Balancing Private and Public Events with Asher Laub

What's up gigging pros. Welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I'm your host Jared. And today I am joined with a very special guest who I'm super excited to introduce to you because he has experienced both performing large shows for the public, and also a very diverse career as a private event musician, too. So we're gonna dive into all the things too. He's also a dancer, let me just read you a little bit of his bio. So this is Asher lob, my saying that right by the way, Asher? Right. It's right. Perfect. Awesome. So Asher Laub welcome. He began training violin at age two, performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic by age 13. He's got expertise in the trans genre improvisation which led to a career as a soloist in demand performing at venues like Madison Square Garden, Hammerstein Hall, Lincoln Center, and all across four continents. He's been featured on PBS made headlines on CNN, WABC and NBC. He's also known for breakdancing across stages with his led electric violin so cool, in addition to performing as a DJ violinist, so Asher, welcome to The Gigging Musician Podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Jared. Yeah, my pleasure. So I'm curious. You are all over the map with what you're capable of. It's very impressive. What are you doing right now, as a musician, what's your artistic output? What performances have you been doing? So I'm gonna say the performances have been pretty eclectic. As pretty much my choosing, I wear two, two main hats. One is an artist and the other one is, as an entertainment company owner. So I have an entertainment group at Fiddler's Dream Productions. So we do corporate entertainment, corporate events, weddings, mitzvahs, kind of that genre, private events. And then as an artist, I do like concerts and also private events, but more focused on my original music, that type of stuff. So to answer your question, I've been doing all that. So the summer has been pretty busy. So it's like on a Monday, I might be doing a yacht event on a Tuesday, a club or on a Wednesday a concert? The whole the whole next. And I love it. That's awesome. As is. So let's back up to when you first got started. Tell me a bit about, you know, your first experiences on violin, I know you started at a very young age, and what was the path that led you to where you are today? The simplest answer to that question is looking for happiness, looking for joy in my life? And there's a much longer answer to that question, which I don't even think we could fit into an hour, I could probably fit into a book. But starting at the age of two, it was a bit intense as you can imagine. It was not my choice to play the violin, even though my parents kind of feel that it was maybe it was I don't remember I was too. But I was learning the Suzuki method. And it was, it was a very academic sort of experience. And I felt like I need to sort of break three breaks free of like a hyper structured type of learning experience into more freedom. And that happened around high school when I had the ability to sort of collaborate and interact with jazz bands and rock musicians. And I realized that there were other dimensions and facets to the violin. And as you can see, very few people have actually seen this type of electric violin. And I moved from so obviously I'm I moved from traditional classical to contemporary electric. And that allowed me to play in amplified settings, with the jazz band with rock groups, and I started hitting up the clubs actually, when I moved to Israel, moved to Israel, I was there for a year, and I started doing performances, they're like, Wow, there's demand. For me as a as a violinist beyond just being a member of an orchestra. There's demand for me being having the ability to improvise and to play the way a guitarist would, but also the way a violinist wouldn't have that kind of versatility. So that moved me into actually working with DJs I can stop right here, but I could just keep going on and on if you if you want to. Yeah, let's get right and this is great question. Okay, sure. So I started working with DJs and, and bands like wedding bands that probably happened first wedding and corporate bands. As soon as I got back to New York work to start college 2002 and hit the hit the ground running on the scene because because the New York scene is pretty, pretty intense with, with music and just high end productions and because I had a skill that that friends of mine who were in the industry, and realized and were impressed with, I was able to pretty quickly start getting paid, paid my way through college as a musician while I was getting other degrees. And I probably should have just stuck with that because he ran his full time musician playing the whole gamut of live events. Wow, professional. That is awesome. I want to ask you a little bit about your high school experience, because you said that was when you deviated from the traditional path. I'm curious, how did you learn the alternative styles that classical musicians are typically not exposed to? Did you have teachers and jazz and more modern styles of playing? So unfortunately, I didn't. Scott Joplin was the ragtime music, which is very few your listeners