GETTING SCREWED (NOTE: This is an article by Dick Hodgin)
Question: My band went to play a gig in another city and the club
wouldn't pay us the money he said he would. Is there anything I can do
about it?
There are lots of things you could do but I'm only going to talk about
the legal ones.
First. Did you have a signed contract specifying the terms and
compensation very clearly? If not, there it's going to be tougher for
you to document and prove the existence of the oral agreement. If you
do have a contract it's easier to force the club to live up to it's end
of the bargain.
The first thing I recommend is to try to negotiate with the
signer of the contract (or whoever you arranged the deal with). Why did
they not pay? Was there a disagreement about the terms of the gig? Did
your band hold up every part of your side of the deal? More than
likely, if there was a mis-understanding, there is usually some middle
ground in which to wrestle out a solution. If the club just suffered a
bad night, perhaps you could arrange to play on a better return gig and
get compensated a bit better for that one. If your band had problems
i.e.: didn't play the full set (s) didn't show up on time, played too
loud, damaged something, blah, blah blah,,,, then maybe you could work
out a settlement for not quite ALL that they owe you. Be flexible and
business like......Don't get personal!
If the club just plain screwed you, then you have to ask
yourself a question.
"Does my band ever want to play this club again?"
If the answer is "yes", then you've got a tough pill t o swallow. About
the only thing you can do is to try to reason with them . If that doesn't
work, just make sure that the problems are addressed and remedied for the
next engagement. There is no stone-cold-iron-clad way to keep yourself
from getting ripped off! Setting the stipulation that you'll be paid in
full before you take the stage can be tricky. You might face that
showdown right before you go on-stage and have to make the decision of
playing for your fans or sticking to your guns. If you go over all the
terms of the agreement again, including the ones that were the problems
last time, then the club knows your on the case and that you'll be
"looking" for any problems. If it looks like it's getting squirly, you
can pull out before the gig.
If the answer is "NO, we don't ever want to play this place
again," then you have a few more options. You can sue them. You can
hire an attorney to take care of it for you. Most attorneys will only do
this for a flat fee, although you may get one to do it for a percentage
of the amount you settle for.
If it's less than $3000.00 in North Carolina, you can sue them in
small claims court. Contact the courthouse in the county where the club
is located and get the paperwork to fill out for a small claims action.
You'll have to pay a filing fee ( usually less than $40.00 ) and a fee
for the sheriff to serve the papers. (About $5.00) You can add these
items in on the amount your claiming.
Make sure that you fill out the forms correctly. If you have a
family lawyer or someone that knows about such stuff that will help you
fill out the forms for free (or very little) then do it. That way you'll
know that the details are taken care of. I once sued a club in Small
Claims court only to have it thrown out because I didn't list the name of
the corporation that owned the club correctly.
One of the most important things about contracts is to make sure
that the person that is signing the contract has the authority to enter
into the agreement. If they are only an agent of another person, you
should make sure the agreement is between you and the person who is
actually going to be respoinsible for paying you. You have to remember
that you're contracting to play FOR someone. The place that you play is
just the location.
Once you've filed the claim, you'll have an opportunity to go in
and tell your side of the story. Small claim court judges and
magistrates are usually very receptive to the non-legal side of these
proceedings. This system was set up specifically for settling claims
without the lawyers getting involved. It's very informal, although I
was still pretty nervous the first time in. If the person you're suing
doesn't show up, or you win your case, you get a judgment against
them. That doesn't mean you get your money. It just means that you won
the judgment. There are a few other steps that have to be taken to
actually collect. ( and you may actually NEVER collect) The best thing
is that a judgment goes on the credit record of the person who it's
against, and it's a powerful weapon in the credit world. the judgment
stays on the credit report for SEVEN years! If they didn't have ****ty
credit before, they do now. One of the best rewards to this action is
that the word will get around that you don't let this **** slide!
There are some other actions that you can put into place. I
picketed a car dealership one time for 5 days after they jerked me around
on a deal, and then changed the numbers at the last second. It looked
pretty stupid at first for me to be out there, but the dealership that
started out laughing at me on Monday , had not sold a single car by
Friday. Picketing a club won't make many people stay away, but it does
raise awareness of your plight , and it warns other bands as to what
happened to you. Make sure you call the police department and tell them
before you just show up. There may be some ordinances that you have to
obey.
The other thing you can do is to get real big in that town and
play the competition. Or better yet, make the club that screwed you
realllllly beg before you give them the date. About the only thing
you'll get from this is some self satisfaction.
PROMOTION: For those of us who don't have 6 figure salaries.
1. The Power of Food
Members of the act Twelve:12 (
www.twelve12.org) found themselves doing a 20-minute interview on a rock radio station in their hometown ... all for simply bringing breakfast to the disc jockeys.
"We stopped at a restaurant and ordered some omelets, bacon and biscuits to go, then brought them to a local station for the morning show hosts," says Eric Luedtke. "They talked to us on the air for 20 minutes about our music."
Eric points out that this happened in Madison, Wisconsin. "So we're not talking a small town where anyone can get on the radio just for knitting a nice sweater," he says.
Media people love free food, particularly morning jocks, who often don't have time to get a good breakfast on the way to work. Fill their stomachs and they just might reward you with some exposure.
2. Perform a Guerrilla Concert
Kenny Kinds of Blue Fortune (
www.blue-fortune.com) performs what he calls a "guerrilla concert" before shows. He explains, "We find a location near where we'll be performing, like a market or cafe where a lot of people gather. Then we acoustically perform a couple of songs -- just long enough to tease people, hand out flyers, complimentary CDs, etc." Many of those unsuspecting people, of course, are inspired to attend Blue Fortune's show.
Are you overlooking simple ways that you can attract more people to your live shows?
3. Stamp of Approval
Here's a cool marketing idea from Corey Palmer of the band Monday Conspiracy. Like most club-playing musicians, his band gets booked at venues that stamp the hand of every patron who enters. Most bands don't give this common ritual a second thought. But not Monday Conspiracy.
"We had a stamp made that spells out our web site address," Corey says. "Before every show, we ask the manager if he or she would mind using our stamp at the door. Most managers say yes, which results in the entire crowd being temporarily branded with our web address."
And the results? "We've seen our web traffic jump quite a bit since we started doing this. People are less likely to forget our address with it stamped on their hands."
4. Happy Mood Ring to You
A few years ago, a band called Wordlove was drawing a pretty good crowd by playing music from the 1970s, complete with an image influenced by '70s pop culture -- disco-flavored funk, polyester jumpsuits, platform heels, lava lamps and disco balls. As well as the band was doing, the members wanted to go an extra step to create a bond with their fans.
They found the perfect gimmick: mood rings. Yes, those popular jewelry trickets from the '70s that changed color based on your emotional state. A band member bought 100 rings for $25 at a vintage clothing store. But they didn't just give them away for any reason. They sent them to fans as birthday presents.
On the band's mailing list sign-up form, fans were asked to write in their birth date. Then when the date arrived, each fan would receive a "groovy" card with a free mood ring taped to the inside -- compliments of Wordlove.
"Instead of the usual band mailing list garbage, each fan got something cool from the great new band he or she discovered some months earlier," says Shawn Fields, a former member of Wordlove and editor of Getsigned.com. "No hype. No desperate pleas for show attendance. Nothing to sell. Just a simple birthday card with a free gift. Our brand awareness factor shot up 110 percent--and so did our show attendance as word spread about the unique bond we had with our fans."