“You are such a great singer!” said the slightly drunken woman to me after the band left the stage.
“Thank you very much,” I replied, politely.
“Please sing one more song. For me.” she pleaded.
“I’m sorry, but the show is over, and we’re not allowed to go back on stage.”
“Please?!? I’ll give you fifty bucks if you go back on stage right now and sing a song for me.” The stage was dark, the crew was already packing up the equipment.
“Uhh, no.” I replied, rather annoyed. “Besides, how did you get backstage in the first place?!?”

The above situation actually happens quite often; I’m often offered money to perform longer than is stated in my contract. The question for me: is such a request a compliment to my skill as an entertainer, or an insult to the hard work and discipline I put into my chosen line of work?

There are two schools of thought on whether or not being an entertainer qualifies as a real job: those who are actually in the profession, who naturally see what they do as the epitome of entrepreneurship and self reliance, and those in the audience who see performers as carefree souls, wandering aimlessly from one show to another, with no real responsibilities; we do it for fun, thus it can’t be a “real job”.

It’s that second group of people who are usually the ones who ask the questions that most of us working musicians tend to hate, like “So, what do you do for a living?” or “Do you earn enough money doing this?” or usually tend to start every conversation with “Well, I used to play in a band, too”. (word of advice: NEVER start a conversation with a musician with this line: that will keep you from looking like a total idiot.) Given that entertainment is something people turn to as an escape from the monotony of daily life, they tend to see those who provide the entertainment as something different or somehow exotic, sometimes out of admiration or jealousy. This characterization, be it positive or negative, has the unfortunate effect that it causes people to not see entertainment and those who provide it as something to be taken seriously, even in situations that are very serious, like rallies, demonstrations for certain causes and political events. Also playing a role in this attitude toward performers is the fact that people generally always have an opinion on things they aren’t capable of doing very well themselves (if at all), thus empowering them to offer commentary on a job like that of an entertainer with a certain sense of superiority, regardless of how famous the entertainer may (or may not) be. A prime example: the notion that the public has a right to know about the private lives of celebrities. The idea that people can have a profession that is fun and pays well is a hard concept for many people to swallow, thus lending credence to the belief that working in the entertainment field is not real work.

In fact, being an entertainer can be a very complex business. Professional entertainers at a certain level who don’t have a staff (like me) often need skills in the fields of organization, communication, financial management, and logistics in order to work effectively; I not only go on stage and sing, I’m also the manager, booking agent, travel agent, secretary, contract lawyer and accountant. It’s only when the workload becomes too great that many working musicians get managers or agents. We do things in our jobs that many people go to school and get a degree to learn how to do, which is why I tend to get a little irate when situations such as the one mentioned above take place, because I see it as an affront to the long hours, hard work and dedication I’ve put into my craft over the years. For someone to offer me a measly fifty bucks to do one more song is somewhat of an insult; it’s like having your boss ask you to stay an extra hour or two at work to type something after you’ve been writing a report all day, because he likes the font you used in the report you just finished. The difference being that an office worker would probably lose their job if such a situation came up and they did not comply. In fact, I often do get such requests from my clients in the form of an extra encore or an entire set, but I’m usually offered a lot more than fifty bucks.

In the end it all boils down to the perception of what constitutes “having a job”. Despite what many people might think, being an entertainer is indeed a real job, and, deserves to be treated as such, thank you very much.

So, what did I learn from last week’s show?

1. I have a new appreciation for security personnel.

2. Using your recently deceased mother as an excuse to pressure a singer to do an encore is NOT CUTE.

3. Playing a near flawless show with musicians you haven’t seen in many years is a testament to the talent and skill of those musicians.

4. Free food truly does rock, even if it doesn’t taste that good.

5. Free drinks rock even more.

6. If you can’t take no for an answer, don’t ask the question.

7. Patience has its limits.

There are certain undisputed truths about being a pro musician in Europe, particularly in Germany, where I work most of the time: you’re always asked to do more than you want to; you’re always treated well, but never as well as you think you should be; and the cleanliness of the bathroom in your hotel room has more of an effect on your performance at the gig than you would like to believe.

On this past five day road trip I travelled to the towns of Bregenz, Austria (directly on Lake Constance, the body of water shared by Germany, Austria and Switzerland), Mannheim, Cologne and Hamburg, a total distance of 1909 kilometers (1186 miles), all of it by train. I performed three shows with two different bands: the Bregenz gig was for a conference of IT professionals, the Cologne show for a dentist’s conference, and the Hamburg show for a large Hamburg-based logistics company. All three shows were fine as such; the same patterns evident at all these types of events were on full display: band arrives for setup and soundcheck, band waits around for food and drinks backstage, band performs, people drink, people start to dance, band finishes up, band packs up stuff, band goes home. Client is happy, band is happy.

