Diki, I actually appreciate your response. If you came in and offered to do my job for less than I was making, I would not regret the loss, since I assume our abilities are somewhat comparable.

I guess my frustration has to do with the dishonesty and price cutting that also bothers me in the corporate world.

As an ex Hippie, my ideals are, well...idealistic when it comes to the creative process. In the music businesss as well as in business in general, the best qualified, best producers don't always win.
Snakes abound, unfortunately. The only salvation is, good work, trust and appreciation matter in enough cases to make things OK.

I actually go in unannounced to clubs or prospective client locations and check to see how management treats their employees. I check business ethics issues. If I don't like what I see, I'm out of there. I walked away from a $10,000.00 a month marketing retainer contract with a private college a few years ago. The president is an ordained minister who has been fired by his own church, twice (he was a home office administrator).

He is the sneakiest little back-stabber I ever met, and I don't want anything to do with him. The damage he does by sucking up to a volunteer board and then treating his direct reports like dirt, including using threats to separate the employees from the board is terrible. He has ruined lots of careers.

That's just the way I handle both my company and my music business.


Russ



[This message has been edited by captain Russ (edited 04-17-2009).]

Russ we get paid for what we do whatever that is based on the POOL of people who THE BUYER considers can do the same thing EQUALLY well. Not what you or I believe about ourselves, If there were 10,000 Neil Impersonators in every city, I could not have earned what I did and made a lucrative run out of what many do,have, and continue to ridicule. Like Karaoke....All the way to the bank, I get it.

The more who do exactly what you do as well as you do in the client's view client, the less they have to pay. It's not a tough concept to grasp really. No one has ever asked me or my wife if we read music or can play or sing like Opera Stars. (although she got longterm show contracts where she HAD to read, but was paid well for the additional skill) If bar owners demanded reading skills prices would go up LOL....

[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 04-17-2009).]

there is always a semblance of truth in comedy. In this case the truth is laptops yes......But even the cheapest Karaoke DJs around here don't use $100 speakers to stake their reputations on.

Obviously you have tried the Podiums and have dismissed them based on their lack of quality and performance.
No??? Then you are out of line.
DonM

I wasn't one of the early adopters of the Yugo either.....Sometimes it's good to be "out of line" In fact I hate lines. I live and always lived and colored outside the lines...No complaints.



[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 04-17-2009).]

Seems to me if you were coloring outside the lines, you would be open to new and unorthodox solutions, rather than say "well it doesn't cost enough so it can't be any good".
I'm feeling old and cantankerous. I'm 65 and still willing to try things "outside the line".

DonM

If I'm undercut out of a gig, I try to at least talk to the owners or manager, and ask them to review their sales figures in a couple of months time. If the new, cheaper, and generally lesser entertainment has ended up COSTING them sales (who wants to hang around and get a few more drinks if the entertainment is that lousy? ) compared to when I played there, I ask them to give me a call back...

If not, good riddance to them!

You would be surprised at how many find out, to their chagrin, that lesser entertainment often DOES equal less sales. The hard part is making the managers understand that it WAS the entertainment change that lead to the drop-off. They are notoriously hard to get to admit that the good entertainment was the cause of their profits (otherwise it would be easier to get a raise!), and that dropping it was the cause of their decline.

Actually, I get quite a bit of work where sight reading is required. Usually it's at the bottom of the pay scale and challenging as hell. There was a guitar player from Florence, Ky named Cal Collins (Google him. He died about five years ago, but was pretty well known world-wide in jazz circles) who would come in the area. He would play colleges or jazz events with no rehearsals. The charts were guidelines only, and every performance was a delight. Trading fours...modulations...tempo changes...everything was do=ne with a "shoot from the hip" attitude, and we pulled it off to everyone's great joy.

Others are jazz department heads at regional schools...a few big bands still working occasionally, etc.

FUN STUFF!


Russ