are even going to know who he is, I think is back in my 20s 30s. That's like, that's the kind of music that was like the closest I get to improvisation. And I begged my teachers I had like, probably seven or eight of them throughout my lifetime to teach me improvisation. And they didn't do it. They just had their like, you know that these guys were from Juilliard. There, they learn the traditional method. And they're amazing at what they do. But they didn't like improv for them was again reading Ragtime sheet music. So there's there's little interpretation. It's like, do you play this? These four bars, piano or pianissimo or dewpoint 120 time or 125 BPM, you know? Or do you play for for forte or like much louder than that. So you get my point. So it's more just like this desire to having I wanted to play the drums, I wanted to play the guitar. And I picked that stuff up pretty quickly, just because of my experience as a violinist, but I felt like okay, I'm really good at the violin, I have this experience and everybody else on the planet plays guitar and drums, I want to distinguish myself. And, and I, that's what I did. I started kind of jamming with these other musicians. And they were like, hey, oh, you could like play solos just as well as we can. And why don't you just amplify your instrument. And I kind of shifted from my orchestra orchestral experience, in high school to the adjacent room where the band there were the band musicians, were having a blast. Yeah, and I'm sorry. That's awesome. And I do want to give my listeners a lot of credit, because we have a lot of listeners that come from classical jazz and cover background. I myself am a violinist. So I believe that probably 90% of my musicians listening to this probably know of Scott Joplin. Okay, so I apologize to anybody that's this and like DJs a lot of people I interact with who are in like, the electronic realm, they don't know. Scott Joplin is. So it is actually an honor to do an interview with this many like string people. Oh, yeah, no, fair enough. Yeah, we got a lot of people who came from I did an interview on Tracy Silverman's podcast. And so we got a lot of listeners from from his over here. And now Tracy is one of my my best friends now. And I help him out with his strong bowing method. Yeah. So this is amazing. Yeah, he's, he's amazing. And I love electric violin. I'm a violinist myself. But I have not really gotten into the electric violin world. I'm curious, what was it like when you started plugging in? What issues did you have to deal with? You probably dove into the audio engineering world next. Tell me more about that. Oh, sure. I'd be happy to elaborate on that. And actually, I want to just tell you how happy I am to be talking to another string player, and in front of other string players, because I feel like the entertainment industry does not emphasize string players enough. I feel like you know, I have plenty of respect for the band leaders in the DJs but I feel like there should be like, there was a time where for many generations for many centuries, the violinists were like, and the cellist like they were the main game, they were like the singers of days. And I feel like that you know, will start moving in that direction is there's like increasing demand but to answer your question it's, it's, it's a it's a complicated, it's not so it's not so simple to get a good tone. This is you know, this is like a few 1000 bucks. You can get like the the mark would violence for like four grand I'm able to achieve with this thing and really just like my LED branding, which is I love this instrument. But I'm able to achieve an equivalent, if not, in my humble opinion, a better tone because of what I do behind the scenes. It's not just the instrument that I depend on. So I have pedals down here, I don't know if you want to see them, but it's not even the pedals that that produce a good tone. It's the E cueing and the preamps. So you need the proper EQ with proper preamps. And you have to have some knowledge of studio work. Excuse me to get the appropriate tone, but it starts with the quarter inch input. For most electric violins, you know, you just, there's a table orange cable goes in here, and it goes through a preamp, like an LR Baggs pair acoustic preamp, or in my case, I'll just show you what's going on here. This is my favorite rocket. That's one of my pedals. I'm also using a boss pedal for my electric, violin and guitar tones. I also use a Shure X SL X wireless, but this is my this is what I'm able to take on flights with me across the country, because it's just small and TSA sucks. Yeah, we'd all agree on that. For sure. So I got I got to travel small, but you plug that into like a speaker. Um, there's the speaker. And that's it just quarter inch input into the speaker. And, and you know, you got to you got a decent tone if it's a decent electric instrument to answer your question. Yeah. And that was great. So how did you learn that? Did you trial and error it? Or did you model somebody else? Really by necessity. The I spoke with one bandleader back in 2003, who owns a pretty big orchestra in New York. And he said, Get the LR bags pair acoustic preamp on that's what I started with, showed up to a gig at terrace on the park in Queens. And