Speaker 1Shut up and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you.
Speaker 2Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson here, your host of the show. Welcome back to the Being On Stage podcast. Happy birthday to me. So listen, I'm actually celebrating my 33rd birthday and it feels really good to be 33 and on my path to doing what I love. That is coaching performers, helping you turn your talent into a performance, turn your performance into an experience for your audience, and just explode into the performer that you're supposed to be. Let's crush those barriers, everybody. So, I'm going to keep it a little short. I know, I know, he says that every time. If you're just tuning in, I try to keep it between 10 and 15 minutes every day. That's right, every single day I hit you with a new podcast. No, you don't have to listen to them all. I appreciate it if you do, but you don't have to listen to them all. All you got to do is just jump in anywhere. This is fine, by the way, but I am going to keep it a little short in celebration of my birthday. I'm spending some time with the family today. I was talking with my neighbor last night. And my neighbor, I've mentioned it before, it's been a while, but my upstairs neighbor in the apartment building we live in on the beach. No, I'm not bragging, not bragging. We do live in a small apartment on the beach, but it is small. But we love our tropical climate here in Florida. But anyways, my upstairs neighbor is in a band, kind of like an 80s, early 90s rock cover band. She does like ACDC, stuff like that. And that's what makes their band unique. Female singing, typical male hard rock songs. And she was telling me about a gig they had up the road a few nights ago. And I guess one of the band members, and I'm not going to tell her whole story here because, you know, I'm not that guy. But long story short, there is an incident involving like a significant other of one of the members of the group. And I wanted to. I wanted to kind of bring that out on the podcast a little bit. And that is the the importance of respect when you're at a venue, when you're performing. Basically, what happened is, is the significant other of one of the band members got into it with the manager a little bit and. Over something that really should have never happened. And again, I'm not going to give you all the details of the story, but I can give you more examples of this happening in my past. It's sharing other people's and my own story. But. When you when you go someplace to perform, whether you're paid or not paid, there are certain behaviors that's kind of expected of you. And I know sometimes if you're if you're at an open mic night or, you know, you're just performing for for tips, you know, some some artists are allowed to put out a tip jar or something like that. I know it can seem difficult to uphold some of these, but you owe this establishment certain respects. They don't owe you. Really much. Unless you're like a house name and you bring them people, you know, audience members on a new basis like clients and, you know, people that are going to spend money. But they don't they don't owe you much, but they give you a place where you can express yourself and where you can give the audience that experience that that you're known for. Hopefully you're known for giving your audience some sort of experience. And the behavior that you exhibit while you're there and the things that you do. Are really important when you're looking to build this as a long term career. So I'm just going to kind of run down a couple of things and then hop off here and enjoy my birthday. Listen, if there if there's something specific that you need to you need help on or maybe you're working through something with your performance career, I'm available. You can hop on my calendar, Reggie, at being or I'm sorry, being on stage dot com slash calendar is the website Reggie at being on stage dot com is the email. But so the couple of things and I'm just going to throw that in there because. I'm going to keep this kind of quick. I keep saying that trying to remind myself, not you. A couple of things to just keep in mind is one. You got to you got to patronize the establishment. I've seen performers bring in their own drinks. I've seen performers just not spend money at all. I've seen performers come out way, way early so they could avoid paying a cover charge where I'm from. When you perform in like the clubs and the places that would normally charge you if you were there before a certain time. You you weren't charged, so they would come and they would sit around on the, you know, in the tables and everything, not drink anything but maybe want a soda if they could scrounge up a dollar fifty or whatever and stay all night long until 2:00 a.m. And avoid a cover and, you know, not when they're performing, but on off nights and everything. So when you got to patronize the establishment, if you can on your off nights, try to head up there once a month or, you know, one other time when you're not performing just to show your support. And then when you are there, even if you don't drink, you know, when you are there to perform, even whether they're paying you or not, patronize, make a purchase, even if it's a soda, even, you know, a drink, a beer, French fries, something, whether you eat it or not, you you got to show them that you're gracious one and that you're a give and take sort of person, because if all you do is show up and you just take their money every time you perform, they're they're going to show you that you're a gracious one and that you're a give and take sort of person. Like, that's not cool. So patronize the establishment when you're there, spend some money. And the same goes for the people that come with you. And I think that's that's something that we try to avoid. A lot of times it's our significant others or significant others of people in our group. Sometimes it's our friends. Sometimes it's our family. But the people that come with you don't think the establishment doesn't know that they're with you. OK, so you have to kind of. You're responsible. You're responsible for their behavior, you know, for lack of a better phrase, that the people that you come out that come out with you and that you spend your time with when you're there and and kind of your posse, whatever your click when you're when you're performing, their behavior reflects on you. And that can be a really difficult conversation to have if you have someone behaving poorly or if you have someone breaking rules or laws or getting in fights