Just some comments ...

Musically and performance-wise, things are getting a bit weird out there. It's my understanding that ASCAP and BMI are pressuring bars and restaurants to a point of making them make the choice between jukeboxes and live music. And some of the establishments are very small businesses that can only accommodate single and duo acts. Now, I'm a member of BMI but this really puts the squash on live music locally. I'd hate to think that these new generations of jukeboxes (that can pull any band's music up from any album they ever put out) could eventually, technologically, put a lot of musicians out of business. The DJs put a lot of bands out of business. I was in a small wedding band a long time ago that was essentially put out of business by the advent of DJ's, who without putting in the time and effort and training musicians have to put in to learn their crafts, just underbid the bands and pull up songs on their iPods and flip on their sound-sensitive lighting systems.

Have you ever been to the same Karaoke Night for more that three times in a row? From a musician's standpoint, it's mildly entertaining for about 20 minutes and then it just becomes a pure living hell. I know people are having fun thinking they can sing. It is entertainment, in a way. However, this is again taking away opportunities from musicians and those of us who have had to spend years and years to hone a skill.

And it can get worse. Last summer, I went to downtown Crystal Lake and they had a band playing in the gazebo at the train station for one of those lunch in the park deals. It was a good band. It had a female lead singer and the crowd liked it. The crowd was all out there in their lawn chairs enjoying some music and the warm weather. Then the band announced who they were and said they were from Chicago. Chicago? What the hell. Chicago. In McHenry County, where there are lots of very suitable acts to perform this kind of function, the Downtown Association picks a band from Chicago? I'm relatively sure the lawn chair crowd there did not train in from Chicago. I don't have to say anymore as I think you know where I'm coming from with this.

It's hard enough to put together three, four or five like-minded players and form a band. It's 10 times harder for that group to find a place to play. Certain booking agents control all the live music venues. They want to make their cuts off the band's pay. Restaurants and Bars use these agents to book in the entertainment so the restaurants and bars does not have to. Then you get the same group of bands simply circulating the area almost forever ... and many if not most of those bands are not from this area.

I'm not a booking agent. I never have been and I never will be. I don't know all there is to know about that occupation, although I've had to deal with them enough. However, I feel the restaurant/bar owners, booking agents, jukebox technology, karaoke, DJ's and the pressure put on small businesses by ASCAP and BMI all contribute in their own way to crippling the development of live music and musicians and on a local level it's musicians that all of them (except some of the restaurants and bars) depend on.

Just ranting.