Auld Clang Syne

December 30, 2015 10:41 AM

Bassist Steve Wallace reflects on the "good old days" of New Year's Eve gigs for working musicians on the Toronto scene and shares a few stories.

Back in the good old days when there was still an actual music business, all musicians worked New Year’s Eve. I mean everybody, except for the elite guys who didn’t want to, or have to. It didn’t even matter if you were any good or not, demand was high enough that you had some kind of a gig that night even if you weren’t ready, if only to provide a semi-warm body on a bandstand somewhere. These “general business” gigs paid at least double-scale for that night, so in the ‘70s you could walk away with $250 as a sideman – later $400 or $500 – pretty good money in those days. It usually meant a considerable amount of abject bandstand suffering and put you right in touch with your “inner musical whore”, but the payoff kept the wolf from the door during the always lean month of January, when musicians’ date-books resembled blizzards – you know, all white pages, no gigs written down.

From the Associate Musicians of Greater New York: My Favorite New Year’s Eve Gig Story

posted by mandolin conspiracy (15 comments total)

I haven't gigged for, like, thirteen years, and not playing New Year's Eve still feels like a night off.
posted by Trochanter at 11:01 AM on December 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

While NYE gigs may have diminished some in importance, January still stinks for a lot of gigging musicians. I've never quite been just a "warm body on the bandstand," but a lot of this reminds me of my own experiences. Thanks for posting!
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 12:02 PM on December 30, 2015

Thank you so much for this, particularly because he talks about a now-gone hotel in Toronto, matches from which I've had in my possession for years, discovered in the pockets of one of my grandfather's old suits.
I left a comment on his post, telling the story.
posted by chococat at 12:12 PM on December 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah the most I've ever been paid for a night of gigging was NYs 2009 in Berlin, three sets in three bars that were part of a wristband ticketed event. That 3rd set, approximately 3:00-4:30am, was the most fun I've ever had on a stage. After a couple of songs we abandoned our set and just started playing covers, which we hadn't even practiced. The singer gave the mic over to whoever from the audience felt like jumping on stage. So basically karaoke. I played with one drumstick and a beer in the other hand.
posted by mannequito at 12:27 PM on December 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

New Year's Eve has always been my least favorite holiday for some of the same reasons touched on in the article. For at least twenty-five years I worked every single New Year's Eve. The pay was automatically twice the usual amount, which, in the old days, especially in the 70s, when I was in the Musician's Union in the Midwest, was very good for just a regular bar band.

People had such high expectations on those gigs. New' Year's Eve was The Night to Party. Capital F-U-N. The fun seldom matched the expectations of the party people, and we had to try twice as hard to smile twice as much...as if we were actually having the time of our lives...

I do have an 8-10 NYE dinner jazz trio gig tomorrow night, but I'll be a civilian at a chill multi-generational party after that. I'm looking forward to it. My expectations for New Year's Eve have been permanently lowered, so I'm sure I'll enjoy the evening.
posted by kozad at 12:43 PM on December 30, 2015

I left a comment on his post, telling the story.
Which now seems to be deleted. Oh well.
posted by chococat at 12:58 PM on December 30, 2015

My best friend Joseph is a pianist, trumpet player and a band leader. I've known him since the age of 10 years. Having spent much time with him and his musician friends, these stories just feel right. Wonderful.
posted by Splunge at 3:00 PM on December 30, 2015

Yeah, this is my 3rd or 4th New Years without a gig, after probably 30? years with one. Threw some of the parties myself, but we always played. It does feel odd & dang, right now I could use the scratch.

My considerable body of musical knowledge is basically a vast inventory of corrected errors, rounded out by a lot of listening and reading.

This is the simplest, profoundest truth about playing I've read in a long time.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:35 PM on December 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is sad. It makes me think of when I was a young man and all sorts of people went into music as a profession, with the rational expectation of being able to earn a decent living that way.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:17 PM on December 30, 2015

I kinda got most of those references, except for the life of me I can't figure out the joke about the accordion, clarinet and drum trio. Is the punchline how demand on NYE is so great a completely ludicrous band can get work even if they are unemployed for the rest of the year? Maybe it's a generational thing but an accordion and clarinet led band doesn't seem much more obscure at this point than a NYE set list of polka, waltzes and dixie..
posted by midmarch snowman at 7:24 PM on December 30, 2015

There's a New York area "club date musician's" group on Facebook, and the posts from players looking for a NYE gig and those cancelled from their NYE gigs are plentiful and depressing. My feeling is that it was the 1999 NYE that really started the decline in gigs – bands charged a hefty premium and a lot of establishments lost money on lower turnouts (Y2K fears?). I made a lot of money that night but have only worked about half the NYEs since then. And, at least in the New York area, the concept of double scale is out the window. There is no such thing as even regular "scale" that I see (unless you are doing a bona-fide union-contracted gig, which I and many other musicians I know do pretty much never). Many NYE gigs now pay less than regular scale because they're scarce and there are so many musicians out of work.

I guess I'm a Debbie Downer today – ironic since the band I joined a few years ago has had well-paying gigs every NYE! But I feel for my brethren of the bow ties!
posted by keys at 8:51 PM on December 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I guess Steve Wallace agrees with my assessment of Y2K killing NYE gigs – wish I had seen that part before I typed what he pretty much already said verbatim! Whoopsie.
posted by keys at 9:13 PM on December 30, 2015

The New Year's Eve joke, which, incidentally, I tell better, is funny to musicians who work hard at their craft. The unlikely trio does a stellar job and is very successful on the gig - the people are happy, the boss is happy. But not only do they not do gigs the rest of the year, they don't even practice! This joke gets a deep gut reaction from working - or formerly working - musicians; not so much a laugh as a moan.
posted by Jode at 12:15 AM on December 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

I played some old-style bowtie gigs like this , in my youth. Some of those musicians were funny as hell old guys. A lot of them really really loved big band music, and they were fully intending to run out the clock pretending that it was still 1940. And don't play none of that Chinese music! Get your beret and get off my stage. They reminded me of those Japanese officers who held out in the jungle until the 1970s.
posted by thelonius at 7:42 AM on December 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

midmarch snowman, only a badly broken elbow is keeping my sweetie and me from a NYE ball of waltzes, polka, tango and swing (not limited to Dixie). It isn't dead while there's a rug to cut!

It isn't cheap, either, as it requires more floorspace per couple than any rock dancing, and my city has destroyed most of its dance floors. (O horrible hotels, carpet with seams in it is not a dancefloor.)
posted by clew at 1:02 PM on December 31, 2015