John Bohlinger with his club rig in downtown Nashville on a Monday afternoon.
I've been gigging in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, for over two decades. Here's an inside look at Music City's club scene.
Within Nashville's club scene, there are roughly 100 stages crammed into 40-plus clubs stacked side by side along and around lower Broadway. Every day, these bars run four consecutive, four-hour sets of live music starting at 10 a.m. and ending at 2:30 a.m. One band stumbles off and the next group is up and playing in as little as 15 minutes. The music and chaos never stops.
For Broadway musicians, it's as organized as a freshly stamped-on ant colony. There are frequent double-bookings, last-minute cancellations, and changeups. Sometimes a player doesn't show and a replacement is recruited on the street or from the band just leaving. I've been onstage when the cops arrested a singer who then left the stage in handcuffs, kicking and screaming. I've seen players pass out mid-performance. I've seen fights break out onstage and work their way into the crowd. Speaking of crowds, last week a man removed his full colostomy bag and swung it around his head during a friend's gig. It's a shit show.
Although the attrition rate is high, I've been playing these clubs for over two decades. There's never been a set schedule. I get a text and go if I'm available. Last week, I played five gigs in four days, which included a double shift on Saturday (2 to 6 p.m. on pedal steel at Johnny Cash's, followed by 6 to 10 p.m. on guitar at Tootsie's). There are no breaks, no soundcheck, no setlist. You'll be onstage with some of the best and worst musicians you'll ever play with. The gigs are fun, frustrating, grueling, rewarding, good for you, and bad for you. Here's the scoop.
Pay
Base pay in clubs ranges from $30 per player on the low end to as much as $150. That dough is augmented by tips that can run between zero and as much as $500 per person if an extravagant fan throws in big. Musicians usually walk with about $100, but there are times you'll be earning less than minimum wage at the end of four hours. Yes, this is exploitation, but the clubs know that if a musician grumbles, there are hundreds of players in line hoping to be exploited. I am one of them.
Gear
All of the clubs have a PA, sort of. There are usually floor wedge monitors and often offer options for in-ear monitors. If you want to go full nerd, some clubs allow you to log on with your phone and adjust your own mix. The clubs will provide mics but bring your own—some house mics are as clean as a bar's bathroom floor. Sometimes they mic your amp, sometimes you just blow and go.
"For Broadway musicians, it's as organized as a freshly stamped-on ant colony. There are frequent double-bookings, last-minute cancellations, and changeups."
Clubs all have a house drum kit—some rough, some surprisingly good. Drummers bring their own snare, cymbals, and kick pedal. Usually a bass amp is provided. Some spots like Tootsie's and Rippy's have backline guitar amps (solid-state Orange Crush Pro CR60C). Honky Tonk Central has a nice Marshall with a slant 4x12. I always opt for the house amp, to travel as light as possible. I bring one guitar and a modest pedalboard crammed into the front pocket of the gig bag, with extra strings, a slide, cables, and a capo stuffed in the other pocket. When I carry an amp, I usually use my Boss Katana. It's light, loud, and has built-in drive and effects if my pedalboard goes down. Downtown power is glitch: I've fried two tube amps down there. No cork-sniffing gear here.
Logistics
Parking is expensive and inconvenient, but the Nashville Musicians Association Local 257 gives vouchers to members for $5 parking at a downtown garage. Some clubs offer parking vouchers for players. Most players who have a lot of gear schlep it on a hand truck/dolly. Post-pandemic lockdown, the sidewalks are crammed with tourists. It's slow going when you're hauling gear behind a gaggle of bridesmaids teetering on high heels, but that's the gig.
Getting a Gig
If you want to jump into downtown Music City gigging, go to Broadway and spend a few nights listening to bands. Then go to the Spotify playlist The Sound of Lower Broadway, which currently has 264 songs that you'll likely be asked to play. Bands try to cover all requests from a good tipper. You'll need to know the old-school country classics as well as classic rock, modern country, and current pop/rap hits. There will be embarrassing train wrecks. Get on Facebook and check out Nashville Gig Finder and local musician community pages, where you can find people looking for players. Gigs lead to gigs, if you play well with others.