like it was pretty clean tone. But I showed up with my acoustic. I'll give me one second. And, you know, I had a different pickup at the time. But this is this is a pickup that I have now. And you know, works i There are some others that I actually prefer, there's like an $800 one that I the name escapes me. But if I think of it as it basically has zero feedback and kind of like fits under here, but this this works very well Shake Shack and whatever it's called. And it's got a quarter inch input, and it conducts the sound through the bridge. Now the only issue with the acoustic or the versus the electric is that while many studio people feel that it has a more authentic booty tone. It has a huge risk of feedback. And this is like one of the better ones for reduced feedback. But when again, when you're you're on a like a live band stand, you really have to, I recommend the electric. Got it for that for that reason alone. And also if you want to diversify and have better control of your sound. Yeah, that makes total sense. I've experimented with pickups on my my violin too. And I haven't found the perfect one yet, but I will find it eventually. So yeah, that brings me to a good point, because you mentioned a bandleader who helps you out with this. When was what was your experience working with band leaders? And when did you eventually start booking your own shows? Um, so that's good question. I started. So I started with the band leaders initially because they had all the bookings and the clients and they pretty much absorbed me on to their band stands. And then and probably like five or six different bands were calling me on rotation throughout the years up until maybe 2004. And by 2004, I played so many events, I felt like why am I not booking these? Like I literally I know all the nooks and crannies of I know who the best musicians are the best band leaders, the sound companies, etc. So why am I not booking? And so that's what I started to work with a friend of mine who was in my band, and we started to book some pretty high end events. We started to record our record our band, we started to subcontract out work to the you know, to studio musicians and guys that we already knew. 1And so sort of a partnership that was called astrolabe orchestra at the time. And, and I the reason why I changed the Fiddler's Dream probably seven years later, was because I needed to distinguish my artist name After Love, which I will probably regret in another few years due to lack of privacy and fillers reproductions, so that people kind of don't see me as, as attached are part and parcel to the entertainment company. Yeah, that's awesome. Many of our listeners are very curious about what were the things you did to get your first booking or first couple of bookings? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess I didn't answer that question too well, so it started with connections. So really just, you know, people who don't have connections, I would recommend, kind of just cold calling, and some some bandleaders just like looking up some orchestras, DJs, whatever, whoever you want to work with, and then sending them a demo, like, like a good demo, not some crummy crappy demo, like, be professional. It's like an interview. And they might want you to show up in Like it had some nice reverb and yeah, so. So that worked for me. person, like at their office before they you show up at a gig. But if, in my case, I, I sent in a pretty good recording, that I actually recorded my bathroom, senior in high school, and they were really impressed. When I got to New York, so So to answer your, your question is your listeners, if you don't have connections, just show up to a gig play a couple of gigs for free, or for for a shirt or something, whatever it is. And if they're, you know, if they see that you're reliable, and you show up on time, and, and you're able to, you know, read sheet music in my case, or if you're able to play or improvise, or you know, the music, you know, the repertoire, the top 40s or the, you know, the the jazz standards, then, then, you know, you'll you'll start to get booked. That's what, that's what happen to me. Awesome. So that's like, if you wanted to get booked by another musician, who's already Yeah, got the got the you want to know about? Yeah, I don't know about booking your own company. Right. So private events, typically, like corporate events, weddings, nonprofit events, you know, that's a whole different beast, but I actually assume the strategy would be similar, because I teach a lot of my musicians that connections are key. And in fact, for my Fulltime Music Academy students, we provide them with a list of over 15,000 private event venues in the country that they could connect with, what has been some of the strategies that you found successful for booking your own private events. So that's actually interesting. Like, I, I know that a lot of a lot of vendors, they work with like, like, I don't know, chefs, or, or catering groups, or catering halls, and they, they do like, you know, showcases I haven't delved too heavily into that. But it pretty much makes sense. I've done like a few, a few show showcases, I haven't found that they've been all too fruitful. But again, I've been dabbling in a lot of