Okay, a friend of mine, who to my knowledge had never been part of a band or performed in paying gigs before has posted this (in picture form) onto facebook. The premise is that its an email sent out from a local pub and a response from a local band.

"Pub: We are a small and casual restaurant downtown and we are looking for solo musicians to play in our restaurant to promote their work. This is not a daily job, only for special events that might turn into a nightly event if we get a positive response. We are interested in Jazz, Rock, Smooth, Folk, and World music. Are you interested to promote your work, reply back ASAP.

Bands reply: I am a musician with a big house looking for a restauranteur to come to my house to promote their restaurant by making me and my friends dinner. This is not a daily job, only for special events that might turn into a nightly event if we get a positive response. We are interested in fine cuisine from around the world. Are you interested in promotong your restaurant? Please reply back ASAP!"

The person who posted this also wrote "We need promoters and venues to stop taking advantage of musicians".

I then posted:
I kinda think who ever sent the reply email is arrogant and stupid. As a musician who has only ever played free gigs, I kinda disagree with them. Unless you get really big or whatever its kinda silly to expect playing music and doing gigs to be anything other than a hobby. The reason you should do it is because you enjoy it, not because you get money. Performing whether its paid or not is enjoyable, and if you genuinely love what you're doing then you'll see that. Also, performing anywhere is a nice way to promote yourself regardless, so the money really shouldn't be an object. Yeah, being paid for something would be nice but it is musicians who are often the ones to take things for granted.

To which she replied: "no frigging way - if you want to be walked over your entire life and not make a penny for your hard work then sure, you go ahead and play gigs for free, but that attitude is exactly why the choice of spending ones life doing something they love through art is not an admirable one: because you can't earn a living wage off of it."

I don't think its being walked over, its being given an opportunity to do something you love. Where do you guys stand on this issue?