THE LOWEST NUMBER STICKS

It’s always stressful to negotiate a contract. I do a few per week. Real estate biz or the band. The lowest number you mention, that’s the one that sticks. If you say, “It’ll be between $6,500 and $6,800,” the customer just hears the $6,500. Never casually bandy about a low number. That’s the one that sticks.

You can do a million negotiations and never get used to it. Just like going on stage. You go on stage, and if you’re not nervous, you’re screwed up. I’m not saying you should be a nervous wreck — which is often the case the first couple years — but you should be a bit anxious. Even if you’re playing for seven people. We drove all the way to Grand Rapids, Mich., to play for about 30 people. Yeah, yeah, we’re pros and the show must go on, but it was a disappointment – that small number and such a long drive.

We did a show in Middletown, Ohio, for seven people. I told our singer to do a Beatles song in Yiddish just for fun. Big hit. Ohio premiere.

“Home hospitality” — that’s another negotiating tactic promoters use. “Would you please stay in a house, rather than a hotel?” Don’t do it.

I once put a band up in one of my vacant apartments. The band was Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the True Loves. Eli was just starting out. About nine of his guys barreled into the empty apartment. It cost me $50 to clean up after them. Not that they trashed the place. They didn’t. But nine guys overnight — the tub had some hairs in it the next morning, and there were foot prints. I knew what I was getting into. I knew that upfront. Support the arts.

Yiddishe Cup did a home hospitality where the host family didn’t show up. The festival volunteer took us to a flophouse near a paper mill. Looked like some rundown student housing. One bed, one cot, a couch and three sleeping bags. One bathroom.

So instead we went to a hotel, which wasn’t easy to come by because parents weekend was happening at a nearby college.

The next day I got half our hotel expenses back from the festival organizer. That encounter was like the real estate biz — hocking and negotiating. The music biz is 90 percent fun; this was the other 10 percent.

I told her the flop house was “not habitable.” Also, I mentioned my guys were 46-years- old and up. “We’re not college kids.”

She said, “We didn’t know you’re that old.”

Look at the photo in the brochure then! I asked her if she’d put her own family up in that dump. She said she would.

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