TubeNet

Probably true (forwarded by the great tubist Gary Kaiser)

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/m ... 47676.html
Craigslist Ad :
We are a small & casual restaurant in downtown Vancouver and we are looking for solo musicians to play in our restaurant to promote their work and sell their CD. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get positive response. More Jazz, Rock, & smooth type music, around the world and mixed cultural music. Are you interested to promote your work? Please reply back ASAP.

A Musician's Reply:
Happy new year! I am a musician with a big house looking for a restauranteur to come to my house to promote his/her restaurant by making dinner for me and my friends. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get a positive response. More fine dining & exotic meals and mixed Ethnic Fusion cuisine. Are you interested to promote your restaurant? Please reply back ASAP.

A Musician's Reply:
Happy new year! I am a musician with a big house looking for a restauranteur to come to my house to promote his/her restaurant by making dinner for me and my friends. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get a positive response. More fine dining & exotic meals and mixed Ethnic Fusion cuisine. Are you interested to promote your restaurant? Please reply back ASAP.

^^ a perfect response

I will be the dissenter on this post; I think that snarky response is totally naive and it offends me.

Many of the finest moments in live music happen in restaurants and bars, for little or no money.
Maybe for a slim slice of the door, or free dinner/drinks.
Brought to you by people who love to play for a crowd and are maybe working on a concept.

This is the ideal breeding ground for musical ideas, and you are guaranteed to get a free read on what folks think of it. It's also commonly a meeting place for other musicians who are "on the scene".

Will you get rich?
No, not on this gig - but hopefully that's not why you play anyway.

Who knows - maybe the excellent music you bring to this scene will help turn it into the next cool music club, and you will have been there and will have helped the owner and he/she will thank you with a paid weekly gig. Or maybe you will be happy to just hang out and play for free beer and lots of gratitude. Maybe you will meet lots of other great musicians and form bands and make recordings and go on the road and...
Isn't that better than practicing at home in your basement by yourself?

Great painters early in their careers often get in line to hang their paintings in hip restaurants for... you guessed it: exposure, and maybe a few sales.

Whoever you are, "musician responder", I have a public message for you: if you are offended that a restaurant in the middle of a hip scene like Vancouver would offer a free place to play gigs, have fun, and get some exposure; feel free to ignore it, but please don't mock them. Don't ruin it for the rest of us, or drag others into your sense of entitlement.

Maybe you really are too good to take a flier on a free gig, and have no desire to just play some music with other folks. But I doubt it. You are probably just another classical musician who thinks the world owes you lunch. And they (we) don't.

<off the soapbox>

good luck-
Jim Gray

We have venues around here that feature unpaid, amateur performances some evenings. And provide a supportive atmosphere, help out a little with microphones and general logistics, and I think everyone appreciates it. There are also venues who take a more exploitative approach, and are criticized for it; I don't know from first hand experience, so I can't describe this in detail, but I think you know it when you see it, and indeed the ad sounded a little more like that. I think the key was the emphasis on speculative monetary rewards - you'll do this to make money selling your recordings, right?

In theory, benefit to the musician is the same in either case? But that doesn't make exploitation less distasteful.

Wish I were closer to Austin...