Ahh... The Strip.
My band has played an average of once every 1-2 months there for the past 4 1/2 years including The Whisky, Viper Room, and The Roxy.
It's funny... the "oooh" factor those names have to the general public. When you tell your friends you're playing there, many think that somehow you've "made it."
What can I say that hasn't already been said? It is what it is.
Generally, if you want to play a decent night (Friday or Saturday) you pay in the neighborhood of $600-700+.
You ask your network of friends/fans to drive out to the hard-to-get-to "West-side", pay $10-15 per ticket to hopefully at least break even on your expense, pay $7-10 for parking for your short-lived set.
The set?
You get a 30-35 minute slot on a night with about 6 other bands that can range from an acoustic singer-songwriter, to a punky poppy hard rock band like us, to an androgenous she-male electronica artist singing to track-only, to a progressive metal band. Yes, we've played nights like this. And as Darren said, the quality of bands can range from hacks who just want to say they played there and can pay, to great bands with or without a following.
You stand by, waiting for the previous band's set to end, then you have 15 minutes to load your stuff on stage and hopefully get a line check, while the sound man frequently says "we're cutting into your set guys."
Soundcheck? Even if they do it, you better get there 4-5pm, even if your set is at 10pm.
Oh and that 30-35 minute set can get arbitrarily cut short for one reason or another.
The scene? Non-existent. I was too young to have been hanging out there in the glorious 70's-80's hey-dey. From what I understand it had an energy, it was crawling with people of all sorts checking out bands, and the bands that played there were actually of quality.
I'd love to hear more from you guys that lived it!
It was a rude awakening to me to find out that NO ONE goes to these clubs just to hang and check out bands. It's near impossible to build a following this way. Yes, I believe you should do your part in building a crowd but I thinks the clubs have a responsibility to better screen the artists they let play there and to do
some buzz-build or promotion.
On any given night, one band can PACK the house. As soon as their set ends, there's a mass exodus as the other band sets up, and there can sadly be no more than five of their buddies left cheering them on.
We've built our following slowly with friends of friends and the lucky nights where crowds for other bands happen to catch our set. Most nights we at least break even, but we've have our share of being in the negative.
So why have we been doing it?
The goal from the beginning has been to build a tight, well-produced show to hopefully set up an industry "showcase" night. Invite them out, and we'll have a good sized stage with a good sound system and lighting, which these places do provide, to present our show as professionally as possible. The Cat Club (RIP) which mightwarlock mentioned was free and had a cool vibe, but the sound man also double as the bartender and that wasn't cutting it for us.
It's taken quite a long time for us to find out that "they" just don't come out. My singer has worked her butt off to network and get them aware of us, but it just hasn't happened.
From what I understand, "the industry" is more likely to start paying attention to you based on your number of Facebook likes, Twitter followers, and YouTube views.
Oh well... I'm not completely complaining here. I'm just trying to represent what the experience is like playing on the famed Strip in the current day. It's a lot of fun playing those stages. We just can't afford to keep doing it any longer.
It has not recovered.
