SIRSY(Melanie Krahmer and Richard Libutti) Being fulltime musicians for six years has certainly had it’s ups and downs. By embracing a DIY(Do-It-Yourself) attitude, we have become part of the emerging middle class of musicians. That means no record labels, no managers, no tour support, and often no money! Join us as we discuss the challenges and rewards that come with being full time musicians.
Yesterday SIRSY played with American Idol’s Bo Bice at the Alive at Five concert in Albany. If you’ve never been to one of the Alive at Five shows, I definitely recommend checking it out. Regardless of who is performing, it’s definitely a cool place to see a concert. It’s always great playing a huge event in our hometown… lots of friendly faces in the crowd. We’ve opened for several signed national acts, like Maroon 5, Third Eye Blind, Lifehouse, and Collective Soul. It’s often difficult to win over the crowd as an opening act. As an opener, you’re the thing that’s keeping the fans from seeing the band they paid to see. We often try to cater the songs in our set to match the style of the headlining act. Fortunately, it usually works for us and we’re able to win over the crowd.
I wouldn’t consider myself a Bo Bice fan and I’m really not a fan of American Idol-as a musician, American Idol represents everything that is “wrong” with the music business today… but I’ll touch in that in a later entry. So I was prepared not to like Bo Bice. I usually don’t approach the famous people that we are opening up for.. I always try to get Melanie to go and say hello, and I snap a picture. But Bo happened to walk right past me after his sound check, so I introduced myself to him. He thanked me for opening the show and for helping bring people to the show. We spoke for a minute or two, and I have to say, he seemed really cool. His performance was good as well- not necessarily my favorite style of music- but he’s got a great voice and his band was talented. He seemed to have a group of die-hard fans there to see him, although it’s hard to tell if they like his music, or just the fact that he was on American Idol. The fans seemed more interested in getting his autograph than listening to his music… especially the ladies.
As a side note, Melanie mentioned in her last post how glamorous it is to be in a band. I was thinking the same thing when after the Bo Bice show I was counting the money(from CD sales) in the 100 degree port-a-potty. I was actually laughing to myself as sweat dripped off my nose and onto the money… ah, glamorous indeed!
Lots of people think it’s a truly glamorous life we lead as full time musicians. (I’ll tell you- nothing makes you feel more glamorous than peeing in a port-a-potty right before you go on stage… the same port-a-potty which acts as your dressing room- and ladies I was wearing panty hose- need I say more?). Granted, we are truly lucky to do a job that we love. A lot of people that I meet are stuck in jobs that they hate and I get to live my passion every day. SO- I do know that I’m truly lucky. But let me give you a glimpse of some of the stuff that happens behind the scenes in an full time independent band… it’s actually a LOT of work. For example, in addition to being IN the band I am the band’s booking agent. So, that means I have find work for the band. Luckily I’ve developed great relationships with the clubs we already play… so return dates are usually easier to book… but there are new markets that we try to break into as well. Sometimes it’s just cold calling and networking to find leads and friends who will help out in the area. I also update the shows on the web site, the myspace page, and every other site I can find. I answer fan mail. I send out posters and promo for every show we do. And that’s just a SMALL PART of what I do behind the scenes. Every day I don’t have a show I spend working at least 12-15 hours on the behind the scenes stuff. Each show has taken hours and hours of work to put on. The actual “work” we do onstage while performing is the “joy” part of our job. We don’t even count that part as work! Luckily, as a true workaholic, I don’t mind not having a life. Yep. It’s a lot of work to be a “rock star”.
We just did four huge ourdoor festival show this past week for the Fourth Of July. Great shows! The weather was great, there were huge crowds for all of them, we made lots of new fans, and just had a blast! A couple of fans asked me after the fourth show(in Saratoga Springs) if I was going out to party… I had to be honest, I just wanted to crash. Truth is, Melanie and I aren’t exactly party animals.(In fact, neither one of us has ever done ANY illegal drug.) After each of the shows this week, I went home and inventoried all the merchandise sales from the shows. Which means counting panties… yep, sirsy panties… they’re actually big sellers! I also counted all the tee-shirts, hats, and CDs so that I could enter the sales amounts into my Excel spreadsheet(oh, yeah, partying like rock stars!). I then had to restock everything for the next day’s show. We usually sell a lot of merchandise at these outdoor festivals because we’re playing for a lot people that haven’t seen us before – like people that don’t hang out in clubs, teenagers, or people with kids.
