In Los Angeles, a lot of clubs offer Monday residencies, free for the public, and I must admit I have enjoyed them a lot,… not every week, as Monday nights are tough when you have to wake up very early on Tuesdays, but they are a great deal, and they have allowed me to check out many new bands. However, I stumbled on a Facebook conversation between musicians that let me ponder about this subject.
Singer-songwriter Aaron Embry wrote on Facebook about his disappointment with the policy of local club the Satellite:
‘Disappointed with the Satellite’s pittance is privilege policy’, he wrote. ‘Why do musicians go for this crap? I’m just now reading this show advance for tonight and will never play there again. No pay, no parking, no area-plays 2wks prior, no soundcheck, and ‘just checking in to see how promotion is going?’
Aaron was part of the Satellite’s Monday residency, the same night, and his complain was echoed by many fellow musicians:
‘I’m so glad a great artist has spoken out about this’, said another musician named Bunker Poet. ‘Aaron, a breath of fresh air. The Satellite really mistreats people. This kind of crap has really hurt the Los Angeles scene, musicians need to stop putting up with this horrid filth. Our artistic landscape is in shambles. Something’s gotta give.’
I had no idea it was that bad, I had always thought about the good side of these residencies, but it’s not all-rosy for musicians. It’s not a new idea at all, according to the LA Weekly, it was launched in 1996 by Mitchell Frank with a month long residency by the Negro Problem and the deal was ‘a means to both draw people into the venue on a notoriously slow night and accommodate the large volume of local bands that were vying for slots at the club.’ Jennifer Tefft, Spaceland’s talent buyer, has always seen the residency as an essential part of a band development. Plus it still gives to the artist this DIY feeling, this ‘I have built my audience myself’ feeling without being launched by the big industry machinery. However, residencies come with a double condition for bands, they are not paid and they must abstain from playing any other gigs in the area…
‘It’s a tough road being a musician, and getting good at it,’ continued Bunker Poet. ‘Don’t want to sound whiny (we musicians sometimes are) but really there is no place for this kind of treatment in business. What other business would tolerate this, so why musicians?’ he added.
He had a good point, why would musicians work for free? Musicians are never paid for these Monday residencies, and it’s not only true for the Satellite, but also for the Echo, the Bootleg… residencies do not pay. I have been to a lot of them, they often attract a lot of people and the clubs seem to make good money from beer and alcohol, as I always seem to be the only one not drinking three beers and two cocktails during the night. So why not compensating the musicians? Of course, club owners see a good opportunity, and an all-benefice opportunity.
Being a musician is a hard path to choose in life if you never become Taylor Swift or Arcade Fire, and I take the Montreal band as example because the Satellite was the first club in LA to book them, back in the days when it was still named Spaceland. Being a musician is expensive. ‘I am a musician who has made it my life’s ambition to study and perfect my craft,’ writes musician Brittney Westover. ‘Between the voice lessons I started when I was 9 years old, piano lessons, guitar lessons, saving up to buy very expensive instruments, gear, recording equipment, going to school to major in music and earning my Master’s degree (for which I am now a whopping $75,000 in debt!!!), gas money to travel to band rehearsals, renting a rehearsal space every month, paying for recording sessions, masters, cd pressing, artwork, distribution, directors and all expenses associated with making music videos, IT HAS BEEN QUITE A SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT TO BE A MUSICIAN.’
And this is without counting the time passed to promote these shows as these days promotion is mostly done on Facebook and Twitter by musicians themselves.
So why are they playing these free residencies if they complain so much? Well first it’s exposure, then it’s about selling merchandise as there is often a table selling EPs, CDs and t-shirts. ‘Residencies have become a fundamental part of L.A.’s rock scene. Financial success depends now on playing live and selling merchandise at shows,’ wrote Neda Ulaby for NPR in 2010 describing the success of bands such as The Like, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Local Natives, Silversun Pickups, whose great success all started with these free residencies. When I go to these residencies, I often can tell if the band is going to blow up based on the density of the crowd… Active Child, Girlpool, Grouplove, Kan Wakan and Corners residencies come to mind, they were packed to the roof!… and there were many others. So why musicians shouldn’t play free shows if it worth it at the end? Sure, but it doesn’t work for all of them, the market is hyper-saturated with bands and if residencies are effective at building audiences, success is not always assured. In any case, any work deserved to be compensated, these free shows fill up clubs on Mondays when people usually stay home, And when residencies are very successful, why aren’t the clubs offering some honest indemnity? They should at least give artists a parking place!