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I've wanted to KJ ever since I stepped into Dels Salon 5 years ago and watched Sammy at the mike. I came across some one last week who offered me their pro system for $25 a night. I had a 1 night a week 1 month trial gig lined up within 48 hours. Then came the bad news. The system was now apparently being rented by someone else. It made me feel so good to go out and aquire a gig within hours after being told I had a system I could use and then came this crusing blow. My first gig is suppossed to be Nov 4. What should I do? I think the answer is forget about it.

Butcher,
Off with thier heads!
Don't forget about it!
Chop off thier heads!

So some guy stuck it to ya, eh?
Lets see if I have this right.
He lied to you.
He made a deal with you and then backed out because he got a sweeter deal with somebody else after you made plans.
You COULD sue him for damages if you could prove your case. The way that it works is that you could rent equipment for your show at any cost to you and he would have to pay any cost over what you agreed to pay him to rent his equipment. Good luck. I think that we could do better.
Turn around is fair play.
I'm not going to post my evil little plan on this board, but, if you e-mail me...

Let's see if we can set you up in 2 weeks.
How much money do you have?
What kind of equipment do you own? Music? Mics? 13" color TV? Speakers? Mic stands? Ya got a printer to make a book on that can be copied at your local Kinkos? Cords? Player? List EVERYTHING.
Are you close to a big city? Are you close to a pro audio shop like Sam Ash or The Guitar Center?
Ya gotta truck?
How about friends/family that will support and help you?
I can suggest some Bohiemian BS that would make the average KJ here cringe.
I'll need compleate and realistic list of your resourses.
Don't forget to tell me about your CD player, stereo, boombox, Walkman, or Japanese transistor radio.

Since this info may be more personal than what you might want to post on this board I would suggest that you e-mail me at kojak66@hotmail use karaoke under subject or you just might get deleted with the junk mail.
Hopefully you'll get some input from others here, but you should pick one and ONLY one mentor.
"He who travels the fastest, travels alone".
I'm NOT going to debate anything with anyone here.
E-mail me!
If you're serious, e-mail me your list of resourses and I'll e-mail you my phone number. Even in a private chat room, typing all this carp out is way too slow to get you to where you want to go in the time that you want to get there.

Pick a mentor and follow that person's advice exclusively.
You don't have time to debate!

Of course you could just forget it all and change your name to Percy.

Kojak

Everyone here is different but in the big mix - we're all the same.

Whether it be trunk / truck load of equipment - 50,000 or 500 songs -

When I started at Del's I had had 600 songs

When I got fired I had about 5000 songs

Now I have 3000 songs because Mike Valentino says too much music attracts lightning and rabid circus animals -

be safe


Sammy

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The opinions of Sammy do not necessarily reflect the views of the Karaoke Scene Magazine - Advice is given with a sence of humor and should be taken accordingly - If you have problems setting the clock on your VCR - You've come to the right place

You can always sue for damages etc., but my advise would be to learn from the lesson and don't allow a repeat. The other thins is that if you do plan to sue, make sure you have your ducks linned up in a row or you'll be wasting your money and time. I personally don't like to go into business having to rely on someone else - they'll make it fail. I just don't like business deals that I don't have control over.

Sammy,
Let me clearify my statement about not debating anything with anyone "here".
By "here" I meant on this particular thread. NOT on the forum.
If someone other than Butcher's mentor says to buy an SM-57 and Butcher's mentor says to buy an SM-58, Butcher should follow his mentor's advice.
That isn't to say that Butcher shouldn't discuss the SM-57 with his mentor, but he should follow his mentor's advice.
You could argue over 57's vs 58s for a hundred years just to find out that Butcher's best choice is a mic made by Suck-a-cow-a.
If you want to debate one piece of equipment vs another, fine, but I'M not going to on this thread.
Butcher doesn't have the time to waste if he wants to do his gig on 11-4.
You or I could be a good mentor for Butcher, but his best choice MAY be somebody in his own neiborhood who can go into a proaudio shop with him. We could still offer advice to THEM, but Butcher should follow the advice of his mentor.
If Butcher's in your neighborhood maybe YOU could help him out.
If Butcher wants a little payback, fine, but he shouldn't get too hung up in a mean sprited little war. Like Ron said, he should learn from the lesson and disallow a repeat.

I don't see how a lawsuit would help anything except to spend money he don't have & most likely lose! Unless he had a written contract in hand, the person renting the system had every right to rent his system & start it making money as soon as he could.
Although we don't know if the renter told Butcher that he would keep his system open to him indefinately, or it would be open to him to rent provided it's not already in use. Did Butcher tell him the night that he was made the offer that he WOULD in fact HAVE a gig in less than 2 days or did he tell the renter, Hey that sounds great i'll get back to you?

This is all speculation, we only have a very short version of 1 side of the story.

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From Butcher's post it appears to me that he wanted to know what to do about the gig. Give it up or try to save it.
There's not a whole "heal-of-a-lot" that he can do about the guy that he thinks wronged him.
I don't get the impression that payback or collecting damages is Butcher's issue. Butcher wants to be a KJ and he doesn't know where to go from here. His first gig is being pulled out from under him. He can try to get his act together by Nov. or give up the gig and try to maintain relations for the future.
I can't help but to wonder if this Tues. gig is a one shot deal or something can be available to him on a regular basis.
Unless he has some cash or a friend who can pave the way for him, he's not going to make Nov 4.
I can relate to Butcher's plight.
I was a KJ wanna-be once. Weren't we all?
I think that Butcher needs someone to show him how to get a "Kustom" "Passport" and then "Escort" him into the world of KJing.

agreed...