We know that our professional, “spreadsheet-using attitude” doesn’t seem to match up with the stereotype about musicians. We encounter a wide variety of other musicians on the road, and we’ve noticed that the bands that are doing well often have the same attitude as us. The bands that are in for “the party” often don’t survive on the road. We often meet other professional bands when you least expect it. We played with a band in Baltimore a few years ago(I forget what they are called) at a venue called The Vault. The band was Death Metal… very aggressive and very angry.(see picture of the lead singer)
This guy LOVES Fruit Roll-Ups
You wouldn’t expect a bunch of guys in a Death Metal band to be too organized, but they were very professional, sober, and in fact, very amicable. After the show all the bands were loading their stuff out into the back alley where our vans were parked. Now, the neighborhood that the Vault is in isn’t the greatest… we could actually see prostitutes in front of the club. We were chatting with the guys from the Death Metal band, and trading snack foods that we had in our vans… We had a huge barrel of pretzels to offer, and they had a whole bunch of fruit roll-ups… so we traded… We were all laughing, thinking of what a cop would say if he walked by at that moment seeing 2 bands exchanging something in a back alley… I doubt the officer would think that pretzels and fruit roll-ups were our drugs of choice.
So, mom’s words about having to experience the bad before you can appreciate the good were brought home this week for me. I was still reeling from the basic disaster that was our recent tour of the Mid-West. We came back home on June 30th to face another week of shows and fighting for survival as an independent band. You never know what each week will bring. Sometimes you’re not sure if you’ll be able to buy groceries and sometimes you can’t believe how lucky you are. You just never know… This week was filled with some of the best shows we’ve ever done! We played for thousands and thousands of people and sold tons of CDs to new fans… we had even signed thousands of autographs by the week’s end. What a rush. And to top it off, we were told that we won a showcase at the NACA Mid-Atlantic Convention this year. (NACA stands for the “National Association for Campus Activities” and is responsible for booking bands at Universities across the country). It was our first time ever submitting for a showcase (we finally found an agent to represent us in this endeavor– a large feat in and of itself!) and he told us that it was very difficult to get a showcase- so to not worry if we didn’t. But we DID! So, you know… this was a good week. Hooray for the ying and the yang. Plus, I think the joy of this week tasted ever so much sweeter because of the lingering sting of our recent mishaps. So, mom is right … again.
Hi all! Happy Fourth of July! I’d like to invite everyone to ask some questions for us to answer on the blog. People come up to me and ask all kinds of questions at our shows. Some that I answer, and some that I don’t. One of the most common questions that I get is if SIRSY has a manager , booking agent, or any type of staff. While we don’t have an official staff(i.e. people that we pay), we do have a great group of volunteers. These are individuals that donate their time, talents, and money to help us in all sorts of ways. Their ages range from 16 to 50, and they come from all walks of life. The thing they all have in common is their love for the music. We’ve found that there are tons of people out there looking for good music, and they’re looking for it in other places than commercial radio and TV. When they find it, they are often willing to help support and promote it!
If you come to a SIRSY show, you will no doubt meet one of these volunteers. They are all the people that help sell our CDs and merchandise, pass out flyers, set up and load equipment out of the van, and sometimes even work security! As an independent/DIY band, these volunteers are crucial to our success. They are part of a growing market of independent music lovers/supporters. They are essentially taking the place of the support staff that would help a band if they were signed to a major label. Viva la revolution!