different strategies. And that that doesn't mean that it doesn't work, I would just like, and you probably have a lot more to share as to, you know, with your listeners to like, you know, how do you go about building relationships with with those, with those venues. In my case, I built, I built my reputation online. And a lot of a lot of clients have found me online also. Have, I really go all out for my clients? So I, you know, I get referrals at at events at gigs. And that's a pretty big deal. Yeah, that's amazing. So, over delivering is huge. Like you make a promise, and then you give them more than what they expect. And that surprises them and leaves a lasting impression. I'm curious, like, what do you what does that mean, specifically for what you do? What does that mean, in terms of overall what what are the ramifications? So I guess I'm asking more like, what do you what do you do to one of them away? Yeah. Right. So the way so an example of what I do to go above and beyond would be first of all, being very sensitive to the client's needs. So if they're like, if this is like a networking event, if you're not the show, and you got to put your ego aside and that's particularly hard for somebody with a big ego like myself, a number of years. And I yeah, that's basically it's, it's hard when you're when when you think that you're this is probably like the younger version of myself talking like thinking, oh, yeah, I just played Madison Square Garden. I'm a hotshot, and then like, a few months later, I'm playing like a private car. per event where people are there to see the CEOs and not you like you're there to like, be a part of the, the ambiance, for better for worse and like, just enjoy the experience. And don't try to put on a big show and annoy the crap out of people because you're not the rock star there. So really being, being a businessman about it, and putting your ego aside and forgetting about, like, they don't care where you played, they don't care what radio station you were on the other day, they don't care how many millions of streams you have, they don't even know you, in some cases, so. So being sensitive to volume and sound and those types of situations, bringing extra sound, I bring extra sound for my clients. And I pointed out, I say, hey, look, I'm not charging you. But like, I just want you to know that I really, I want you to be happy. And I just felt like I felt like you're you know, just you got 250 guests here, as opposed to maybe 100 or 200, that I just want to make sure that you better, I'm going to keep the volume lower and the the music is better distributed, the volumes are distributed. So that's that applies to most, most of your listeners, if they're playing plug and plugged into the sound system. What else I'll play a few minutes extra, you know, it's nothing, I have no skin off my back. Or at least I'll keep the music streaming while I'm breaking down, you know, the, you know, some of the smaller sound speakers. What else I don't know, I'll dress dress appropriately, show up extra early. And those are just a few of many things that you can do to make a client happy. And just like, you know, just make them understand that like you're giving them more value than they paid for. Yeah, and whether whatever capacity like here's, you know, here's my my side village Dream Productions, here's the music list, you have free access to this unlimited catalogue of song requests, and I'll honor as many as I possibly can. Yeah, that's another example. That's awesome. The last five minutes were like pure gold to people listening to this. And it's it's a lot of similar things that I teach, like, you know, making it clear that you're giving them a lot more than they're paying for. There's a tool that I've shared on this podcast before called the offer stack, which you have to share with somebody before they've booked you. But you're essentially listing out everything that you're giving them, and putting $1 amount next to it. And then when you add up those dollar amounts, it should be at least 10 times higher than the price you're charging. Like you're literally getting $10,000 worth of value when you only pay me $1,000. And for many people that tips the scale to booking them. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's definitely a good strategy. Sweet, awesome. How did you like learn to do all of this, because as you mentioned, it's it's not easy for many musicians to get over the, the ego part of this and realize that you're only a piece of the puzzle that somebody is trying to put together. So how did I learn to? How did I learn to like strategize costs and like give sort of views or give give my clients the, the, the frame of mind that like I'm, I'm giving them more than they're paying for? Or how did I just like learn how to book everything, like how did you learn to get over your ego and be okay with background music at times. The ego was experience. Unfortunately, nobody could relate. Nobody was going to come up to me and be like, Hey, you got an ego, like, people will try to build relationships in the industry. And I realized in retrospect that I, my behavior wasn't was a little bit adolescent and bit immature. And I guess because that's because I was really young. I mean, I was