acoustic gigs and blues in the uk

[imperialfury]

hey lads

Im gonna start playing a few acoustic shows in the coming year (mostly those acoustic nights at pubs) but i have a couple of problems

how much will my voice matter? Obviously i know it important as people rarely tend to look at guitar playing at these gigs but my style is mainly a tom waits/eugene hutz approach and I dont know if people who go to these gigs will enjoy my rough voice mixed in with little moments of normal singing

also im going to approach these acoustic gigs with a blues playing style so i wanted to know if blues is still appreciated in the uk (an odd question coming from a 17 year old who should probably know about music in his home but all ive heard of popular music is something about a "g6")

i know these are probably silly questions but any help would be greatly appreciated

cheers

[Phil Starr]

Go on Lemonrock http://www.lemonrock.com/ which is the best site for unsigned live music in the UK. You are safe to sign up because it is run by a musician and paid for by the bands and it is free to the public. You can search for gigs by postcode and they'll send you an email once a week about gigs in your area. You can search bands and genre and there are plenty of blues acts, certainly in our area. Most acts put up mp3's so you can hear them. You'll find out quickly which venues do your sort of music and there are contact details for many of them. There are also a load of open mic nights specialising in blues and acoustic acts. Go along to a few to get a feel for what is needed and chat to the other musicians. You'll find they are pretty encouraging to anyone starting out and you'll get loads of help. Do a couple of open mic's to get used to performing in public and you'll build up contacts which should open up bookings.

Good luck

[kraftmacaroni]

I'd say your voice is more important than guitar playing to non musicians. they wouldn't really notice is you were bad at guitar unless you messed up a ton, but if you don't have a nice voice, people will know because everyone has a voice.

[Punk_Ninja]

For acoustic gigs I'd say your voice needs to be good unless you're doing some impressive fingerstyle stuff that would distract from the voice (like Tommy Emmanuel or someone).
Providing your voice suits your stuff you should be fine.

But for blues (this is assuming electric/band blues) your voice doesn't matter as much, I've seen loads of blues bands with bad singers! I've seen loads of them get a good response too!

And blues/acoustic stuff are still around in the UK, there's a local venue in my town (which has a horrible music scene) which puts blues bands on VERY often (like if there isn't one on the saturday night, there probably is the next week or at some point within the week).

Acoustic gigs are more suited to daytime events or pubs rather than venues. Like, see if there's a cafe or coffee shop or something which would let you do an acoustic set in the day.
Find pubs that have room for a gig (though you may need your own P.A).
Things like that. Or band-wagon with another acoustic artist!