Club/Casual Dates
from The International Musician, March, 1994

Jessica Rowe, the editor of International Musician, could write a book. It'd be imaginative and well-used, I'm sure...comprised entirely of the excuses and apologies she gets during her monthly round of calls to writers and columnists reminding them of the deadline for their promised pieces for the upcoming issue of the Union's newspaper. I know just how she feels. As editor for AFM Local 1000's quarterly newsletter, New Deal, I'm greeted with the same stories. But there's one regular feature in New Deal that is always the first article in, the most widely read, and the easiest one for which to find authors. I'm talking about the popular Gigs from Hell column. In it members get to recount their most ludicrous experience at the hands of a club or concert promoter. Sometimes it's a well-intentioned incompetent. Other times it's a mindless bureaucrat. Still others, the face of evil incarnate. Whichever, everyone has one and the stories are all-too-familiar. The symphony player, the session musician, the lounge act...different venues, different styles, same story. But the traveling musician is the easy prey of the club owner with six other acts that week, a patchwork sound system, no advertising budget, and that backstage couch you better not sit on.

When rock and roll first reared its head back in the 1950's, country went to town and folk music went pro, the AFM didn't immediately pay attention. Casual dates meant a jazz "combo" and clubs were the near sole domain of that genre. Rather than a passing fancy, country, folk, rock, and blues proved they were here to stay and the Union has been playing catch-up ever since. It's not hard to imagine why. Let me give you a typical itinerary for Joe and Jane Folksinger, the hot new duo that's tearing around the US and Canada plying their trade...

Friday afternoon: a school assembly for a high school near their evening club date
Friday night: Club Huh? opening for Famous Folkie
Saturday afternoon: a children's concert in a nearby town sponsored by local children's bookstore (venue: public library auditorium)
Saturday night: appearance at Red River Valley Folk Festival (venue: Frostbite State Park)
Sunday morning: gospel music workshop at festival
Sunday night: concert for Podunk Peace Center (venue: Unitarian Church)
Monday: crash and burn
Tuesday morning: live radio show at Whatsamattah U. college station (venue: studio)
Tuesday noon: a dreaded "nooner" hoping to lure bored students to coffeehouse gig that night (venue: college cafeteria during lunch...really!)
Tuesday night: gig at Armageddon Coffeehouse, Whatsamattah U.
Wednesday: three elementary school concerts during day
Wednesday night: show at Godfrey's Spaniels, much loved club in Jericho, PA.
Thursday afternoon: workshops at The Village Idiot folk music shop (Joe: songwriting, Jane: playing acoustic lead guitar)
Thursday night: concert in Grand Poobah Opera House, part of community concert series.

Now when you want to organize auto workers, you go to an auto factory. That's where they all are. When you want to organize the National Symphony, you go to the Kennedy Center. How 'bout session players? Head for the nearest studio. A quick glance at the venues of Joe and Jane's week is enough to make an organizer's head spin. Especially when one multiplies the above itinerary by the hundreds and thousands of acts that are out there on the road. Each one, depending upon their skills and inclinations, with a tour itinerary as varied and wacky as the one above. Each one with their own Gig from Hell and another looming around the next corner.

Joe and Jane's tour is further compounded by the day-to-day business of the trade. They don't have an agent. Do their own booking. Getting the gig is often an exercise in massaging the fleeting friendship one has with presenters. Joe and Jane don't have the classic worker vs. management view of their worklives. Promoters become their friends. They sleep in their houses. Trade baby pictures. Go out for a beer afterward. They want and need a promoter's success. Not every relationship is like that, but enough to throw the idea of sharing the stage with a non-union opening act into limbo. Enough to be happy they have a little independent record company that'll release their albums, despite the fact that it's not a signatory label. They can't afford to pay their friends scale for session work. They pay what they can and work out trades on their pals' sessions. But they always file a contract. They're current in their dues. They believe in the union and try to convince their fellow travelers that it's the best route for them, as well. But it's a hard sell.

