Dying From Exposure and a Wise Old Hooker

It has already started, and it was of course inevitable.
Facebook posts and tweets from venue owners .looking for acts to do unpaid performances in the name, sometimes a tad spuriously, of charity.

Be warned, my fellow performers, if Covid 19 doesn't get you, there's always the risk of dying from exposure, and whilst the self employment grant is a vital lifeline, for which I feel I'd like to do something in return, I'm not going to allow myself to be exploited, and neitner should you.

Here's what I wrote on the subject a few years back.


This post touches on a deeply controversial subject. 
Money. 
It's an old problem that simply is not getting better.
Specifically money for playing music and I'm editing and reposting having been made aware of an absolutely outrageous 'opportunity' to work, unpaid, at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo for the best part of a month.
Don't apply here...

Sadly this has an all-too-familiar ring about it. Remember when the Olympic games came to London in 2012, and there were all sorts of performance 'opportunities' (ahem!) being offered for that oh-so-precious commodity. 'exposure'. I can't help but wonder exactly how many participants in the Olympic free gig marathon are now internationally known and independently wealthy as a direct consequence.

Photo by Mario Pietrangeli

This original post was prompted by a question recently as to why my big band rarely appears in public these days. We had a fantastic time and so much great feedback over the recent World's Greatest Drummer Concert featuring Ian Palmer, Steve White and Keith Carlock and the question I have been asked the most is when is the band doing another gig?

Soon I hope.

I'll let you know.



On a show like WGD the band is a big expense. Just like every other time we play. I long since gave up the door split gigs.  I did that once a month for a year in the mid 90s when I was developing the band, it served its purpose and those days have gone. On a bad day I used to go to the cash machine in the interval to ensure I had enough to give the musicians some decent expenses at least. These days though it's all different, and the musicians I employ are paid an appropriate, professional fee. Paying musicians well to play great repertoire inspires loyalty and great performances.


Whenever an inquiry comes in for the band there is sometimes a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the phone. Two years ago an arts festival in Buckinghamshire offered me a fee roughly sixty percent below what I asked for so I declined. He then engaged the services of a peripatetic secondary school drum tutor (nothing wrong with that of course) and a pick up band to play similar repertoire at less than half price. I have always believed that you should tailor your budget according to the band you want, not the other way around.

Cheaper bands are available.
Fact of life.

Don't forget that the cheapest car on the second hand car lot is the most likely to be the least reliable and in the poorest condition.

Musicians and bands, we're luxury items. The higher the quality and the bigger the name, the higher the price.


Arts funding and crowdfunding can often bring works and performances into being that otherwise would not exist. Occasionally though there is no alternative other than to take a deep breath, put your hand in your pocket and bankroll your own career. One or two of my more comfortably off friends are endlessly getting approached by people looking for support for their projects. 
Don't invite other people to invest in your work if you won't put your own money on the line. This I have done myself sometimes at significant personal expense. I once sold my home in order to fund performing activities, but that's just a measure of how much it means. That apartment would be worth half as much again as I sold it for, but arguably I wouldn't have the career, so money, whilst better to have than not, is by no means the be-all and end-all of existence, and if it's just sitting in the bank generating a tiny amount of interest rather than a whole lot of energy then what's the point?

There are certain gigs that fall into the 'under the radar' category. Those low key, low profile performances which take place away from the glare of publicity and without a carefully orchestrated PR campaign (attention seeking, as it is also known).

I did such a show the other day with two close musical comrades with whom I have been happily associated for many years. The degree of freedom afforded by this kind of performance is unequaled, and it's a great opportunity to work up new repertoire as well as honing techniques and concepts on the drums. 'Paid practice' as I am fond of saying.

The gig in question paid me the princely sum of sixty five pounds.

Sixty five pounds.

I know. It probably doesn't seem like a huge return on the years of investment of time in developing my skills as a musician, but there was no admission charge, it was a tiny venue, we had complete autonomy over the repertoire, we chose to be there and nobody was raking in money on the back of our efforts. (That happens rarely in the jazz world it won't surprise you to know). 

