A nasty shock and Fair Trade improvement goals

Jake Pegg
Fair Trade Music

I played at Mississippi Pizza with my Brazilian group z'Bumba the other night. 

Other than two injuries that could have been major, and the fact that we went home with an average of $19 (About $4.80 an hour, including the time we spent promoting the show) both us and the super-fun Papa Coyote had a good time. 

As soon as I stepped to the mic to address the audience, I'd gotten as far as "Good evening..." and was stopped short by the nastiest electrical shock I've received in some time.

Now, I've had these before, but they weren't so bad. I didn't think I was going to die, but this was quite painful. I felt like a bad monkey in an experiment. 

I'd always heard, but never believed, that this kind of shock could actually kill someone. 

However, this web page suggests otherwise:

http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/electrical/safety/index.php

(The article recommends every gigging musician should have a ground tester) 

 

In any case, it reminds me about some of the goals of the Fair Pay to Play campaign - it's not just about making a living wage; it's about creating a better scene. 

In addition to: 

Allowing musicians more time to write and rehearse, and

making Portland a more attractive destination for talented, working musicians and music fans.

One of the goals of the sponsorship committee is to create partnerships between venues and music retailers to create incentives for clubs to join the campaign, and advertising opportunities for retailers. 

Gigging musicians with more money is a good thing for local music retailers, and we're hoping that these partnerships would make it easier for clubs to get better - and safer - sound equipment. 

It also occurred to me that if the musician's union had any sway in a club like Mississippi Pizza, it would have been much more likely that the outlets had been tested.  I'll admit it's not likely, but the fact remains that those unsafe conditions could have killed me or any of the other hundreds of musicians that play there every month.  (Sunny got right back to me right away to say she'd get the owner to look into it.) 

I also slipped off the edge of the stage and almost cracked my skull open on it at the end of the show. Fortunately, there weren't even bruises!

Fun with Excel: using minimum wage as a negotiating tool

Jake Pegg
Fair Trade Music

I was recently offered a show for my seven piece - 1 1/2 hours of music for $50 and "Good Karma." 

So, I figured it out with setup/tear down time, travel time and fuel cost.  Being a huge dork, I put it into an excel spreadsheet.  This made it faster and easier to play with the numbers. 

For seven people the $50 would have translated to $2.18 an hour. 

Compare their $50 to the $190 that would have paid those musicians Oregon minimum wage for their services. 

Incidentally, it also worked out to $26 apiece - pretty crappy pay for doing a show in a city 1/2 an hour away!  I don't suggest you use minimum wage for actual bidding, but, rather, as an educational tool.  I frequently use a fast-food analogy: "Well, when you go out to eat, do you eat at places that pay their cooks minimum wage?" 

Such tools may be useful for people who don't consider music to be a service, who don't consider musicians' services worth compensating, and who consider music to be an amateur, hobbyist pursuit, not the realm of professionals or workers.  

These perceptions are products of the steady devaluation musicians and their services have suffered over the last thirty years. 

Educating presenters/purchasers about the time costs involved with performing gives them a different perspective, one that I've had good results with- few people try to argue that your time is worth less than minimum wage.   I actually convinced a dancer - quite unintentionally -  to finance a group of drummers based on this model. 

It's a tough place - we practice hard to be able to perform well, and it's never easy to turn down shows.  That, however, gets complicated - I'll deal with it in another blog entry..