I’ve read a few stories (not sure how true) of successful bands who went on tour and came home to find themselves evicted.
As an earlier comment noted, this should be less of an issue these days. I remember reading a series of online articles about bands who had day jobs. A large number of them had freelance “day jobs” that involved them doing work on their laptops on the road. Everyone on the road these days has internet in some form, smartphones, etc.
I also think most touring bands aren’t on the road THAT much perpetually. I follow a lot of relatively successful musicians who seem to go on 30-50 date tours, do the festival circuit, etc, but they tend to have breaks in between legs, take significant time off while recording, etc. There might be a large “middle,” but I think many bands are either touring infrequently (fly-ins, festivals, fairs, short run tours 6-8 shows or so at a time) or at the level that I’m sure these inconveniences are very well planned for and taken care of.
I would think there are many occupations that require taking long extended trips away from home and that require living out of hotel/motel rooms for many months before they can return home.
Don’t you think the people engaged in those occupations would have this same problem and that many businesses have grown and prospered by anticipating the needs of those people and servicing them.
A rock band would not be very different in its needs than salespeople who travel around from city to city trying to sell their wares. I would think they would need to find a service and would be stuck unless they asked their hotel concierge or looked in the Yellow Pages.
I would guess that many Hotel concierges have made a lot of money by taking kickbacks from the businesses they recommend to their guests. Lots and lots of money changes hands under the table and the people who are smart and courteous would get the lions’ share of that money and deservedly so. Don’t you think?
The difference between a touring band and other traveling professions is the band will usually spend 5-6 hours total awake at a particular location. When we play with touring bands, they’ve usually arrived in town around sometime after noon, at the best, usually around 4-5pm. They have time to get food in them, maybe relax a little and take care of small things, then it’s time to start getting ready for the show. After they play the show, it’s usually time to go to bed, then get up in time to travel to the next town.
These are bands that stay at hotels without a concierge, if they aren’t crashing at the promoter’s house. The bands who are making enough money to stay at nice hotels have road managers and the runners mentioned above, so they don’t have to manage it themselves.
Prague in the Czech Republic has only one launderette. They have a wall full of signed photos from various mid range actors and musicians that have used them over the years. I’ve seen that sort of thing in a bar or a restaurant, but never a launderette.
This is not a “Cite?”, but seriously, is there a website or something for this place?? It sounds like it would be awesome to see pictures of.
I think also with smaller groups or a singer/songwriter type that they often stay with friends/fans. The Fella and I are big fans of Dana Cooper and I know that sometimes he stays with people like that. He has a song that talks about hanging out in someone’s house with their cats, and thanking them. He’s also talked about how he has spare keys to houses all over. One show at Anderson Fair that had a very small turnout, a couple left at the break and I felt bad for him. The Fella said (b/c he also goes and talks to Dana) that those were the couple that he’s staying with, but they had to leave to go to town.
They hire a business management firm. One of the larger ones in LA is NKSFB. They take care of bills, keep your insurance up to date, manage your investments and a myriad of other services. It can get expensive depending on the firm and the services you need but even the smaller bands can have the basics.
I used it for a few months before I got my apartment and I was staying in hotels.
Some very odd customers used to come in. One Russian backpacker stripped down to his underpants and washed everything he owned. A business woman came in and it was clear that she’d never been in a launderette in her life. The Internet cafe part was usually used to watch hardcore porn. Not by me, I hasten to add!
Back in his college days, my husband used to run into Trent Reznor pretty regularly at the local Fluff 'n Fold. Apparently it had a bar, too (New Orleans, what can I say). Not on tour, but I like the mental image of watching Reznor folding his undies.