in college, and I was I thought I was a hotshot. And I thought that like, you know, playing Carnegie Hall was like, I'm the only person on the planet who's done it. Like there's a ton of musicians who have played Carnegie Hall. Like, there's a ton of musicians who have been on the radio, there's tons of musicians who have millions of views and blah, blah, blah. So it just really just took experience for me to like, look around and realize how many other people are just as successful as I am and more successful. And it made me sort of like, sort of reframe, and just take a different perspective and also realize that that you know, not everybody is beholden to me, like not every bandleader has to call me just because I'm a really good musician. I'm not the best. Like I'm not the only violinist who can play jazz. I'm not the only violinist who's got a really good tone, although I do have better better tone a lot of the people but I want to give other people like fish in the sea. And, and for me to like get a leg up against my competition, although I don't really see it that way. To be booked the most. beyond just being a really good musician is like having respect for other people and And, and being a pleasant person to be around. Yeah, that a little goes a long way, a real long way, because people want to keep calling you and like they don't have to. And I used to think like, oh, they have to call me because I was obviously requested by the client, but I wasn't necessarily requested. I just sort of like thought in my head. That I was. Yeah, because I do some unique things, or I haven't unique instrument like, they may they don't always request me. Right? They do many times. We're not always Yeah, for sure. No, I think your experience, you know, even though I, I've played Carnegie Hall only in college, I haven't done it as a soloist. But I think your experience is similar to mine in that, like, I've made a lot of dumb mistakes when I was getting started. And even when I had more experience, it's like you run into new situations. And you know, for example, one of our podcasts from about a year ago was about should you drink on a gig. And when I was first getting started, I was like, Oh, it's okay to have like, if they offer me one, I'll have one here and there. But then you you quickly realize, like, people are seeing me performing a professional service with a drink in my hand that they've paid me 1000s of dollars to be here. Are they paying me 1000s of dollars to drink and potentially mess up their events somehow, because I had some alcohol in me. And then that's when I made it a policy like I don't drink on gigs anymore. So I mean, that's, that's not like blanket advice to everybody. But that's just my experience. Well, some people need to drink in order to get to the gig. I'm not one of them. I know a few actually do. But they're, they're like seasoned, very responsible musicians who pretty much can get away with it. Because, you know, they're playing in tune. They've been booked continuously for many decades. And it's like, Alright, fine, like, but But generally, like, when I travel and I travel with musicians, I pretty much set the policy. If you drink it's off site. It's not during the event. I never drink. I'm not really drinker at all. I'd probably keel over with like, a little tiny shot of tequila anyway. I don't get anything I'm usually just focus during these events anyway. Yeah, for sure. Well, that's awesome. I mean, I think it's clear to me that you have a well defined business approach to your music career, at least the the private events side. And from what I've seen on your public events side, too, you've got that well put together. So I'm curious now to ask about the public side, and specifically your career as an original musician. So tell us more about Asher lob, as the artist, what do you all about? How did you get started writing music? And what does that look like today with performances? So that's really good question. I take it you've interviewed a few times before. I, I, I actually I started in the the, like, the private entertainment sector, as I mentioned, and it was sort of like this, this gut need to, to to become an artist, because I felt like there was that thing missing at the private events, which doesn't bother a lot of people. But it bothered me, maybe it's my ego, I don't know, try to be as honest or self reflective as possible. But I want I, I started to work with other artists, like successful artists who like, had done world tours. And I felt like, why can I do that? Like, I want to give it a shot. And it's tough. It's really, really tough. I thought it was easier than then. I thought it was easier. Because I figured, okay, one translates to the other. I'm playing like, you know, this big venue. What's the difference between that and the concert hall and it's actually a bit of a different animal. strategy wise, business wise, connection wise, resume wise. But because I saw it as like an easy quick transition I made I put forth the effort and I started to produce a lot of music and, and connect with fans and, and promote the music and learned all sorts of strategies. And those strategies are literally endless. Like, if you like any, any Popstar out there any like independent artists