Okay guys and girls, As most of you know I own a sports bar and lately we have been slowly moving away from our old style where we had more club nights to more sports related and doing more Live Music. That was the initial intention of the place when we opened up hence the name being "LIVE" Sports Cafe.. As of right now we have had a band that does cover and other music on Tuesday Nights from about 7 till 11 and We started a Battle of the Bands with the help of one of our friends that was in the industry and knew some bands on Thursdays. We Decided to do a rotation of bands on Tuesdays now to go along side our poker night and great beer specials we do on Tuesdays, that way it will bring a different crowd in each week. Thursdays, the battle of the band is hit or miss. We tend to have 1 good band that people enjoy then 2 bands that suck or just drive customers away. We sat down with the guy and told him to screen the bands that want to be in the battle but he hasn't done that well so we are probably deciding to go a different route and do another weekly rotation of bands that have been good so far. We have been getting their numbers and contact info for any band we thought would be good. That being said we are probably going to incorporate bands into Wednesday as well starting pretty soon. With different specials and things like that we feel that we can build these 3 nights as Live music nights and drive some more traffic to the place as well as keep the exisiting customers we have in there at the moment to listen to good bands. Most of my clients down here are usually out of the office buildings for happy hours or patrons that have been coming for a while. I definitly want bands to either do some kind of Classic Rock, New Rock, Original music, and cover. Basically upbeat music i know everyone would enjoy and have fun. I guess the main reason of this thread is to get some input from members that do have bands like Jeff and RocketMan and others that do this for a living and see what i can do to build the nights. Also along side this i want to ask if there are any bands that kind of fit this mold and would like to be in a rotation of tuesday, wed, or thursday that aren't outrageous price wise then i would love to work you guys in after getting a demo in either MP3 or cd so i can show it to my partners. My budget is not huge for the bands but I can work something out and hopefully giving you a set rotation for a couple nights a week or a few shows during the month would be good as well. Right now the bands we do have coming in are getting $250 Cash and $100 Bar Tab. From there we have told them that if the nights get good or they bring in a good crowd that follows them that we will work with them on the price and try to make it better. Since we are just starting out we don't want to dig ourselves in a hole either bringing in bigtime bands and having huge costs. All in all, if you guys could give me any input or suggestions to get these nights going i would greatly appreciate it.
I know of a guy that works in another department at my place of work that plays in a band. His band has been mentioned in the Houston Press a few times. I don't know what their costs is though.
Fools and Horses, i went to their album debut in a club in Baltimore, they are relatively new but very talented.
Can I play my one man band? I'll pluck the same strings over and over on my guitar cuz I dont know how to play anything yet.
I was surprised i didn't get more replies since there are a few people in bands here. I am still in need to book some bands for days during the week here at my place. I need them ASAP so if you are interested please get me a demo or something so i can start trying to work a deal out.
You should try emailing Jeff, Drewdog, and Rocketman Tex personally to see if they'd be down. Somebody else is in a pretty cool Phishesque band, I can't remember who it is though.
Im not sure of how much help this will be but as everyone knows, myspace has PLENTY of bands on there. if you could do a search and contact them through there, you could prolly find a bunch of local bands. alot of these bands have their music as well on myspace. of course, if you had the time/oppurtunity...
also, http://www.beatassassins.com/ is some good hip hop/rock music that played at a bar recently. pretty good. might want to check them out if you can.
If you're looking for a quirky band that sounds like a cross between the Chieftains and the Ramones I would be happy to play at your bar. You can check out what our shows are like and we sound like here: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=544428717&n=2 Unfortunately we're not in Houston but I'm sure The Serfs would be up for a Texas tour.
I have an idea for your battle of the bands: Now, I don't know what your place looks like so you'll have to bear with me. If you had two stages and actually had bands 'battle it out' one after the other and back and forth you might keep people interested. That way there is no down time of the bands switching equipment and all that. I would walk out if the bands took 10 minutes to switch gear and restage. You'll need something to entertain people during the switch I would think or you eliminate that problem all together.
