With the massive advance of ‘computer’ based music, recording enthusiasts have taken the internet world by storm. With the popular itunes now dishing out thousands of tracks per minute coupled with the colossal amount of indie sites springing up day by day, musicians have more opportunites to be heard than ever before, and hardly a need to move from their own seats.

Living life as a ‘virtual’ online star can have its pro’s and con’s, however any band or artist will tell you that performing live to a crowd of enthusiastic fans is about as good as it gets.

But, if you want the world to appreciate the ‘real’ you, how do you get the party started?

Well firstly, you may want to approach venues which already take unsigned acts and allow them to perform. They will require an entertainment licence (check in your geographical area what licences are required), and make sure that they are in tune with this legal requirement.

Find venues in your area which already seem to have a decent following of customers. There is nothing worse than booking a gig with a venue and finding out the place is nearly empty on your Saturday night appearance. Find out if any major event or function is happening on same the night you want to perform. Don’t arrange your gig on the same night that another major event is going on in your town/city.

Ask the local general public where they go, what’s the most popular venue in your area? If you don’t mind travelling go further afield and do the same. Check out suitable venues in the paper and theatres.

Visit the venue that you like the look of at various times during the week and check out the type of people that go there. How could you live with yourself if you turned up to play a few Van Halen numbers to a bunch of retired war veterans. Become familiar with the atmosphere and see if they already pull in enough people before you gig. Are the staff friendly? Service good? All this is quite important as when you play in that venue for a few hours you become a part of it.

Print out flyers, and stick them anymore you can think of where people might actually read and pay attention, i.e. public toilets. In a busy shopping mall people may be just that… too busy. If you can get a small mention announcing the gig on radio, newspaper; brilliant.

Watch out for half empty haunts, which book a band in the hope that the band itself will provide some custom. This is absolute rubbish, it is not your duty to fill up their venue. However, it is admirable if you can do this on your own merit. If you’re sure two hundred people are going to turn up at your gig, then charge the manager a respectable sum for your effort, after all thanks to you, they will be pocketing an unmentionable amount on drinks or food from his establishment on your behalf.

Once you book the gig get it in writing, confirming everything from the amount you are to be paid that night (regardless if the gig turns out well or not). An unsigned band were once given an advance of $30 with a follow up fee immediately after the gig, but they never saw a dime more after the gig was over. The management mumbled that the gig did not go ‘as well as expected’ even though the band did pull in more people than the place ordinarily would have had. Still the manager refused to pay up. With nothing in writing the group could not contest him. Time and effort wasted!

Speak to musicians who are already performing there. They will advise you on how to ‘approach’ the manager and find out all things related such as, do they pay well? The amount of time a gig should lasts; what they pay out; do they allow or prefer loud instruments/music or do they prefer soft ambient music? If the place is very well known for its heavy rock performances, you’re Diana Ross numbers may not go down a storm!

Will there be space for all your gear at the venue? Will you leave it there after the gig or take it with you? If they allow you to leave your equipment in the venue that evening make sure it’s placed in a secure locked up area, and that someone will be there the next day for you to retrieve it. You can guarantee they won’t be replacing your stuff if it gets stolen.

Check out the area you will be performing in. Does it feel right and can everyone see you well enough from outside your performance circle? Check that there are enough electrical extensions for you to plug in your gear, if these are on the other side of the room will your cables reach them? Take a long extension socket just in case. If you’re singing on the night take two microphones and leave one as ‘reserve’. The same goes for microphone cables. If your cable breaks or your microphone hits the floor and you’ve no replacement. End of Story!

Many establishments don’t have much of an idea how much effort goes into the planning structure of gigging, they can think its just a matter of getting in and doing it, but as touring acts can tell you, there are whole load of factors to consider in preparation for one night. Tell the Manager you need to practice your set on a quiet day for a few hours. This will allow you to check out the ambience of the place and work out where you will place your gear and position yourselves on the night. If they don’t allow this, re-consider!

If you’ve got any CD’s of your own to sell, take a box with you and sell them ‘during’ the gig, dont wait till the end when everyone ups and leaves. Take anything you got, t-shirts with your band name on, business cards…. advertise!! Get someone to offer them around whilst your performing, also print any URL’s to your online music on the CD or flyers you give out. If you have a second gig invite them all again at the end of the night, tell everyone from the newsagent owner to the postman. You can only rely on word of mouth.

