Dear Bar Owner...

[Blooby]

Have been super busy with work, family issues, and life in general, but I had to stop in to share this item that came my way in an email.

Take care, everybody. 

Bruce (Blooby)



Dear Club/Bar Owner,

As musicians who get all the glory, we feel its time to thank those whom we rely upon for the opportunity to showcase our talent and express our creative faculty to the local community because, as everyone knows, musicians don't really need the money. We do it all for beer and sex. We're artists. We have no time for such trivialities as kids, mortgages or car payments.

Some of the things we love:

1• When you send us home early and pro-rate our pay for the night when it's slow. This gives us a special thrill, since we know that you'll one day give us a big bonus when it's packed. Plus, by leaving early, we can now go watch our friends play at real bars and spend our night's wages.

2• When trying to book dates, we love when you ask us if we're free on the 17th. Sure, let us check our calendar. Yeah, we're open that night. Oh, you meant of November. Of this year?

3• We also love when you say, Well, we might be doing something next month for Thursdays. Yeah, we might also be doing something next month. Foreclosing. One of our favorite questions is, "Do you have a following?" Of course we do! We firmly believe club owners shouldn't have to concern themselves with such banalities as advertising. Or promotions. Or drink specials. The responsibility for attracting customers must fall solely with the band. We have no doubt whatsoever the people who saw us regularly at that bar in Richmond will charter a bus and trek up to Harrisburg to hear us play Smoke on the Water.

Put your minds at rest, troubled bar proprietors. Just a few of the things we'd like to thank you for:

1• For canceling us forty minutes prior to our arrival at your bar, because as everyone knows, babysitters are free, and frankly, we have nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

2• For replacing our four-piece band with the clove cigarette-smoking guy and his $129 Fender acoustic guitar, paisley button-down shirt and soul patch. There's a reason he works for a hundred bucks.

3• For paying the exact same wage for a duo that you paid in 1986. So now, we have to work six jobs a week instead of four to make a living. Thanks, too, for not cashing your own checks. We realize how this complicates your accountant's life, and his happiness is all that matters.

4• And for having the house music set to the local oldies radio station, we salute you. We love following "Unchained Melody" with "Down With The Sickness."

5• For not having a stage. It's a real treat to stand on your wing sauce-saturated carpet. And being on the same level as your patrons makes it much easier for drunken **** s to approach us and fall into our equipment while spewing a three-foot stream of vomit onto the drum kit. Thank you.

6• Thanks for the track lighting above the stage. Makes us feel like rock stars. Especially when they're multi-colored. Also, thanks for the break on food and drinks. Fifty percent is such a gift. It's our distinct pleasure to shell out $9.00 for a shot of Patron that costs you ninety-eight cents. Grazie. Merci. Domo. Danke.

7. Thanks for hiring the three laid-off bus mechanics who threw a band together after the economy **** the bed and will now play for $75 a man. Enjoy their ripping 11-minute rendition of Cocaine, complete with 64-bar bass solo and fudged lyrics.

8• Thanks for canceling us on a Thursday night for the Browns-Lions game on NFL Network.

9• Thanks for putting TVs directly over our heads, so people can watch Worlds Scariest Videos while we play. It's always a thrill to hear such expletives as WHOA!, HOLY **** ! while navigating the soliloquy from Nights in White Satin.

10• And let us not forget the bartenders, who listen to us all night without once clapping (if for no other reason than to induce the comatose people at the bar to clap).

11• And thanks so much for cutting off the jukebox 10 seconds into "Sweet Home Alabama, "so that we can hear that collective "AWWWWWW...." from the audience as we hit the stage. Most inspiring.

12 - Thanks for waiting until you've served all drinks, lit every cigarette, wiped off the bar, stocked the coolers and done your side work before moping toward the cash register with the quickness of a tai chi instructor to give us our meager salary while muttering, They make as much as me, and only worked four freakin' hours. Yes, it's a travesty, but most high-level universities no longer give out bartending scholarships.

And please note that it took us slightly longer to learn our instrument than it took for you to make it through Billy Bob's Bartending School. And we doubt seriously that you sit at home practicing bartending in your spare time.

So thanks for handing over the dough and shutting the **** up.

[Rata-tat-tat]

All of the things I wish I had said!!! This is freakin hillarious... I won't mention any names, but there is a bar owner up here who seriously fits this bill... word for word... note for note!!!

[64Guitars]

Good one. 

[Hook]

So true, except for the part about the solo guy, I resemble that remark!

[launched]

11• And thanks so much for cutting off the jukebox 10 seconds into "Sweet Home Alabama, "so that we can hear that collective "AWWWWWW...." from the audience as we hit the stage. Most inspiring

A similar thing happened to us a couple weekends ago. It was a good show and everybody was having a great time, but at some point an authority figure there asked us turn it down a little. Most likely because the jukebox was playing near the bar and we were rudely competing with a couple of geezers enjoying their Jimmy Buffett.

We apologetically told the audience , and somehow the jukebox mysteriously stopped playing at all for the rest evening - Even during breaks. I thought it was kind of cool how we had a supportive audience that stuck up for us!

[thetworegs]

 

[Tony W]

In July we showed up for a gig an hour from my house, 1.5 hours from the rest of the band. I had an eery bleak feeling when we pulled into town and none of the traffic lights were working. The entire town had a blackout from a recent storm, and they didn't have the common courtesy of giving us a phone call. And yes, I still had cell coverage in that town. Is Wayne Brady gonna havta slap a bitch?

I've only been doing this a year, but I've seen a majority of that list! So sad.

[bruno]

All of the reason's that I rarely play live. The UK scene has been dead for years - mainly due to apathy. People are generally content to sit at home, in front of their 50 inch TV, with a microwave curry and 4 cans of larger from Tesco's - and sit back and don't interact with anyone at watch mainly ads. It costs very little, but is a mundane existence. What ever happened to socialising - pubs are closing left, right and centre - and with it goes the places to see live music. Its across the board, I have played in an Orchestra in the not too distant past - and the audience was definitely getting older and fewer each year. Sign of todays culture - everyone want's something for nothing - and even when it free - people walk on by.

I'm quite depressed now!

B.

[Hilary]

I had to wait for Andy Murray to finish playing tennis before I could start performing (on a flat screen TV in the pub) - on the flip side at the same gig two men were kicked out for talking once I started and todate it's the best one I've done!

Mark - that's absolutely appalling that they still had the jukebox playing while you were performing and so great that you've got some loyal fans to stick up for you