These Infinite Spaces

Let's talk about money.

I mentioned before that the first lineup of The Catch made about $1,000 in 2.5 years. This was because we primarily played band comps and parties, and only a few paying gigs. Also, I never saw a cent of that - we spent hundreds on printing thousands of awesome posters, which we lost when the band split up. Worse, there was $300 never accounted for. But no need to re-open old wounds.

By contrast, in about a year, the new lineup of The Catch made about $6,000 - about $10,000 in today's money. We *never* played for free. Something magical had happened, and we were suddenly a semi-pro band that was worth paying for.

Our cash cow was the Friday night SUS Club gig, for which we were paid $400 - about $700 in today's money. Gosh, really good money. I walked away from each Friday night gig with $100 in my back pocket. It paid for petrol and guitar strings, and maybe a couple of beers between sets.

The most we were ever paid for a gig was at some college in Canberra. I can't recall exactly how we got the gig, but I think Jarrod had something to do with it. Anyway, they were willing to pay an astonishing $800 for us - about $1400 in todays money. It was crazy.

The Canberra gig was another great adventure. We all drove down with our girlfriends and made arrangements for accommodation down there. I also drove down one of my g/f's friends, for a rendevous with a man she'd met at the snow last season.

We got there and set up. It was a big hall with an excellent P.A. We had to do 3 sets of 40 minutes each, and we didn't have enough songs to cover that. We did that Blues Brothers thing where you repeat songs, make up songs you don't know, and stretch songs out. I think we spent 8 minutes on Roadhouse Blues. The audience paid little attention to us - they were college students and more interested in consuming as much alcohol as possible. We didn't care. It was another great adventure for us.

It was fun being in the band. Seriously, when you are in front of a good crowd and everyone is in the groove, it is just sensational. Indescribable really. It's not better than sex, but it's better than bad sex.

It was fun being in the band because we all enjoyed each others company. The first Catch had a big fault line right down the middle, so it was really doomed from the start. But the second Catch, what I always remember as the *real* Catch - we were united, like I mentioned last post.

Seeing each other at rehearsal each week, and also playing together every fortnight or so, you would think we would have had enough of each others company. But we actually hung out together quite often other times as well. I saw so many bands with one or more of the guys - I can recall seeing RatCat, The Hummingbirds, Nick Barker, The Radiators, Richard Clapton, The Hoodoo Gurus, Midnight Oil, Johnny Diesel, The Georgia Satellites, Concrete Blonde and more that I can't recall.

We got to meet some interesting people as well, including a guitar legend none of us had heard of...