Nice Bathrooms

That being said, there are in more cases than not certain little things that can greatly influence how a musician performs their duties at such events. An example is the quality of the hotel room they’re booked in; specifically, the cleanliness of the bathroom. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m more than a little spoiled when it comes to hotel accommodations, since I’ve been fortunate enough to worked my way up far enough in the pro musician food chain as to (almost) always get a decent hotel in the cities that I perform, always paid for by the client. I’m somewhat of a bathroom fetishist; it’s usually the first thing I check when I enter a room, and over the years I’ve seen some really “interesting” things in some really top hotels, all in the bathroom. I’ve stayed in rat holes with very clean bathrooms, and in 5-star hotels with really disgusting ones, and everything in between. Let’s just say that an improperly cleaned hotel room is a mood killer in just about any situation, but especially when you want to relax before a long show, and very many of my fellow musicians (at least the singers I know) spend a large chunk of their time in the bathroom; our vanity dictates this.

Long Gigs

Roughly eighty percent of a musicians time at a company party of similar event is spent waiting. Waiting. Waiting even more. Keep in mind that the average band arrives at a venue five hours or more before the show actually starts, depending on the size of the venue, the position of the band in the overall evening plan, and the preparation and serving of the food (if there is food to served, which there almost always is). A typical show starts between 8 and 10 PM, with “dinner music”, a.k.a. “music to be ignored by”. I hate dinner music. Seriously. There’s nothing more nerve-wracking than trying to entertain people who aren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to you. It’s often the case, however, that the band will play instrumental music, so that’s a small consolation. Afterwards, the party goes into full effect.

Very often we run into the situation that the event organizer, who generally always makes a big fuss about something prior to the start of the event, will ask us for an extra set, because he or she is so excited (alcohol-induced, of course) about the great job the band is doing, that we obviously have to play longer. I attribute this euphoric attitude to the age-old notion that musicians perform on stage purely for the fun of it; in other words, making music is “not a real job”, so it should be no problem if we play all night long, as long as we get a little extra for it. “Not a real job”; I often wonder how these event organizers would react to the knowledge that many of the pro musicians they hire for their events earn probably much more on average than they do. So much for “not being a real job”…

The Gala Event Food Chain

We musicians are indeed a spoiled bunch, at least most of the time. Granted, I’ve only ever worked as a musician in Europe, so I have no idea how it is to work a similar scene in the States, but I can imagine it’s pretty much the same everywhere. Having said that, there is a certain hierarchy in the event business; we musicians are somewhere in the middle of the food chain. We very often enjoy the perks of getting special treatment from the heads of the organizations for which the event is being held, being allowed to mingle with the guests, eating the same meals as the guests, and being able to leave right after our performance is done, all luxuries not afforded to the others who also make such events possible like the technical crew, caterers and bartenders, security personnel and cleanup crew, or the event agencies themselves.

At the end of the day, however, we are no less “service crew” as the others are: we have to do what we’re told, when we’re told to do it. When we’re asked to play extra sets, more often than not we honor that request, for the simple fact that not honoring it could jeopardize our standing with the client, thus making the prospect of future gigs at other events doubtful, thus affecting a future source of income. Over the years, though, I’ve modeled my attitude toward such requests after the motto, “not all money is good money”. Sometimes, though, beggars can’t be choosers, especially if you have bills to pay and a lifestyle to support.

So, what have I learned from my latest road trip?

1. Everyone was a musician at some point in their existence.

2. For some people, speaking into a microphone is the highlight of their year.

3. If you see a group of 4 or more men huddled around the dessert table, it’s most likely the band.

4. DJ’s have a much easier job than musicians do.

5. DJ’s have a much harder job than musicians do.

6. If one person asks if the band can play longer, it’s most likely the one who will actually pay the band.

7. If more than one person asks if the band can play longer, they most likely have nothing to do with the ones who actually pay the band.

8. Sometimes we take the amount of time we spend traveling for granted.

9. As a songwriter, I envy the person who wrote “I Will Survive”.

10. As a musician, If I ever meet the person who wrote “I Will Survive”, they’re getting punched in the nose.

So, I get to the gig at about three o’clock in the afternoon, a beautiful spring day in Blankenese, a wealthy suburb of Hamburg. My show last night was a wedding party at a private residence; a typical job for me, and a very lucrative one. I perform at wedding parties at least 20 – 30 times a year. Based on the location and my previous experiences performing at weddings in Hamburg, this particular show had the potential to be a good one.

Among the many types of jobs I perform, I have to admit that I enjoy playing at weddings, because if you perform well, the show becomes a very memorable experience for the newlywed couple; to this day I have couples for whom I have performed come to me and tell me how much they enjoyed my show. I’ve even had couples who later divorced thank me for playing at their wedding, saying that my performance was the highlight of their entire marriage!

