i'm sure they are just trying to save up for those damn sprinklers

I'd be curious if this happens regularly at the Exit, or if they have a reason for not paying this band. Also, do any other clubs in town have a rep for not paying guarantees, to touring and/or local bands?

There may be more things going on here than meets the eye. They mentioned a promoter on their blog post, or at least someone who "set up the show for them." If I'm not mistaken, most of the time if there's a promoter it's their responsibility, not the venue's, to come up with the guarantee. Am I right here? I'm thinking there might have been mis-communication between the promoter and the venue as to who was responsible for the guarantee in the end. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here....

It sucks this happened though, because it gives bands a bad impression of Nashville, and only adds to that problem of touring bands always skipping us.

It really didn't help that they were competing with a sold out She & Him show at Mercy.

Open letter to So Many Dynamos:

First off, if there was in fact a written contract between your booking agent and a promoter that specified a $200 performance guarantee, then that debt should have absolutely been settled at the end of the night. If the arrangement was more along the lines of this phone conversation: "...yeah come on down, we'll give you a couple hundred bucks and find a few local acts..." then in reality the venue/promoter is under no legal obligation to pay you. I think we all can agree that refusing to pay a guarantee is not only an extremely bad busniness decision, it is also bad karma and cold hearted. Unfortunately the Exit/In is one of those old-school rock clubs...its not on the christian coffee house circuit. Let's face it, the Exit/In has been around for 30+ years, and it will probably outlast (albiet under different ownership) your band and mine.

But I have to call out a little bit of bullshit here. First of all the overall tone of your blog would lead me to believe that its the *venue's fault* for not providing a paying crowd.

Hey So Many Dynamos, check it out: I listen to a lot of local/college radio. I work in a local record store. I go out to shows at least three and as many as five or six nights a week. I read quite a few of the appropriate local, regional, and national music blogs and periodicals. I've hung out with the Team Clermont guys, too. I say this not looking for a pat on the back, but rather to impress upon you that i humbly consider myself a fairly well-informed and enthusiastic music listener/watcher/follower/maker. Guess what? I'VE NEVER HEARD OF YOU GUYS. AND DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE HEADLINING THE EXIT/IN LAST WEEK.

So this begs the question(s): Did you guys contact the local independent/college radio stations to get your show added to the concert calendars? Did you contact the directors at these stations to see if maybe a DJ would be willing to do an on-air interview or in-studio performance before load-in to promote the show? Did any of your local friends plaster the city with flyers for the show (And I mean totally cover the city)? Did you contact any local Nashville bands that are kinda in your style and can bring a crowd and offer them a Nashville/St. Louis show trade? Did you contact any of the independent record stores in Nashville and invite the employees out to the show? Did you send these stores any flyers/promotional materials or a CD of your music so that the employees could familiarize themselves with your band and possibly recommend your music to their friends and regular customers? Did you contact the local press outlets/bloggers and poke them for a blurb or even an interview or a feature story to promote the show? I could go on and on here...

And maybe some of these things got done and maybe some of them didn't. If you just don't have time for all this stuff, you're in the wrong business. You can write all the checks you want to Team Clermont for press and promo but those guys have a lot on their plate and at the end of the day its YOUR BAND.

Point is, maybe i'm flattering myself, but i'd like to think that i've got my ear to the ground when it comes to local independent music and regional and national bands that are touring through Nashville. Like I said, maybe you did do some of things that I mentioned...hanging flyers etc. But I, joe-six-pack-indie-rock-showgower, never heard one peep about your band's show at Exit/In. Never heard of you guys until just now. I checked out your myspace and, as it happens, I don't care for your music. The Spin and Pitchfork reviews don't do it for me either. And ok, i'll admit, I had already made plans to see She & Him at Mercy that night anyway. I just think its a bit presumptious, arrogant, and amateurish to comlain about not getting paid for a show that you brought noboby to. My bands have played shows on the road for no money plenty of times. If nobody shows up, I don't blame the fucking security guy. I am usually embarrassed and try to be as apologetic to the bartenders as possible, which leads me to another point...

You guys aren't the only ones who didn't get paid that night. The bartenders had to sit through your show for absolutely no money whatsoever. That's their JOB. That's how they pay the mortgage and car payments. Times are tough for everyone. My band had to pass up a support gig on a very high-profile tour on the west coast because there was no way to afford the gas to get out there and back. So i'm waiting tables instead. You didn't get your 200 bucks, that sucks. next time get shit in writing, and play New Faces Night at the Basement instead, Grimey may not pay you much if anything, but its a better way to raise awareness about your band than headlining Exit to nobody.
peace

"I'd be curious if this happens regularly at the Exit"

I have not been paid the "guarantee" the last two times i was booked there to open for bands.

not that it's a huge issue, just now i know to decline any offer to go back.

