Joe Cowels - The Playing Part's Free

Joe Cowels has played over a hundred shows a year for two decades, from dive bars to studio sessions, and he's got the stories to prove it. Including the one where a venue owner sat him down at a desk with a notebook and a pistol to talk about a three minute overage fee.

In this episode, Joe and Cliff talk about what actually pays the bills as a gigging musician: how to find venues that respect your time, why a simple email is better protection than a contract, how AI jingle software has changed the session work landscape, and why Joe tells every kid who wants his life to go be a dentist instead (then explains exactly why he means it).

This episode also kicks off a giveaway. Joe hand built a Plum Crazy Purple Strat style guitar, and he's giving it to one MoneyGigs listener. Download the app, use code INV-JCWLS, and you're entered. Full rules at themoneygigs.com/giveaway.

Find Joe at https://joecowelsmusic.com/.

00:00 - Intro & Sponsor 
01:13 - Meet Joe Cowels 
05:34 - "Go Be a Dentist" – Why Music Is a Business 
11:41 - Speed Is a Question of Money 
12:40 - Vegas: Life Inside the Blue Tape Box
21:38 - The Playing Part's Free
25:54 - The Pistol on the Desk
37:07 - The Kroger Math 
45:09 - AI and the $1,200 Jingle Problem 
47:17 - Always Be the Worst Musician in the Room

Know your worth. Download MoneyGigs free on iOS and Android.  Sign up for the public venue database and arrive more prepared for gigs and help other musicians do the same.  Just $2/month.

#GiggingMusician #MusicBusiness #LiveMusic #BluesRock #SessionMusician #MusicianLife #IndependentMusician #MusicPodcast #GuitarGiveaway #KnowYourWorth

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

MoneyGigs is supported by trifloral.com, T R Y F L O R A L dot com forward slash the MoneyGigs to get your discount. Trifloral produces THD beverages. They come in 2.55 and 10 milligram varieties in all sorts of flavors. I have one prior to my gig, and everything is so smooth. Visit T R Y F L O R A L dot com forward slash the money gigs. That's trifloral.com forward slash the money gigs to get your discount. Over 120 gigs a year. Today, 50 horror cars. Our $1200 AI program cost of gigs. I want to remind you that you're listening to this episode, you can win a guitar. Go to themoneygigs.com forward slash giveaway to see the contest details. While you're listening to the episode, you can bring up the gigs and venues that you've played and make ratings of comments earning points toward the guitar. Here's Joe Cowell. Good morning. How are you?

SPEAKER_06 1:18

Uh doing okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

Good. I don't remember if we've met before, but I see you on Facebook so much it feels like it. Um and and throughout social media and whatnot. So you you're really good at marketing. Uh how much uh how much of that is you and do or do you have a team?

SPEAKER_06 1:36

Yeah, I do it all myself, sort of by choice, really. I mean, but there's ways nowadays that you can pay people to do stuff uh you know pretty cheaply, and and there's so much AI stuff out there that you can you can uh certainly utilize that. Right. Uh you know, when it comes to uh uh you know musicians and and the money problem, right? Uh oftentimes the musician is his own worst enemy because of the psychology of this being a business versus this being a feel-good activity. And it's sometimes hard to separate the two. That's that's a real thing. When you said product earlier, that's the perfect word because it's it is what it is, right? Uh, but when you say that to some guys, some guys get offended, they talk about that's my art.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

It's funny you said the thing about the product, right? Because that was the thing with the Archburger when the McDonald's CEO was referring to it as his product, and everybody was up in arms about that. And I exist in that space. I get why people were up in arms about referring to food as a product, but that's that's a corporate realism of it. It is your product. Uh, so that's that's an interesting state. Yeah, I appreciate you making that statement though, because now I know who I'm talking to. Uh that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_06 2:50

That's the thing. It's like it, it's like horses for courses, right? Like uh when you're talking to you know a fan, like, yeah, they don't want to hear about the product, but when you're talking to the guy at the venue, he very much does want to hear about the product. He wants to hear about uh you know what you're gonna do for his business because at the end of the day, he's looking to keep his lights on too.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

Let's start off with a little baseball card um to properly frame this. So, Joe Cowells, uh, for anyone just meeting you, uh, who is Joe Cowells? Where are you from, and how long have you been doing this?

SPEAKER_06 3:23

I was a kid that grew up in the uh in the unfashionable end of New York. I started playing in bars and and little clubs and stuff in New York at 14 and 15. Playing with guys two and three times my age, and that was kind of how I how I cut my teeth. I started playing uh a lot of jazz. And what I quickly learned was that you could play 27 chords for you know three people, or you could play three chords for a whole lot more people, and one of those paid a whole lot more. It's a bummer, you know, not playing to uh very many people, and it's a bummer to you know go up there and play and pour your heart out into something, and at the end of the day, it's like, wow, I got twelve dollars and I spent six dollars getting here, and and do you want to eat today? Some part of me will always love that. I don't know that, at least for me, anyways, I don't know that it's a it's a profitable venture. I mean, obviously there's there's some guys out there that that do uh play jazz and tour and and and do that stuff, but uh comparatively speaking, if you took somebody like say Scott Henderson, uh, and then you say, okay, well he tours and he, you know, and he's and he's successful what he does. I mean, obviously the guy stays on the road and he does what he does. Does he make uh Michael Jackson money or or you know Taylor Swift money or or you know what I mean? Like, no, there's a certain level of um you do what you do because you love it, and then there's a certain level of but a man's gotta eat. And trying to find that happy balance between the two is a thing that will cripple a lot of musicians.