There are some downsides. That loud environment destroys your ears. There's a physical toll to these gigs. Hold a guitar for four to eight hours after hauling your gear and you'll wake up feeling like you've been beaten with a bag of doorknobs. And yet, I will play these gigs as long as I get the call, because players only love you when they're playing.
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We chat with Molly about Sister Rosetta’s “immediately impressive” playing, which blends jazz, gospel, chromaticism, and blues into an early rock ‘n’ roll style that was not only way ahead of its time but was also truly rockin’.
In the early ’60s, some of the British guitarists who would shape the direction of our instrument for decades to come all found themselves at a concert by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. What they heard from Tharpe and what made her performances so special—her sound, her energy—must have resonated. Back at home in the U.S., she was a captivating presence, wowing audiences going back to her early days in church through performing the first stadium rock ‘n’ roll concert—which was also one of her weddings—and beyond. Her guitar playing was incendiary, energetic, and a force to be reckoned with.
On this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re joined by guitarist Molly Miller, who in addition to being a fantastic guitarist, educator, bandleader, and performing with Jason Mraz, is a bit of a Sister Rosetta scholar. We chat with Molly about Sister Rosetta’s “immediately impressive” playing, which blends jazz, gospel, chromaticism, and blues into an early rock ‘n’ roll style that was not only way ahead of its time but was also truly rockin’.
Featuring vintage tremolos, modern slicer effects, and stereo auto-panners, the update includes clever Rate and Tempo controls for seamless syncing and morphing.
Today Kemper announces the immediate availability PROFILER OS 12.0 including the highly anticipated collection of advanced Tremolo and Slicer FX for the entire range of KEMPER PROFILER guitar amps.
The Collection features three vintage tremolos, two modern slicer effects, and two stereo auto-panners, that have been derived from the slicer effects. They all feature a clever Rate and Tempo control system, that allows for syncing the tremolo to the song tempo, retriggering the timing by simply hitting the TAP switch, and changing or morphing the tremolo rate to different note values,
The new Advanced Tremolo Modules in Detail
- The Tube Bias Tremolo is the familiar Tremolo in the Kemper Profilers. Formally named "Tremolo“ and available in the PROFILERs since day one, it is a reproduction of the famous Fender Amp tremolos from the 50‘s. Placed in front of the amp it beautifully interacts with the amp distortion.
- The Photocell Tremolo dates back to the 60‘s and features a steeper pulse slope, and its width varies with the intensity.
- The Harmonic Tremolo also dates back to the 60‘s and was introduced by Fender. The low and high frequencies alternate with the tremolo rate.
- The Pulse Slicer is a modern slizer or stutter effect that will continuously transition from the smoothest sine wave to the sharpest square wave, using the "Edge“ parameter. The "Skew“ parameter changes the timing of the high level versus the low level, sometimes also called pulse width or duty cycle.
- The Saw Slicer creates a ramp like a saw wave. The saw wave has a falling ramp when "Edge“ is at full position, and a rising edge at zero position. Towards the middle position a rising and falling ramp are forming a triangle wave. The „Skew“ parameter changes the slope of the rising and falling ramp from a linear trajectory to a more convex or concave shape.
- The Pulse Autopanner and the Saw Autopanner are derivates from their respective Slicers, they spread their signals in the stereo panorama. The "Stereo“-control parameter is included in many effects of the PROFILER. Here, it introduces a novel "super-stereo" effect that lets the Autopanner send the signal well outside the regular stereo image. This effect works best if you are well positioned in the correct stereo triangle of your speakers. When you move the “Stereo” soft knob beyond the +/-100% setting, the super-stereo effect comes into place, reaching its maximum impact at +/-200%.
- A single press on the TAP button at the beginning of the bar will bring the rhythmic modulation effects, such as Tremolo or Slicer, back into sync with the music without changing the tempo. The sync will happen smoothly and almost unnoticeable, which is a unique feature. Of course, tapping the tempo is possible as well.
- Modulation Rate - The “Rate” control available in many modulation effects is based on a special philosophy that allows continuous control over the speed of the modulation and continuous Morphing, even when linked to the current tempo via the To Tempo option. The fine Rate resolution shines when seamlessly morphing from, e.g., 1/8 notes to 1/16 notes or triplets without a glitch and without losing the timing of the music.