that all reflects on you as a performer. So one. If something does look to be going down, like something's about to pop off, if you will squash it as fast as you can get involved, step up to the plate. It is your responsibility as the performer. Now, if it's someone you don't know, someone across the bar, not your problem. Stay out of it. Turn the other way. Let the bar staff handle it. That's the most respectful thing you can do. But if it's someone involved in your group, not not necessarily someone that, you know, someone that came with you and that is close to you. And that is with, you know, that would be viewed as with basically if they rode in the same car as you, those people, they reflect on you and they need to understand that as well. And sometimes that conversation does need to be had. And yes, it can be difficult. I would not recommend doing it in the moment. I would recommend doing it after the fact, maybe a couple of days later, sober, both of you completely. And just say, listen, you know, I really need to talk to you about what happened. The other night, I know you were just having a good time and everything is fun. But, you know, I would really, really appreciate it if, you know, you would tone it down when you're out with me when I'm performing. I love you. Like, don't express to them that you love them, that you support them and that you're there for them. But they need to respect the fact that when you're performing and they're with you, you know, you need to there needs to be respect in the establishment. On all fronts. And that's that's that. And if they don't respect that and if they flip out at you, don't bring them with you. I don't care who they are. Don't bring them with you. If they can't respect you enough to behave or to at least agree to work at it, don't bring them. And I know that sounds harsh, especially if it's your wife or something like that. I had to do it to my wife for a little bit. I'm talking quiet just in case you can hear me. There were there were times when she wasn't she wasn't disrespectful. She didn't get. Into fights, anything like that. But she would make really negative comments to me and to people that were with us. And so for a while, I she didn't go in. She didn't come out. I would go by myself and it was painful, but it had to happen. It was only a while. I'm talking like two shows I did by myself. Well, then the five years we spent apart, but that's neither here nor there. Oh, long distance relationships are tough. Tough. That's all I'll say about that. So I guess the whole point of this podcast, though, and just kind of to wrap it up, I said to take it short, but I'm already approaching 10 minutes. So there went that he did it again. He did it again. So the whole point of this podcast is just, you know, you got to be respectful of the venue that's given you a place to perform. And the people that are with you, they need to have that same respect, not just for the establishment, but also for you as their friend, as their family member. member or as their spouse or significant other. respect comes in many forms and a lot of times you got to give it to get it and i know that sounds harsh because you think that everyone should respect you but i got news for you these these venues can be tough and if they feel disrespected they will rip your show apart to the point of they won't they won't book i mean not rip you apart but they just won't book you again and that can be damaging especially if you had a blast and you put on a great show but that one disrespectful thing that happens can wreck it so when it does happen and when i say when because it most likely will happen you'll have some time when either you or someone else is completely disrespectful this goes for you too you know you don't bring in your own drinks don't get into fights walk the other way all that good stuff don't get involved in bar business don't get involved with other performers business don't get involved in anyone else's business when you're there working performing is working by the way you nothing does happen especially if it involves someone that's with you or if you yourself overstep a line or or maybe display some rudeness own it and apologize this can be really difficult when you're not the person that did it but it needs to happen this venue needs to needs to know that listen i i'm a responsible person they need to know that you're a responsible person that's it and you don't have to tell them you're responsible they'll get that when you tell them listen and this is how it will sound this is how i'll sound um listen i am really sorry about what happened i don't know what came over me i was completely disrespectful and i just wanted you to know it will never happen again now if it's someone that's with you same thing listen i am so very sorry for what happened i talked to them they're completely regretful it won't happen again uh you know i can't thank you enough for the opportunities but you know just i'm sorry and that's it like you can stumble through it it's okay that means i stumble through it because truthfully i that's how it happens you're gonna stumble through your apology you should stumble through your apology because then it's real you don't know what happened you don't know why it happened and but you know that you're going to take precautions to make sure it doesn't happen again and that's that's the factual thing now don't just go apologizing just so you can get away with it and perform again because you're just gonna be like hey look man sorry i didn't pay my bar tab and i'm sorry my girl got in that fight uh won't happen again bro we good yeah and then the next time the same thing happens you overspend your bar tab your girl gets in a fight or your guy gets in a fight whatever the the the step here is you have to make steps to make sure it doesn't happen again if you did something wrong you got to recognize it and you got to fix it if someone you're with did something wrong they got to recognize it you got to fix it or don't bring them again period so i know i said i'd go short but here i go talk and talk talk talk talk yep that's the life of a podcast by the way you just get to talking and go go go go go so i'm gonna go celebrate my birthday with my family thank you guys so much for tuning in and dealing with me again uh if you want to hop on the calendar it's beingonstage.com calendar look forward to chatting with you working through what you got to work through to break through those barriers let's do it keep on shining
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