SPEAKER_05 5:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 5:04

In my local scene, I see so many guys that will play a show for 50 bucks. Uh you know, they they still have a day job, and they uh played the room because it's a popular nightclub or whatever, and so it's like, oh man, the room was packed and we played two, you know, 100 people, and that felt really good. That doesn't pay the bills, you know, there's the part that feels good, and there's the part that that pays money, and and the two don't always necessarily meet. And there's also a point where when you're when you're talking about this as a business, if you're gonna do this full time, you know, I got every now and then I get a little kid that comes up to me and says, What do I gotta do to be a full-time musician like you? And I want to grab him by the shirt, shake him, and go, be a dentist. There's a a thing you have to realize when you make this your job, right? You know, first of all, you you are your own boss, you're like an independent contractor. Uh you are responsible for you. And you don't get to say, Well, my boss made a bad decision and it was a slow business day. No, no, you're the boss, right? You're the boss. So you you ultimately have to start thinking like a business guy, and you just have to start thinking about like I'm selling my product. What is my public image in the market? All all these things that are not very, you know, like artistic and and and are not cool guy sounding, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

Well, that's you know, I went to college for jazz and and music, and at no point, I feel like there were some big muscles that we missed uh during the five years I was doing that. Uh I I learned a lot about Bebop and I I played, you know, 12 hours a day. And at the time, um you know, ibuprofen was the way to go uh until we got smart about that, carpal tunnel, tendonitis, all that stuff. I did all that. But at no point I think we missed some big muscles, and they happen maybe to have to be the muscles we sit on. Uh, and that would be business uh related type of things. Um, how do I balance those things and sit on the artistry uh or support the artistry that I'm trying to do? And I I always tell people you either decide you like to do that and want to do that, or you figure out how to get someone to represent you and and delegate that to someone who can do it uh and and things like that. So yeah, that that's really important. I like what you said about Michael Jackson money as well, because at no point did someone say to me, you know, there's there's busking and they're selling millions of albums to millions of people, and those seem to be the duality. It seems to be I'm gonna play for nothing or I'm gonna get discovered and be on, you know, uh TV shows and movies and whatnot. And there's probably a spectrum between those two aspects that that will serve you well, but at no point did someone point me at that. At no point did someone create an example, a Joe Cows, and say, You could do this. How does that feel? And does that represent the balance that you want? And that that I think is hugely missing in sort of the upbringing.

SPEAKER_06 8:15

So, like, you know, you're saying the the the hidden spectrum in between, and and there and there absolutely is. And yeah, if you uh if you went to Berkeley or something, here's some cool guy scales that you're gonna use once in your life, and and and doesn't that sound neat? And then there might be one or two business classes if you choose to take them, and and a lot of people like their their inner artists just you know the hair cackles and they and they go, I'm not I'm not taking that crap, you know. I suffer with my art. Well, you will in fact suffer for your art. Um there there is all those spectrums that are there in the middle, and it's doing all the not cool guy stuff.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:52

And and they don't they don't necessarily point that stuff out to you. So for example, like my guitar has probably played in your home and you never knew it because it was you know part of a commercial.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_06 9:05

And those things pay money, right? But nobody, you know, nobody's gonna tell you at the local art college or or you know, if you've got a birthday or whatever, like they're probably not gonna tell you, like, hey, by the way, you can get into making you know money, uh, you know, doing the recordings for you know, whatever dog food commercials or or whatever it is, right? Right, right. And and they pay you for that. They want some totally soul-sucking repetitive poppy thing or whatever that you know, they're gonna, hey, our our dog food is is Western thing, play this country sounding thing, but it should be kind of a 30-second repetitive loop. We're just gonna talk over you. Like, you know, if if you're if you're the artist guy, that's sort of soul crushing, right? But it's like but that's a thing that pays and it and it makes money. If you were a guy who was a mechanic, you might load car. Um so is the job fixing cars? Well, kind of. Look, you're not fixing any cars until people bring you a car, right? So then you gotta market right and advertise to to tell people, hey, I'm a guy and I fix cars. And then people say, Well, why why do I give a crap if you fix cars, right? Well, so you have to explain to them that there's a reason you want me to fix cars, right? Uh so yes, you're developing that brand and you're developing that you know marketing strategy, and you're developing an image, and you gotta have a slogan and maybe a logo and all these other things that go into it, right? And next thing you know, it's like, man, I'm juggling 30 packs.

SPEAKER_05 10:36

Right.

