So – I was really, really nervous about last night’s show. We haven’t played out in a while and this show is sort of a weird combination of not-quite-in-our-wheelhouse.
Well – actually, it was TOTALLY in our wheelhouse, but some people had made us feel like it wasn’t.
I sent out a big booking push a little while back with a very specific focus. Though I’d LOVE to be playing new-to-us artsy venues where we can strut ourselves in any way we please, we often simply don’t have the draw – and even when we do these are often shows that don’t pay very well. And I’d Love to book more shows at our “home” venues: New Deal Café is a perfect example of a gig I could probably play once a month and be very happy. We always pack the place with a HOME audience so we don’t even really have to worry about proximity to other shows, we can play whatever we want – and it’s lucrative even while bringing the whole band along. I’d Love to have more of these – but there simply aren’t a lot of venues LIKE this and they are in very high demand. We can manage NDC MAYBE twice a year.
And so I was hunting that third kind of gig : the bread-and-butter-bar-gig gig. Baltimore’s a talent-buyer’s market and it’s hard to get decent paying bar gigs. It’s why so many of these types of shows are drawing us to Frederick (our monthly Firestone’s show) or Northern Virginia. I was hunting specifically for things that could be about the same amount of money and effort but with OUT that hour long drive at 1.30 in the morning.
With the Waterfront in Fells Point I found it. I didn’t expect to.
First off, I emailed them on a whim not expecting to be considered. They’re pretty clear that they “mostly” book cover acts – and though we can field a lot of covers – it’s not how we sell ourselves and we do our covers in a way that it sometimes takes people a sec to figure out what the HELL we’re playing, leaving them kinda more “qua?” and less “let’s sing along and drink!” But I honed in on that word “mostly” and figured I’d take a chance. Not surprisingly I almost instantly received a “thanks but no thanks, we only do cover bands”.
And then a couple of hours later I got a “actually, I like what you’re doing, let’s give it a try”. Fuck yeah!
Anywho – as the gig got closer and closer, I’d had occasion to hit the Fells Point bar scene here and again and be reminded that the area can be a nightmare at night. We’ve never played Fells too regularly. Most of the venues are holes in the wall and think that $50 for a night is legit pay for a musician – the most-beloved-by-my-friends venue, Leadbetters, just closed down. I was offered $15 an hour to play there (plus tips!) but they really wanted me to bring the band… for the same $15 / hour. It’s often a party scene – it’s definitely a bar scene – it’s NOT my scene and I was getting those second-what-have-I-gotten-us-into thoughts.
In addition I was getting a couple of sour comments about the place – one an online review and one from a fellow musician – about some nasty racist incidents that had occurred there. Now, I need money, but I don’t need money bad enough to play for people who offend my soul… so I went to the show, my first one since Firestone’s at the beginning of the month (where a guy was like “your playing’s SO GOOD ITS LIKE… RETARDED… what… I don’t BELIEVE in that POLITICAL CORRECT SHIT anymore!!”) and I had just played a sloooow open mic night at Teavolve, playing a LOT of rob songs and doing at least a tiny lyrical fuck up on every song, worrying that my hands were out of shape from not playing, generally feeling angsty about the world – when I went to the show I was feeling kind of stressed out.
That bled off almost instantly. The possibly-homeless-very-friendly-but-probably-going-to-eventually-ask-me-for-money-guy out front was great to chat with. The door guy’s name was Rob and was really friendly. The food was AMAZING. The place is beautiful. The bartenders were friendly. A couple of fans came out to see us despite the late hour (10pm start – just like Firestone’s) and our (very racially diverse) audience Loved us. Though we played a 3-1 cover to original ratio, the room really Loved us and when we finally started packing up a little after 1.30am I realized that this had been vastly more satisfying than a LOT of shows over the past couple of months.
It was like the really good sex after finally getting home off a tour. And yeah, the guy was still outside, and yeah, he did eventually ask me for money – and I gave him some* even though I turned down his offer to carry the speakers. Because it was a great night.
*I’m usually a really bad judge of character on this front. The last time I gave someone money he immediately complained that I’d have given him more if he was white – and the time before THAT the guy immediately ran full-tilt, head-first into a parking meter and proceeded to ram it over and over as I continued on down the street.
