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The state of the music business

Westside Steve's Movie Reviews
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  • Hey Steve. Are you playing playing at the ix center this weekend? I thought I saw your name next to Alex Bevan?

  • Hey Steve. Are you playing playing at the ix center this weekend? I thought I saw your name next to Alex Bevan?

    @browns149 said:

    Hey Steve. Are you playing playing at the ix center this weekend? I thought I saw your name next to Alex Bevan?

    I was there last night but not the rest of the weekend. Sorry bud.

    WSS

  • Anyway the business is probably change a shit load since I was on the road axe. I'm guessing you're about 10 years younger than me? Through the late seventies and the eighties the band used to do the hotel circuit in Canada 3 or 6 months of the year. Also played on the road through the Southeast Texas and as far west as Colorado. In those days you could play a place for 3 days or six days of the week. I don't see anything like that today. I play multiple days at Put-In-Bay and when I played Key West but those are tourist spots with a different crowd everyday.

    There were also gigs at the lounge circuits, and the Holiday Inns et cetera where 5 piece show bands could make a living all year long.

    Different style of music then the hotel circuit but there was work. Now? I don't see it.

    WSS

  • Anyway the business is probably change a shit load since I was on the road axe. I'm guessing you're about 10 years younger than me? Through the late seventies and the eighties the band used to do the hotel circuit in Canada 3 or 6 months of the year. Also played on the road through the Southeast Texas and as far west as Colorado. In those days you could play a place for 3 days or six days of the week. I don't see anything like that today. I play multiple days at Put-In-Bay and when I played Key West but those are tourist spots with a different crowd everyday.

    There were also gigs at the lounge circuits, and the Holiday Inns et cetera where 5 piece show bands could make a living all year long.

    Different style of music then the hotel circuit but there was work. Now? I don't see it.

    WSS

    @westside-steve said:

    Anyway the business is probably change a shit load since I was on the road axe. I'm guessing you're about 10 years younger than me?

    WSS

    I wish 😁 You can't be that old..

    @westside-steve said:

    Anyway the business is probably change a shit load since I was on the road axe. I'm guessing you're about 10 years younger than me? Through the late seventies and the eighties the band used to do the hotel circuit in Canada 3 or 6 months of the year. Also played on the road through the Southeast Texas and as far west as Colorado. In those days you could play a place for 3 days or six days of the week. I don't see anything like that today. I play multiple days at Put-In-Bay and when I played Key West but those are tourist spots with a different crowd everyday.

    There were also gigs at the lounge circuits, and the Holiday Inns et cetera where 5 piece show bands could make a living all year long.

    Different style of music then the hotel circuit but there was work. Now? I don't see it.

    WSS

    Two of the other members of our project had a regional Ottawa based circuit band until a couple weeks ago. What seems to happen now is way different than how we operated. We sometimes did 2 nites, sometimes 3 in a club and we did 4 hrs. 45 on, 15 off. If the club closed at 1:00am we went on at 9:00 PM.. If it closed at 2:00 we started at 10:00 except the New Orleans area. If we were the headliners of the 2 band ticket, we went on LATE and didn't walk out till after sunrise 😵

    Now, what they seem to do for shows in clubs is have a 4-5 band lineup so you do one set only.. I'm sure the load ins and load outs are pure anarchy 😎 And of course you are then splitting the door 4 -5 ways.. Not necessarily equal but split a pre negotiated 4-5 ways none the less. To me, that's not worth the time and effort..

    It seems like everyone is trying to catch lightning in a bottle, I mean a youtube video 😁 We even have a couple in process.. Our strategy is getting our name and brand out there in the areas we think we'll do well out ahead of the cd dropping..

  • Axe I'm 64, been playing steadily since I graduated high school in 1970.

    Played a little bit in the 8th grade and High School but non-stop since 70.

    ( couple short-term day jobs, nothing I cared above when I got fired or quit 😉 )

    How old are you?

    WSS

  • Ya got me by 4 and change Steve. I work very hard at staying in decent shape and looking younger than I am..

    I started young. My Mom of all people was a professional guitarist in the 60s..and I got to sit in now and then and play simple chord arrangements.. I've been in, and out of the biz ever since.. And it never seems to change in so much that "legalized slavery" is a very good description.. The correspondence lately between us, our distributor and Sony music has been surreal..

  • Not really a metal guy but pretty good sound from Ariel's Attic on the website

  • Thank you sir 😎

    We've been working on this cd for over a yr and a half. The three Canadians and I.. I moved in a group conference call a couple days ago that we change the cd title to "The Canadian Democracy"... 😆

    Axl Rose joke 😄

  • Hipsters think vinyl LPS sound better but they are shit. More low-end Distortion makes it seem like that.

    You can reproduce sound that say 128 (orsubstantially less) bit perfectly.

    Vinyl is a fad.

    WSS

  • Also Steely Dan oh, like Todd Rundgren or Tom Petty Etc, a big big axe who's streaming Revenue is in the millions rather than be hundreds of thousands.

    Local or otherwise smaller apps don't make much money unless they sell CDs and the only place people buy those pretty much izzat live performances.

    This business has changed.

    WSS