SPEAKER_06 10:37

So, you know, if you wanted to be a successful musician and you and you come to terms with the idea that yes, this is a business, right? You have to be that guy.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Right.

SPEAKER_06 10:48

So you you're the next thing you know, like you're not just the guy that plays guitar or plays drums or plays saxophone or whatever, right? You have to be the guy that, like, well, now I know how to build a website, now I know how to market, now I know who to advertise, now I know about um you know learning uh branding and learning an imaging. Now I have to learn um you know how to do taxes at the end of the year. So you know, in my case, at the end of the year, I get 1099, but I send 1099 because the guys in the band are are effectively employed. So I have to give them a 1099. They need that to claim as the income, but then I need to be able to write it off.

SPEAKER_05 11:31

Write it off, right?

SPEAKER_06 11:32

Like, well, I really didn't make $100,000 because I paid this guy $20 and I paid this guy $30 or whatever. You know what I mean? Like as part of that business. So you know, now you're a tax guy, like you are juggling a lot of stuff, and then with all of that stuff going on, you're always looking for that next gig. As a smart business guy, you should never ever tell anyone no. The the answer is never no. The answer is that speed is a question of money. How fast do you want to go?

unknown 12:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:04

Uh, I would never tell anybody, like, I'm not going to banger main to play a show. Um, you know, yeah, the answer isn't that it's no, the answer is that I would not go to banger main for too many bucks.

SPEAKER_05 12:16

Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 12:17

For $5,000 we want you here, I'd say, well, suddenly, well, you know, I could go to Bangor Maine, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Do you have any favorite stories from things you may have witnessed?

SPEAKER_06 13:00

Yeah, Vegas was kind of a crazy place. Um if you haven't been there, you probably can't appreciate um how insane uh the whole city can be a place where you know rules and and stuff are are really more like guidelines than than really rules, because there the whole city really does live by the model of you know speed question money, how fast do you want to go? Like almost anything can be can be bought or traded or sold or or eaten if you just wanted to spend enough money on it. Um so there's there's lots of crazy, crazy stories that happened in Las Vegas, but um, you know, the the the job thing out there was really, really cheap because uh you know, so many guys want those gigs. You know, they were they were kind of cooking gigs you you played for uh the casino and they they gave you a room, they you know did your laundry, they brought your room service for food. I mean you didn't really live there, you didn't have any bills, and then you walked down and you did, you know, whatever it was, you know, two shows, three shows a day. Um and that was it, that was all you did. Um you had no bills, uh you paid reasonably well, so it was kind of all profit, and so a lot of these guys essentially wasted and squandered you know the money that they were making, but um but because it was such a crazy gig, all these guys wanted the one of those gigs, so for every game that had a gig, there was you know 500 games, you know, open the few crypto phone to your desk because then they could take the gig. Um and because of that, and there were so many good players waiting to get those gigs. I mean they could and would fire you over anything and everything. Um when you when you played on the stage, um they used to put a blue painter tape on the stage, and it was about a two foot by two foot square. And you and your you know, like your titles and all the stuff you had to sort of fit in there, in the early days of fitness. Um later on they went to silent stages and there were no amps for your feet. It might be someone that goes directly, or maybe it was under the stage or whatever, but um but you know, you and all your stuff had to fit in this box, and I just I remember one time playing with the games and you know he had just this little five-second guitar thing and he's gonna step forward and play my little my little guitar thing, and everyone's gonna be winning by my my little guitar a little bit here. And so he didn't step down the box and um the stage manager was was was standing on the stage of the audience could see the minute the the the curtain closed, like he walks straight to the scene and basically told him you and your stuff are fired and you know get from my casino and I never want to see you again and the state. And they turn him out on his ear. Literally, literally like a security walk him out of the place and they had somebody else bring him down his bags because he wasn't even allowed to go get his own bags. They would they would hurry over anything and everything because there were just so many good players waiting to get big behind it.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

On purpose, uh, there will be no video, but you're in a black cowboy hat and a black shirt, but you could easily be in a suit and tie talking to me right now because you're you're so business cognizant. But I want to make sure to round out sort of the baseball card. You have the Joe Cows band. Uh, how would you describe the Joe Cows band sound? What what is it? What's the genre?

SPEAKER_06 17:46

So uh I I describe that as blues rock. That's the one thing I'm sort of doing to uh satisfy my soul, I guess you could say. Um all the stuff that I love as a guitar player. It's um you know, 60s and 70s, blues rock, cream and flatten, and and Hendricks. And but then I uh I I do tend to spin a little bit of some of that other stuff in there, you know. Um, we do a version of Black Magic Woman, for example. But towards the end of it, like I'm playing jazz because I because I like it, you know, and there's a certain level of like this is what I do and this is what I like. Because there's pretty much of it that I have to do for like this is what pays the bill.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

Yeah. No, we're we're very much aligned there. I I play solo gigs twice a week, actually, three times this week, and it's a solo keyboard, and I'll play Michael Jackson or the Kinks or whatever, and I'll get the melody out of the way and the key points from the song. If there's a a you know, a horn hit or something, I'll hit that too. But toward the end, I'm jamming, playing jazz. At some point, everything can come back to that if you want it to. Um, and it becomes a unique quality, a nuance to the song that may sell you to people who weren't expecting that. Uh oh, he didn't just play Born in the USA, uh, he he went somewhere else with it. I picked out a simple tune with simple chord progressions, and now I've kind of put my own spin on it. And I think that jazz background helps you find that way.