Eh, just give them more time. Lot's of bands in Houston looking for places to play and those places are dwindling pretty fast. I know some guys in original bands that I'll ask. Do you guys have your own PA? As far my band goes, it sounds like fun but unfortunately $250 doesn't go a long way after it's divided 11 ways.
yeah that is a lot of people in your band...oh yeah we are actually going away from the battle of the bands idea because the guy that was running it was not bringing in the best bands and it was not good for business. So we took the names of the best bands that we had and started rotating them into Thursdays so we want a good selection of bands to bring in not just for thursdays but for tuesday and WED as well. We know 250 is not much right now with the 100 bar tab but we definitly want to work with the bands and let them know that over time when the nights get busier we will up the amount. We are looking for bands to i guess work with us until the nights pick up and we take care of them more monetarily. Were not wanting to be greedy so we definitly will want to pay more once our nights pick up so if any other band is willing let me know for sure.
Stack- My band and a band we play alot with would probably be able to do like a 2 act thing on Thursdays. We are just getting started so our following isnt as concrete as the other band. The other band is known locally pretty well, and brings in alot of people to the shows. Check us both out at: www.myspace.com/hollinwelldrive and www.myspace.com/enjoylazlo Do you have a PA or is this something we would need to bring to the bar? Sent you an email as well.....
Stack...a couple of questions: 1. Do you have your own PA system or does the band need to bring their own? 2. Are the hours you want the band to play 7-11PM on Wednesays and Thursdays (like you have it set up now on Tuesdays)? 3. Is a tipjar for the band allowed at the front of the stage? That might help make up the $ difference. I sent you an email....let me know what you think of the soundfiles. Either one of my bands would be up for this since both are 4 piece bands. Starting at 7PM makes it do-able for both since most members have day gigs.
Tex- Would you be open to splitting a night with us, or would you just rather do your own thing? I also have another band that is interested as well.
I think these are excellent questions (just saw this thread). The PA question is a huge one in and of itself. Money isn't a big issue, but don't expect to bring out a ton of original bands on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays unless there is something more signifcant going on downtown. Playing a place where you are not the main draw and a time when it is virtually impossible to bring out a crowd of your own makes it tough to justify when your primary reason for playing is selling stuff (CD's, t-shirts, etc) and gaining exposure so people will come see you play again. Just my .02.
1, We don't have our own PA there but we have a PA guy that actually is one of the bands and we pay him to come setup and Mic everything up so you guys wouldn't have to worry about that 2. Yeah the Bands usually start about 7 or so and go on till about 11 pm. 3. Tipjar and any other means to make more money like CD's etc are definitly allowed and encouraged. RMT i did recieve your files im listening to them as we speak. I was at Live last night working on a few things so i didn't get a chance to listen to them there and get back to you. I will email you regarding booking and stuff. Yeah we know it's going to be hard to bring a big draw to the place on an off night like Tuesday - Thursday but our main goal is 1. To keep all the people that come in from happy hour and hang out a bit longer which we have noticed happens when we have good bands going that cater to the clientel we have. 2. Hopefully slowly build the nights with a couple of good bands that we rotate through the month like 2 shows a month. Every other week a good band. We already have good beer specials during the nights to give people something to come out for other than the bands. We are up for trying anything and if you have any other suggestions about it let me know for sure. Like I said a few posts ago we are going away from the Battle of the Bands becuase the guy that was handling it wasn't bringing out the best bands and it actually made people leave rather than stay. But we did manage to get the info for good bands and have been bringing them back and the patrons have enjoyed it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We figured if we did a rotation of bands on thursdays for the Month then the people wouldn't get tired of the band and come out more cause there is a change of pace each week. If you think that is not a good idea please let me know. Once again im listening to all suggestions.
Personally, I'd recommend going with bands that the public will like regardless of originality or whatever. I'd go with blues, funk, even Latin or something like that. I think there are plenty of bands that would do it so long as they had 5 players or less and didn't have to bring (or pay for) a PA system. Most bands want to make $50/person for a gig. I do think you need bands that aren't all original pop/rock/alt bands if you want your patrons to be entertained.
