Phil Boyd of the Pittsburgh-based rock group The Modey Lemon had just spent more than $120 filling up the band's 7-miles-per-gallon '87 Chevy van during a pit-stop in North Dakota, enroute from a gig at the Badlander club in Missoula, Mont.
The Uptown in Minneapolis was expecting the band that same night. The Modey Lemon would have to cover 1,200 miles and burn through $700 in gas to get there.
This was not going to be a highly profitable trip.
High gas prices have been dipping deeper into the pockets of local professional musicians like The Modey Lemon who are trying to make a name for themselves as well as make a living on the road this summer.
For many of them, not touring is out of the question. "You've just got to go out and do it," said Mr. Boyd on his cell phone from North Dakota.
Though financial constraints are not foreign to performance artists, with gas prices at an all-time high, musicians are facing a greater-than-usual challenge to making a living through performance.
To get by and to ensure the survival of their musical careers, some are staying local. Some are looking for small gigs like weddings to play close to home. Others are trading in their trucks or vans for cars and hiring performance gear and technicians along the way. Many are depending not on tickets to make money, but on selling merchandise and CDs.
"I have no idea how anyone on a small scale is exclusively doing music," said Joe Pagamo, who plays in two bands that tour regionally under the stage name of Joe Melba.
In the end, passion for performance seems to the only thing that's keeping bands on the road this summer.
Though gas is priced at $4.09 per gallon, Mr. Boyd and nationally touring The Modey Lemon drive "the least efficient type of vehicle you can take," he said. Their van's tank holds 30 gallons and the band stops to fill up every 200 miles. The band started out its summer tour at the end of June in Phoenix, Ariz., and is scheduled to play in Milwaukee, Chicago, and East Lansing, Mich., before a final show in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the end of July.
Despite travelling in "an old beast of a vehicle," Mr. Boyd and The Modey Lemon have not lost their love for travel. "If people love music and love to get out and make it, it's going to be hard to stop them," he said.
"We've never made that much money touring," he said. But with gas reaching never-before-seen highs, profit margins are shrinking, and just breaking even isn't guaranteed.
Banking on T-shirts
According to Roy Smith, promoter at the Pittsburgh Hard Rock Cafe, many bands perform simply to gain exposure. As a result, many are "walking out with no money," he said.
Retail sales of the band's paraphernalia help compensate. "We've designed some of our own T-shirts," said Mr. Boyd. And this summer, in the wake of its newly released album, The Modey Lemon has "been doing OK" with the help of steady CD sales, he said.
At home, the band, which came together in 1999, performs only occasionally, while "kicking it around Pittsburgh." Mr. Boyd and his fellow members, Jason Kirker on bass and Paul Quatrone on drums, have found odd jobs -- from carpentry, to movie set work, to additional musical performance -- to help pay the bills.
If gas prices continue to rise, Mr. Boyd said, bands like his will likely go local to reduce tour costs. A shift from national-level touring "might help encourage local music, because people will have to concentrate more [on their local scenes]," he said.
Such a shift in mentality and interest in local musicianship "could be kind of cool," Mr. Boyd said. "You might find neat little pockets of places (with) bands and towns entertaining themselves."
"Everyone is feeling the bite of the economy" -- not just bands, he said. "The clubs are probably having a hard time too, because people might not go out as much. They don't have as much money to spend."
Though he would love to make a living from his two bands, Bowhunter and Ukiah, Mr. Pagamo -- Joe Melba -- does not see performing as a money-making venture. "I've lost more playing than I care to guess at," he added. For him and his band, all in their mid- to late-20s, venues are booked for personal enjoyment rather than profit. Their full-time occupations, which range from pizza delivery to preschool teaching, help sustain a longtime love of music on the side.
As he reconsiders the value of long-distance venues, Mr. Pagamo, is grateful for his day job as an insurance broker.
When he books concerts out-of-town, Mr. Pagama anticipates a financial loss -- or at best, breaking even. A trip he took to Philadelphia at the end of May left Melba with a profit of only $100, to be divided among the band members. "All you can do is hope to get paid something for showing up," he said.
Mark Matteo, booking representative for Entertainment Unlimited in Pittsburgh and member of the local band No Bad Juju, said his eight-piece group has started squeezing into two cars for distance travel, whereas they used to arrive individually.
Carpooling only saves so much, however. To keep costs down, Mr. Matteo has had to eliminate No Bad Juju's sound crew and sound equipment from travel arrangements or else "before you leave the house, you've added $250 to the bill."
He is now employing local, on-scene sound crews. "It's not exactly what we need, but it saves money," he said. "It wouldn't make sense to bring our own."
'Blood from a stone'
"There has to be a change. Something has to happen here," insisted Joe Rinaldo, a promoter for Joker Productions who has seen a recent decline in ticket sales. Artists travel on fixed weekly budgets, he explained, and "with gas prices sky high and the economy in a funk right now, it's definitely affecting [their] guarantees." Especially hard hit are bands just starting out, he said.
When booking his own shows, Mr. Matteo said, "being practical" has proved to be the most economical solution. "I'm looking way ahead to find routing dates that make sense, or stopping in between venues [to perform on the way]. Finding local production also makes it less expensive," he said.
For Paul Cosentino, booking manager and member of the Boilermaker Jazz Band, music is not just a hobby. It's a way of life, and it feeds a family of four. Performing is a "full time, 100 percent professional deal," he said.
As demand for jazz and jazz festivals has declined in recent years, Boilermaker Jazz Band now performs primarily for swing dancing events, most of which are within a day's drive of Pittsburgh. The band, which employs five to seven musicians, spends roughly half its working time on tour, moving from show to show in a "15-passenger Baptist church-type van" with equipment and instruments piled in.
Mr. Cosentino said he "has become a whiz on Priceline [the online travel site]" and has learned to "fill in tours" by scheduling additional concerts on the way to and in the vicinity of pre-booked, large venues.
Though Boilermaker Jazz Band does perform at Pittsburgh clubs and is hired for weddings in the region, as for sticking solely to local venues, Mr. Cosentino doesn't think there are sufficient opportunities to fully support his band. Though he hasn't cancelled any trips yet, he admitted that "it's almost more economical to stay home."
"Everyone is trying to squeeze the same blood out of the same stone," he said. Income guarantees and bands' budgets, set at the time of booking, did not account for the dramatic and unforeseeable jump in transportation costs.
"If we could stay home more and still make enough money to survive, I would love to. But I don't think any city [of this size] can support a full-time band." Still, he can't imagine turning down a gig. "I may make zero [on a show]," he said, "but at least I'm not in the red."
First Published: July 13, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