SPEAKER_06 19:21

You know, if you weren't uh if you weren't a jazz guy, it would be hard to for a lot of people, I think, to really understand this thing. When I grew up playing jazz as a kid, the biggest sin in the world was to play uh exactly what was on the record. Because the the whole thing was it's like, well, if people wanted to hear the record, then they could stay home and play the record, and it would be perfect every time.

SPEAKER_05 19:48

Right.

SPEAKER_06 19:48

So the whole point of coming to live performances is that things would change. Maybe you play it slightly faster, you play it slightly slower, you play a different uh with a different inflection when you got to the solo part. You know, you're you're gonna hit those high points. If that song had a memorable intro or there's a crescendo that it builds to the middle, like you're gonna hit those high points, but everything between A and B is gonna be different, right? And that might be the greatest thing you've ever heard, or it could be the biggest train wreck you've ever heard, right? Right, right. But you would never know if you weren't there, right? So that was the whole reason to come.

SPEAKER_04 20:25

Did we really learn all this stuff so that we could sound like the record? And it's that cliche phrase, make it your own, because people come first. I my my mantra is people, process, then product, which means the people come first and connecting with them, then we can explore what would what was their journey as a musician and then worry about what it sounds like because I I think that's where we need to go. We need we need to focus back on who is the person, where are they coming from, and how are we connecting as people? If that is me performing to uh another person or me talking to you here, I I'm just deciding authentic connection is first and foremost. And when you're trying to sound like the record, you're focused entirely on the product, only on the product, and you're hoping that if you sound just like the record, you will connect with people. And you didn't need to do that in the first place. You can go ahead and connect with people and then see what they might want to hear uh and and work it out. So I appreciate that. Um your grind reality, uh, 120 dates a year plus sub gigs, recording, fill-ins. What does a normal week actually look like for Joe?

SPEAKER_06 21:38

I would tell you that so much of the business is not the playing part. And and we joke in the band all the time that like the playing part's free. That's the thing we would do anyway, right? Like it was the hauling the gear and the drive and the setup and the advertising. That was the crap that we're charging for because that's the part that wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

Right.

SPEAKER_06 21:57

So my day is spent. I would say six to eight hours every day emailing venues, scrolling over, you know, even things like uh Craigslist or you know, looking at forums on uh you know Facebook and things like that, where people are like, oh man, my guitar player has appendix removed, and he's gonna be out for you know five days, and I need somebody that can fill in, and and you know, and then you go in and look at the set list and you go, Yeah, I I know a ton of that stuff, and I might only have to learn you know five, six songs or whatever, and like you know, between now and Friday, like you know, yeah, that's that's doable. I can do that, right? I spend six, eight hours uh a day, every day, looking at like, for example, for most the pay rate is is typically 150-200 bucks a guy. Whether it's a solo thing or not a band thing. And I know that can that can change area to area. So, you know, in my mind, I'm I'm factoring that in and I'm going, well, for that month, how far am I willing to drive? Kind of cut that off at say an hour and 15, an hour and a half drive. And then in that in that little radius, when I'm looking at a map, it's like I am I am messaging every club I can find once a month. And I might do that for four months, let's say, and if I don't get a reply in four months, I usually leave them though. That kind of is the answer.

SPEAKER_05 23:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 23:25

And then maybe next year, when I start next year's booking, then I might poke them again and say, hey, now I'm booking for 2027.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

When you were doing this, when you do those emails and you were doing this early on, did you have feelings of rejection when you would send things out and you wouldn't get responses? And you're thinking, these people are so rude, they're not courteous at all, I'm not getting responses. Did you ever have anything like that?

SPEAKER_06 23:49

Oh, sure. And that's and that's absolutely that uh that psychology thing that I was talking about.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:54

And it's easy to get down in the dumps about that. And then if you got that, you know, that local bar owner that like to just to to put it the 180, that you know, will answer you, and I'm your best buddy in the whole world, and oh, we're all friends here, and this is a great club, and like and and and whatever, but but it pays 50 bucks, right? But we're all friends and it's a fun place, and it's the happening place to be, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 24:21

Like, yeah, there is an opposite, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:24

And you know, if you played for 50 bucks and you, you know, and you were trying to do this as a living, uh, now I guess if you're the guy that plays uh two gigs a month, I guess you know, you can do what you want. Uh because again, you're the boss, right? But uh for those of us that are trying to, you know, like eat from doing this and and pay the mortgage, like uh the the definition of optimism, right? Is musician with a mortgage.

SPEAKER_05 24:50

Right.

SPEAKER_06 24:50

Um so if if you're trying to do that, you're like, you can't afford to play five times a week for 50 bucks, man.

SPEAKER_05 24:56

Right.