To clarify:

The frustrating past of the whole experience was that there WAS a promoter for the show, who agreed to the $200 upon booking us. However, they weren't at the show and apparently hadn't made any contact with the venue in regards to the guarantee. We had booked the show through an acquaintance, who contacted us about the date and then confirmed the promoter, etc. She was at the show, but her talks with the venue were fruitless and the next day when she talked to the promoter, he pulled out a boatload of excuses as to why he couldn't pay us the money he had previously agreed to. We never ASKED for the guarantee, it was offered to us.

It wouldn't be a big deal, BUT we basically scheduled this mini-tour in which we played Nashville and Athens based around the fact that we'd be able to get this money to afford to go. So instead of breaking even, we are in the hole on the trip.

Meanwhile, the bartenders DID get paid (they may not have made as much money in tips as usual), as did the door guy and the security and everybody else except the bands.

And yes, we do have the guarantee in writing, in an email offering us a "$200 guarantee plus backend".

As far as Luke goes in his open letter, sorry you haven't heard of our band. Unfortunately, the fact that we've slid under your radar doesn't make our band or the guarantee offered to us less valid. We contacted friends about the show who informed us that they'd spread the word. We sent out multiple Myspace bulletins. We got a blurb in this very blog that you're posting to. I'm sure there's more we could have done, but there's always more you can do.

There are two truths to this:

1. Our band doesn't draw in Nashville. Our fault, but we never claimed to be able to draw, even when the show was set up.

2. A guarantee is a guarantee is a guarantee. If a promoter agrees to a guarantee for a touring band and there aren't enough people to make the guarantee, then it's the promoter's fault for agreeing to it. They should know this is a possibility when they make the guarantee. That's what a guarantee means. The fact that the show wasn't promoted as well as it could have been (again: keep in mind, the root of the word "promoter") doesn't mean the guarantee isn't valid.

If it were a door deal, we would have had no issue with not getting paid. But it was a guarantee. See #2 above.

This type of thing happens all the time, I know. It's happened to us before and it's bullshit everytime, and it's bullshit when it happens to other bands. I'm just glad this is getting some form of attention. This band is our job, it's not just a hobby. Imagine being payday for your job and your boss says "oh yeah, I'm not going to pay you this time. sorry, deal with it."

oh snap, luke!

There are valid points on both sides:

I mean, yeah, when you are contacted and offered a guarantee, it would be nice to think you were going to get that guarantee. It *does* suck, and it *is* crappy of the club to do that.

At the same time, as a traveling artist whose "job-not-hobby" this is as well... if you make $200/night, even if you're out 300 dates a year, that's $60,000/year. after gas/food/hotels/repairs, and splitting it amongst the band... good luck paying rent.

So if you were satisfied to have a $200 guarantee to play in Nashville, at very least, you are guilty of some ill-advised math. Selling merch is essential. You will *easily* make more than twice as much in merch than your guarantee IF:

- you put on a good show that people want to remember

- there are actually people there to buy it.

So knowing that you don't draw in Nashville is no excuse. "Breaking Even" is a slacker's goal.

Spend an hour or two on MySpace, Facebook, iLike. Get some posters in the local record shops, get some music to the college radio stations. Put some effort into it, get people there to buy the hell out of your merch.

2 things will result:

1 - if you still get screwed out of your "guarantee", you won't be in the hole for your tour.

2 - you'll be one hell of a lot less likely to get screwed on that guarantee, because the club will be happy that you busted your hump and got people there.

Everybody wins.

So who was the promoter, then?

Weird... Because I know for a fact when you were asked for a copy of your contract, you couldn't produce one. If you were planning to get paid, you should probably keep a copy of it on you, right? And an email is not a signed contract. Seems like maybe you put too much trust in a "friend"/acquaintance/promoter. The club is not at fault for you agreeing to a deal with an outside promoter. Especially one that doesn't show up, and can't be contacted. And, yes, it was a door deal. 80/20 after 250. Pretty standard.

And another thing... just because they have some big names on the wall, keep in mind the club has been open for 37 fucking years.... Over that time there have been at least a dozen owners. Do you think there is some sort of never ending money stash around from 30 years ago? Jesus. Just shows yet again how throughly you think things through...

"This band is our job, it's not just a hobby." You are priceless, I want to hug you.

On a side note: Come down to the Exit/In on Friday to take a swim in our vault of money and pick up your complimentary $200 checks.