There are generally three types of weddings that I perform at: weddings for “mere mortals”, meaning people who have normal jobs and are therefore not so lavish; weddings for rich people, usually business people who can afford to rent a big hall or other venue for their party; and weddings for really rich people, usually people who come from old money, families who are in big business, or are celebrities, therefore having their wedding parties on their own property, or in some cases in other countries. Today was a really wealthy people wedding, at a house (more like a country mansion) on top of a hill overlooking the Elbe River. The view was breathtaking, the party guests were all in great spirits, and although the gig itself started very late (at 1:00 AM!), I had a good time.

So, what did I learn at last night’s gig?

1. There’s a big difference between having money and having MONEY. My audience last night belonged in the latter category; when your family’s property is on the face of a huge hill overlooking the main waterway of Germany’s most expensive port city, you’ve got MONEY.

2. Old rich people party just as hard as young rich people, sometimes harder.

3. Having money doesn’t always equal having style, regardless of what the fashion media says. It’s always shocked me how some fashion designers are still in business; the way some of the guests last night were dressed reminded me why that’s the case. (NOTE TO FUTURE REALLY RICH PEOPLE WEDDING PARTY FEMALE GUESTS: Just because you can wear that ball gown doesn’t mean that you should.)

4. Rich newlyweds and their families are very warm and generous people (in most cases).

5. Slightly drunk rich newlyweds and their families can very pushy and obnoxious (not always, but often).

6. People who make presentations at wedding parties don’t really do so for the newlywed couple per se, rather to stroke their own egos and to give themselves a sense of accomplishment; the newlyweds just want to party and then go to bed.

7. I’m glad I’m with the band and not the catering service. Poor bastards.

8. The bigger and more expensive a wedding reception is, the more international it tends to be; the wealthier my clients are, the more guests from other countries show up.

9. The head of catering is almost always a jerk, at least to the the musicians.

10. I really LOVE Hamburg when the weather is good.

All in all everyone was happy (well, except the band members who had to drive 70 km at 5:00 AM to get home after the show) and the night was a success, which is really all the counts at the end of the day.

Two days ago, a court in Sweden found the four men who created the internet file sharing site “The Pirate Bay” guilty of copyright infringement and of aiding and abetting the piracy of copyrighted material. The men were each sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of 30 million Swedish Kroner (about $3.6 million USD).

The reaction in the media and in cyberspace was swift; much of the commentary came down on the side of The Pirate Bay founders, blaming the entertainment and software industries for causing the need for such sites in the first place through years of unfair pricing of music, video and software, as well as the draconian steps these companies have taken to stop piracy in recent years. Others are of the opinion that the Pirate Bay creators got what they deserved, since piracy is stealing, and stealing is against the law. The notion that the Pirate Bay guys did nothing wrong and therefore should not have been prosecuted is a mentality that is unfortunately common among those who do not create commercial intellectual property themselves.

Believe me, as an independent musician/songwriter/producer, I have absolutely no love for the tactics of the major labels and film studios, the RIAA or the MPAA regarding piracy; I’ve always believed that Apple’s approach to the piracy issue -offering good value for money, thus making the urge to pirate content less great- is the right approach. However, I have even less tolerance for people who believe in their hearts that using sites such as TPB or P2P networks to STEAL content is OK, because it’s not. People who create such IP invest a lot of time, energy and money into their craft and deserve to get paid for it, regardless of whether or not the content gets to the end user via major labels, big movie studios, or large software houses.

Those who use sites like TPB believing that by doing so they are “sticking it to ‘The Man’” don’t realize that in the end it’s the thousands of content creators who end up getting screwed. Granted, there are a few content creators who use such networks to promote their content, but the vast majority of content creators who do control their own copyrights are more affected by piracy than most piracy advocates seem to think.

Perhaps this “intellectual property should be free” mentality stems from the age-old notion that creating something of artistic or entertainment value doesn’t constitute having a “real job”. Creating intellectual property is a job just like any other, and people who create such content deserve to get paid for it. Not everyone can be a stockbroker, a scientist, or even work at McDonald’s; if everyone could be an artist or programmer, then everyone probably would be, since (at least in my experience) most human beings would like to enjoy the job that they do, and I really enjoy my job. It is this context that I’m happy that the Pirate Bay guys were found guilty.

The problem is that nowadays, in the case of intellectual property, people want everything for free; cheap can only compete with free to a certain point. As phenomenal as Apple’s iTunes Store’s sales have been so far, they’re still being dwarfed by piracy via file sharing. Even if songs, movies and software were being sold at a quarter of the prices they’re going for currently, the majority would still steal, because most folks have been conditioned to think that piracy is perfectly fine.

The fact of the matter is: theft is theft, and the guys from The Pirate Bay got what they deserved, in my opinion.

Read the full article HERE.