Women Making Music: Playing Music is a Real Job

It’s been an honor writing this monthly feature called Women Making Music. Since September 2010 it’s been my pleasure to shine a spotlight on women and men in our area who personify the reason Asheville and the surrounding area’s music scenes have become and continue to grow more and more vibrant.

All the jokes going around on social media remind me there is a lot of truth in jest. Like the one that defines “A true musician: someone who puts $5000 worth of gear into a $500 vehicle, drives 100 miles to play a $50 gig.”

Supplementing income is a crucial consideration for musicians. For some of us who are successful at getting regular gigs, it’s still a necessity. In our area the pay for those who know what they’re worth and do the footwork, the ground work to make it happen are, by and large, only sometimes making a decent wage. For me personally, my earnings for club dates, festivals, and private events whether I’m performing in a band, trio or duo, haven’t changed since the 1980’s. I am not alone in this experience.

The hours independent music artists, especially, spend rehearsing, making phone calls, writing press releases, producing then printing promotional flyers and posters, mailing promotional packages or paying for websites and electronic press kits to link prospective buyers to, purchasing and maintaining their gear, emailing gig alerts and creating events and inviting their fan base through Facebook and creating buzzes about performances on twitter and the like, is a full-time job. Hourly wage for these efforts can feel like a buck-two-eighty per hour. If you’ve got another full time job on top of that in order to help support the money going out to keep all those ducks in a row, it can make for very long days and nights. Playing music is a real job.

Now if you’re a touring artist or group with management and booking agency support the amount of money that gets kicked back to pay the folks behind the scenes is often the difference between making a small profit when all is said and played, or being in debt. Sometimes touring artists are out there to make enough money to pay back people who’ve invested in them in hopes that the food chain their music feeds will grow. Recording studio fees, gas bills, hotel rooms, vehicle maintenance, etc. factor in. Studio recordings for release have facets and steps that all cost big money, and most non-musicians have no idea how much work it takes to make a music career happen.

Then there are the independent touring artists who do it all on their own. Living out of RV’s and vans is often the way artists like these survive and make it happen. For all, it’s the creativity and authenticity of the music they are inspired to make, that keep them going, investing in themselves, and that makes the business part of it all roll along at the same time.

For many artists across the world, fan funding platforms like Kickstarter and GoFundMe are the only way they can afford to record their songs, or cover expenses in order to go on the road to start, maintain and/or continue a buzz and grow a fan base. There are many artists based out of WNC who call the road their middle name and whose calendars are so robust they rarely play a date here in our mountains.

Then there are the mercenary players, songwriters and bands that live and perform primarily in this area and in multiple projects. There are regular and long standing genre-specific jams, specific acts are rotated into certain venues that spread the love around so that savvy Asheville audiences and tourists have the choice and opportunity to return again and again to hear their local favorites. The artists who have become our favorites by performing at these regular weekly shows have paid their dues and deserve every accolade.

There are venues that have incorporated monthly “residencies” which give local or touring acts the ability to rely on at least one weekly performance date over a four-week stint. Venues that book a cross-section of genres like The Grey Eagle, New Mountain, Altamont Theatre, Jack of the Wood, Isis Restaurant and Music Hall realize that variety is the spice of life. And the breweries, both old and new that are responsible for putting the “Beer” in “Beer City” have truly bellied up to the bar where supporting live music is concerned.

Since I moved here in 2002, Asheville’s growth as a music town has helped outlying areas maintain or start their own music vibe as well. By 2005 I had three regular weekly gigs. I was accepted with pretty big and open arms. And one of the biggest elements to my success was peer support in networking. The love Asheville musicians bestow on each other is the main reason this town is what it is musically. Love makes good things happen. It’s the etiquette of taking and giving and sharing and helping each other that makes or breaks any shared creative project. I’d call Asheville’s music scene a shared, creative and ongoing project where collaborating gives grace to the soul of it.

My friend and live music photographer, Frank Zipperer and his husband, Rick Wood are two Ashevillians who are the epitome of what it means to be live music devotees. It’s rare they stay at home on any given night. I’ve known them to hit three shows in one evening. They are considered royalty within the music artist community and well respected not only for their devotion and support but because they are wonderful, funny, insightful and affable human beings. Frank has placed high in the ranks in the Mountain Xpress Reader’s Poll for best photographer for many years. His photo of “The Broadcast” featuring lead singer Caitlin Krisko on the facing page documents our status as a rich and vibrant live music town. Caitlin and her band epitomize the kind of talent, perseverance, swagger, originality, smarts and work ethic that it takes to bring audiences out and get them up on their feet.

Though there will always be people of every age out there who take too lightly all that goes into being a musician, and who sit home night after night with remote in hand, it doesn’t change the fact that the reason we’re a melting pot of supreme players, singers and writers who sit on various incremental rungs on the ladder, is because of the support of the venues, fans, the live music aficionados and musicians who come out in support of one another.

Asheville is a forerunner whose “regular people” and the tourists it attracts understand how important it is to realize that playing music is a “real job.”

---

Peggy Ratusz is a songstress, writer and vocal coach. — [email protected] — www.reverbnation.com/peggyratusz

Peggy’s July Schedule:

**July 3rd Summer Tracks Music Series “Love Letter: A Tribute to Bonnie Raitt,” 7 p.m. Rogers Park Amphitheater Tryon NC.

**Friday July 24th Grove Park Inn Great Hall with Patrick Boland on piano, 8pm.

**Sunday July 26th “We Have a Right to Sing the Blues,” concert with Harry Schulz downstairs Isis Restaurant & Music Hall 8 p.m.