PG's demo master quickly (and easily) drops in an H-S-S setup into his 1994 40th Anniversary Stratocaster that needed help. Find out what happens when gets his first taste of active pickups.
EMG SL20 Steve Lukather Signature Pre-wired Pickguard with 3 Pickups - Black Pearl
Barry Little’s onstage rig.
How you want to sound and what makes you happy are both highly subjective. When it comes to packing and playing gear for shows, let those considerations be your guide.
I was recently corresponding with Barry Little, aPG reader from Indiana, Pennsylvania, about “the One”—that special guitar that lets us play, and even feel, better when it’s in our hands. We got talking about the gear we bring to gigs, and Barry sent me the photo that appears with this column.
“I’m mostly old school and take quite the amp rig, and usually two or three Strats or ‘super strats,’ plus some Teles,” he wrote. “Some are in different tunings.” Barry also has a rack, built with famed guitar-rig designer Bob Bradshaw’s help, that he says holds a Bad Cat preamp bearing serial number one. For his ’70s/’80s rock outfit and his country band, this covers the waterfront.
I love Barry’s rig; it looks awesome! So … why do I feel guilty about the substantial amount of gear I take to gigs where my five-piece band will be playing a concert-length set? Onstage, my setup looks fantastic—at least to me. It’s the gear I’ve always wanted. But packed inside cases and ready to load into the Honda Odyssey with a rooftop carrier that all five of us and our instruments travel in for away dates … it seems excessive. Currently, I take three guitars: my customized reissue Fender Esquire “Dollycaster,” my Zuzu one-off Green Monster, and a Supro Conquistador, plus a 1-string electric diddley bow made from a crawfish-boiling pot. They start every show in open G octave (D–G–D–G–D–G), open D, standard tuning, and A, respectively. There’s also a Sony GLXD6+ wireless, and a pedalboard with 13 effects stomps, a tuner, and two power boxes, along with a Brown Box. That board is the launchpad for the stereo signal that runs into two Carr 1x12 combos: a Vincent and a Telstar. In addition, there’s a big black bag with spare cables, fuses, capos, strings, extension cords, microphones, straps, duct tape, and just about anything else you might need. After all that, miraculously, there is also room for my bandmates–another guitarist, bass, drums, and theremin—and their gear, plus light luggage.
I admit that’s a lot, but it used to be more—at least by the pound. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, I often played through two Marshall 4x12s with a Mesa/Boogie Duel Rectifier Trem-O-Verb on one and a ’72 Marshall Super Lead atop the other. And before that, it was the Marshall with a 4x12 plus a ’66 Fender Twin Reverb. I kept a waist back-support belt in the van, but spent a decent chunk of that era living with regular back pain.
“I admit that’s a lot, but it used to be more—at least by the pound.”
Where am I going with this? Besides a desire for you to absolve me of my guilt, I feel like all of this gear is … um … necessary? It’s the recipe for the sound I want to hear, for the versatility of the material, and for me to play from my happiest place—onstage in the middle of a glorious stereo field of my own making. It’s not really about gear and it’s not about somebody else’s definition of practicality. It’s about joy. Ideally, you should be able to bring whatever gives you joy to a gig. Period.
Sure, naysayers will yap that after a guitar, a cable, and an amp, nothing else is necessary. And on a certain misguided, intolerant level, they are right. We can all play a show with just the basics, but I, for one, don’t want to—unless maybe it’s a solo gig. Neither did Jimi Hendrix. There is a universe of tones out there waiting to be discovered and explored. There are improvisational paths that only a pedalboard can suggest. (Of course, if you’re playing a small stage, traveling in too tight quarters, or claiming turf that impinges on bandmates, those considerations apply. “Be kind” is a good rule of thumb for life, including band life.)
Remember, the naysayers are not in your bones, and onlyyour bones know what you need and want. Don’t let the voices—even in your own head—nag you. (I, too, must take this advice to heart.) Bring whatever you want to bring to gigs, as long as you can get it there. Do it guiltlessly. Have fun. And listen to your bones.