for the main part. I was quite surprised when at an after gig party he picked up a guitar and sung Sweet Thames Flow Softly - beautifully, I might add.

I think when I begun doing pro gigs - the technical problems were so numerous and overwhelming and expensive to solve - along with the problem of knowing virtually no countrty music songs - that it all became sort of absorbing for me. And I did enjoy struggling with those p[roblems - and in it - learning about the bravery of a showbiz footsoldier - one who goes onstage with a not very good act, and is quite grateful for the indifference of a noisy audience - a quiet inner place, where you can work out technical stuff. I sort of feel sorry for folkies who never experienced that. Never learned to take a noisy room by the scruff of the throat. I feel its a vital skill, and one can't really aspire to 'folk' music without it. Or perhaps I should say, I can't aspire - because I know some of you feel differently, and it wiouldn't do for us all to be the same.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 06:30 AM

When you're singing without a PA and they won't shut up, that's horrible. Been there, done that, got on top of it. (Suddenly singing quieter can be surprisingly effective.)

When you're singing with a PA, though - do they ever shut up? Done that a couple of times, absolutely hated it.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:04 AM

Phil Edwards ...... absolutely

Hit them with something unaccompanied, quiet and beautiful...... it works more often than not.

Turn up the volume and they just talk louder.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:08 AM

Blandriver

Typo OTD, and in this context an excellent name for a band.

"He plays the crwth and the kemence, she goes by the name of Rapunzel, but tonight none of that matters, because tonight they are... BlandRiver!"

Cue intro music from the house band, and never mind that Andy Williams wasn't singing "bland".

This could be big. I'm looking forward to the career retrospective* already.

*Bland River of Song, of course.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: treewind
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:18 AM

[Vic:] "Towards the top of the thread, Anahata wrote:-
Make a demo CD.
...
Personally, I have become a bit wary of demos."

Point taken and well understood, but really my post was a list of things to try. None of them is guaranteed to get a booking, but any of them might help. Any approach can go wrong - phoning an organiser when their favourite footie match is on the TV for example.

The fact is there are too many artists and not enough places to play, so it needs hard work and some luck.

Vic is among the more adventurous club organisers, who goes out and seeks new talent at festivals - there are many who say "I don't book anyone I've not heard" and never go out to another club or to a festival...

Good point made elsewhere about not going after folkie audiences. We (Mary really) did a presentation on song collection by RVW and Cecil Sharp in Cambridgeshire for a local history society recently. We didn't expect them to be so interested in the music as in the singers and their backgrounds and our "old and new" photos of various Cambridgeshire village locations (mostly pubs) - but they joined in enthusiastically with choruses and bought CDs and song books afterwards, and in fact there turned out to be quite a few amateur musicians there, and they said it was the most fun evening they'd had for a long time.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:18 AM

Thirteen years playing '50s rock'n roll in clubland - fully amplified - toughens you up no end. In the immortal words of Al Read to a club audience when the band comes on stage, "Quiet lads, or I'll put the comic back on", winning an indifferent audience can be interesting work.

We used to do our act regardless of the reaction - play to 6 people just the same as if it was 66, or 1,006. We had fantastic nights with hundreds of people jiving to the music, and nights where they couldn't have given a toss - but we never gave in. Our most fascinating night by far was being booked to play at a club - a converted cinema - in Guildford. We turned up and started to play to 4 blokes in the front row in this large, ex-cinema auditorium with tiered seating. They never clapped once. In the interval, we went down to them and said, "Are you enjoying it?" Turned out they were Swedes, who rarely clap until the end of a complete performance. "We're having a great time!" they said, so we invited them on to the stage for the whole second half. They danced, they joined in the singing, they got gloriously drunk and had a great time. And, actually, so did we - in the end!

When I quit rock'n roll and joined a boogie'n funk band - stuff straight from Memphis and New Orleans - we played most of the 15 years in smoke-filled pubs. I recall one Friday night when we were playing Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken" in the Lion and Lobster in Brighton. When we finished it, an American bloke came up to us and said, "Guys, for 5 minutes there, I closed my eyes and imagined I was back in New Orleans." What greater praise could we have had?

I've done guest spots in quite a few folk clubs over the years, and had a good time in every one - but you don't get quite the same experiences as going out into the heart of publand and clubland. It's good for the soul!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:30 AM

Doing a St Patrick's night can be an unforgettable experience in more ways than one. John

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:50 AM

johncharles wrote

"Doing a St Patrick's night can be an unforgettable experience in more ways than one. John."

Arrgh! Don't remind me! I stopped doing St. Patrick's night's gigs quite a number of years ago.
The only time that the memories come in useful is when musos get together - as they do - and start sharing bad gig experiences.