Where no one is making money I don't have a problem. Exploitation is a different matter altogether.

Supply and demand. London is the most exciting, vibrant and diverse music city anywhere on the planet by quite some distance. Musicians from all over the world want to come to London and who can blame them? 
The economic effect of this of course is that now in 2016 musicians' wages are at an all-time low. 
I often describe the London jazz scene as tens of thousands of musicians chasing a few dozen gigs and this has never been more true. We all want to play, we all want to be heard and we all have bills to pay.
This makes me think of a fabulous young jazz musician who recently announced on Facebook that due to lack of opportunities to play he was calling it a day. Luckily he has other talents and does not depend on music for his living.
That's what I call integrity.
He could have said he would play for less money to be out there more frequently, or be less discriminating about what he plays and with whom. 

In one of my posts on the subject of practice I stressed the importance of continuity. There is nothing better for a musician than to play regularly in environments that stretch you to the peak of your ability, and this reminds me of a purple patch, musically, professionally and financially some twenty years ago.


The mid 90's was a very busy and exciting time for me. It brought me to a life changing fork in the road careerwise which will be the subject of a future post. As a result of a regular Thursday night jazz quartet residency at the glamorous Willesden Green Library Centre, I got offered a regular road gig playing mainstream jazz with the late Keith Smith. Smith, (whose January 2008 obituary in the Telegraph began 'Keith Smith was a powerful trumpeter, an astute businessman and a deeply unattractve man') pretty much single handedly invented the jazz tribute package show. He would recruit a name who would pull a crowd (Georgie Fame, Paul Jones and during my tenure with his organisation the wonderful vocalist Elaine Delmar) and put together a themed show more often than not based around one of the great American popular composers, Gershwin, Porter, Hoagy Carmichael etc. This approach to marketing jazz feels done to death now but back then in the pre-post modern era (if I can get away with that) it was fresh and new, often attracting sponsorship from brands like Southern Comfort. So tenacious was Smith that the diary was full. There would be occasional moments of strangeness with fees, where you'd go on a six date tour to discover that two of the dates were on a profit share basis but for the most part he was paying the guys in the band £150 per show. 

Bear in mind that this was 20 years ago when petrol was 44p a litre and you could buy a two bed flat in zone 5 for under £60,000, this then begins to feel like a tidy sum of money. 
Not only that but the exposure was pivotal to me. Having not moved to London until age 29 I had a lot of catching up to do, and this opportunity was the perfect vehicle as it made me recognisable to jazz audiences the length and breadth of the UK. This occurred at exactly the same time as the launch of the Pete Cater Big Band so all in all I was making good money and getting plenty of the right kind of exposure.

Since when did those things become mutually exclusive?

Sadly it is now a daily occurrence on social media to see posts highlighting downright exploitation of musicians in the grubbiest ways imaginable.
As I was writing this post my attention was drawn to the activities of an organisation named Hauser Wirth, who  had been casting around for gullible musicians to stage 'voluntary' performances at their summer party. Here's the poster should you be in any doubt. Thankfully the democratic power of social media has forced them to reconsider. By the way, they're not a hedge fund, law firm or accountancy practice; they're an art gallery! Supporting artists on the one hand and on the other asking musicians to give their services free. How much further beyond irony can you get? A few weeks ago we had the Sainsbury's artist in residence scandal where local artists were invited to redesign the staff canteen of the Camden branch of the supermarket again free of charge. Social media pressure won the day again and the 'incentive' was withdrawn.


So far so good, but what about when the solidarity breaks down?


It came to my attention that a three day festival in the Midlands was offering minor support slots and beer tent gigs to local bands and sadly they had no shortage of mugs who were happy to sign on the dotted line. When challenged festival organisers will almost always trot out the 'insufficient budget' line. Perhaps if your budget is insufficient you should re-evaluate your whole business strategy or tell me what you do for a living and let me see if I can find somebody who pursues the same activity as a hobby and get them to do it unpaid. Worst of all is the false promise of the benefits of 'exposure'.

