Into the wild

How to support your local musicians

Maybe you were at a local bar, drinking local beer, and gnawing on locally-grown appetizers, and you happened to hear a rad local band. Just like you patronize this local eatery, local brewery, and perhaps even local farmers, you want to support this new source of localtainment. But, how?

1 // Show up. It blows my mind to hear people complain they have nothing to do in this city. There are a dozen great bands playing in Tulsa on any given night. Pause that episode of “Real Housewives of Rural Pennsylvania” (actually, someone should make that show), put on some pants, and go support a group of young artists trying earnestly to entertain you.

Just listen to Robby Housh, head honcho for Johnny Badseed and the Rotten Apples: “Bring some friends and enjoy yourself. The more people are enjoying themselves at a show, the more fun the band has.”

2 // Pay the cover charge. I won’t lie, being in a band is a lot of fun. It also takes up a lot of time and a surprising amount of money, so it’s nice when we get to make a little scratch for our trouble. You should feel good knowing that $5 you laid down at the door is going toward stitching up the holes in our pockets.
“A good friend of mine pointed out that the standard cover charge has always been a cool $5 bill for most places,” said Bo Hallford, bass guitar extraordinaire for a number of bands, including Paul Benjaman Band. “Cheap live music is the only thing that hasn’t inflated over the years. A lot of folks will turn away from a bar with a cover charge, only to spend more than $5 on each drink. Pay the cover. What’s $5 buy these days, anyway?”

3 // Drink. If you’re looking for an excuse to go on a Wednesday-night bender (like you need another excuse), I’ll give you two. First, at bars without a cover charge, the band is probably getting paid a cut of the bar (read: 10 percent or less). So, the more you drink, the more we get paid. If you buy drinks for the band, it’s like they get paid twice (hey, I’m a musician, not a mathematician). Second, most bars aren’t in the business of putting on free shows, and the ones that are don’t stay in business very long. The more the bar makes, the happier the owners are, and the more likely your favorite band is to get invited back.
Pro tip: No matter how charming you think you are, you’re a super-obnoxious drunk, so remember to tip your bartender and to designate a driver.

4 // Buy some merch, listen to their music. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that listening to your favorite local band’s music is a great way to support them, but have you ever thought about how you listen to their music? Buying a tape, vinyl record, or CD is the best way to get bands the most money up front, but that physical product stops paying us the moment it’s in your hands. Streaming services like Spotify pay out with every listen. So, if you’re at a show, buy a band’s merch – tapes, CDs, shirts, stickers – and when you’re sitting at your desk, listen to them on Spotify.

5 // Follow them on social media. I know – your Facebook timeline, like mine, is already a logjam of your friends’ business ventures, art shows, and poetry slams, held together with a glue of cat videos and Upworthy headlines. But festival and concert promoters use social media to gauge bands’ potential audience, so if you want to see your friend’s doom-jazz quartet (yeah, that’s a thing) at the next whateverpalooza, you need get to clicking. Like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and Instagram, send them 5-second bursts of NSFW video on Snapchat, or add them to your professional network on LinkedIn (scratch that, LinkedIn is a terrible social-media platform that nobody should use).

6 // Tell everyone you know. Watch your step, I’m about to drop some knowledge. A 2012 study by Nielson showed that 92 percent of people trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family over anything else, which means that no matter how much a band shamelessly self-promotes, what concerts we play, or awards we win, none of it means a thing compared to that time you mentioned us to your friend Dave over nachos.

7 // Talk to them after they play. Want to know why most of us play music? It isn’t the money. It’s because we’re tremendous narcissists who need constant validation. Seriously, though, even if we look hot and tired and busy trying to get our stuff off the stage, there are few better feelings than someone coming up after a show and paying a compliment.

“I feel the most rewarded when the audience speaks up,” said Danner Party frontman Pete Hess. “Even if they’re talking shit, at least I know they’re listening.”