Take into consideration that if the venue fills up on the night you may have to adjust your equipment levels, as people actually absorb some of the frequencies in the room; which is why you often think you’re being drowned out by the crowd when everything sounded perfect on rehearsal. Take an engineer, or at least someone with a good ear to stand at different points in the room and listen. You may find you’re clearly audible by the bar, but on the other side of the room you’re just a mumble. Be careful where you position your speakers and if you’re singing have a monitor facing you with just your vocals coming out. It’s quite tricky to hear yourself if all the other musicians around you are blasting their instruments to high heaven.

If everything goes perfectly well and the manager is dying to re-book you charge him slightly more. Don’t go excessive on this as he may be offended. But if you pulled it off really well and he knows the crowd will come back again, take the opportunity now, or try to get an ‘extended’ contract for say six months. Therefore you won’t need to be looking around again in a couple of weeks for a new haunt.

So if your keen on jumping on the performing bandwagon, hopefully these tips will help you with finding the right place, feel comfortable on the actual night, and also ensure that you don’t easily get ripped off.

Carla Acheson is a musician, and freelance writer for a variety of subjects, mainly the independent music industry. She is the Director of Independent Record Label http://www.melodrift.com, and the Assistant Editor for news site http://www.indienewslive.com.

There is no place like Las Vegas in the entire world, therefore
people from all over the world come here on a daily basis. Vegas has changed over the years, but most of the changes have occurred in the past 6 to 7 years.

1. HOUSING

The housing market here is over-inflated. A typical 3 bedroom
1.5 to 2 bath home with 1500-1700 square feet that should sell for $140,000. to
$160,000. now sells for $230,000. to $250,000. The people that are buying these homes
and the high rise Condo units are the wealthy who use them for their second or third
homes or investors who rent them out.

2. WATER

The majority of the water used in Las Vegas comes from Lake Mead.
The lake is currently 50 to 55 feet BELOW the level it was at 6 to 7 years ago. The
population of Las Vegas is up around 2 million people. There are swimming pools in
a large amount of the homes. You see an awful lot of people tearing out their grass and
putting in Desert Landscaping which consists of colored rocks and a few plants. What is
going to happen in the next several years as the population grows even more?

3. TRAFFIC

Sure, every city has it’s traffic problems. In Las Vegas it is magnified
even more because of the poor freeway systems and the fact that the majority of the
population lives in a valley surrounded by mountain ranges. Vegas has some of the most
aggressive drivers in the United States. Some of the problem is a shortage of police out
on the streets patroling. Most cities have their normal RUSH HOUR traffic in the mornings
and the late afternoons. Vegas has RUSH HOUR all day long because of the 24 hour work
environment due to shifts stopping and starting all 24 hours. Also, because of the boom in
construction, massive amounts of construction workers help clog the streets. Gasoline
prices are among the highest in the nation.

4. SUMMER HEAT

It is dry heat! In the summer when it stays over 100 degrees every
single day it is really HOT! It drains you if you are out in it for very long. No thunderstorms
popping up for a little relief. No rivers or creeks nearby, just one big lake 25 miles away!

5. SCHOOLS

The school system is having big problems. They are building new schools
to catch up the the rising population which is good. The problem is finding teachers to
fill the vacancies. The starting salary of a school teacher is around $27,000. per year. Along
with the teachers being underpaid is the fact that there is no affordable housing for them
to relocate here. If you were a teacher, why would you want to move to Las Vegas and lower
your standard of living?

6. EMPLOYMENT

There are plenty of jobs, mainly in the casinos, and the main reason
there are plenty of jobs is because the casinos don’t treat you very well at all. When you
apply for any job at all, you must account for the past ten years of employment and you must
have good credit. Their attitude is that you can be replaced at a minutes notice by someone
else. On 9-11 the massive layoffs that occurred were unnecessary. The casinos were
worried about their BOTTOM LINE. Many management people were laid off and their job
title eliminated so that even though they had worked there for several years, they reapplied
and had to go through everything that a brand new person did and held no senority.

