Yu Xue herself is not very good at borrowing money, because she has never borrowed anything from others since she was a child.
Everything will be prepared for her at home in advance, including things that may be used and things that may not be used.
Even if he didn't have some, Yu Xue could still use money to buy them, so in the end this glorious and arduous task fell on Gu Yi.
For Gu Yi, borrowing something is as simple as eating and drinking. When he was working in the past, there were many things that required the coordination of multiple departments. In this way, he could go to other departments to borrow props from others, etc. A mess.
Originally, their goal was to borrow forty dollars, but Gu Yi came back with a hundred dollars in hand.
"Well, when Teacher Wu heard that I wanted to borrow money, he lent me fifty yuan. In addition, Peng Fei lent me thirty yuan, and the rest was ten yuan."
If I borrow a hundred dollars now, my life will definitely not be a problem for a while.
In this way, they went out empty-handed early the next morning.
I took the subway and went out to find a tailor shop, and told them the drawings and various sizes.
But the other party said that it still takes a certain amount of time to make. After all, the clothes are easy to sew, but the main reason is that the spider webs on it are very troublesome to make.
They need two workers to make it.
The cycle is about a week.
Gu Yi expressed that he needed it urgently, and finally the store owner said that if he paid more money, he could expedite it. For an extra ten dollars per piece of clothing, it could be expedited by three days.
In the end, the two of them bargained again and decided that the production of two pieces of clothing would cost a total of one hundred dollars, but they had to pay a deposit of sixty dollars first.
The price is quite acceptable. After all, it is hand-sewn. If it is mass-produced, the price will definitely be much cheaper.
But now they don’t have the money to find a factory.
And this is still in New York. If it were in China, the price would definitely be much cheaper.
After paying the money, they went out to buy things for painting.
The total cost was twenty dollars.
In the end they were down to twenty.
It was now noon. After spending ten dollars on lunch, they returned home and went out with their musical instruments.
Various musical instruments were quite heavy just for two people to hold, so Gu Yi once again set his sights on the photographer.
In the end, Gu Yi carried a guitar and bass on his back and a stereo in his hand.
One of the photographers helped carry another speaker, while Yu Xue held a bass drum and various wires.
In this way, they took the subway and arrived at Franklin Station.
Then I found a spacious place to spread out my things.
In fact, there are often many people performing in these subway stations, but when two yellow men with photographers appeared here, they still stopped and watched.
After setting up the equipment and adjusting the speakers and instruments, they started performing.
The songs they sing are basically the songs of their band. Regardless of whether you can understand them or not, the music itself just sounds good.
People kept standing here taking pictures with their mobile phones, but Gu Yi and Yu Xue were soon recognized.
After all, the New Bee band is still very popular on YouTube. Although few people have actually seen the live performance, they all know Gu Yi, the lead singer.
So people kept coming up to take photos, but Gu Yi could only sing and take photos with them, without stopping his hands and mouth.
At this time, people began to put banknotes and coins of various denominations into the guitar bag in front.
Someone gave them cents, someone else put down ten dollars.
But I have to say that the music atmosphere here is indeed stronger than that in China.
Many people watched and twisted around in cooperation.
In this way, they started singing and resting from the afternoon until the evening.
A final look at the money in the bag showed it amounted to one hundred and sixty-five dollars and five cents.
"Gu Yi, I think it's pretty good for us to do this. On the one hand, we promote the band and make a lot of money."
"It's indeed quite impressive. I didn't expect that we could make so much money on the first day. Originally, I thought it would be enough to make twenty or thirty. Obviously, many people gave us the money because of the name of our band. "
"yes."
After a busy day, they packed up their things and took the subway back.
Since it was already late, there were not many passengers on the bus.
But today we are just testing the waters.
Starting from tomorrow, they will make money according to the plan they made before.
Today, he made a total of more than 100 dollars. After Gu Yi returned, he returned all the 100 dollars he borrowed to others.
"Teacher Wei, Teacher Wu, how was your application result today?"
"Today we asked five companies in total, two of them said they would give us information later, and three did not agree." Wei Jiarong said.
"Well, it's still quite difficult to find a job. Mainly we can only work part-time, so we plan to ask the remaining ones tomorrow. If it doesn't work, we will have to make money through other ways first."
On the other side, the duo Peng Fei and Shi Li found a hotel, and the hotel said they could stay as waiters, with a salary of eighteen per hour, and overtime pay if they worked overtime.
So they have been working for a day, and now their group has earned a total of two hundred and fifteen dollars, which in addition to wages also includes tips from customers.
Both of them are artists, so there is no problem with etiquette.
Even after finishing this day, they all felt very tired.
Finally, there was Gu Yi and the others. When everyone heard that Gu Yi and the others had made more than 160 just from singing today, they all expressed envy.
"Aren't we just getting started?"
"There's no rush."
They went to the subway station early the next morning. This time they only planned to sing about ten songs here before leaving.
But in the morning, because everyone was rushing to go to work, not many people stayed to listen to the music.
They only made a dozen dollars in the morning.
Then they went to Madison Square Garden, found a shady place and started painting people.
