Venue Owners and Promoters: We Can All Do Better

For about two months now, I have been looking for a venue. My initial idea was to have an experience of playing songs from my new album, "The Really Real" with a small band. Great players. Fern Perdomo on bass, who co-produced this album, and Nick Vincent on drums. Nick played on most album tracks . Add Linn Holmstedt who is just a kick-arse backing and vocalist in her own right.

The Hotel Cafe, which is relocating (not sure when) offered a spot, and I love them.

In my opinion, Hotel Cafe does everything right. Now, obviously, it's not an easy gig to get. You have to have a recommendation, and they do need you to promote your show.

However, as you supply your information, so do they promote as well. They offer you a cut of the door, provide a guest list, feature you on their website, which helps to sell tickets, and offer such things as sound check and experienced sound person. They will, for a slight fee, record your show on the night. Hotel Cafe has two spaces. One, the second stage, is intimate and kind to singer-songwriters. The other, The Main Stage, has big vibe and can host larger touring projects.

Hotel Cafe features known and celebrated acts as well as local artists and songwriter-in-the-round shows.

In short, Hotel Cafe has built a reputation. You might have to pay to park in Hollywood, but once there, you're greeted warmly. The staff are kind and receptive to the music. There's a vibe, without the pretentious hipsterism that accompanies so many venues, so much velvet rope behaviour.

It's an honour to play Hotel Cafe, and I truly can't wait for Saturday. A venue like this makes me want to pull out all the stops to do all I can to make the night successful for the venue, the musicians, and of course the audience.

But back to my venue quest.

I don't want to throw stones or badmouth anyone. God knows we are suffering through ridiculous tariffs and ICE raids and budget cuts and uncertainty. Whatever your political take on this is, we're not in a high place of possibility and morale.

I also get that venues took a beating during COVID. As did we all. And many continue to wear masks and feel the fear, particularly older people who still like to go out. Sometimes it feels as though the universe is doing all it can to say "Why bother? Why go out?" It is safer and easier to stream something and put your feet up.

Musicians do not want to succumb to this, and must fight that inertia and despair.

Musicians, particularly singer-songwriters , are put in the position of having to finance their work, or make music in their home studios, pay for mixing and mastering, and then do battle with the almighty streamers to try to get on playlists and achieve seconds of listening time.

All the while, Artists are plagued with the guilt that Spotify funds AI and weapons research, and that it is highly unlikely they will see pennies for their investments.

On top of this is the assumption that the album must be performed live. The CD Release Party show is still an idea in songwriters' heads, even if few people are buying CDs.

So how do the venues and bookers operate?

In their Post-Covid panic, this machine is now insisting that you pay a fee to utilize their venue. On top of this, you must promote your show on social media. They may not even want to deal with you if you have few Spotify likes, and little presence online. You not only have to pay them: you have to audition for them.

And once you book the show, you may have no idea who else is performing that night. Since everyone has paid to play, the only requirement is that the band has money and some online presence. This does not guarantee that their sound will appeal to your crowd, who may feel they want to support you, but not enjoy the entrance fee, the lack of parking, the expensive drinks and all of this for a 45 minute show.

What is wrong here?

Everyone feels wronged. The venues can't afford a no-show night.

The Artists can't afford to play where they would like to, and inviting their same fans can feel dispiriting. It can turn into a quid pro quo guilt gig situation, which might build community, but at the same time does not let new people take in the songs and vibe of the Artist.

What seems to be working for singer-songwriters in Los Angeles are these "Songwriter in the Round Nights", which are curated. The curator is a tastemaker and trusted to put together a night. Trusted by the venue, trusted by the artists. I believe this idea originated in Nashville with clubs like The Bluebird Cafe.

There's gravitas and a big of cache in the choices of performers.

The tough-to-get-into venues practice this, and they are thriving with their small coterie of hip music fans. Clubs like Largo At The Coronet, The Roxy, and of course The Troubadour.

However, in closing, I ask: does it have to be this way? We will always have free dive bars that host open mics, and feature cover and blues/Americana bands.

But if we say we really want to honor original songwriting talent, shouldn't we offer more venues that really feature these artists? Singer-songwriters, especially from the 70s, didn't fit into this Spotify genre thing. Joni Mitchell could do folk, then rock, then sing with Seal, then do jazz, then solo with a symphony.

If we want to celebrate good songwriting and songwriters, we need venues that honour them. We need to stop with the constant pressure of genre and age.

Promoters could be curators. Venues could do social media and open up to audiences that go beyond the Artist's group of fans.

If we really want a scene here, we are going to need more than Tribute Nights, cover bands and open mics.

Venues that feature traveling and well-known artists could feature a local artist who is simpateco. Maybe we are not in the record company showcase label kind of world and maybe that is a good thing. There are Gen Xers as well as Millennials and Zs who are all out there working original music. Boomers have been running the show forever and show little sign of surrendering, nor should they..

