For starters, cops are everywhere…

Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re the most underpaid, under appreciated lot to have to walk the earth, but as one who’s typically behind the wheel after the bars close, The Sheriff of Nottingham is out in force looking to generate some revenue. Even if you haven’t been drinking, you’d better have current tags or the man’s going to take your car right then and there and let you take the shoe-leather express home. You’d better keep your nose clean, boy…

Aside from that, when it comes to gigs, we always got paid in cash for small to medium size venues… Not so anymore my friends… Suddenly it seems now, any venue of consequence is going to want a 1099 from you… Getting paid “under the table” used to be commonplace and believe me, it was great having that walk around cash to take you through the week but now… The tax man is hammering the clubs so the clubs are hammering us…

Unfortunately, our band had to form an LLC in order to “do business” with these clubs. One potential upside is, things like strings and all music related equipment now becomes tax deductible (for now) so you can potentially realize some benefit there. The beef I have with all this? I just wanna play music, if I wanted to become a businessman, I would have got a real job

With so many cover bands operating in and around San Diego (lol, I’m in one of them), I figured it might not be a bad idea to start showing some love to those of us who will never land “The Big Deal” but continue to play anyway… Even if it is someone else’s material…

Enter the Venue Report, a new segment I’ll be doing reviewing music venues I’ve had first hand experience with so first timers will have an idea what to expect before hitting the road. Starting with, in no particular order…

1st Street Bar - 656 S Coast Highway 101 - 4 sets - 9PM to 1AM

This is one of my favorite venues because of the mix of people who show up there. You really get everything from non-descript locals to people who, by their attire obviously started out at a fancy restaurant earlier in the evening. Either way, there’s definitely eye candy for all. The stage is very small and I really don’t know how 4 and 5 piece bands manage. I play in a trio and am still constantly on the lookout against hitting the neck of my guitar on a poll on the left side of the stage. They have small JBL’s (I believe they’re 12’s w/horns) mounted overhead in front of the stage but they do not have a mixer or power amps. You’ll need to supply your back line, a powered mixer, and monitors if you want to hear yourself on stage. There is one group of outlets for power in the back corner of the stage but you’ll need a strip and or extension cord to access any additional power. They have some stage lighting but nothing on a chaser, nothing blinking.

Like many clubs, this place starts really getting fired up around 10:30 or 11PM so make sure you leave yourself some “A” material for the third and fourth sets. It’s also the kind of place where if you just stand there and play your music without attempting to engage the crowd verbally, they’ll ignore you. 1st Street has the kind of crowd that can be “too cool for school” in that you’ll see them boppin to the music and singing the songs but then they won’t clap for you… You have to artfully call them out when you see they’re having a good time but aren’t making any noise. Some nights, there’s just nothing you can do, some nights you can get them fired up enough that they’ll ask for as many encores as management will let you get away with.

There’s good parking in the back with load in pretty easy through the back door. The only negative is the smally dumpster you have to endure that’s about 20 ft from the back door. A little incentive to make for quick set up and break down.

Generally there is very little fighting at this club BUT, occasionally things can get a little rambunctious by the end of the night. We tend to finish up our last set with some pretty bombastic stuff… Seek and Destroy, Bro Hymn, Guerrilla Radio just to name a few… Management has asked us to stop more than once because people were getting too fired up at such a late hour. They still love us though because we tend to make people drink

I’m not going to go into compensation here because first timers aren’t going to get the kind of money we get but I will say this… Like many bars, you do a good job for them, they’ll take care of you.

Next time, we’ll go North and check out something in the Temecula area…