Pay to play. If you've never heard this term, you've never been in a band in Southern California. What this refers to is clubs that actually charge a band to play, rather than pay them. What is this travesty, you ask? Here's how it works:

The most common form of P2P is this, a club sells the band a large number of tickets to their own show at a greatly reduced price, the band then has to sell the tickets for whatever price they can get to make their money back, or in rare cases, a profit. Most of the "Big name" clubs in L.A., however, use a more insidious form. At some of these clubs, a band usually has to pony up $300-500 to "buy" a spot on the bill, and then they get a share of the door, which will hopefully be enough to reimburse them or make a profit. But it rarely is, unless your band happens to already have a large following. For well known national and even regional acts, these practices aren't all that harmful, because they have the draw to cover the expenses and still make a profit. However, for well known national and regional acts, the clubs usually waive these fees and practices in order to lure them in. So what it all boils down to is this: When you are in a band that is starting out and doesnt' have a very large, established following, it is practically impossible to develope such a following because you find it impossible or expensive to get gigs at decent clubs. Once you get to the point where your draw is strong enough that these expenses aren't a concern, the expenses are usually waived. So they go away once you can afford them. Isn't that the American way? It's like band draw credit, you can't have any until you prove you don't need it. The clubs will tell you that dealing in this way protects them, in the event that they book a bill of bands that has nobody show up for them. So that if they don't get paying customers they've at least got paying bands. There is a modicum of validity in this, because there are SO MANY awful bands in Southern California. These clubs would probably never let a lot of these bands play at all if it weren't for P2P. Then again, if you are in an awful band with a lot of bandmates who all have a lot of friends that will always come see you play, then you'll always find gigs. The main problem with this is that it makes it impossible and impracticle for a band from out of town to book a show at one of these clubs because they A) won't be in town long enough before the show to sell tickets, and B) are probably trying to expand their sphere and don't have a following in SoCal, which is why they'd wanted a gig in the first place.

Note to club owners/bookers: If a band is good enough to pack up their gear, hit the road, and earn enough to stay on the road, they're going to be good for your club, so boot the P2P and get those guys on stage.

What brings me to this rant is that we were faced with P2P for our gig this past Friday night. We had a show lined up for Dreamstreet, in Ocean Beach. Dreamstreet is widely known in the San Diego area as the club for bands that don't have anywhere else to play. Not that it isn't a nice club, they've renovated it and it actually is a decent venue. So, we've played there often enough, and with increasingly positive results, so that we are always offerred weekend gigs, and we don't have to call them, they call us. So when the manager called us up to offer this date, we asked if we could have the evening to ourselves and bring along a couple of other bands that we'd been doing a lot of shows with. He said sure, that would be fine, and it should be since our draw was steadily increasing and combining it with "Catatonic" and "Tandemoro" (From L.A.) had always filled up the venues we'd played in the past. He said he wouldn't bother with the "ticket guarantee" (his term for the first mentioned form of P2P above), because he knew us and we usually drew fine. Well, about a week or so before the gig, which was completely finalized and settled for us three bands, he called up to let us know that he had added two other bands to the bill (when this happens they almost always are bands that are in no way musically compatible with us or the other two bands we'd set up). He also let us know that he'd decided to go ahead and reinstate the "ticket guarantee". So, we kinda felt slighted, as though he'd decided that our success at his club in the past was a fluke. And to top it all off, we looked like jerks to "Catatonic" and "Tandemoro" because now we have to come back and tell them that they have to sell tickets. This would be particularly difficult for Tandemoro, since they lived in LA. We, earthShine, had no trouble moving our allottment of the tickets. I don't think we had any left over. But Tandemore had one of the smallest crowds they'd had in all the shows we've played with them in San Diego. Despite this, we had the best crowd I've ever had at Dreamstreet in any band I've played there with. And they were very vocal and responsive, and they spent a lot at the bar. But, when it came time to settle up at the end of the night, the club owner tried to tell us that it was a slow night, not enough tickets were sold, bar didn't do well, etc. He didn't want to divvy up the door. I've encountered it many times before, so I wasn't shocked or upset, I just felt slighted, yet again. We did have the money we made from selling our tickets, so we didn't lose money on the night, but still. As I've said many times before: If I were in it for the money, I would've quit long ago.