But no excuses. Los Angeles could do better. There's a helluva lot of talent here that needs to be celebrated. And there's a way to make money for everyone doing it.

We could even get on the map again. What a game changer.

I welcome your thoughts.

PS- I never did find a venue. So this idea of CD Release Party is still in the air, though the record drops Friday July 10, 2026.

Annoyed is the New Angry

I am going to take a break from writing about music and musicians. This will be a rant about the current emotional boxes I feel many of us are living in.

The idea seems we must self-care ourselves into a lull of angerlessness.

Raging simply isn't tolerated. Besides which, it's not good for you. So calm down. Think about good sales, and what's on Netflix. Talk about a new trend in colors or clothes. Wish you had the money to just escape to some five star resort in Tuscany, or bathe in milk baths for ten days, doing nothing but fasting and getting injections and practicing yoga.

Whatever it takes to feel good about yourself.

We're not supposed to get too stressed by watching the news or doom scrolling or talking to people we know we don't agree with. In fact, sometimes the nicest thing is to know you don't have to spend any time with anyone who annoys you. You're peckish: you eat. You're tired. You excuse yourself and do what is right for you.

Am I referring to anyone in particular? No, this is no personal attack against anyone. It's just a feeling I am getting. That we need to be entertained so that we can distract ourselves from the evil that is currently taking place all around us,

You might counter in saying, "Well why not? What am I supposed to do? Not sleep? Wring my hands? Give to rhinos and to chimps? And people who suffer all over the globe? Victims of war? Victims of ICE? Victims of abuse? Victims of racism? Victims of sexism? People who are punished for protesting? People who have no homes? Fall ill and have no health insurance? People who develop disease but must work anyway? "

I look around me and every day I see someone who is poor and suffering. I am getting used to it.

I want to not see them. I want to drive to the areas where I won't have to step over someone, or walk through their belongings which look like trash to me.

I hate how complicit I have become just in order to keep myself from blowing up.

The problem with just being annoyed and not truly angry.

But the issue is that I feel my anger is not being heard. I feel that it doesn't matter if I have a deep rage and sense of injustice.

And that is the worst part of this.

I do not want to see the bad guys win. I would like to see everyone lifted up, and living with good housing and ample food and fun work, and a sense of community.

Sometimes I feel I am losing my faith that I can live in the world I see in my heart. I don't know what to do, who to join, how to use my time for the betterment.

I don't want to preach to the choir, or sound like some suffering do gooder.

I am part of the problem. And that really pisses me off.

I think I would like to stop getting annoyed all of the time and just get mad, really mad. BLow up and feel better. Feel powerful.

That day was not today.

But I have to tell you I will enjoy joining a massive RAGE party.

Collective rage could maybe turn the page.

Damn I hope so.

More on music next week.

The Really Real: 6 of 12

Do you think that singer-songwriters are particularly vulnerable human beings?

Maybe on the introspective side?

I do know plenty of artists who confess they live inside their own heads, and often prefer time alone, in solitude.

I think it is a tricky balance.

We do need to be out in the world, catching each other's shows, listening to current work, and not getting lost in waves of nostalgia.

I admire Bob Dylan, for it seems he is always in motion, managing to have time to himself to continue to write, and paint and think, but also dedicating himself to touring and jamming and interacting with other musicians as well as people he meets on the road.

My feeling is that Bob Dylan reads constantly and immerses himself in the arts, politics, history, myths and legends, religions. He's a true populist, but also an intellectual. The thing is, he rejects being labeled, and prefers instead to immerse himself in the present. Just create, and let others interpret, could be his maxim.

A stream of consciousness kind of writing opens the floodgates to what is out there. It comes to you. You don't force it. It flows. Reading back, you see where you are. This is like driving without a map or directions, knowing that you will be guided to the place you need to be.

When I wrote "Underground," a new song on my upcoming album, THE REALLY REAL, a voice came to me. I was in grief mode, and didn't think I had anything to say. But it spoke to me and it said, "Oh that you should know/All that is in my heart/ Oh and that it should grow/And give us both a brand new start/ from the beginning of/ We circled time and questioned love/Analyse it/Break it down/ Mysteries avoid this.

I felt a code was unraveling on paper, and I went with it, only to discover that I was being led into an underground world. This was a part of my mind I don't frequent, probably because I am immersed in things that must be done, and the work of other people.

Solitude brings language. I can't claim to own it, nor can I the music that flows from the words.

But in grief, I was happy that something came to me. I think it was saying we never know what is really there. And there is always more. It is underground. But it will be known. By those who need to know.

And this is where we went with the song "Underground." It decided what it needed, and in the studio, I layered electric guitar tracks. Fern put on a solid bass. Then we layered vocals. Fern added keys. And Nick Vincent came in, and blessed us with solid groove.

It knew what it wanted of us. And now I can be grateful I had both solitude and the almighty jam.

For it takes both to make music.