Ok, why the "Good Christian Folk" didn't pay me for my gig last Friday night??

A fellow musician asked me to play on a program with him for the (CAAM) Catholic African-American Mass Choir of Houston. I agreed.

The organizer of the event called (three weeks prior to the event) and offered me $50 for the event and asked for my address to mail my check. I agreed and gave her my address.

My normal fee is $25 for each rehearsal & $250 for the concert. I know the drummer for this choir and was willing to work with HIM for free BUT I WAS offered and accepted the $50.

I made two rehearsals but the check never arrived. "Maybe they will just give me the check when we play the gig." I thought.

We were asked to report to the "Hilton - Americas" hotel "between 5 and 6pm." (Sidebar: What time would YOU think we are going to hit? 7pm??) I arrived at 5:45pm. We setup, tuned up and got ready to go. The hotel provided a mixing console and microphones but no sound engineer. The organizers were too cheap to hire one so they kept pestering the musicians to work the board, play CDs for folk and otherwise adjust the microphone levels for the entertainers. This was unexpected and uncompensated work on us. At 7:10pm, I asked the music director what time we would begin. He said the program didn't start unil 8pm. (?? Why did they tell us to come in so early??)

We played the gig and were asked to play for all the groups/choirs that didn't have Bassists or Drummers. Afterwards, we couldn't find the event organizer. We waited patiently, in plain view, for someone to deliver our checks. After we got nothing, we decided to find this woman and ask for the checks.

We found her and she said "Oh no! I told you that your checks would have to be mailed from Nashville!" My response was that I thought three weeks was plenty time to mail the check. I played the gig in "good faith" and was now on the short end of the stick. I feel like I "been rode hard and put away wet!!" (as the old folk used to say)

I greet you today well overworked and extremely underpaid.

Have you ever been stuck for your money after playing a gig???

Here is a big "Thank You" to all the Good Christian Folk!