SPEAKER_06 24:57

You know, that's that that doesn't work. There are times when I have literally looked at gigs and said, Well, this guy pays, you know, 200 bucks, or this guy pays 250 bucks, but I gotta drive an hour, and I'm probably playing to you know, 15 people, and one of them might want to tell me to shut up because they'd rather hear the game. Or I could go play the coolly cool club, but it's only 50 bucks, and it's like, but I spend you know uh 30 bucks in gas getting there, and it's like this this is not a winning venture, and so you have to make the smart business decision and not the thing that feels good at the time.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

And my primer questions to you, you said so many stories about venue experiences. Uh, do you have any that come to mind? We can leave the names out and such to make it respectful and professional, but uh, do you have anything in your pocket uh that you'd be willing to share?

SPEAKER_06 25:54

I played for a guy one time. This was a venue in uh Nevada where I played. And when I got done, the guy says, Well, come back into my office and we'll go over the numbers. Go over the numbers? What does that mean, Scoob? Like, you know, like I'm going, that doesn't compute. I thought we had an agreement. And then the other part of me, and I'm and maybe this is just my inner New Yorker, it was like, Oh, look who wants to get punched in the mouth here trying to change the deal, right? Right. So I'm somewhere between like concerned and like getting really upset.

SPEAKER_05 26:30

Right.

SPEAKER_06 26:31

The minute I walked in the office, he's sitting at his desk, and I walk in the office and he's sitting there with a he's got a notebook in front of him and a pistol late late next to it.

unknown 26:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 26:41

And I come in and I'm standing there and I'm looking at him, and he goes, sit down. And I'm like, oh, okay. And and I sit down and he's looking at the numbers, and he's like, Well, and this cost this, and this cost this, and this cost this, and you know, and you guys uh, you know, you you he no joke, he literally said this, you guys ended three minutes early.

SPEAKER_04 27:06

Three minutes early.

SPEAKER_06 27:07

Three minutes early. We were supposed to play till 12, and and I guess by his clock we ended at 1157. In my mind, uh it's like, well, you know, when I play songs that are five and six minutes long, it's like, well, running over sometimes is is a bad idea. People don't like it when you run over.

SPEAKER_05 27:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 27:26

If you're at a place where there's provided sound, the other guy's like, hey, the minute you're 30 seconds over, I'm not getting paid anymore. Like, you know, hey, uh let's go.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 27:34

So like running over is can be a bad thing. Now if you're playing your local your local bar or whatever, like maybe they don't care. You know, maybe your show ends at 12, but maybe you can play it at 1230, and they're like, hey, cool, free more free music, right? But in in a lot of a lot of the clubs, it's it's it can be bad to to run over. So I'm sure I was probably at the moment, you know, on my watch, I'm looking at 1157, 1158, and I'm going, I can't put another song in, so hey, we're done.

SPEAKER_05 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:03

But he literally mentioned that. Um, you know, you ended three minutes early, and he's like a signing fine. That's minus 20. 20 bucks. Yeah. And so at the end, it's like, you know, he hands me this money, and of course, it's significantly light. And I'm kind of looking at the money and I'm looking at him, and then I'm looking at the pistol, and I'm looking at him, and I'm looking at the money, and I'm going, sometimes discretion is the better part of that.

unknown 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:28

Did you ever play there again? Absolutely not. Good, good for you. I can choose to not be part of that. Now, 50 bucks or whatever it was, or 75 bucks is probably not worth getting shot over. So, like, I'm gonna I'm gonna take it and go, okay, have a good one, and just not come back, you know, and that's true of lots of things. Um, whether you're playing band doing solos, when the guy stiffs you or whatever, sometimes you can have recourse, but a lot of times it's honestly not worth it. Now, I I will tell you, I have taken venues to small claims for. And it's not difficult. Uh, some people seem to think like when the guy stiffs you, like, oh, you've got no recourse and you're just you're just you know SOL. That's not true. Um, it's actually relatively easy to take someone to small claims for. Wow. And if they're a business, if you're suing the the bar or or the venue or whatever, well, they can't afford to not show up. If you don't show up, you automatically lose. If I sue Bob's bar and Bob doesn't show up, I can say anything I want and I automatically win, right? So that that's not good for Bob.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

Right.

SPEAKER_06 29:41

Bob shows up. That's when I present my evidence of here's what we agreed to. And every single time, ultimately, they have always sighted with me and said, Hey, you know, there's no reason anybody would look at this and think that it shouldn't have been exactly what you put in the email or whatever. And they side with me, and the guy's having to pay me because you know, you don't want liens against your business for you know not paying some dude, you know, 600 bucks for his band or whatever. Like that's it's not worth it. So um when you do that, the two things you have to realize is like, okay, this is a process and it and it takes a little while. Small claims court in your local municipality is faster than you know big stuff, but I mean it it might take a month or two. But it also means you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever play there again.

SPEAKER_05 30:30

Right.

