Gig On A Golf Course

Hey, what's up gigging pro! It's Jared Judge welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. This is the earliest I am leaving a gig. It is 8:03 in the morning, and I'm already done playing my gig. It was that golf gig I mentioned a couple episodes ago that some guy wanted me to play for a tournament. And he hired me, and signed the contract paid my fee. And then I played the gig. Now, this gig was crazy, because it was at a golf course. Turns out, I thought that this gig was actually a corporate event, but it was not it was a private occasion. This gentleman, he was hosting a private golf tournament for him and 16 of his friends, or I guess 15, making the whole group 16. And he wanted just some fun music to kick off the First Tee. And usually he said he hires an act or hire somebody for this every single year. Last year, he hired like a ventriloquist comedian that insulted all the players. And as we chatted last night about the logistics, he said, the point of this is to actually distract people, as they're teeing off just to kind of set the tone for the tournament, which I thought was hilarious, they actually kicked it off with like, shots. The guy brought like a bucket of syringe shots, not like needles, but out alcoholic shots. And they kicked off the tournament by doing those shots altogether while I was playing, which was hilarious, and made me want to play golf with these guys. Although I've never played a game of golf in my life, I've hit balls off the driving range, but never an actual game. I wouldn't know how to do that. If anyone wants to teach me, let me know. I'd love to take you golfing. So anyway, as I was talking about the gig, a couple of interesting things about it. The biggest thing was that he mentioned that there's no powered over there and actually had called the golf course and asked about getting power over to the first tee box. And they said, Yeah, it's just too far away, we don't have power. So you'll have to figure out something like a battery operated PA or a generator. And so that was the big problem to solve. So I actually asked the organizer to cover the cost of the generator. And he said, Sure, and as long as you rent it and set it up, and I'll just pay for it. So I built that into my feet. And that was great. So last night, I went to Home Depot's rental center, picked up a 2000 watt generator. And then, you know, brought it to the golf course today. And that's where the problems began. That's a big hook. Right? So I I'll be honest with you guys, I am not a very like outdoorsy kind of person. I don't use generators, often. In fact, this may be my first time. And I don't know if it was user error, or there was something wrong with the generator. But I turned it on. It started. And then I didn't even plug anything in. And after a couple of seconds like after a minute or so it turned off. I was like, Oh crap. I am an electric violinist. I can't play without electricity. What do I do? So I tried it a couple more times. I found the instruction manual online, I'm pretty good at reading instruction manuals and read through saw that I was doing everything the right way. And like these were the instructions that they provided and how to turn it on, still would not turn on. So I was like panicking a little bit freaking out. Like what do I do without electricity? Oh, crap. And luckily, by the first tee box, there was like a utility shed that I walked around and found that they had an outdoor outlet. And so I had luckily I brought my gigantic extension cord which if you play in a in an act that needs electricity, I definitely recommend getting one of those 100 foot extension cords a big yellow sturdy one. Because that was a lifesaver. Today, my extension cord was long enough that I could plug into that outdoor outlet and run it to the first tee box for the golf course. And I had power. So that saved the day. A couple other interesting things was they requested some songs that I actually have never played before. And I had them on my list because I was using the same list as from another act that I run, which is the string quartet Dream City Strings. And Dream City Strings has sheet music so that you can show up to a gig in sight read pretty much any song. So I basically copied my setlist over from Dream City Strings but the music that I played with Extreme Strings is totally different. I need a backing track and any basically the piano vocal music. So they requested a couple of interesting ones. They kicked it off at the Star Wars The Throne Room theme, which was awesome. I just basically played along with John Williams is best in the London Symphony Orchestra. Then they went right into still Dre bye had Dr. Dre, which is awesome. I played that. And it actually works a bit better on electric violin than it does String Quartet because I typically don't play rap on string quartet. It's just nearly impossible to actually make that Like, you know, the melody doesn't doesn't work on violin. happen. But because I was playing electric violin, I was able to play more of a rhythm guitar style, which actually was inspired by Tracy Silverman Strum Bowing Method of which I'm actually kind of on staff there. I'm not great at it yet. So I'm not on the teaching staff. I'm more on the marketing and operations staff. And so I used his Strum Bowing Method to make"Still Dre" sound pretty cool. And we played cashmere by Led Zeppelin, which was amazing that actually worked really well as my first time playing it on electric violin. And it works so good that that's going to become a staple, I can just tell already. And a couple other ones, like beautiful day by you, too, here comes the sun by the Beatles. And they loved it. And so I was playing all the songs. They were like jamming out taking pictures and photos of me while they were teeing off. And I would say it was a big success, that organizer, like he took his shot, and then talked to me. He said, Yeah, this is awesome. Like, thanks for doing this. And then he left because he was in like the second round of players laid for golf cards. So great gig, I can't believe it's done so early. I might actually go back and go go to bed a little bit. And it's the weekend after all, or maybe not. Who knows, my parents are coming to town. So we're gonna have some fun with them tonight. I could use some rest before that. Yeah, I'm trying to think if there any other interesting things about this, I'm actually not too sure how he found out about me, I think, you know, I listed myself on Google. And I set up a Google My Business Profile. And I think he was just searching for interesting solo acts, and found me and then submitted my contact form, he actually filled out the wedding form because I've got a wedding form on my website, which automatically sends them a series of follow up emails related to weddings. And so when he replied to one of those automated emails, that's when I found out he didn't need me for a wedding. So I said, yeah, sorry about those automated wedding emails. Let me turn those off. So I turned off the wedding emails. So yeah, it was good. The lessons they're being like, have a backup plan. Honestly, if there was no power shed, like no utility shed with an outdoor outlet, I would have been totally screwed. So I think the solution next time? Well, the first thing is I'm already planning on getting a battery powered PA system. One of our Fulltime Music Academy members can actually recommended the Bose s one system, which I think is 599 first speaker, which is pretty reasonable, especially for a battery powered one, and can set it sounds awesome. So I'm gonna get one of those. So I don't need a generator, and I don't need power electricity to be plugged in. I think that'll solve a lot of my anxiety about these kinds of gigs. And, yeah, the other thing would be to test the generator the night before, it was actually raining really hard in Denver last night, so I didn't have a chance to test it. If I had tested it, I probably would have figured out what I was doing wrong. Or if the actual generator was malfunctioning, I would have had time to take it back to Home Depot and get a different one. So those are the lessons there. But otherwise great gig paid very well. And it was super fun. And I'm in a great mood, because I played music before 8am. So open there's that. Alright, thanks for tuning in. By the way, we are still giving out our amazing offers the most incredible free gift ever, for musicians to book the maximum number of high paying gigs and minimum amount of time and effort. It's called the gig malt and you can get your Free copy at FulltimeMusicAcademy.com/venues So go grab your copy, and let me help you get some high paying gigs. Maybe you'll play golf course. Alright, have a great rest of your day. Thanks for tuning in to another episode and remember,"Your music won't market itself!".