But it doesn't have to be. In recent years the AFM has broadened it's perspective, opened its doors, and expanded its horizons. The existence of this very column is evidence of that. A folk or blues player can open the IM and read news and information about him/herself and feel like they matter. The sanctioning of Local 1000 is dramatic proof that the union is willing to make a commitment to organizing the traveling casual and club performer. These migrant workers of the music business have a peculiar set of working conditions that are often both frustrating and isolating. Playing in a union hall is a rarity to the club performer. Absent of the PALRA bill, collective bargaining is nonexistent. ASCAP/BMI doesn't currently have a mechanism for cataloging and distributing payments on casual dates for performance of members' material...even though venues are forced to pay license fees. And it's probably been a while since a symphony had to play in a smoky room of drunks all the while competing with a hot pool game in the back.

What is the challenge to the AFM in meeting the needs of the casual and club musician? Acquiring a full knowledge of the working conditions of the traveling musician is the first order of business. Getting firsthand input...all the way to the International Executive Board level...as to the state of the art: where we are, who's out there, what do we need, how are we going to get it. ROAD-GIG was a step in the right direction. National contract filing cleared up massive bureaucratic headaches for the musician and his/her agent. Creating Local 1000 acknowledged that traveling musicians had special needs and concerns that could best be addressed in a cohesive block...creating a home in the union for those who felt isolated and ignored. But let's not stop there....

Like any democratic organization, the governing body is granted its power by the will of the governed. Each local has an opportunity to raise the standards of the clubs and casual venues in their areas.

• Let's begin a dialog to end the ubiquitous practice of bands paying to play "showcase" dates...sometimes three and four a night...at nightclubs.
• Let's enter into local and regional collective bargaining agreements allowing scales to be set and opening (for the first time!) the Union's pension plan to the casual and club player. PALRA or not, that discussion is going to have to happen. This is exactly the discussion Local 1000 is initiating with the Presenters' Consortium of the North American Folk Alliance.
• Let's devise a realistic scale for low budget recordings...before more and more musicians are forced to either go non-union or simply hire one Emulator player.
• Let's explore the unorganized performing fields that frequently share our venues and go get 'em. At the National Storytelling Festival last year (a festival increasing featuring musicians) a large number of professional storytellers staged a demonstration calling for respect for and protection of their trade. The AFM should be there. If the Teamsters can organize nurses...
• Let's enter into discussions with the Flight Attendants union and the Machinists in a united front to devise sensible, sensitive, and workable policies for protecting the tools of our trade when we fly. It's something every traveler sweats about the moment a ticket is purchased.
• Let's pressure ASCAP/BMI to be consistent in performance rights tracking and payments. At present, a classical music concert program can be submitted and payment will be received for everything listed on the program...whether or not it was played. A club player (at an ASCAP/BMI venue) can turn in his/her own set lists...even have the club do it...and no dice. The Folk Alliance and the International Bluegrass Music Association have pressured these licensing groups. The AFM should too.
• Above all, a sign should be placed in every union hall in America: "It's Organizing, Stupid!" It's a word that was glaring in its absence in last year's blue ribbon report. But, as any experienced organizer knows, the union doesn't organize, people organize.

Stick those brochures in your gig bag. Don't forget application forms. Buy 'em a beer, take 'em out for breakfast. Call 'em next week and ask them whether they've mailed in their forms and a check. Call 'em next month to see how they're doing and whether or not they have any questions or need help. We're the ones. The AFM should be sponsoring organizing schools, but we're still the ones...

We've come a long way since we had no ROAD-GIG help out there on the road. And an even longer way since we had no single-date union contract enforcement. But with casual and club dates comprising a growing share of the musical market and with an increasing number of unorganized, unprotected, and uneducated musicians out there the challenge is still great. Many musicians are still too ready to play for peanuts and "exposure". But people will starve on peanuts and die from exposure. The challenges to our future are great. To meet them will take vision, commitment and, above all, action. The road warriors are out there. If you ask enough questions, we just might find the right answers. In the meantime, be careful of the backstage couches...