Since Spider-Man's clothes haven't been finished yet, Yu Xue is drawing over there, and Gu Yi is here practicing new songs with instruments.
He plans to write a song "Jasmine".
Although this song is a long time ago, in Gu Yi's impression, foreigners still seem to like listening to it, including when they learn to sing Chinese songs, and many people regard "Jasmine" as the first Chinese language they should learn. song.
But while auditioning and helping to collect money, looking at the people of different colors around him, Gu Yi somehow thought of Teacher Da Zhang.
"If I make "Sunshine Rainbow Little White Horse", I guess there won't be many negative fans in the future."
After thinking about it, Gu Yi thought it was better to forget it.
Unless you can't develop in China, you can still give it a try. But if you want to develop in China, you may be forced to experience the freedom of America one day if you make this song again.
So it's better to be honest.
It's just that their painting career didn't go well at the beginning.
Because no one comes to them to paint at all.
They had no choice but to discuss finding some people to sit and rest here first.
"We will first give them free paintings, and then give them to them for free. Let's see if we can get their consent to put the photos taken nearby for publicity."
"What if they don't agree?"
"If you don't agree, let's give the painting to them for free. After all, it's useless to keep it in your hands." Gu Yi said, "Actually, we still lacked planning. If we had known, we would have painted the other guests first. When we arrive, Sometimes they use their portraits to advertise."
Gu Yi said, although there were still some words left unsaid, Yu Xue understood what Gu Yi meant. After all, everyone was filming a variety show together and drawing pictures for publicity, so they would probably agree.
Naturally, such words cannot be said in front of the camera, otherwise it will be suspected of moral kidnapping.
The first few went quite smoothly. Yu Xue finished painting a family of three first, and then the family of three expressed great joy after receiving it. Yu Xue even got a kiss from the little blond girl.
The second painting was of a young girl who was waiting for someone. The girl was very surprised when she got it, and she happily agreed to let them take photos for publicity.
The third painting is of a fierce-looking black man dressed in a hip-hop style.
As a result, Yu Xue was a little afraid to give it to him after finishing the painting, so Gu Yi found the other party with the painting.
At first, the black man thought Gu Yi was here to do salesmanship, and instinctively wanted to refuse.
"Hey bro, this is a picture we just drew for you."
As a result, after the black man saw the painting, he was suddenly surprised.
"Oh my god, the painting is great, thank you very much."
After speaking, he raised his hand and shook Gu Yi's hand, then bumped his shoulders.
When Gu Yi was leaving, the other party knocked on his chest again, then pointed at Gu Yi and expressed his gratitude again in his own way.
But just after the third one, things didn't go so smoothly for them.
Basically, people leave before the painting is finished.
Unfortunately, these paintings can only become scraps.
In the end, Yu Xue had no choice but to start drawing the photographer and Gu Yi here.
After they finished painting, they hung up their paintings first, while Gu Yi took the previous photos to print.
But when Gu Yi came back, he found that there were customers from Yu Xue.
The customers are a couple.
After walking in, the couple also recognized Gu Yi and acted very happy.
They also said that they came here to travel, and then they saw Yu Xue here. After asking, they learned that Yu Xue was here to paint for people, so they immediately paid twenty dollars to paint a double figure. portrait.
Since this was their first business, Yu Xue painted with great care. It took him half an hour to finish the painting.
The young couple were very satisfied after seeing it and paid the money happily.
As a result, as soon as he saw off the couple, Gu Yi saw several black people walking towards him not far away.
Facing this situation, Gu Yi felt somewhat scared.
After those people came over, they took out the painting of the black man they had just painted.
"Did you draw this?"
Gu Yi nodded honestly.
At this time, the black man just came over with the soda he just bought.
"They are all my friends. After seeing the paintings, they all want to draw one. How do you charge here?"
After hearing the purpose of their visit, Gu Yi, Yu Xue and the photographer breathed a sigh of relief.
"Fifteen for a single person, twenty for a couple. If the four of you want to go together, it's thirty."
This is also the price that Gu Yi and Yu Xue had discussed before.
"Then we want one for four people."
"Sure, thirty dollars, but it will take a little longer."
"It doesn't matter."
Just like that, Yu Xue started drawing again, but it has to be said that black people really waste pencils when drawing.
Others have a lighter shade, but black people have a lighter shade.
It took Yu Xue an hour to finish the photo of the four of them.
Several people expressed satisfaction after seeing it.
Then the imposing black guy paid Gu Yi thirty dollars.
Next they drew two more here and made thirty.
Today they made a total of eighty yuan from painting.
But after deducting the cost of Gu Yi's previous printing and the cost of buying water for himself, Yu Xue and the photographer, there was only seventy yuan left.
Then I went to sing in the evening.
But there were obviously a lot more people watching today. Apparently someone got the news that they were going to sing here and came over specifically to watch.
So they stayed for three hours in the evening, resting, chatting and singing, and earned a total of one hundred yuan.
Because some of the people who gave money today were very generous, with one payment being ten or twenty yuan.
But when they went back in the evening, there were only a few of them in the car, and sitting opposite them was a big man with a very exaggerated appearance.