SPEAKER_06 30:31

Because now you now you have offended him by forcing him to pay you when he didn't want to pay you and it hurt his feelings and you know, all that kind of stuff. And the other thing that can go on with that is so you sued the guy, who are his friends? Because sometimes you might discover that that club owner is also friends with two other club owners in town, right? And then suddenly now I can't play those clubs either.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

There's that people thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:59

So um, if you are okay with that, then sure, you can go ahead and sue. And and it's surprisingly easy, which would lead me to the other thing that I would mention, which is contracts, right? That's the scary.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:14

Sounds like a lawyer, sounds like there's lots of things going on, and and and and I don't I don't speak Latin, right? When a venue has sent me a contract, that to me that's the greatest security blanket in the world. They sent me a contract. That means, first of all, like they're worried about getting screwed. And second of all, that means that like they're a professional outfit. They have things they're worried about. They're they want to make a dollar. When they send me a contract, I I I read it through, and it's usually pretty plain English. None of these guys are road scholars or anything. And I read it through, and it's usually like, you know, great, yeah, don't don't stiff me. And you know, and maybe they might have a clause in there about hey, we pay by check, but it'll be 1099. And the other places when you play, and you know, when you play Bob's Bar, Bob's Bar is not gonna sign a contract, and you'll you'll inevitably at some point in this business, some genius is going to tell you when you when you get stiff. That's why you gotta have a contract. Well, yeah, except for that when you present Bob's bar with a contract, he's gonna look at that and go, I'm just not gonna have you.

SPEAKER_05 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:20

Here's the thing. If you send the guy an email or or even, believe it or not, Facebook messages, when you have something where you say, Okay, so at the final end of the thing, okay, so I will see you, you know, Friday, August 1st, 8 to 12, you know, 600 bucks for the ban, man, that's your evidence right there.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

Right.

SPEAKER_06 32:42

When you go to small claims court, like it, it's it's in black and white. There ain't no way around it.

SPEAKER_05 32:47

Right.

SPEAKER_06 32:47

When you spell all that out and the guy says you just agree.

SPEAKER_05 32:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 32:53

All of that stuff looks great, but that's part of that that psychology effect, too. So you know, there's the ACDC song about that's a long way to the top, and like all of that stuff is true. Um you get stiffed, uh, you get threatened, you will come out and find your car's been broken into and somebody stole your stuff. All that stuff happened.

SPEAKER_04 33:14

Well, it sounds like you've you've definitely had some interesting experiences. Uh, the pistol on the desk is still with me. That's a very good negotiation tactic. Not a lot of choices there. Um, but you said filling the calendar is a daily full-time job, and we've talked about that. What's your actual system? Like, how do you track it, manage it, keep it from eating your brain?

SPEAKER_06 33:35

I keep copies of everything. Um and once you've started to become that tech guy where you know, like you're doing 1099s and you're you're keeping your receipts and and you're uh keeping a logbook of how many miles you drive, and and uh and when I stop and filled up my gas tank, I'm gonna get my receipt and save it, right? You just get into that kind of mood. Uh you you keep every email that you send, you know, you you save them so that you know, like, oh yeah, uh I I talked to that guy 30 days ago or or 35 days ago. Yeah, it's probably about time I sent him another one as a as an update. And by the time I see that name say four times, I go, okay, well, that is my answer.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

Move on.

SPEAKER_06 34:18

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ping him again. So uh I'll wait until for me it's October. Uh about October, I start saying it's time to book for next year. That's when I go to first every place I played this year, and I say, Hey, I'm booking for next year, you know, and I'm booking, you know, for me, I booked the whole year. I'm booking the whole year, you know, let me know you know what you got. And I try to give those people the first the first dig of things, and then I go back to it, well, let's message all the places that didn't apply. Like, I'm not doing X, Y, M, D right now. Hey, I'm booking, you know, next year if anything's changed, you know, let me know. And then I start looking for the other place. You know, my my system is kind of like so. I'm looking at that uh, you know, say 150 to 200 bucks a guy kind of thing. And I and I start saying, okay, for me, that's about say an hour and 15 to an hour and 30 minutes drop. And then I message every place in that, you know.

SPEAKER_05 35:18

Right.

SPEAKER_06 35:18

If you live in a little town, it's like you probably have two or three bars, right? So, how many bars do you think are within say an hour and a half of you? And if you live, you know, near any kind of you know, metropolitan area, it's like, man, look at that's thousands. So if you think, well, I've messaged every bar in my town, I did it in two days, like no, you haven't. You need to uh you know seriously reconsider that and find other ways to search so that you can spend hours doing that, and I do. And even now that I've been doing this for years, I still discover, like, oh, you know, I'll see some other band post about it or something. I'll say, Oh, I didn't even know that place existed, and they have music, and I and I start messaging that this place. Then there is where I start saying, Okay, if I feel like uh maybe I've run into a wall, okay, I've I've searched for an hour and I haven't found in, right? Now let's change views. I've got these dates I haven't booked, uh, maybe say in the next two weeks. Likelihood of picking up a gig, I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but the likelihood of picking up that gig in the next say two weeks is pretty slim. You know, unless somebody says, hey, so-and-so cancel them in, are you available? Right, right, um, you're probably not gonna fill it. So then I start looking for those, hey, my guitarist is out sick, hey, my bassist is out sick, um, who could step in and fill this? And I start looking for those subjects. Then uh after that, we start looking for uh so for example, no one is probably paying you to play music Monday at eight o'clock in the morning, right? So I've never I would never say never, man. I've played groceries.

