Performing music in public

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So me and a small band want to play a cover of some Gorillaz, and Offspring at a local bar.

But, who do we even ask for permission? I can never find a "Contact Us" at the music studios sites that even get a reply back.

Despite me playing keyboards, my newfound talent is actually singing, as apparently my voice when singing can nearly perfectly emulate the original singer in style and accent.. (which I never knew I could do).

You've got to ask someone at the bar =P. Just go up and ask a bartender who the manager is, tell em you're a local band, want to play. He'll probably want to hear a bit first so bring a CD with some music on it, if you dont have one, that's the first step bro (and it's not hard, you just need to invest in a nice microphone, there is free software to mix and any laptop can do it, just invest a few hundred in a good quality microphone, will make all the difference). No ones gonna let you just play their bar without hearing something first, and unless you know the guy, he's not gonna go to your garage to listen to you first.


Is it a bar that has live music regularly?

Oh, also, there really is no such thing as email communication in the business world when it comes to sales pitching. You gotta be doing it face to face or over the phone. I dont know how large the studios you're trying are, but i'm sure they 1,000s of emails that get trashed.

Oh, got a studio, so I can def. record.

But, I need to get permission from the bands music company I assume.. That's what I'm asking.

Ahhh, who do you ask to get permission to play a cover, not who at the bar =P drrr, my bad =P

I believe, as long as you are not recording the covers and selling them you are good to go. You would only need permission/pay for a license/make a % deal on a commercial release.

actually, the Bar pays the royalties (if someone's looking, etc). (or they did back when I played).
It wouldn't hurt to try writing some of your own; people like new songs too...

i help run a venue, and it would certainly be nice if it were up to the bands to ask permission in order to play cover songs...We are a small donation-run D.I.Y. operation, and we are harassed to no end by these evil companies who want us to pay thousands of dollars a year so that music cannot be heard by patrons during business hours without someone (them) getting paid royalties..(which I guess it is their job to doll out to the artists...minus the $$ it must cost them to exist and make a profit)
They don't care what kind of venue it is and whether or not they can afford that kind of thing...they just want to bully the venues to get the money.
They call us every single day.

For years now, our policy has been that the only house music we play is the music of bands that have played at our place and by giving us their music, they are giving us permission to play it at our place...but still we don't always get informed in advance when a band is gonna break out with a cover song...what are supposed to do?..stop the band mid-song and inform them that we can only allow original music to be played?

We had a band play at our place the other night..that turned out to do mostly covers. It made me very nervous because I thought..."gee...what a perfect night for a BMI spy to be here"...
This one particular touring one-man-band called "Captured by Robots" plays mostly covers...and even though our door cost is low, and most of the money goes to the performer, and we have a meager donation bar that barely covers it's cost....in the tiny mind of the BMI person...I guess we owe all these royalties to Journey for having this band play at out place, when we really didn't know in advance what their repertoire would be.


Anyhow...sorry to ramble, but apparently a band does not have to ask permission to the originator of a song in order to play it...but if the bar is not paying hefty royalties to ASCAP or BMI, then a band, by playing covers at a bar, is putting the bar at risk..So really, you should ask the permission of the bar.

They should be reminded how FM radio works.. It's sponsored by advertisers so you the listener, don't pay for it.

Perhaps if they actually cared, they could do something similar. For the bands we cover, their music company sponsors advertisers and use them to pay for it..

If anything, it should be an HONOR to cover the music from their bands... I'm sure those bands would be honored, but the music company could care less..

But, Gorillaz, that's a british band, whos their label again? American branch to b***h to us? Playing their music is the most fun, because it's hard to do..