Moving to the UK

[slidelick]

Hi all,
I'm from Portugal and am planning to move to the UK (London) by the end of next January.
I would like to know your opinon about the music scene in the UK. Is it viable to live from music there? because were I live just isnt! I play Blues and Bluesy stuff, I play standard and slide guitar and some harmónica. There is no audience for my music in my country (and I'm not that bad either), is there in the UK?.
Thanks and cheers,
Slide on
Joao

[Michael Messer]

Hi Joao,

Living in London can be great. It is a wonderful city with a lot going on. However, moving to London with the idea of becoming a professional musician and earning your living from it, is a long shot and requires more than being a good musician. It is a great life. I have done it for nearly 30 years, but be careful because it is a very hard road to travel.

There are more talented professional musicians without work, than with work. These days you just have to look at You Tube & My Space to see how many people are out there doing it. There are so many people competing for the gigs, especially pub and bar gigs where you don't need to be a known artist to get the gig.

When I started there were less people competing for the gigs & for space in the marketplace, so that made me and my music quite unusual. Back then I only knew a dozen or so people that had ever heard of a National guitar, let alone be able to play one. My first album got major UK & European press and radio airplay, which got me recognized and got me going. From there on I have only ever made records for known record companies with good distribution and publicity. I doubt if that would happen today if I were starting out.

I think the best marketplaces for acoustic & electric blues & roots music at the moment are mainland Europe and Australia. Britain is great and I work here a lot, but to get established as a newcomer will not be an easy thing to achieve. Go and have a look at my friend Hal from Croatia ( www.halmusicland.com/ ) - Hal is not a blues guitarist, but he is a master musician who has made records in Nashville and done all kinds of very high profile stuff in Croatia. But as for working in the UK or US, which he would love to do, it is not an easy thing.

That is just my opinion Joao. I am speaking to you as a friend. I respect what you do and agree that you have talent, but there is a lot more to it than that if you want to live from your music.

Best wishes Joao - Merry Christmas & I look forward to catching up with you in London in 2009.

Keep playing - don't let ANYTHING stop you!!!! People tried to stop me and give me sensible advice about what I should do, and look what happened to me!!!

Shine On
Michael.

[slidelick]

Thanks Michael,
Your words are more than apreciated and will be seriously taken into account!
O ne of the other reasons to meve to the UK were also to learn and grow as a slide player and musician, since as you know I'm self tought and really have no pairs here to learn from.
Best wishes and Merry Christmas Michael.
Slide on
Joao

[Michael Messer]

Joao, I do agree that you will meet more musicians and be able to hear more live music. That in itself is a great thing. Twenty years ago I did a concert near London - I was opening for West African singer & guitarist, S.E.Rogie. From that point I became friends with S.E. and got to know a whole community of West African musicians who were living in London. You have to be there to make those things happen.

Merry Christmas
Shine On
Michael

[Deleted]

Hi Joao

As a part-time (as opposed to professional) player and promoter (I don't rely on the music for income but the extra bit of money in my pocket is nice)..it's hard work to make much money. This is based on my observations on how much me and the band get paid for smallish gigs locally, and how much our club and other local small venues pay artists.

As Michael says, there are lots of people competing for gigs, and the blues / jazz audience is a pretty small niche area. If you start doing standards and pop covers, you appeal to a wider audience, but the market is crowded with people doing this, and to be honest, there are some pretty mediocre covers/tribute artists out there (some darn good ones too mind you)...and they are all fighting for a piece of the same action.

It's possible to play every night of the week..but whether you'll make any money is a different matter..there are no end of open mic and small gigs..but you might only get your petrol money covered. At our small club, we don't charge on the door, and we pass the hat...on a bad night the artist might go away with £40...on a decent night £120. I know this isn't the usual sort of set-up, but you might be surprised at how low the fees can be for an out-of-town gig, and by the time you've taken your expenses and petrol out of it, there's not much left! Sometimes it's amazing to find out the back-history of players have performed for us, and the greats they have played with, and then we hand over a few ten pound notes to send them back on a 100 mile journey after an evening's amazing entertainment....and yet artists keep asking to come back to play for us!

I'd have to say, networking with players, promoters and venues to ensure to you keep working is probably the most important (but toughest) thing to do..and that all takes time to build up. You'll also find that some players on the circuit have day jobs, and there are few who are full-time musicians, and often they will do solo work, play in one or more bands, teach and do session work, so it's not an entirely black-and white picture. Hard work indeed...but best of luck with it if you are brave enough to try

[maxxengland]

One thing I have seen that might help is merchandising. You do the gig and then sell CDs/t shirts/hats/strings/picks/slides afterwards. At least making your own records is cheap now, and selling tracks on the internet is another option. So it's not all bad news.

The other thing is if you can stay long enough to get a good reputation as a reliable and sympathetic backing player, then you can (so long as you keep it affordable) make some money that way. Just don't expect a Rolls Royce to drive you everywhere.

Chickenbone: see you in the New Year. More Clive stuff happening, we'll have to see how it works out. But he's found a DRUMMER ;D

And I might bring the Big Kit to the next jam, treble on it cuts like a laser bacon slicer