SPEAKER_04 37:06

Breakfast gig, sure.

SPEAKER_06 37:07

I've played grocery stores. Um in my in my area, and I don't know about your buttons. In my area, the there's a grocery chain here called Kroger.

SPEAKER_05 37:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:16

And um, and this is so back to that psychology thing. This is one of those gigs that the I'm an artist guy uh will thumb their nose at because they're like, you know, whatever, playing in the corner, or maybe you're playing next to the Starbucks or something, and people just walk on by you and nobody claps or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

Yeah, there's Edna with her basket, and she's got the big brick of toilet paper as you're going as she's going by and you're trying to play something um poignant, you know. Love those moments.

SPEAKER_06 37:44

And uh that can be a little soul crushing. And for you know, the the feel-good guys, it's like this doesn't feel good. I don't want this. But that's the gig that might pay 250 bucks to play two hours, right? And that's something you can do on a Monday from you know, say 10 to 10 to noon or something, or noon to two, and it's like no no other place is paying you to pay music during those times.

SPEAKER_05 38:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 38:11

And if you could pick up, you know, if you went to say three different Kroger's and you had two gigs in each of them, now you've got six gigs paying you, say, 200 bucks, 250 bucks a a go, you just made a thousand dollars. Yeah, and you haven't even touched your Fridays or Saturday nights or or even a Sunday afternoon playing at the buoy or anything like that, right?

SPEAKER_05 38:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_06 38:33

So, like, how do you get paid? Like, stop worrying about what feels good. That psychology thing can go into that too, because if you're the guy that says, Well, I only play country music or I only play whatever, right? And so you're playing that and the people aren't digging it. You're like, man, this is a this is a bum. You know what I mean? And when the guy comes and tells you, like, hey, you know, you you're you're blasting these folks out, like, you know, what he's really telling you is read the room because you didn't read the room. And uh, but you know, you want to you're playing whatever, you you you're playing Quiet Riot, and you quiet why it's gotta be loud. So yeah, you're but you're playing in a restaurant, you're blasting the 80-year-old people sitting in front of you, like then they don't even know what this is that you're playing.

SPEAKER_05 39:13

Right.

SPEAKER_06 39:14

Um but you know, that stuff doesn't feel good, right? And and then you think, well, I don't want to go back there, but man, if that was the gig that paid 250 bucks, man, I don't want to play there every week if they let me.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Yeah. I think it's a valuable question to take with you as a musician in any circumstance, really any circumstance at any time is what can I learn from this? Uh that that's that's the thing that I was missing probably in my 20s. Uh certainly it dissipated in my 30s, but it's it's taken well into my 50s now to get to the point where I'm like really observant. Um, you know, I my my philosophy with a lot of things is Texas holding poker. When you're dealt the two cards, you're not in control of that. The three on the table, you're not in control of that. And what comes next, you're not in control of, but you are in control of do I play this game or do I fold? Uh, and then thereafter, how do I play this game? And and I think that for me is the situation of a gig being presented to you or you being delivered to a gig situation. What am I in control of? Do I want to play this game? And if so, go all in.

SPEAKER_06 40:18

Um and having the skill set to to play that game.

SPEAKER_05 40:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:22

Uh you know, I you know, I'm in love with with the blues rock stuff, and I, you know, and I and I do love uh, you know, some jazz stuff, but like, you know, maybe having two or three country songs in your back pocket, you know, you don't have to be madly in love with them, you just have to be able to play with them, and they have to be something that's a reasonably popular song because you're gonna get that guy that goes, Hey, you know any country, and you look around, you start reading the room, and you go, This is that place, and right, and I don't know that they care about you know the intricacies of green sleeves, or you know what I mean? Like, you know, maybe maybe I'd better play uh Tennessee Whisper. Yeah. You know, so so having that kind of stuff, be you know, you can be the whatever guy, but like maybe I better know a couple pop songs and a couple country songs, and yep. Uh and that stuff's gonna benefit you uh again when you're back to juggling hats. Um there's a lot of other jobs. So, for example, like I said, you know, I I I go to search my solo gigs, I go search my band gigs, then I'm looking for those sub gigs, you know, then I'm looking for you know any of those like day type gigs. Can I pick up daytimes at you know at a at a Kroger, at a coffee house, at a brew house, at any of that kind of stuff? Yeah, I'm looking for recording gigs because that stuff I can do in my underwear at two o'clock in the morning. They don't care when I do it as long as I get it to them by a certain deadline, right? Yeah, I'm looking for those recording gigs. Then the other thing to look for is teaching. And this is this is one of those things where people leave money on the table, and you have to have a certain mentality, you know, to teach somebody.