A guarantee is indeed a guarantee. But, as many Nashville bands can attest, it can be hard to draw a crowd here even if people know who you are and like you. Sometimes, mysteriously, everything works out and your show is packed. Other times, even more mysteriously, virtually no one comes. It's a matter of competition and the sheer size of the Nashville menu.

Personally, I greatly appreciate it when a venue gives me a show, and I try hard to get people in the door. I realize that the venue owner or booking person has put the faith in me that I will do all I can to make sure there is business that night. There are a lot of shows to go to in Nashville, and usually one or two stick out on a given night.

I'm really surprised Exit/the promoter would give a guarantee to this band, however good they may be. Nashville's just too difficult to go around giving guarantees willy nilly. So my note to out of town bands is to offer to help a worthwhile Nashville band in your area first. It's just so saturated here, that even pitching a show to a local venue that features an out-of-town act with no local draw (even if there's one prominent local on the bill) is just really hard.

On that note, go see David Shultz & the Skyline from Richmond, VA tomorrow(Thursday) at the 5 Spot. They don't have a guarantee, but I guarantee they'll win your heart. However, if they don't, then please don't have your manager call me bitching.

I personally think it's silly that a band would come to Nashville after already having bad experiences and headline one of the bigger clubs in town and expect to get paid $200.

However, I do have to take exception with "Levi Weaver". Just because you put on a good show and contact people on myspace doesn't mean jack shit. Music isn't like working a regular job, where just because you work really hard it might pay off. From experience, I know that getting the word out and getting a big write up in the paper doesn't gurantee anything. And as far as selling merchandise, I don't know what world you live in, but people don't buy shit in this town. They drink. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Oh, we can't guarantee you any money, but you'll sell tons of stuff." Nothing could ever be further from the truth, at least in Nashville.

merch is nearly impossible to sell in nashville. especially at local shows. i've promoted shows that sold out 500+ person venues and bands walked with $100 in merch. you have a much better chance of making more money at the door than at the merch table.

on the other hand, the same band that sold out the 500 seater can drive up to indianapolis, draw 150 people and sell $500 in merch. i really think nashville doesn't buy merch (with the exception of the larger venues like sommet, ryman, etc).

regardless, this promoter should be held responsible for the $200. a) it's only $200. b) if you don't have it, don't promise it.

i learned that the hard way a couple of years ago when i thought it would be a good idea to begin booking national acts for $2,000+ guarantees and i lost my ass. lesson learned. i always paid the bands what was agreed upon and now i don't book national acts b/c i can't afford it.

the problem with being a promoter is that you have to win with 10 shows to make up for 1 bad one. the math is nearly impossible to work out without beer /liquor/3rd party sponsors to assist in sharing the risk. it's hard for both the bands and the promoters to make it work financially but it's absolutely never an excuse to not pay bands what they are owed.

so hopefully this band that got burnt will give nashville another shot. exit/in, by no means, was responsible for that $200 guarantee and there are numerous promoters in this city that DO take care of the bands that they book.

Ethan is dead right on this. The beef should be with the promoter, not the venue. And while it's always a good idea to "get it in writing," an oral contract is still enforcable.

my band played that show (mean tambourines). . . the other band on the bill 'we were the states' contacted us, I assume thinking we had some sort of a draw. . . . so at least the band, or promoter, or someone was trying to get a decent amount of people out. . ..but the fact remains that nashville in general is just a terrible place to play. Completely due to the cynicism of its residents.

We're all incredibly insecure in regards to our own bands it seems, to the point that we can't really enjoy music, especially that of our peers. Acts don't avoid nashville because of the lack of appropriate venues, or the lack of integrity in from those venues or promoters. . . it's completely because of us. I have several non-musician friends who have grown up here, and hate going to shows. . .because in their minds, watching a band play is all about competition and elitism. It's great in that it really pushes us all to really be great at our crafts, but terrible in that playing shows in this town can be a rather mind bending experience.

I avoid touring bands 98% of the time at The 5 Spot. The only time we get one on stage is if a local band adds them. They usually do that after they play a great show with them in their town.
If the band is amazing, I'll get them back in and set them up with some quality locals.

Prabir and the Substitutes is a great example, and I'm currently trying to get the local bands on that bill right now. I'll hopefully get bands that have a similar style, a good draw, and a house for them to crash at.

Why is it cynicism to not go see a show consisting of 3 bands you have never heard of?