who's touring, they're using many, many strategies to you know, aside from just booking venues, if if they're paying the bills, it's not easy, it's not easy to pay the bills and I feel like it's a bit easier to pay the bills when you're in the private event business. And that isn't to say it's easy, but I feel like from my from my vantage point, it's easier to like raise a family. Stay local, select your jobs, when you're not a rock star, but you're a you're a vendor, and there's a lot of satisfaction that to like. It's like When you're on a big concert stage, and it's like, you're like temporarily a big deal, and you get off that stage and like, you know, you're driving home, you're no longer that big deal. And it's like, you don't always want to be that way. You don't want to be like running for the paparazzi, or you don't want to be always in the public eye. And it's kind of like nice to sit back in, like, be part of a wedding band, or be working with a DJ and be appreciated, not necessarily for your name your face, but for the music that you're that you're playing or just for providing a great service. What else did I want to tell you? So to answer your initial question I want I moved into being an artist because of that desire to, I guess, fill, fill a void. Yeah, that void being, I want people to appreciate the musical bit more, which tends to happen when you're in the concert scene, it happens a lot more actually, than it does in the private event. Scene. I'd be careful with my words, because I don't want your listeners to feel like, Oh, I gotta like, ditch the private. See, it's not the case. There's value in both. But that's why I wear two hats, for sure. And I think this is an amazing opportunity to kind of hear how somebody is blending the two. Because I imagine that there is some crossover in a way. Have you had any, like private event clients hire you specifically? Because you played something in public that they heard? Yeah, and actually irritated me a little bit. Really, because, yeah, it's Mike. wearing two hats is also complicated. It's not, you know, it's not like, oh, the best of both worlds. It's just, I have a complicated brain, I have different needs that I'm trying to fulfill. And I want, I want emotionally to like feel connected with my listeners. But, but at the same time, it's irritating to play a festival in front of 6500 people, where, where it's like, it's all about the music. And it's all about the love. And then like you're booked by a client who is not transparent about that, and it's like, you lower your price, excuse me your price a bit to play this private event. And they saw you and knew you. And they didn't want you to know that they saw you and knew you like that you were pretty much headlining at a major venue. And you're playing this private event for like, you know, like 50 people, and you're very much wallpaper. And it's irritating. I'm, I'm really curious about that reaction, because I've never heard anybody say it's frustrating or irritating. To get booked for a private event by somebody who saw you headline somebody, where does that emotion come from? Ego is one, too is you see you're valued in the eyes of certain people. At 8000 bucks, for instance, you're worth flying to Maui for that. I just did that a few weeks ago. But in the eyes of other people, not everybody knows you're not Michael Jackson, we're literally you're a household name. You're like, you're seen as like a like a well known entity or like a pseudo celebrity in some capacity. Like a local basis, or at least in the you know, among maybe 10s of 1000s of people in certain areas, certain states, whatever. So when that when people see you as a celebrity, and you're like, valued in their eyes is like, Okay, this guy's a big deal. And then you're like sort of downgraded in their eyes. As that I, I don't even like using the word downgrade, because it's not, it's not a hierarchy. And your your listeners shouldn't see it that way. But from the vantage point of like money, because it is a business and we're paying the bills here. Outside of the yo factor that I mentioned, it's like, Okay, I just started like two grand last I probably charge. So it's complicated. And it's sort of, you almost don't want to do those gigs. When you you kind of want to just stick to a concert scene where everything's consistent, and you know, your pricing. But in my case, it's complicated. I put myself in this position, for better for worse. And my pricing is like a little bit like this, but I do have a bottom cap like I refuse to take certain gigs under certain pricing amount. Yeah, that makes sense. From what, and there's another aspect of public gigs is that you lack some consistency because those festivals aren't happening every weekend. Whereas private events happen throughout the year. Yeah, and I'm not even pursuing them. In order to like do a world tour or country ranch. We're at this point because I happen to have a two year old I have a family and I'm trying to stay happy family and balanced with my career. And, and I see a lot of people fail out that in the music industry, not so much in like the private event booking industry. Although I do see it. I feel like there's more that happens like in the concert level type of I