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Bohlinger's Tele-Style Partscaster!
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.
John Bohlinger gives his best advice to aspiring musicians. Spoiler: Wear those earplugs!
If you knew the amount of chaos, heartbreak, and frustration in my white-knuckled career, you'd understand my reluctance to advise anyone on being a professional musician. That said, I've been doing this music scam for a long time and, much to my surprise, it's actually worked out pretty well. I make a decent living and have a lot of fun. If you're an aspiring musician, here are a few tips that might help you toward that modest goal.
1. When you play with a new drummer, or a new song, or a weird environment that makes the groove not feel natural, try standing with your foot actually touching the face of the kick-drum head. When you feel every kick with your foot, you can't help but know exactly where the drummer is putting the groove. Warning: This makes some territorial drummers uncomfortable, and it's dangerously loud … which segues nicely to tip #2.
2. Until stem cell magic or an Apple implant can fix hearing damage, it's up to you to protect your ears. Be careful or wind up like that poor dude in Sound of Metal. Two musicians I work with regularly have developed tinnitus so bad that their ears are constantly ringing, so much that they can't sleep and are dealing with depression. To try and avoid this, set your tone without earplugs pre-gig, then put in earplugs and leave them in the entire time. What I actually do is set my tone, put in earplugs until I suspect I have turd tone, then I take out my non-drummer-side plug, tweak on the fly, then plug back up and gig. The problem is, even that short amount of time can do real damage.
I purchased two wildly expensive sets of molded plugs and five different pairs of mildly expensive plugs, but ultimately the cheap foam plugs work best for me. They're comfortable, easy to get in and out, effective, and I always lose the expensive ones. (I can't have nice things.) Every pair of pants I own has used but clean-ish, mismatched plugs in their pockets that have gone through the wash. I not only wear earplugs on gigs, but whenever I'm in a loud environment, like walking down Broadway in Nashville.
"Two musicians I work with regularly have developed tinnitus so bad that their ears are constantly ringing, so much that they can't sleep."
3. More gear will not make you sound better—playing will. Compare Bonamassa on a new Epiphone and a vintage 'burst and they both sound amazing, regardless of the amp.
I'm a hypocrite with many guitars, amps, and piles of pedals. If I played as much as I looked at gear, I'd be a better player, have more money, and maybe be happier. For 2021, I'm not buying anything * in hopes of building a closer relationship with the gear I have. Love is love; you gotta put in the time to get to know your object of affection. (*Disclaimer: If somebody has a bargain, '50s- era Les Paul with PAFs, hit me up and make me break my promise.)
4. Pay attention to your body when you play. I recently noticed that I hold my pick way too tight. That tension jacks with the groove and my body. I used to think Stevie Ray Vaughan was just bludgeoning his guitar with his right hand all the time. Watch his old videos and you'll see he sledgehammers that Strat at times, but for the most part, he is loose, smooth, and effortless. Loosening up that death grip helps mitigate hand cramps, tight shoulders, and neck pain after long gigs.
5. Try learning something new every month. If you're an electric player who always uses a pick, make yourself learn a Tommy Emmanuel arrangement, like "One Mint Julep" from his PG Riff Rundown. If acoustic is your thing, take a course in Angus 101 and learn his "Highway to Hell" solo. Notice his tone (not that dirty). Notice his notes (not that fast). Notice how hard it rocks (nothing rocks harder). If you've never tried slide, check out my PG lessons. It's remarkably easy. Music always has new mysteries if you dig. You dig?
6. Music isn't a competition, but if it were, the person who has the most fun while playing should win. Get comfortable with the fact that we all have limitations, but they're only weaknesses if we let them be. Miles Davis couldn't play as fast as Coltrane, so he went the other way, playing slow, melodic lines surrounded by space. In doing so, he steered jazz away from bebop toward cool. Django had finger injuries that led him to develop a style with long glissandos and a melodic swing that changed guitar music forever. Enjoy the journey as you find your own way.
7. They say the secret to success in the arts is sincerity. If you can fake that, you got it made. I maintain you fake it long enough, and it becomes authentic. We're all making this up as we go.