Hi everyone, I am feeling kinda upset over some information I just received and felt like you would all understand, so I apologise for my little rant in advance.....lolMy partner and I work in the music industry in Australia. We play in a rock band, as well as running our own recording studio.
The band is an all female band and that fact we are all girls in a male dominated industry is a big selling point for us. Our audiences generally like to see women performers and are very encouraging.
We have worked very hard over the years to build up our business to a point where we are working so much in our band that we now have to knock back work, we have many residencies in local venues and have been quite successful as entertainers. We have done all this ourselves, without the assistance of the 2 main booking agents in our city.
Now I get to the rant part........lol
I was just speaking to our vocalist (who is straight, btw) and she bumped into one of these agents last night. Now this particular agent has refused to give us work, he told me that we just weren't suitable for any of his venues, etc. which I knew was crap since we have such a large following in all the venues we work in. So last night he tells our vocalist that the reason he has never booked us is because we are gay!!!! I can't believe he actually admitted it. Anyways he said that if a venue wants to book us it is his responsibility to tell them that we are a gay band and would have a gay following, which is totally ridiculous and totally discriminatory.
The fact is people really like us because of the music we play and they tell us they like seeing women up there performing. The sad fact is that my partner and I have always had to be very discreet about our relationship when it comes to work anyways because of the homophobia that stills exists in this country. In fact, no one has ever even commented to us or asked us if we are gay. Our singer gets asked all the time, probably cos she has really short hair (stupid stereotyping), the irony being that she is the only one who isn't gay and she has short hair beacuse she has had cancer and lost her hair through chemotherapy.
So as you can all imagine, I am pretty pissed off about this. This jerk is denying us the right to play in certain venues purely because we are gay and he is obviously homophobic. This isn't the first time this has happened to us, and I'm sure it won't be the last either, but I'm not sure what to do about it. This is where you guys come in......lol. It would be great to get some feedback from people who have gone through this kinda stuff before. I feel like ringing him up and abusing him, but of course that is pointless. I could report him to the anti-discrimination board, but that could cause a lot of other problems, all these venues and agents stick together, so we could even lose more work. Obviously we need to make a living, and working in a rock band is how we derive our income, so we have to be very careful, which is ridiculous in its self.
I just feel very sad that here we are in the year 2002 and I am still be discriminated against beacuse I am in love with another woman. What the hell does that have to do with my work as a musician..........NOTHING!!!
Anyways, sorry for the rant everyone, but I know you will all understand and hopefully have some advice.
Thanks for listening to me,
Sal