"Music isn't like working a regular job, where just because you work really hard it might pay off. From experience, I know that getting the word out and getting a big write up in the paper doesn't gurantee anything. And as far as selling merchandise, I don't know what world you live in, but people don't buy shit in this town."

yeah, yeah, I know. Nashville sucks to play in. Nashville sucks to sell merch in, everyone's seen everything, and can play what the band is playing better than the band can. "jaded" "unimpressed" "terrible" "cheap" "buzzword".

And *most* of that is true.

but... (shrugs) I guess while we're throwing down the almighty "I know from experience" gauntlet... I toured through here before I moved here, and I always sold more than enough merch to make it worth my time. And when I play here now, I don't have any problem selling a few CDs. So... I guess that's the world i live in. The Planet "I Manage To Shift A Few CDs & T-Shirts Most Of The Time."

It's a cool world, we have running water, electricity, and not too many natural disasters. We have some brochures available.

(clarification: for the next paragraph, i'll be talking in my audience member / guy that lives here voice, not the ego-inflated one. i just want to make sure that the inevitable flame i'm going to receive is well-informed and all.)

The thing is, While I appreciate the finely-honed sense of patronization, the fact of the matter is that, at least as far as I have seen in my time here, Nashville isn't impossible to impress, just harder. The absolute KING of bum-frick Iowa can bust his ass and still have no one show up at a show. But if you pull something creative and new and inventive out of your hat, I've found Nashville to be one of the most appreciative cities around of originality and greatness.

you're right that there's no real formula for total success, especially in Nashville.

but I will venture onto the thin branch and say that putting a sum total effort of "what's that? $200? yeah, okay, we'll play" is probably a formula for failure. (especially when you're up against She & Him.)

Whatever dude. I'm just telling you what I personally know from living here all of my life and going to shows/playing shows here for a very long time. And I believe most people, as evidenced, would agree with me. You can have a CD release party and GIVE YOUR SHIT AWAY, and people will refuse it. I'm not jaded about it and I'm not complaining, I love this town, it just is what it is. I'm glad you are able to move some "merch", because most people can't.

I immediately regret being a smartass.

sorry about that. i'm really not as pompous as all that.

i just hate to see this place that has become home to me be the whipping boy of an industry that is also "home".

So I like to presume that if people have a terrible experience, it's their own dumb fault.

I've been really lucky that my response has been mostly good. I know great acts get crapped on all the time around here, because there is just SO MUCH music happening. The same effort that will make you the Editor's pick in Cincinnati will get you exactly sweet f-all here.

Maybe it's foolish, but I still think all that means is that it takes a little *more* effort, and Nashville can be worth the bother.

that sounds pretty naive to say, i know.

mostly, though, I'm just apologizing for being a dick.

There's a book out now called Tour:Smart And Break The Band. It's an excellent resource for touring bands, tour managers, booking agents, promoters; Basically anyone involved with touring. Here's what the author says about guarantees. It may come off as kind of harsh, but it's quite truthful.

"Another kind of payment is a straight guarantee. It kind of means that however many people show up, 10 or 300, you'll still get paid as if the 500 people your manager and agent convinced the club would show up did. Great in theory. In practice, the promoter will cancel the show, or just offer you what amounts to a percentage deal anyway: "Look, there are 50 people here, 30 of them paid $10 to get in. I'll give you $200 less your bar tab, which right now is $320."

There is no such thing as a guarantee; the name is misleading and counterproductive. From now on, let's call guarantees Helicopters. There isn't going to be one of those at your show either."

When the show got "set up," how often did you communicate with the promoter? Or the venue? Did you do any of the things Luke brought up? Yes, a "promoter" is supposed to promote a show...but the BAND is supposed to do everything they can to ensure success as well.

I wish you guys the best of luck in your career. Get that book, or one like it, so that you know what you're in for in the future and know how to do everything you can to avoid a situation like what you just had.

Ryan,
Sorry for not clarifying. . .I my response was in response to an earlier post on this thread saying something along the lines of
" just another reason why bands won't come here". . . It's not cynicism for people not to go to a show with 3 bands you haven't heard of. . . But it is that cynicism which keeps people from being a bit adventurous, and getting behind a lot of great bands that do come through here, and are from here. Possibly one of the most infuriating examples of this was seeing the dears play a nearly empty exit/in with a meager audience full of crossed arms. We all go see shows, but nobody seems to get really excited about anything here. . . Which is unfortunate, because everyone talks about nashville 'coming up' all the time, but nobody wants to really get behind anyone else and make that really happen.

Points taken all around. Hugs, everyone, hugs. Civil discourse on Nashville Cream! Who would believe?

