u/WhiteLines62

Sob story incoming, I love music, in particular Jazz and Fusion music. I've a band with some great players and we play fusion standards and fusion originals exclusively. We love listening to it, we love playing it live, learning from the masters and learning the nuances of the tunes, however, we've obviously chosen to play a very nuanced style that most general public don't have a frame of reference for.

Venue owners will terms around like musical master-class and world class, blah, blah, blah, then scrap us for all future bookings where we're replaced for guys and girls with acoustics doing radio tunes that honestly, fill the venue and get folks singing along etc. These venues (for context I live fairly rurally with limited venues nearby) are doing it hard also so I get it, but they are becoming exclusively "covers" venues I.e. Artists get specifically told not to play originals again after their gig or they don't get the gig, I'll me tion here that some of these people are super well regarded musicians in my country. I should mention that this has happened to two projects I'm related to, one of which is sidemaning a very well regarded funk originals singer who is well loved by the community and (on our last gig prior to being cut) spent 30 minutes after we'd finished selling bunches of albums and signing autographs etc.

I'll never bend the knee and join the shit radio covers band circuit as it has absolutely no appeal or creative benefit in comparison to playing what we love. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't affect my enthusiasm for live music, it's hard feeling rejected, especially when time after time we get great face value feedback, not bad audience numbers, an audience who are engaged and stay the entire bar gig and hang afterwards, only to get a shitty text or email later on with a "yeah we could make more money with one dude playing acoustic stuff" email (I should mention that we play for the same rate even though there's four of us). It seems like the more refined we get in this style, the more we distance ourselves from the general public.

No one gives a shit 🤷 last night after a few drinks I put some very precious music gear up on marketplace, resigned to the fact that I'm out of energy to continue to push for a place to feel appreciated (I took the stuff off marketplace this morning as I woke up more angry than sad that these people had made me feel this way about what I love.

I've tried the online platform to build interest there, little interest but I'm in this headspace where now I feel that others "don't want to hear it", so I don't really share it outside of my music FB page, which has limited interaction. I did have a plan to record an album this year with my band of all original tunes, but I've fradually lost so much confidence that any of it has value or is worth listening to. I'll link my stuff below in the event that you'd like to gauge my playing, confirmations of quality or any feedback for development would honestly be potentially life changing at this point.

https://youtu.be/uVldj4ASkE4?feature=shared

I realise that a lot of this is mental health related etc but it's so hard to remain optimistic when the opportunities are drying up.

So.... I live rurally, venues 1-1.5hrs away from me aren't interested in putting on bands without tunes recognisable by the public, I'm obviously having a hard time not feeling appreciated after a rediculous amount of work going into my practice, song writing and band development. I don't feel like the world owes me anything but no returns of appreciation is rough.

What would you do if you were me?

Thanks for reading my sob story if you got this far, man I appreciate it!