I get the "no compete" clause, I'm just talking about bands that are any at the level of playing festivals once in a while and not cushy with cruises so much that they're asked back again....and again as you describe. As a band vying for a spot on that friggin' boat, BOY does it get my goat regarding the damn cruise's "repeat appearances". But I digress.
I'm simply saying venues are drying up and there's no shortage of prog bands trying to be more than studio entities and they've got nowhere to play and the ones who do play (like us)
draw shit. And often the reason they draw shit is because there's competition not only from non-musical stuff but because some prog events happen on the same night in the same towns more often than you think. It's all just disheartening to the extreme and I've been in such a funk for the last year as I watch it continue around me with the only positive being that at least we're not in the mix anymore getting disappointed on a regular basis.
So that leads me to thinking my friend's (in another prog band) idea to have a sort of "strike" as making more and more sense. Some call it "taking your ball and going home" but I call it narrowing down possibilities so that at least the bigger gigs (festivals or almost festivals) can get a decent draw. Of course this is nearly impossible because we can't all get in touch with each other to do this. There's also a few young bands that just play constantly and would think we're insane.
I appreciate your honesty. Yeah, you sound like someone who would never come out to see my band despite whatever accolades we've amassed and achievements including decent CD/download sales. We did a tour last year where we looked at towns we could get gigs in and looked at our mailing list and thought "we can get these people on our mailing list from these towns to come see us because we've never been to Cleveland...ever". So we drive out there from NJ and 2 people show up. I wanted to commit suicide. I also started resenting people's inability to make it out that night. It sucks when the main conversation subject post gig that you have with the 2 people who showed up is how shitty a turnout you had. They massage your ego telling you how good you were but it really sours you from getting on a stage again. At least in the 90's we knew we had no fan base and weren't fazed when we played to empty clubs. Now we sell CDs and downloads-probably more than many of our peers-but it means dick.
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