I just can't keep up anymore with new bands, local or otherwise. There's just so many and they keep coming and they won't stop coming and I get them confused. Wolf Eyes, Wolf Parade, AIDS Wolf, Black Kids, Black Lips, Cold War Kids, Grizzly Bear, Grizzly River Rampage....and then they break up and reunite and then re-release their reunion CD....I give up!

I'm sorry all the pretentious assholes that live in this city commented with such hatred back at you. Luke from Character is no peach. He has the same life as everyone around here and the only reason he didn't hear about your show is because you didn't book an instore at Grimey's. Trust me if you had, the money part would be no different. The fact is that Nashville hates paying its bands. Most of the time, we sneak beer and booze in because well, they don't even give us that. Our band has done light years better touring than it has trying to build a local buzz. We were guaranteed through email $200 once to play at a bar in Johnson City. Know what that is? A shit town! BUT, the bar payed us anyways because they agreed to. Granted, they have a built-in crowd which Nashville lacks, especially in the summer time. So my apologies to you.

Hey Nashville assholes- FUCK YOU I WAS BORN HERE! QUIT CROWDING OUR STREETS WITH YOUR BAD ATTITUDES TOWARDS MUSICIANS. AND LUKE- IF YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT HOW TO PROMOTE SHOWS HERE WHY DON'T YOU OFFER YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO TOURING BANDS?

Back to So Many Dynamos,
I'll be emailing you personally so the next time you tour we can set up a show together cuz I like your band!

The band took down its original blog post. Here's a copy-and-paste from the Google cache:

NASHVILLE, TN
We've never had good luck here, tonight was no exception. We headlined at the Exit/In, and I think there may have been 4 people watching us that we didn't know personally or were friends of those friends. It was overall not horrible during the show. Afterwards, a different story.

The word "guarantee" must not mean the same thing in Nashville as it does in the rest of the universe. Everywhere else, "guarantee" means that you are GUARANTEED a certain amount of money to play a show. There were not a lot of people at the show, in fact there were not enough to cover the show's expenses as far as sound guy, door guy, bartender, security (why this is necessary, i'll never understand). Naturally, all of these people got paid, and of course, we did not.

We had a $200 guarantee at this show. The club has a wall of names of famous, successful bands that have played there over the years. $200 is nothing to that club, and it's a small fortune to a band like us. I will just never understand why, at a show, the bands who bring the people to the show are the lowest priority on payment. Anyway, it's not completely hopeless, our friend Molly that set up the show is going to try to get the money out of them somehow, but it's just such such bad form for a "legitimate" club and it's such a small amount of money that we can't take legal action or really do ANYTHING about it. It's almost lawless in this circumstance, unless we want to go Judge Judy on their ass.

NOTE: Exit/In is the same club that David Cross famously fought with on his "Let America Laugh" DVD. I guess we're not the first people to have issues.

i have seen numerous local shows get crazy (i.e. cage the elephant, autovaughn, american bang, the loft, hibtb, dnd).

there will always be crossed-arms at shows here, but some of those crossed-arms wound up hooking some of our bands up with publishing deals, record deals (with tour support!), booking agencies and more. we need some crossed-arms, quietly judging in the back of the venue.

the folks that don't care and just want to have fun DO exist. chances are, you even know a few folks that love your band's music and would probably go up front and dance their asses off (girlfriends/boyfriends and spouses are a good place to start). i'm not suggesting you prefabricate it, but somebody has to break the ice for others to do it.

to whoever wrote the 'dear so many dynamos' post:

nice job hiding behind an anonymous handle. I coulda done that, too.

I never claimed to be an 'expert' on promoting a tour. The things that I mentioned (radio interviews, flyers, etc.) are pretty basic promotional tools that i think successful DIY bands would hold as common knowledge. Its not like I was imparting sage wisdom from my secret book of indie rock truths.

Maybe I should have known about this show, considering We Were The States were playing. Like I said I was already planning on being at Mercy that night, so I didn't do my usual 'what shows are going on tonight' research. Yep, if So Many Dynamos had booked an instore at Grimey's, i probably would've known about them and their show. You got me there.

It sounds like good people got screwed all around in this situation. Third party promoters at a venue like Exit...the billionth time i've heard this story. My personal taste in the band's music aside, I truly hope So Many Dynamos doesn't give up on Nashville. I was compelled to post here because I took umbrage with what I thought was the band's begrudging attitude to the Exit/In staff who really had nothing to do with a crowd not showing up or the missing guarantee.

Hey now... Johnson City's no shit town. I straight up built that place!

I've played Johnson City more than a few times. It's pretty weak Joe, but being outside of Metro-Nashville, they do pay their bands!