Today being Tuesday I thought I'd make a little bit of an announcement that I alluded to in a previous post. We got a support slot for Bad Manners once again!
Friday week we'll be up in the Opium in Dublin supporting these absolute legends, and while I'm obviously looking forward to playing, I'm looking more forward to seeing them live again.
Lip Up Fatty - Bad Manners
This song is great, but to be honest, recordings don't have a patch on them live. They're full of life, and you almost feel like you can't help but move once they get going.
Having some brass in our own band has been something we have spoken about for years now, but bar jamming with a Sax player a couple of times, we haven't had a chance to work anything out properly.
I think brass includes something to songs that widens the sound and really gives it some power.
Special Brew - Bad Manners
I think this is one of the first songs of Bad Manners I ever heard, and it's another perfect example of how seeing it live, and listening to a recording - even with decent headphones - just isn't the same.
The guys are all really sound, and we had some great chats with a bunch of the lads over a couple of days playing around Ireland last time. They're such a busy band too, one of the lads was saying that last year they were on their way back to England to do something like 26 gigs in the space of a couple of weeks. That's where I would love to be with music, but something like that would really take it out of you. I don't think enough people appreciate the crap that most bands have to go through when at that level, especially considering they don't really make a hell of a lot of money from it either.
Most bands these days make money from merch sales, online streams, and potential online purchases of their music. As far as gigs - depending on the band of course, and the size of the venue, and whether or not it sells out or not - bands don't really make a lot from venues when playing.
Money played a big role in the potential downfall of our band, as coming up to those gigs last year, our drummer decided to leave because he was having money troubles, and essentially said we weren't making enough. He wasn't logically thinking about the potential money to make, he was saying things like, "1,000 people are going to the sell-out gig, so that means there is 35,000 Euros coming in. We should be getting a good portion of that."
While yeah, it's a lot of money coming in, he wasn't taking consideration of everything that goes into running a night. Of course, I'd love to get a portion of the draw, but 1, people aren't coming for the support band, 2, not even the main act gets much of that money, also, 3, we play for 30 minutes, so how much can we really expect.
When it comes down to it, if you're doing music, or any kind of art, you have to do it for the love of it and you have to understand that if you make anything, it won't be half as much as what you're worth. Money ruins everything, it's a toxic idea, and it can ruin relationships, friendships, and bands - if you let it.
I've Got Fucking Tourette's - Dangerous Dave and the Side Effects
Just to see out this post, I thought I'd share one of our tunes from our crap album that we actually went and re-recorded.
Actually, there's another piece of news. So, after a long while of staring at the two albums and waiting for them to mix themselves, we actually hired someone to mix them for us and he's delighted with the recordings themselves and says that he'll be able to help it sit in the mix better than it currently is.
Good day, happy Tuesday, and sorry for the little rant during this post.