Now, there's a good idea for a Mudcat thread - Bad Experiences at Gigs. However many decades that I continue to play gigs, I will never be able to top the story that Rod Stradling tells of an early Old Swan Band dance.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 08:13 AM

when they are hanging off the speaker stands and pinching the mic demanding you play Danny Boy AGAIN you know it is time to pack up and go home. john

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 12:34 PM

I notice our original poster asked a specific quesation, and has repeated it: how did you actually get your first gig? So I have cast my mind back(to 1961) and I'll tell you. I took a guitar to the Isle de la Cite in Paris, neear the Pont des Arts end, and started singing skiffle songs. A guy came up and offered me a job singing with his jazz band. So, there is one to get a gig. Get on a plane or boat to Paris(or a train, things are different nowadays)

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 12:59 PM

OR

you could get a nose flute and tambourine, learn the words of Danny Boy and The Soldiers Song - round about March 17th - tell an agent, you've got an act that isn't working that night. I doubt if he'll care where he sends you - but you'll certainly get a gig!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Like a complete unknown
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 01:00 PM

Cheers, Greg--I'd love to hear other people's stories. I'd be particularly interested in the balance between "I was doing my thing and it just started happening" and "I had to knock on a lot of doors"-type stories.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 02:27 PM

My first paid gig was a concert at my school. I'd been doing floor spots at the school folk club, and when they decided to put on a concert with Martin Carthy they booked a local band as support, and booked me to support the support act! Then Martin cancelled due to a booking mix-up and I got promoted up the bill. I still have the cutting from the local rag which says I "stood in" for Martin - something of an exageration. I got paid the princely sum of £5, which was enough to buy one of Martin's albums and have change over (this was a while ago!)

I wish I still had the contract from when the BBC came to record our folk club - pages of stuff about international royalties and repeat fees, none of which of course ever materialised, and a deduction from my fee of 5p for National Insurance.

The point of this is that the best place to get a gig is somewhere you're already known. Try the local clubs where you already do floor spots. Even if they won't offer you a paid gig, you might get an extended floor spot which is a chance to develop your performing skills and perhaps gain a bit of exposure.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 02:44 PM

". . . but where's the first GIG going to come from? And if so, where did it come from--what changed for you?"

Well, as I mentioned in my post above. I sang a lot at informal gatherings—parties and jam sessions with other singers. These were in peoples' living rooms. Nothing structured. They were generally open, so anyone who wanted to drop in could, anybody who felt like singing could. This got me used to singing in front of other people.

Then, I volunteered to sing at hospitals and retirement homes. These were free. But MY pay was that I got practice in performing, with a pre-planned program of songs, just as if I were doing a recital at Carnegie Hall.

And if I didn't want folks dozing off while I was singing, I had to learn to be entertaining and informative.

The point is that I sang a lot here and there, and people heard me sing. And one of those people was Jim Gilkeson. Jim was a jazz musician, and from time to time he would drop into the informal songfests, and that's where he heard me. His day job was to plan programs for the local educational television channel, and he thought a program about folk music would be good. So he asked me if I'd be willing to do it. The idea of doing television was pretty intimidating, but Jim convinced me that I could DO it. So I agreed.

So instead of singing for a dozen people at a party or seventy-five or a hundred at a retirement home, every Tuesday evening I sang for, quite possibly, several thousand people. One of those people was the man who was opening a new coffee house, and he was looking for a folk singer.

Don't make a pest of yourself, but sing anywhere. Sing everywhere. Let people hear you. And again, without making a big issue of it, let it be known that you are for hire.

But—while I was doing all of this, I was also taking voice lessons, not to sound like an opera singer, but to learn how to use my voice properly. And took classical guitar lessons so that I would know my way around a guitar and be able to do, say, lute-style accompaniments on older songs or be able to quickly learn things like "Travis-picking." And I practiced.

At the same time, I learned songs from song books, records, and other singers. But I was selective, choosing songs that I could do well, avoiding others. For example, I like blues, but I'm lousy at it. I'm best with ballads and some of the more lyrical songs, so that's what I concentrated on. I also educated myself about the songs, where they came from, how they may have related to historical incidents, etc.

I had made up my mind that I wanted to do concerts, recitals, sing in clubs and coffee houses, and in general, make a career of singing traditional folk songs and ballads.    I had decided that I wanted to be a modern day minstrel or troubadour and set about to train myself to do it.

But it wasn't just the lucky break of having Jim Gilkeson ask me to do the "Ballads and Books" television series. Whenever I sang someplace, there was always a chance that someone would hear my and decide to hire me for a party, concert, entertain at a banquet, or do more television.

####

How far do you want to go with this? Do you just want to get a few gigs? Or do you want to make a lifetime career of it? If the latter, remember, it's necessary to prepare yourself if you want to be successful. This is sometimes referred to as "paying your dues."

By the way, here's an important tip:   record yourself. Not with the idea of making a CD—yet. But to listen to, and critique yourself. I used an open-reel tape recorder back in the Stone Age, but now I have a small digital recorder (Zoom H2). As someone said, "You can hear a lot by just listening." When you listen to your playbacks, constantly ask yourself, "Could I do this better? And if so, how?" Or, "If this were somebody's CD, would I be interesting in buying it?"

Another VERY important point:   One of my voice teachers had me bring my guitar to the voice lessons. Then, after we had gone through the various vocal exercises, he would have me pull out the guitar and sing whatever song or songs I happened to be working on at the time. He would often stop me in mid-verse and ask me, "What does that line mean?"

He knew perfectly well what it meant. But he wanted to make sure that I knew what it meant. He said that far too many singers learn the lyrics of a song by rote, and they haven't a clue as to what they are singing about, they're just mouthing it. Be sure you know what every word and every line in the song is all about. That's the only way you can put the song across. And putting a song across is what it's all about.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 03:24 PM

excellent post Don!