Customer Reviews

Making a Living in Your Local Music Market

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Wow. This basically boiled down to a waste of about ( ) of the book's purchase price. Before you buy, beware. This would probably be a good book for you if you are just out of school or are just getting started in "the biz". However, as an experienced musician who thought this title might provide some helpful marketing tips and ideas, I was very disappointed. Its extremely basic. Also, Weissman's idea of what constitutes a local music market seems to be off as well-I would consider Boston, or Portland or any of these cities major metropolitan areas-- not just New York, LA, Nashville and Chicago. At least 2 chapters are wasted on the history of the music scenes of some cities, including those I just mentioned-- how is this important to you if you live in a small Metropolitan area, such as Harrisburg, where I'm at? Also, as a former Boston resident, I don't think Weissman really does the city's scene justice-- major acts besides New Kids on the Block have been broken out of Beantown-- look no farther than the Mighty Mighty Bosstones or Aerosmith. However, there was some interesting, albeit vague, info about the Union, Grants, and Artist in Residence programs. I would think that someone with the qualifications of Weissman would be able to offer much more specified info instead of vague statements such as "Try to set up a meeting with the Creative Director of an Ad Agency". But, then again, maybe its supposed to be more of an overview kinda book. If you're just getting started, this might be a good book for you. If you're out there doing it full time, look elsewhere- there's not much I got out of this book.

Although I never met the author, I attended Bill Fowler's modern guitar class with him in Denver in 1975. I would think that anyone reading this book would find at least one good idea for increasing their musical income.
I have been a professional musician based out of Denver since 1975, and have toured the U.S.A. several times promoting the CDs for my band, Hillbilly Hellcats. My only disagreement with the book is the Alan Remington pricing formula, found on page 50, in which Alan states that the average patron will stay two hours and drink four drinks. That was true in the pre-MADD days. In Colorado people go to jail for driving after two drinks, .05 BAC being the legal limit. Because of this, the average patron is now drinking only 1-2 drinks in two hours, and the resulting lack of sales means that many clubs have closed, and those open are struggling. No club is about to give any band an admission fee and a percentage of the bar, as Alan suggests that a band ask for. Books by Tim Sweeney and Peter Spellman both mention the effects of the anti-drunk driving campaign on clubs, and I was surprised that such a significant economic development was not covered in this book.