don't know if it's like, I don't know if it's like a selection process where people who are wagged with the wonder of the world, or it's just that they're more interested in fame, or getting the music out, than raising the family. I'm passionate about both. And I want to make both work. And I have seen it worked for both. For sorry, and I have seen both work among a number of friends of mine, which is what's inspired me to kind of pursue myself like, I can do this, like, I see that. I don't want to mention names, but some well known people, some some big deal artists, they have families they from, from what I what I know, are pretty happy. They're happily married. They live a fulfilling life, and they go on tour. Yeah, they do some private investments, though. It's like, it's doable. Like you don't, you don't have to choose one or the other, you but you do have to work hard to make it happen. Yeah, for sure. That makes sense. My hypothesis, the hypothesis, which could be totally wrong is that like, I feel like it's possible to balance everything, which that's me being optimistic, you obviously not gonna be able to do that from the get go. And I also feel like you can get to a point where the private events feed the public events by building your following. And the public events can feed the private events, if you figure out how to make it feel like you're not a five star chef being asked to work at McDonald's wages. Yeah, and that's what I wanted to address what you said you can make a work, it's, it's a sensitive, tight rope line that you're walking, you have to have enough discipline to turn down jobs in order to do that. And I, I have grown in that discipline over many years of getting frustrated doing shitty events. Like just a part of my language I can't like that's just like, the level of frustration that some of these gigs. Like, the frustration that I've that I've felt, so I'm just like, you know, if, if somebody wants to pay me less than my level than then my price point, typically more than not more than that, that the gig is going to be frustrating, even beyond the money, just just from an experience vantage point. Like if they're not going to pay your price, the probably not the type of client, you're going to enjoy being around, that we're not going to set the stage for you to enjoy the experience. Absolutely. That right. There is a very important lesson that we all need to have set rates that we do not go below in order to know that this will fulfill us and weed out bad clients because you're right, we know there are bad clients. Yep, yeah, yeah. Oh, just just show up late for like 10 minutes. Can you just like, just do this job for like 200 bucks, or? No, no, I'm because I don't want more of you. Like, I don't want to do like to do one of yours. Then somebody at your events gonna request me and I want I don't want that. And I'm gonna get a note game guarantee that's gonna pay like five or 600 more. And I'm gonna regret having booked booked with you. Yeah, for sure. Amazing lesson for me. That's awesome. So I do kind of want to transition a little bit back more towards your original music now. You've been doing some recording recently and you have an upcoming release. Tell us about that. So Atlantis is the the original single it's been done for a few months now. And I have not released it. I should have been released should have released it around. I don't know March. The reason why is because I very badly wanted to fundraise for it appropriately. And I wanted to get the right collaborator on the single which sadly, I failed at this one. I had some major acts that were that were all like we were negotiating and when you're dealing with like major acts they want you know you got to they want like a large percentage of what I consider to be fair very hard work and one of my best singles yet so I was in negotiation with five of them. At this point, I have a lot of gigs on the books and like events that I just want to get booked so I'm just going to release the single I've been telling my fans about this for a very long time they just they want to they want to hear it already so this has been a past few weeks and and I haven't had a chance for her to like send to my digital distributor I plan on doing it right after this interview. And getting an it'll be out probably within two weeks is a song that I captured in Maui Hawaii at an event I did out there was no notice and gathering like beautiful scenery and it's a classical track to which is pretty much in line with what I've been targeting the last five years as an artist since neon dreams by one of my most successful singles and what else and some sense and the tune is 100% instrumental no vocals and about the ups and downs in life. And you'll have to hear the song to know what I mean. But it starts kind of ominous and it builds up from there to a climax of like hope and up and really hope is the word and and it it's cyclical it goes back to this ominous sort of cinematic type of production until the end so where it hits another climax and the it's it's got a melody that's really catchy again a lot like me Andrew job to check it out to hear what I know what I'm talking about. But it also lends itself to it still. First, that sophisticated edge that the