I would go to the local "karaoke venues" and ask if they need help. Work for a place that has a permament setup.

Or

Check the yellow pages... see what other options he might have, with a similar outfit such as this one.

CONTACT the people you originally were going through, and explain the situation with them. Maybe they have another system. Maybe it was money. Maybe it was only supposed to be a one-shot deal... maybe it was temporary until their permament guy came back...

try to get some more info!

In the meantime, there's no easy way to start out, without lots of capital.

I built my start up system (hardware) for a couple thousand, but the truly hard bit will be the music!

Whatever you do, stay away from VocoPro!

Butcher - don't see it in your profile, but where are you located? Maybe we have someone on the board here near you that might be able to help.
The other thing you might consider is to rent a system from a music store if you're in a decent size town. I know there are a couple places where you can do that here in Albuquerque. I might cost you just about everything you make for that particular show, but if it means getting your foot in the door, it may be worth it.

I started a very similar way to Butcher. I had a friend whose shows I attended on a regular basis, and filled in for occassionally. He had always told me if I wanted to get a show on a differrent night then he had it, I was welcome to it (for a nominal fee of course). Unfortunately, he had a bad motorcycle accident, and I ran his shows for almost 10 weeks while he recovered. It was enough to give me the KJ bug. When he recovered, I went out and got a show on another night. Problem was, it was too close to the bar he did on other nights, and the owner pressured him to not let me use the equip., because he was losing bus. on those night I worked at my new gig. My friend then told me I couldn't use his eqip anymore, and if I wanted to continue, I had to get my own stuff.

Luckily, my wife has high limit credit cards! I did some research and found my system on the net. As many of you know- I got the CAVS system. I think it is perfecty for those starting out, because it gives you a head start as far as selection, and is easy to use.

Because I don't like giving free advertising, I won't mention where I bought from, but they had the best starter package I saw. If you have the luxury of a pro-audio store nearby, definately rent a system before you buy one- KJ'ing isn't as easy as it looks.

Good Luck!

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Let's Kick the Tires and Light the Fires!

Thanks everyone. There will be no lawsuit. Kojac you nailed it in your second post, created an oppurtunity and watched it crumble, all within 72 hours. and I live two blocks away. They have a weekend KJ and I'm hoping to talk to her tonight, I hope. I set it up for 4 consecetive tuesdays for the price of the rental each night. I was just hoping to get my feet and wet and then take it from there. I purposely chose their slowest night of the week. this mentor thing....I had no idea.

You were going to do this gig for $25 per night?????

Aye aye aye!

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Butcher,
If you really want to get your feet wet and not making any profit for the moment is OK, go up to the KJ at this club and ask her if she'll let you host for 1/2 of the tips.
You can make it your job to see that everyone has slips, and pencils, and to go into the crowd with your clipboard and try to get people to sign up to sing. You should also take song books that are sitting on tables that have people who are not going to sing and pass them around to others that may sing. If they tell you that they're not going to sing you can leave it there for them to look at.
This alone can be a tough job if you have a rough crowd of drunks, or a large crowd, or a large crowd of drunks. Setting up and tearing down the system should in and of its self be worth half of the tips. Sooner or later you'll figure out how she has her disks arranged and get a pretty good idea on how to run the equipment and she may have you partner with her on running it from time to time. There's a lot more to being a KJ than what meets the eye.
In addition to being a good host you have to be fast at finding and putting away disks. Even if you have interlude music between singers, the crowd won't put up with long breaks between singers.
You'll get people that want to change thier song at the last min. By the last min I mean the disk is in the slot and you've called them up to the stage.
This is how I got started:
I had a partner that I had made a deal with. The deal was that if I could find a gig, we would both run it and split the profits. So I went out and got a gig on Fri. and Sat. nights. At the time he was only KJing once a week during the week. I went into the club where he was KJing and told him about this gig, and he was in compleate agreement with me about running it together. He had the system, and I had the car and got the gig. Even though we had mutual friends, I had only met him once before I got this gig. We split the profits and tips. One slow night after he got a car he walked up to me and said that he wanted to go out to another bar and and party. That night I kept all of the tips and the next time around I got to go out and party and he got to keep all of the tips. When we went our separate ways I had the experience that I needed to run a show.
The money wasn't very good, but we both got to eat about $35 worth of Sushi each night.
You can find our listing in the Dec '99--Jan 2000 issue of Karaoke Scene.
I don't know if we were listed in any other issues, it was a long time ago and it wasn't a long term gig.
Print out a copy of this post and let the KJ that you'll be talking to read it.
This way you can convey a pretty good plan without interuption.
Good Luck!

now I did it. messed up my sholder climbing at joshua tree. this after I got the weekend KJ to rent me her equipment on my Tuesdays. I'm liking Kojak's last comments and am beginning to think this is the better way to go. She does have already 2-3 people helping her out however. My arm should recover, but will my head?