Getting gigs as a musician in Berlin

Hi,

We intend to move to Berlin early 2009.
Does anybody know how easy it is to get gigs in Berlin. We would be looking to perform acoustic sets with popular well-known covers.
Also we enjoy going to gigs, are there many on in Berlin? Where/when and which genre of music?

Thanks in advance for your help

Ricky and Lizzi

I´m a musician living in Berlin, but currently not working.
There is probably lots of jobs, because many bars keep live music. But from what I´ve heard, they pay terrible. So it´s really hard to make a decent living as a musician.
About gigs, well yeah there´s plenty of everything.

As norweigenstudent said, there is alot of live music - no problem finding stuff to listen to, no matter what the genre - jazz, blues, folk, rock, pop, punk, classical, cabaret, metal etc. - it's all here.

Also while there are lots of bars and pubs with live gigs, the pay is not great. It gets better once you are kown, and cal pull some people along with you to the gigs. I play part time - mostly folk, in and around the Irish pub scene. We can get 300 euros for a 3 man band, going to down to 100 euros for solo - thats usually for playing three 45 minute sets. You'll get your beer thrown in as well. Note that you will mostly be expected to sign a receipt, so the bar is covered for tax purposes - so you will be in principal required to declare your earnings for tax. Also some pubs will expect you to pay a fee to cover the GEMA costs (GEMA is the German Performing Artists Organisation), and while discussing how it works is a complicated topic, the basics is that any bar with a television, CD player or live music get hit for a monthly fee to cover paying for performance of copyrighted material, and so they may pass some of the cost onto the bands. The GEMA is a pretty fascist organisation, and they pretty much make their own rules, which they enforce with great enthusiasm.

So my advice is get over here and get to know other musicians and get into the live music scene. There are quite a log of Open Stage nights, and thats a great way to get known. As usual be prepared to have a sampler CD of your material - usually two or three tracks will suffice. Also beware, only some venues have PA systems, so you may need to invest in that also (as most music bars are quite small, you don't need anything too sophisticated, and the bigger places will probably have a PA system.

Be prepared to do the odd free or low paid gig (maybe 50 euros or so) to get up and running at a venue. Once you're in at a venue, you'll get lots of repeat gigs.

I know a few people who make a living here form music, but its not easy. I would not like to depend on live gigs for my living. Alot of the money is made in the summer at festivals - most of these are outside Berlin, but if you can get these gigs, then the money is very good for not so much work. There are a couple of agents around who may be the best route into the well paid gigs such as festivals.

Hope this helps. Let me know your music style, and I can post a list of potential venues, which I'm sure can be augmented by others.

Hi,

Wow that was a very useful reply, thank you.
At present we haven't put anything together as I'm in DE and Ricky's in UK but we'll be working on some stuff as of September when I return.
We plan to do some covers for accoustic sets (and maybe some of our own stuff!!) from various artists, a few examples would be KT Tunstall, Dido, Alanis Morrisette, No Doubt. I'm sure you know the kinda line we're going down.
We will be looking to do it for fun initially so the pay is not such a problem.
If you could provide me with a list of potential venues to ask, that would be fab.

Thanks again,

L.

get a Myspaz page and start promoting yourself now to berlin promoters as well as that seems to help here alot

Doing covers will limit what promoters will give you if anything at all due to GEMA rules - i myself promote events around berlin but not cover bands

While I prefer bands with original material, there is a very lively scene for cover bands. The GEMA hit the pubs no matter what the musicians are playing - most small venues can't be bothered to check what is original and what is not, so there is usually a fixed GEMA fee - even if the material is old folk songs and tunes, with no copyright. As I said, the GEMA are a law onto their own, and will charge the venue what they think they can get away with.

Also most bands with their their own material will augment it with covers, especially when new as that is required to get the audience interested (hey, even the Beatles did this).

Start a hardcore band and play concerts in all the squats. We can play together, I am the worse bassist in the world, but you do not need to know how to play the bass in a HC/punk band.