So a new restaurant opened, and the owner contacted my trio to perform there. We do the gig , the owner loves us, and she asks us to be the "house band". Wednesday nights-Sundays. 6pm-11pm. For the first gig she paid us in cash. She tells us once we start the doing the 5 nights a week she'll pay us with a check bi-weekly. We tell that we need the payment weekly. She agrees. We do the first week, and at the end of the week she "forgets" her check book. She tells us to come by the restaurant the next day and she'll have the check for us. Well, we live an hour away, so I tell her to just have the payment ready on Wednesday before we start the night, she agrees. On Wednesday she has the check. We finish off the week, and she leaves before we're done. We ask the manager for the check and she says the owner didn't leave a check for us. Calls, texts and email are not answered.... Today I find out that the first check she wrote us did not clear. I'm going today and picking up my equipment that I left there, and quit. I guess I really should have made a contract with her, but even then I'm not sure what I could really do to get my money. Hire a lawyer? I would spend more than she owes me!


Update: I've called another musicians that worked for her, and apparently she did the same thing with them : paid them a night in cash and then hired them for an extended period and wrote bad checks.

What would you do? I'm sure some of you have some good stories from the trenches!