violin brings to music that vocals can't and that's what I try showcase music. I try to show listeners like it's not just Yeah, I'm a hater. I appreciate listener but like I just feel like there's so much more to violin and the major the major labels give credit that don't you know, I don't have any beef with Drake but like he's not the end all be all of music like you know, guys like Derrick David Garrett, Lindsey Stirling, like these major violinists. Vanessa Ma, you know, it's not just like, Okay, you got to be Itzhak Perlman, or you have to be a singer. Like, there's a lot of shades of grey in between, and it's a growing industry and, and I think people are gonna realize, like, how much violence has to offer beyond just strings? Yeah, that's awesome. Well, yeah, I'm excited to hear it. When is it being released? And where could we find it? It's gonna be on all major platforms, just like rotten labia on this Bollywood tune that I just released. Is so like Deezer, iTunes, Amazon, all major platforms. It's gonna the music videos gonna be on YouTube and I also posted to Instagram Facebook. Tik Tok, Twitter. might even go live on Twitch. I like it. So pretty much most major platforms. That's awesome. Very cool. We're getting close to the end of our interview here. Do you have any quick pieces of advice for gigging musicians, anything from private events to public events, just advice you would like to give? Sure, I actually kind of regret not having gotten selected the description behind Lantus, but I just want to record your listeners before I continue. How it actually reflects some of the traumatic moments in my life. Um, so one dimension that back to your question. Oh, advice that I have for your listeners? Exactly. Yes. As far as like getting bookings, So patience is a virtue. You know, definitely it's like a cliche, but definitely having patience. With yourself, you're not going to be booking up to 20. Different approaches to booking collaborations with other artists, or musicians or vendors is, is I think a big bonus is is definitely a good strategy to building relationships and booking events. Initially, I don't just work for myself. I also happily work for other vendors at the moment because it takes some of the weight off of my shoulders with working with clients, because it's we're going to clients takes a lot of a lot responsibility, a lot of musical requests, a lot of booking related details. And sometimes you just want to take the weight off your shoulders and just like work for other people. That, that that's something that's helped me. What else are you when you're dealing with clients. So I don't want to, like recommend any specific booking site, but but if but you should have everything sort of automated that's that's a way to make things really kind of convenient. Because when you're dealing with with client 100 to 200 clients a year, some people have more, you it's very easy to get information lost. And you need things in a very organized booking system. And I have every event on my calendar, I find that that like Google Calendar, for instance, just sharing the event with other vendors. So that there, I see that, you know, beyond the email that the auto automated email that sent to them with the booking information on the calendar, and they see that in their calendar, if that's something helpful as well. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Anything else? Or? Oh, sorry, there's a bit of a delay, I'll cut this delay out, but I'll let you continue. Okay. Unless that's it, which is totally fine. For for the beginners. But the most important tip is that, if it gigs at eight o'clock, don't show up at like 745 sharp, like, there's, you're gonna be, you're gonna have much less stress showing up at seven o'clock. Even if you're like a sideman, and you're not setting up equipment, because like, I just hit the fan. And I think all sorts of things happen and, and there's traffic and your car breaks down and you get pulled over by a cop, or are you I don't know. You have to go to the bathroom. Like just anything can happen. It's just, it's not worth the stress. So just show up early to your events. Awesome. You just sit around twiddle your thumbs or check your emails for an hour. The worst thing? Yeah, that's great advice. Well, thank you for sharing that. What is the best place to find you on the internet? A lot of different places. The easiest place to find me is AsherLaub.com A-S-H-E-R-L-A-U-B dot com. And that site links out to all my major like platforms and profiles. So there's only one Asher Laub as far as I know. So if you forget that website, just type in Asher Laub on Google and all this stuff's gonna pop up A-s-h-e-r L-a-u-b, instagram.com/asherlaub facebook.com/asherlaubmusic on YouTube, Asher Laub, Asher official. And on Spotify, you have to search my name Asher Laub. And same with the other platforms Deezer, iTunes, TikToks. But that's it. That's great. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. And Asher. It has been a pleasure chatting with you about balancing public events and private events and hearing your stories. So thanks so much for being a guest on The Gigging Musician Podcast and to our listeners. Thanks again for listening. Remember, "You are just one gig away!".