SPEAKER_05 41:59

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 42:00

You know all this stuff and they don't, and you get it's easy to get frustrated when you're trying to show somebody something and you're like, damn it, no, it's like this, right? But they don't know that, man. They're new, so you do have to have a certain mentality to teach, but when no one is paying you to play on Tuesday or Thursday, you know, morning between the hours of say 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., you could be teaching. I mean, if you taught somebody and you charge you know 50 bucks a lesson for a 30-minute lesson or a 45-minute lesson or whatever, and man, you can line up three of those on a Tuesday and three of those on a Thursday. It's like, well, that's that's another 300 bucks. Being able to juggle all those hats, not just standing on stage and making some cool rock guitar guy, you know, I'm guitar guy faces. Like, you know, we love to do that when we can get away with it, right? Sure. Being able to do all the not cool guy stuff, you know, uh being able to do uh somebody mails you tracks and says, Hey, I just I'm not a guitar player, but this song kind of calls for a guitar solo. Everything else on here is keyboard. Can you can you put a guitar solo on this? You know, pay me and and and I'll be there. Playing those daytime gigs that you know, they may be wine bars, they may be coffee houses, they may be breweries, they might be at the grocery store, they might be whatever. Even to the point of busting, if you were trying to do this full time, I have told people if if I was starting today and I had no, I had no brand, I had no image, it's a process and you have to build a website and all that kind of stuff. But between here and there, man's gotta eat, and you gotta like, you know, maybe pay the rent and not get thrown out in the street, right?

SPEAKER_05 43:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 43:32

If I couldn't find somebody that would pay me, I would probably drive up to the nearest sports bar. And I would walk in with a with a small PA and like an acoustic electric guitar, and I would walk in and I would say, Hey, look, I'm uh I don't know you normally don't probably do this, right? But if you would let me, I would set up over here in the corner and I would play for you know maybe two, maybe three hours. I'll keep it as a respect.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

volume so you the patrons can still talk or whatever right I'm not blasting anybody out and I'm literally happy just to just lay him for tips and have them see if I was starting out that's something that gets you seen and at that point if you made say sixty bucks in tips sixty bucks is better than no right it's product market fit too it it kind of verifies that you're appreciated you're not running anybody out of the room you're actually being appreciated monetarily uh that's that's some validation um you've covered a lot of things and something came to mind as you were talking about what everybody's doing with music and and and the different ways venues are using AI to to book fans are using AI to discover music we've got ai all over the place uh with with different different types of music and it's encouraging to me that you're being asked to record things uh still and and we still have that opportunity in this new landscape i'm I'm curious how that's how AI is like encroached upon your your game at all um and and what your disposition is with it.

SPEAKER_06 45:09

I mean it can be a great marketing tool but I will tell you I have lost gigs AI because there is there is programs now that companies can buy that will basically write uh a jingle for you and when you're writing a jingle it's not complex and these companies have come to me and said hey we're not we're not gonna do this anymore because you bought the $1200 program it's gonna write all you know they'll write a jingle for me every five minutes if I want so I have lost some gigs and I and I will say I'm doing less of that now than I did say 10 years ago. My false economy moment with those people is like well but it's like a computer right you bought a $1200 program and unless you're gonna write a million jingles this year you know that next year that program's going to be out of date.

SPEAKER_05 45:50

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_06 45:55

Whereas me, I'm always up to date that's right.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

That's right. I think so yeah it's it's an interesting I'm not necessarily threatened by it. Again I call it cards on the table in the Texas Old and poker analogy but it's just cards on the table. I'm not necessarily threatened by it because I I I do think there's going to be a return to analog people I just bought actually a a CD player with a cassette tape player on it um from students. Yeah which we're talking about CDs like it's ancient too uh and and that's that blows my mind as well um you you kind of stole my last question which was if if you could tell a musician who's just starting to gig seriously like 30 dates a year and wants to get where you are uh what's one thing you would tell them that nobody tells them you did give a good playbook there for going into a bar to you know kind of get an opportunity and actually that's actually what I did to get my current opportunities um I looked at restaurants that did not have live music and went in and one of them was owned by a friend of mine and and so that resulted in uh two dates a week residency. So you know it's like a 10 minute phone call turned into 17k for the year. So uh but what would you tell uh people starting out that that nobody tells them always aim to be the worst musician in the world because you're gonna learn things from people that are better than you definitely I want to mention um the joe's band dot com website where you can go see everything that is going on with Joe Joe Cows really appreciate it huge thanks to Joe Cowles for the time and for being honest about the parts of this business that don't feel like rock and roll go check him out at joe cowsband.com link is in the show notes one more thing and this one's a fun one Joe didn't just give us his time for this episode he handbuilt a guitar a plum crazy purple strat style build custom noiseless pickups bone nut hard shellcase the whole thing and he's giving it away to one listener. Here's how you get in download the MoneyGigs app, use the code INV-JTWLS and you're entered. Rate the venue, send in a gig screenshot refer a friend all of that adds entries. Full rules are at the money gigs.com slash giveaway links in the description that's it for this 2015 time next episode until then know your work and I'll see you out there