Nick Finch
Low & Tight
Roster: Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, Our Carlson, Joshua Seymour, VIOLENCE
Location: VIC
Listen: Nick’s Manager Of The Month Spotify Playlist
Dream Industry Initiative
My dream music industry initiative is to establish a national not-for-profit ticketing system that pushes up against the current for-profit ticketing situation that we’re in.
A proper, quality, legit safe ticketing company, just like the current major ticketing operators, but all the revenue raised by booking fees would go into a collective fund, and that fund would then be accessible in the form of small grants to the music community.
Bands, venues, rehearsal spaces, independent labels, independent festivals etc could apply for small grants to help with practical things that larger government grants don’t really cover, and the current economic climate makes it difficult to afford.
For example, a band could apply for a small grant to help pay for a sound engineer to come with them on a tour, or a small label could apply for help to pay for an A0 poster run, a venue could apply to help replace the foldback speaker someone tipped a beer into etc etc etc... Small quick response grants - I dunno $200-$2k or something - just a bit of help to ease the shitfight that all artists, bands, individuals and small businesses face while trying to maintain Australia’s music industry.
A little bit of financial assistance can go a really long way. And in most cases the grant money will probably be spent straight back into the music industry - kind of like economic recycling.
I understand that our for-profit ticketing companies are providing an essential service for the industry… and I appreciate that they need to spend a lot of money on maintaining and keeping their ticketing infrastructure secure. But the math on current ticketing fees clearly shows that a handful of companies are making pretty obscene amounts of money off the backs of musicians and punters. These days one show at the Music Bowl can generate well over $100k in booking fees. That’s just one venue, just one night. Seems silly to watch that kind of money disappear off to the Cayman Islands. A not-for-profit dream ticketing company could significantly lower booking fees - which would of course encourage more punters to come to shows - and still generate a massive amount of revenue that could all be channeled back into Australia’s music community and do some real good.
One Change That Could Better Support Managers and Artists
The music industry could unite and collectively advocate the government for a Basic Income For The Arts program in Australia, like the BIA trial underway in Ireland at the moment. In Ireland 2000 artists are currently receiving a modest weekly wage from the government (about $600) alongside whatever usual income they generate from their art. Aside from helping recipients with the obvious financial and mental health strains that are so prevalent across the arts, it has actually led to a huge increase in Ireland's artistic output in terms of quality and quantity. Ireland’s BIA trial has been underway for 3 years and it's no coincidence that the Irish Arts are absolutely popping off internationally right now.
Key Achievements
1. I recently co-founded Low & Tight within Cash Savage. We’re dedicated to finding ways to re-direct the money Big Business leeches out of the live music industry back to musicians and local community. The idea is to put on gigs with structures in place to keep all money generated at the shows in the hands of the performers as well as the local community. Our first event was held last year, with 10 bands over 2 days at a community hall in Melbourne. The bands were all paid well and all band members/performers were offered the bar shifts/delivery shifts/door shifts/cleaning shifts etc so they could each be paid multiple times over the festival in addition to their performance fee. Almost everyone working at the event was a musician. Online booking fees went to charity, we sold physical tickets in local record stores to encourage people to get back into local music shops, all products sold at the bar were local and independently owned, and we even encouraged punters to pay in cash to avoid giving banks transaction fees. The audience really loved being served beers by someone they’d just seen up on stage, and the Saturday was family friendly so we had a ton of kids all watching great bands as well. There was a real Do It Together vibe to the thing. It was a lot of work but really lovely and a huge success. The first of many to come.
2. I self manage my band Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, and self managed my old band Graveyard Train back in the day. Between those two bands I’ve organised and played something like 20 international tours. I never actually wanted to be a manager, I just did it because we didn’t have a manager and someone had to step up and organise things. It can sometimes be tricky getting my musician/manager balance sitting right. I think my key achievement to date is that I’ve managed to come home from every tour - being both a performer and manager - with my sanity intact and still liking all of my band mates.
3. When I was about 18 I got real drunk on Nick Cave’s rider backstage at the Music Bowl and then proceeded to do impressions of his stage kicks while yelling ‘do you love me’ in front of The Bad Seeds.
A Recent Challenge and Solution
I was in Paris with Last Drinks a few months ago, and due to some spicy routing we didn’t have time to check into our hotel before the show. The gig was sold out and amazing and the band were keen to stay out partying afterwards, so me our sound engineer and our driver took the van to the accom - the plan was for me to check-in everyone’s rooms and leave their keys at the reception desk so they could come in whenever they wanted.
It was after midnight when we find the hotel. I walk up to the late-night receptionist to check in to all the rooms… to be told the hotel has no record of our booking. I blink slowly. I ask nicely for him to check again. Tap tap tap on the computer. The receptionist slowly shakes his head. No booking.
I trawl through my emails on my phone, find our booking confirmation, show it to him: 5 twin rooms, all booked and all paid for… here’s the receipt, confirmation etc etc. The receptionist takes my phone, looks hard at it, furrows his brow, checks his computer again. Tap tap tap on the keyboard… more furrowed brow. ‘Sorry monsieur, there is no record of this booking on our system. I’m sorry - there is nothing I can do’
There are 6 Last Drinks scattered across Paris who will all be coming back to this hotel at some point in the early hours. I stand my ground. I hand him my phone again - here’s the confirmation email: 5 twin rooms, today’s date, all paid for months ago… Six of my colleagues will be coming at some point later tonight and they all need somewhere to sleep. 9 people across 5 twin rooms. I’m not going anywhere till you give me our rooms.
The guy, fairly stressed at this point, brows very furrowed, telephones someone above his paygrade. They have a bit of a chat in French… tap tap tap on the computer… side eyes at me… more chat on the phone in french. Hangs up, ‘no monsieur, my superior agrees, we have no record of this booking, I’m sorry there is nothing we can do.’
I’m not mad or impolite, but I’m very very firm. It’s late, I need this sorted. I’m not going anywhere. ‘Mate, this is obviously an issue with your hotel’s booking system. It’s not on us. We need our 5 twin rooms now please’.
Tap tap tap… The guy says he doesn't even have 5 twins available tonight.
I tell him firmly, that’s not my problem. He needs to find a way to sleep 9 of us tonight. We booked, we paid, please sort it out.
… Eventually, after a lot of back and forth the guy realises I’m not going to give in and he cracks. Tap tap tap on the computer, more furrowed browing - ‘We don’t have 5 twin rooms… sigh… but we do have 9 doubles’. Amazing. Perfect. I thank him; I shoot out the rooming info to the group chat - we each get our own room. Great result. The band trickle in over the course of the night and grab their keys from the guy. At some point in the early hours one band member floods their bathroom and get another room from the poor bloke, bringing it up to 10 rooms total.
I woke up in the morning to go for a walk... And it’s then that I click that we’re all in the wrong hotel. We’re supposed to be in the hotel next door. (The booking got switched months earlier due to parking restrictions but Master Tour hadn’t been updated). That poor receptionist. Neither of us clicked that the booking confirmation email I was showing him on my phone had a completely different hotel’s name at the top. I hope he didn’t get fired - I essentially stole ten hotel rooms that night in Paris. That’s management