7. GAMBLING

No matter where you live in the world right now, the lure of gambling
will never be as great as it is here in Las Vegas. Casinos, grocery stores, gas stations, and
most bars have gambling. When you live in Las Vegas gambling becomes an addiction. Sure,
there are shows and fine dining but where are they mostly located? In the casinos! Normal
activities that you might think of such as cooking out with family and friends and going out
with friends to dinner are very hard to do because everyone works all kinds of shifts and
have different days off. It is very difficult to get together with other people even once a month.
You can only stay home and watch television or movies so much, especially when you see and
feel the presence of gambling all around you. Another problem that goes hand in hand with
gambling is ALCOHOL. When you are in a casino for any length of time at all, you usually
have a few drinks. Why, because they are free! The dollar or two that you tip the coctail
waitress still makes it very inexpensive. Alcohol clouds your judgement and you end up
making gambling decisions that you regret later. Gambling starts to take over your life.
Your money is spent on gambling instead of other things like vacations, nice clothes etc.
Like many others who live here, you tend to feel trapped. WORK, SLEEP, GAMBLE,
DRINK! What a viscious cycle that is very hard to escape!

8. MULTI-CULTURAL

If you are a caucasion natural born american citizen, you are a
minority among the population here in Vegas. There are people here from Korea, China, Israel,
Bulgaria, Mexico,The Felipines, Romania, Pakastan, Iran and Eithopia. Is this a negative aspect
to a city? It is an awful lot like living in New York city and San Francisco. You find it hard to
trust people when they don’t speak english because you don’t know what they are talking about.
Some of the cultures of people are naturally agressive. You are constantly watching your
place in any type of line you’re in wether you’re at the grocery store, gas station or a fast food
establishment for fear you’ll lose your place. If you like the big city atmosphere such as in
New York or San Francisco then Vegas is for you! If you are used to friendly people who say
Hi and speak english and are not overly aggressive, then Vegas is NOT for you!

Please think twice about moving to Las Vegas!

Jeff Cardenell has been a limousine driver in Las Vegas for the past 6 years. Every day he is out on the streets talking to people and observing how the city is changing daily. More info
about Vegas can be found on his web site.

http://www.lasvegaslimousinestories.com

My father and paternal uncle were living together at our village when I was studying in my elementary class. There were few children in our family. Since it was a small village, there was no entertainment for us other than playing some indoor games. No television or video games were there at that time. The only entertainment for us was to go for a movie occasionally.

Unfortunately there was no theatre in our village. We had to go to a neighbouring village, which is three kilometers away from our village. Going for a movie for us was not as easy as everybody thinks. After much persuasion our parents used to give their consent so reluctantly, as they knew that it would involve a marathon effort by them. So even after agreeing to take us to the movie, they always would look for some flimsy grounds to cancel the programme by showing our minor injuries, which happened while we play, or possibility of rain on that particular day. Since there was no bus facility available to the neighbouring village, they had to depend on roofed bullock cart (in tamil it is called ‘Koondu Vandi’), which was the cheap mode of transport available at that time.

They had to prepare the bullock carts well in advance to keep it ready for the journey. They also had to make the bullocks in a fit condition and also make them to wear iron shoes. They had to prepare the driver who drives the bullock cart to be available on that day. Many times our journey was called off as the driver failed to turn up on that auspicious day. Once we had to return half the way because the bullocks refused to go further. So many times our entertainment trip happened to be an unpleasant one. But it never deterred our enthusiasm; we always used to persuade our parents whenever we came to know that there was a good movie screened in the neighbouring village.

After few years, a touring talkie was opened in our own village. We thought that it would put an end to all our ordeals and anxiety and also would give a great relief to our parents.

Of course, our parents got a relief, as they no longer required to arrange marathon journey for us. But our joy of enjoying a movie was short lived. We realized that watching a movie in a touring talkie is really a Herculean task. Once we went for a movie, but returned without seeing the movie as the theatre owner informed us that since they did not get enough crowd, could not run the show. Once we returned disappointed, as the reels containing the box, which was to come from the neighbouring town, did not reach. Once we gone for a movie for the noon show at 2 P.M. but returned at 2 A.M. as they took lot of time in pasting the reels which used to cut off every ten minutes run. Once we had enjoyed only half the movie as heavy rain interrupted and the whole place became a pool (!)

Now I am amazed to see the developments happened there. Almost every house has telephone and T.V sets with cable connection. They are enjoying the movies at the comfort of their drawing room. Even they demand the movies of their choice. Most of the houses having computers with Internet connection.. Hollywood movies are available through CDs. What a change! Earlier we were running for the entertainment. Now entertainment knocks the doors of our homes.

V. Ramasamy