Ah, the mid-west. As Rich mentioned, we just returned from another trip there. I thought I’d give you some of my observations from the trip. As the passenger on 99% of our tours, I get to notice the subtle changes in social climate along the way. For example. lots of folks in the mid-west (and down south) are a bit more overt about loving Jesus. Even the truckers. An 18-wheeler passed us on the highway on the way out of Cleveland and the mud flaps read: “Jesus is Lord. Transport for Christ” – you know, instead of having that cheesy silhouette of a naked woman sitting. You also see a LOT of neon signs about Jesus – and many of them blink. It’s one of those things that lets you know you’re in a new sort of culture. Just like the giant sign we passed that said, “Fireworks! Jellybeans! Swords 50% off!” You notice stuff like that.I was really excited about seeing Detroit for the first time. My first impression was something resembling
Storm brewing over the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit
the apocalypse as there was a terrible, terrible storm brewing when we came into town. The drama was a nice touch. We found the venue and parked in the adjacent alley just in time to see the power lines snap and swing like a pendulum behind us. Yikes. Due to a power surge from the storm, the PA was fried and they had to call in a “specialist” who helped them rebuild the PA just in time for the show… errr… I mean just in time for the show to run about 2 hours later than planned. I should also mention that the power surge fried the a/c so it was about 300 degrees in the upstairs bar where the bands play (and they still allow smoking in Detroit). Also, said “specialist” hit on me at the end of our set asking me if I was “from around here” because he “wanted to sample some of the local tail”. Yes, really. If only I’d taken advantage of that special discount on swords! So, you could say Detroit and I got off on the wrong foot at first. BUT, I have to say that we met some really cool new fans, were joined at the show by some long time fans, and played with some great bands. We also met this indie DJ who is now spinning SIRSY non-stop on his radio show. As my mom always told me- sometimes the bad has to happen so that you can really see the good. I tried to keep mom’s words fresh in my mind when my snare cradle broke during sound check in Chicago and I had to play the entire set with it duct taped and cable-tied together. And again when the sound engineer, who was brand new, blew the monitors so I had to sing an hour set (behind the kit) with NO monitors. And then again when we got that speeding ticket in Ohio.
I wouldn’t trade touring for the world. I do love the adventure. But after this particular trip it was especially good to be back home in Albany. Phew.
When I woke up this morning I had no idea where I was. You know that brief period of time when you’re half-asleep/half-awake and you instinctively head towards the bathroom? Well, after six days in a row of being in a different hotel every morning, my instincts were off. After a few sobering encounters with the dresser, reality slowly seeped back in to my consciousness. I was home. No hotel to hurriedly check out of, no driving 300 miles today , no show tonight, and no more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Whenever Melanie and I are on the road and staying at hotels, we always try to bring food with us to save some money. PB and J travels well and I love it, but not twice a day for a week.
We just came back from a few shows in the Midwest… Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Findlay(Ohio). Eager to sleep in our own beds, we decided to drive the 600 miles from Findlay to Albany in one day to save on hotel costs… something we do often. I was relieved that there was no driving today. We don’t have another show until Wednesday of this week so I have two days to recover. I did what I usually do on Mondays: reviewed our budget for the previous week’s shows. I wasn’t looking forward to it, because I knew the numbers were grim. It’s very difficult for us to turn a profit when we are so far from the Albany area… the gas and the hotels are brutally expensive. Our gas expense for the whole trip was $525, which was enough gas for about 1900 miles.. ouch!
Even though the tour was a financial disaster, we made some good contacts for the next time we travel west. We got the show in Findlay through a band from Buffalo that we play with often(More Than Me). More Than Me already had a show booked there, and they kindly offered to let us open the show for them. The owner of the club loved us and said he wants us back in the fall. The great thing about this particular club is that we can get a “guarantee”, which means we’re guaranteed a minimum amount of money regardless of how many people are at the show. Most of the shows we do out west are “door” shows… which means you get a percentage of the cover charge. Which usually is not good in a city you’ve never played before. For example, at the Detroit show, we played with 2 other bands, and the guy at the door collecting the cover charge asked every person coming in to the club, “Who are you here to see?”. He kept a tally of how many people were there to see each band. At the end of the night he told us there were 8 people there to see us(which isn’t bad for our first time ever performing in Detroit!). They were charging $5/head, so we got $40. Yep.
The SIRSY van in Detroit. (Notice the old Tiger stadium in top left)
Melanie and I have always been realistic about our lives in the music business. We’ve always done it for the love of making music and the joy of performing. Nonetheless, we still need to make money to survive. The band SIRSY is, after all, a business entity. It costs money to record CDs, promote the band, travel, repair equipment, etc… It’s a daily struggle just to stay afloat. Still, after fighting for survival for over 6 years, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
