Elise Michaels, a friend and fellow producer/musician suggests  to “be sure to put a humidifier in it. Planet Waves makes a good one.” The air humidity should be neither too low nor too high, thus somewhere in the 40-50% range, and the temperature of the area should be about 77 °F. These two factors are the biggest threat to an instrument, because changes in moisture and temperature can cause permanent warping of the neck and other critical parts. For guitars made out of solid wood, it is advised to use a humidifier to prevent cracks and damage from weather change.

John Alarcon, a Bend Singer/Songwriter pointed me to a good web resource of information on storing your guitar. Some great advice there is, a guitar gets most of its scrapes because one leans it against a wall, or against a table edge, and then it is knocked over from the slightest contact or draft of air. If one would have put it down, this would not have happened. Get it on a wall hook, on a stand or better yet in a case.

If you are not expecting to play your guitar for a while it is very important to loosen the strings. I’ve been told that the neck will eventually warp inward at the neck from the tension of the strings. When you are actively playing the instrument you’re constantly flexing the neck from tuning and playing. But if the strings and neck are stationary for a long time the neck will bend. Not a good thing, you’ll be out of tune and have more firewood.

I play for free all the time at Open Mics, but those aren’t gigs. I consider those live practices and keeping-the-chops sets.

That all being said. I’ve booked gigs that paid really-really good and then have seen it get a lot more competitive with a sharp reduction of gig pay-outs. It seemed that the local musicians with better connections that’ve landed paying gigs in general as of late. I’m not complaining. I have been very fortunate to secure a list of paying gigs while seeing others not do so well.

I do have to frown; however, about my Halloween gig at the Astro Lounge in Bend, Oregon. I was asked by a friend to open for his band. The venue is downtown and I was fortunate to get a parking spot in the back. I pushed my handtruck full of my gear and waited for my sound check. I’m proud to say that I’ve got my set-up down, giving the sound guy just two connections to adjust from a pre-mixed sound.

It was a great set. Plenty of smiling faces and applauds. I quickly packed up my gear for the other bands to get onto their set and wheeled it out of the venue through the halloween crowds. After all the gear was safely stowed away. I went in to support the bands and left a little early feeling pretty good about the night.

The next morning I found out that the closing band walked away with ALL of the night’s earnings. WHAT? We’ll apparently the sound guy just handed all of the cash to the closers and didn’t think about the bands that held it for the two and a half hours before them. WTF?

I didn’t ask for much, just a $50 guarantee, which a lot of musicians would be pissed off at me for asking so little for such a busy night. But my thoughts are, a guarantee is bare minimum and there will be a split at the end. But NOTHING is not only insulting but almost stealing.