People die from exposure.

Also whether you are putting out a live band, making records or promoting concerts, everything you pay to musicians can be offset against tax liabilities. This is your opportunity to fund the arts directly at source. Just have a think about that for a moment. 

Companies employ accountants to reduce their tax liabilities. What I fail to understand is why they then make these outrageous offers in the name of 'exposure' when they could actually do the arts world a little bit of good by supporting live performances and new works rather than paying HMRC to support DFID's ludicrous foreign aid strategy.


One of my students told me of a recent gig where he and his band mates had played a door split show with two other bands and came out of it with just about enough to go to McDonald's. Heartbreaking, but will it lead to the big break? Can you add it to your 10,000 hours? For more on this see my earlier post entitled You've Got Time To Practise (Part 2). I know about paying your dues in this industry but again, someone is doing nicely out of this sort of event so it's exploitation, pure and simple.

Another area in which I have professional interests is the film and television industry, and I think this cult of unpaid work has to some extent migrated from there. Movies and TV production are brim full of interns and runners doing unpaid work in the hope of gaining some experience, making a few useful contacts and ascending the greasy pole. The key difference is the skill set, you can blag a gig as a runner just as soon as you've figured out how to work a walkie talkie, but have a go at depping a sight reading gig a week after you bought your first set of drums and let's see how you get on.

If a musician is good enough to perform at your event then they are good enough to paid appropriately.

End of.


The fee you receive for your performance in so many ways says a great deal about what you are perceived to be worth. Your perception as the recipient of the fee as well as the perception of whoever is paying you.
Think about that one too.

The days when there were significant sums of money to be made from playing a musical instrument are now in the past. This is not to say that there isn't still money to be made from the industry but you stand a far greater chance of accumulating wealth as a rapper, DJ, accountant or lawyer. Again I stress that for many highly skilled professionals the actual playing of music will frequently not generate an annual top line income much in excess of £14,400, equivalent to working a 40 hour week on national minimum wage for 50 weeks per year. Most professional musicians of my acquaintance do a certain amount of teaching, or writing. More and more players are running studios and diversifying in other ways to stay afloat in a shrinking and over-populated sector.

I can remember the feeling of elation when doing my first gig which paid a 'professional' fee. It was 1977 and I received £14 for a Saturday night function gig at the Manor Hotel, Meriden.  Back then jobs tended to pay between eight and fifteen pounds, and with my school friends getting a pound for a five day a week paper round I was in relative terms a plutocrat. The highest earner in my school, a year or so later Central Television's  Johnny Patrick contracted me for the house band of a four week international circus at the NEC. I was earning £220 a week in 1979 and missing school in order to do so. The headmaster very nearly had a seizure when it came to light I was earning more than he was.
I'm fairly sure that was the last time I was the highest earner in the class of '81.

The rest of the world thinks we are all millionaires living in mansions. Not quite, and added to which since the original post Sadiq Khan now charges me £36.50 just for the privilege of using London's roads to do gigs where there's an early set up and a post midnight finish.

Every unpaid gig is a potential lost earning opportunity as well as acquiescence/complicity in the race to the bottom. More than once recently I have seen Facebook posts by musicians on the horns of a moral dilemma, concerned that by not taking part in the unpaid gig they are somehow 'letting the band down'. If you agree to play for nothing you personally are letting down an entire profession.

And another thing; people who pay other people 50p a day to wash cars end up in jail. 

Remember the words of a wise old hooker who once said,

"You'll struggle to get paid for it once people know you'll give it away for free".

And as a Covid 19 postscript, we are in a temporary and unique situation.
In response to those with the temerity to ask you to perform for little or no money, remember this response for future use:

"No thanks, I'm busy staying at home that night. It pays better".




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