What's the cheapest you ever worked?

Trying to get our startup company going, I worked for three years, put in over 9,000 hours and made all of $14,000 (about $1.50 an hour).

There was no time to play in a band...

Together with some friends, I helped start a rock/blues band in Chicago many years ago.  We had this idea that we would play charity events for local homeless shelters, food pantries, etc.  We didn't intend to make any money on the project.  We put the band together, wrote about an hour's worth of original material, rehearsed, and then contacted several local charities.

To our surprise, we found that they weren't interested.  We said, "You host an event, we'll provide entertainment, and you take any and all of the money.  You don't pay us anything."  They didn't want to do it.  We talked to some local coffee houses and churches who finally agreed to let us use their locations for such an event.  Flyers were printed (or photocopied) and distributed, and we got to play.

One event, however, was a complete disaster.  I booked a coffee house in Chicago's North Loop area for the weekend between Christmas and New Year's day.  They had performers in on a weekly basis and were confident this would work well.  The place was on the 2nd or 3rd floor (narrow back stairway) with no signage out front.  We were booked for Friday and Saturday night.  Friday night, a massive snow storm hit.  We outnumbered the crowd.  No money raised that night.

Like complete and utter morons, we came back for the second night.  Based on our incessant whining, our families came to support our efforts.  Bolstered by this upswing in attendance, we played our gig.  The manager of the coffee house was much happier and speculated that we had earned "a few dollars" for our designated charity.

No one ever got the money.  The charity never got it.  We didn't get it.  We spent hours trying to get home in the blizzard after that event.  Our sax/vocalist and his wife were locked out of their house and spent the night on my couch.

Based upon what we had been promised, the charity's cut of the door should have been somewhere around $30. 

No one told us there would be math involved...

We got a gig at a rugby club.  We turned up early, set up. sound checked, practised, started to wonder when poeple would start to show up...


An hour befor we were due to play, the barman (the only other person there) told us it was an "away game"!!

We went home.

Herb out of all the years I gigged I was stiffed only one time best I recall.

I'm pretty sure it was in 1973. I got a call from an older guy I had known by family
ties that wanted me to play a three piece setdown gig at the Desert Sands in downtown
Albq. NM. I was to get paid $200.00 a week, a room and two meals a day and play
the 9-1:30 six nights a week. He was a singer/bassist.

I took it. The drummer was the best I've ever worked with. He was not only an excellent drummer but a showman. He had been playing USO tours with Blood Sweat and Tears and the stage collapsed during one of their "everybody out front" and he was trying to get his knee back. I'm really not sure what the bands name was that he was in...can't remember.

I guess it was about 3 weeks when my pay was slid under the door early one morning and there was a note explaining why it was shy...the drummer needed help paying his bar tab.
So I went to have breakfast and sat down with the drummer and his wife. I told him what had happened and that I would be headin' out. We all knew that he didn't drink and had no bar tab but I had the note the bassist had given me so he knew I was straight with him.

Being stiffed really didn't matter to me then or now because playing with him was worth more to me than anything. Learning about the bassist was very valuable too LOL.
Fun times.

Karyn


After 20+ years at a rugby club would you expect it to be still there?

You could at least go see. I feel the the story is not quite complete.

In high school (I think I was 14), someone at my church asked me to play on her record.  Her style was vastly different from mine, but it still sounded fun.  She had piano, bass, drums and a few strings.  We rehearsed in her living room for a few weeks.  My drum parts were very minimal (and somewhat soft).  The Carpenters rocked harder than we did.

We recorded in a metallic barn-like structure.  We recorded the backing tracks in two days (about 6 hours per day).  She and her husband paid me $75 for my time.

I never heard the record and I have no idea what her name was/is.  I was happy with my compensation.  Other than my earlier tale of woe, this was the least I was ever paid for a gig.  Sadly, it was also the most.  Everything else I've ever done was for free.  I never claimed to be a genius.

Black Mariah, the band I played in when I was in California, played 3 or 4 nights a week at a place called Pat's Grass Shack in Goleta. We were just starting out and we played for free beer and the gate.
Cover charge was usually $1, so we often played 4 hours for less than $20 on week nights.
But it was fun.

bitflipper


Then a month later I got a letter from the musician's union saying I had to pay a $100 fine for "quitting without notice".

Did pay your dues at the same time?

I always got paid.

I never got paid enough.

One of the first gigs I did was in Reading (the 'Target Club', I doubt if it still exists). Our fee was to be £40.

The audience was very hostile (not really surprising in hindsight, we were ****). The singer got more and more wound up and ending up trashing the house mic stand. Guess what they deducted from our fee? Yep, £40.

It wasn't. They just hated us.

Ewe played some flock 'n roll?

bapu

jamesg1213


Ewe played some flock 'n roll?

I do have a little Welsh in me.

His name is Aelwyn.

57Gregy


Black Mariah, the band I played in when I was in California, played 3 or 4 nights a week at a place called Pat's Grass Shack in Goleta. We were just starting out and we played for free beer and the gate.
Cover charge was usually $1, so we often played 4 hours for less than $20 on week nights.
But it was fun.

Heard some nice things about it too ... but left in 1982 ... but at the time I was living with Tom Payne and David Payne, that you might or might not remember ... Tom had the huge blue Ludwig drum set at the time and Dave was playing a small synth and piano.
 
It was there that we had some fun experimenting and playing around. One other person in the house was a bass player, Mike Gellenbeck, that also composed a complete "Wall" like piece ... for which I helped define a couple of parts/pieces in it when we were fooling around. I could paly a couple of those songs in my bass (Gibson EB-0) at the time.
 
I miss those days ... sadly this band with a very good guitarist and later his wife playing bass, did not go far. Guy George was his name I think. He was pretty good, but he wanted to do his own stuff with his wife, who was a Tina Weymouth look alike, complete with the big bass!
 
Tom is in Spokane these days, btw.

jamesg1213

Moshkiae

Tom Payne and David Payne

Weren't they in 'The Windows'..with Roddy Frame?

And that Irish guy , Paddy O'doors ;)