What are your criteria? Do you refuse because of money? Venue? Family commitments? Day of week?

What seems to be the number one reason you have to/want to turn down a gig?

And if you have any entertaining mitigating circumstances, those are welcome as well.

#1 Quickest "No" To a Show Offer:

Pay-to-play.

How do I say "Fuck You" in forty different languages?

normally distance to travel is the major headache. or people not being able to get time off work.

1. Pay-to-play.
2. Bad previous experience w/ booker or club.
3. Night of the week (Monday="Fuck off". Tuesday="Maybe". Wednesday= "Why bother."
4. Other bands booked ("Oh, the other band is an 'acoustic rock' group? No thanks, then!")

shitty night/so-so venue/with bands you've never heard of or at least bands that aren't your friends. my band doesn't really have criteria, we just do what feels right. money is rarely a deal-breaker unless it's a one-off out of town thing. watch a band get surly fast doing a 10-hour round trip with a $30 take from a gig.

my band did CMJ in NYC a couple years ago and the venue paid us $40 for our efforts. That's a 24 hour round-trip drive from chicago, we were told last-minute, and couldn't line up any other crap on the way. of course, we were in NYC and spent a few days there and had a blast, but still I could see the possibilities of bands losing their mind over things like this. there are horror stories to be sure.

if a booker is offering me a gig i don't want to do, I either tell him the "drummer can't do it" or "that's not really what we're looking for right now". if the booker suckers you in and you relent to a bad night, make sure he realizes you're doing him a favor and immediately thereafter go get yourself something you want from him. cause lord knows he/she is going to pull the same crap on you.

Dylan wrote:What are your criteria? Do you refuse because of money? Venue? Family commitments? Day of week?

What seems to be the number one reason you have to/want to turn down a gig?

And if you have any entertaining mitigating circumstances, those are welcome as well.

refuse because of money, never.

refuse because of venue, possibly. since i've pretty much done all my own booking though, it's N/A because i simply don't call venues i wouldn't want to play at. sometimes a friend would say "wanna play a show at XYZ" at which point it'd be based on the person offering the show, and the specific details of the show, moreso than the venue

family commitments, always. if anybody in the band has a reason they can't make it, a good valid reason (including "picnic at my sister's place, planned weeks ago" or anything like that) then that's that. if it was a monstrously attractive show, and it was a band member that could be done without (like the third guitar player) then maybe i'd wanna try and work it out without that person. move the second guitar player over to bass.

day of the week, not the #1 concern, though obviously a weekend show is gonna carry more interest for me than a weekday show. so it would be factored in of course. i suppose with a new band, depending on your connections into the local scene, you might *have* to put in a weekday or two at some clubs, before they'll give you the weekend. for me, like everyone else i assume, i'd prefer the friday or saturday. as far as passing on a weekday show (especially sunday or monday show) it would depend then on the other factors. is it a chance to open for a great band on a sunday? i'll take it. is it a chance to headline on a sunday? i'll pass.

and your final question, the number one reason to turn down or play a gig? i'd say the other bands involved. even if there's not gonna be many people, if the other band(s) are friends, or are a band i hold at least somewhat reverently, that would make me want to take the show. if the other band(s) are folks i dislike as people, or don't dig the music, or just don't see how my band's music and their band's music makes any sense together, that would be a no. if it's a band i know nothing about (which is frequently the case) then the decision would be made on the other factors discussed above.

anothing factor that i need to mention is frequency. as i have historically played very few shows "out of town", and the majority of shows "in town", frequency becomes a major consideration. have we not played in a month or two? let's take the show. have we played twice in the past month already? probably if no other factor stands out, let's pass. oversaturation of the local scene is a place i don't wanna be.

the final factor is the bail-out gig. i was fortunate enough to be in this position maybe three or four times when i was back in chicago. where i had a regular and ongoing dialog with a few different clubs; they gave us shows as they felt appropriate, we played them and were glad to do so, which is why i kept calling and they kept answering and everything. a good two-way-street kinda relationship. but the times i ever got a phone call from one of those clubs saying that band XYZ had bailed on tonight or tomorrow's show, and is there any way we could we fill in, i ALWAYS said yes, unless someone crucial like our drummer was just not available. even if it meant playing at the same club twice in one month. even if it meant playing a 4th or 5th show in town, in the same month. because i believe it is a good thing for both the club and the band. you're both showing each other that you give a shit about each other. which is about all i could hope for.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:
anothing factor that i need to mention is frequency.

Oh, jeez, helicopters, i thought you were talking about, you know, hz. "I'd never play a show at 440 hz. 'A' is such a lame note." Something like that. I thought the post was about to take a bizarre turn...

I so want to take it in that other direction, but I'm feeling rational today.

I'm feeling like right now (as in "starting from square one") I need to take basically any gig that gets offered to me. A few months ago, I played a Monday night with two out-of-town bands. It was probably my second gig. We played for each other. It was pretty dismal.

In a previous band, I was made to feel guilty for cancelling out of an out-of-town show because of my gastro-enteritis. Funny, I thought running to the toilet every 10 minutes would have been a good excuse to stay home. I'm no Mike Watt, that's for sure.

I said 'no' immediately to a pay-to-play and the booker had the nerve to get angry at me. Like I was insulting his integrity.

money

we have a formula that combines 'distance traveled' with 'money to be made' to determine if a given show or group of shows is worthwhile. the formula only applies to shows in north america.

also, we only open for a band if we really like them. otherwise, no opening.