"Pay for play" in Los Angeles has been prevalent for years. It's been protested, but AFAIK it hasn't gotten much better. It seems "somebody" is always hungrier or has some financial backing...

The bigger, better clubs insist you "pre-buy" x number of tickets (usually at least 50), and some of them even charge you to use the house P.A. system and their house sound man.

In southern California, people seem to do a lot better in Orange County than L.A. county - for paying gigs.

The leader has to pay sidemen around $100/man for a club gig as about absolute "minimum wage" here. $125-175 is more typical.

Wedding and corporate functions can pay a lot more than that.

Wasn't there a whole program set up to tour singer/songwriters around the Barnes & Nobles bookstores (or was it Borders)? Whatever happened to that?

Larry
http://www.audibleresponse.com
http://www.myspace.com/larrywilliamsproductions
...now writing/producing with Natascha: http://www.myspace.com/nataschacorrigan