He looks white, but he has tattoos from his head to his heels. Any exposed skin is covered with tattoos.
Seeing the other person like this, Yu Xue took out a pen and started drawing, but the other person seemed to be dozing off, so she didn't notice.
By the time they were about to get off the bus, the painting was finally finished.
Yu Xue nudged Gu Yi with her elbow and asked Gu Yi to give it.
It was still the same, but the big man was so happy after seeing this painting that he even stuck out his tongue to show them the tongue nails and the tongue that was trimmed to look like slime.
In the end, the man even took out a nail from his forehead and gave it to Gu Yi.
Although the other party looked scary, Gu Yi felt that the other party was still very friendly.
Although he felt a little strange when facing the nail that was ripped off his forehead, he finally took it.
In this way, Gu Yi's business gradually got on track.
After getting Spider-Man's clothes, Gu Yi started to make money steadily.
Because in order to attract people to come and take photos, Gu Yi even made a sign with a rough background of Spider-Man on it.
Many people took photos with Spider-Man after watching it.
Gu Yi does all kinds of Spider-Man's signature moves in Madison Square every day.
In the evening, they still go out to sing as usual, but now there are many people waiting for them to come and sing at this time every day.
Some people who get off work early will also wait here for a while.
After you listen to your favorite song, take out a dollar, put it in your bag, and walk away.
At the same time, many people also posted their photos and videos on Facebook and YouTube.
But just when they were about to go back to rest after singing that night, a man in a suit blocked their way.
Then he asked in authentic American English: "Are you the band New Bee?"
"Yes, sir, what can I do for you?"
"I am Taylor's agent, John Taylor. You gave him a portrait at Madison Square Garden a few days ago. Do you still remember?"
Gu Yi and Yu Xue looked at each other.
Who is this Taylor? I don’t know. In the past few days, when they had no business, they did draw a lot of paintings and give them to other people.
But he had no impression of what the agent said about Taylor.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
Gu Yi said.
"It doesn't matter, anyway, after Taylor went back, he saw you performing in the subway station on the Internet, and then found out that you were the lead singer of "We Will Rock You", so he planned to invite you as guests at the concert three days later. "
"Did happiness come so suddenly?"
Although they don't know Taylor, they can definitely make money by being a guest at a local star's concert.
But right now they still have some concerns, that is, they are filming a variety show, so they have to take Ding Liang into consideration.
"Sorry, I'm honored to be invited by Taylor, but we are filming the show now, so we still need to talk to the director."
"No problem, but is it convenient for me to meet with your director?"
Gu Yi definitely couldn't agree on Ding Liang's behalf, so he called Ding Liang on the spot. Ding Liang was leaning on the sofa playing with his mobile phone. When he heard what Gu Yi said on the phone, he jumped up on the spot.
"What Taylor? Is that Taylor Jordan?"
"Yes, Director Ding, do you know him? Is he famous?"
"It's not just famous, it's quite famous, okay? You people in the entertainment industry don't know Taylor?"
"Director, we really don't know this. If Brother Le is here, we might know."
"Where are you now?"
"It's at the subway station. This agent wants to see you."
"Then you go directly to the hotel and we will meet at the hotel."
"OK."
After hanging up the phone, Gu Yi first asked what kind of car the other party drove. After hearing that it was a sedan and that there was a driver waiting outside, Gu Yi felt a little embarrassed and said that the four of them could not sit down now.
And he also took so many things.
In the end, Gu Yi took the agent named Lawrence on the subway.
It happened that sitting across from the subway was a woman who looked a bit older but dressed like a lady.
Yu Xue took advantage of this opportunity to draw a picture for the other party and gave it to him.
Lawrence was amused by their behavior.
After returning to the hotel, Ding Liang talked with the other party and said that if Gu Yi was willing, it would be no problem to attend the concert, but they would also need several photographers to follow him.
This was not a harsh condition, so Lawrence agreed directly.
Then we talked about appearance fees.
But when it comes to appearance fees, Gu Yi has to step in.
"Mr. Lawrence, my idea is that we won't need the appearance fee this time, but in exchange, can you help us hold a concert here?"
"concert?"
Lawrence also didn't expect that Gu Yi would make such a request.
Because normally, asking Gu Yi and the others to come up and sing a song would cost at most 200,000 US dollars.
But the concert will cost more than 200,000 yuan.
The first step is to rent the venue.
Secondly, there are arrangements such as hiring security personnel and stage lighting for the concert.
Including publicity also costs money.
Lawrence had no answer for this.
So Lawrence made another video call to Taylor.
After explaining Gu Yi's request, he himself met Gu Yi on the phone.
Looking at Taylor's face, Gu Yi couldn't remember that he had ever seen such a man.
"Hello, Mr. Gu, we meet again. Maybe you didn't recognize me, but two days ago at Madison Square Garden you drew a portrait of a person wearing a hat, sunglasses and a mask. That person was me. "
At this point, Gu Yi and Yu Xue remembered that they had indeed painted a portrait of such a person before, but he covered it up so tightly that only a ghost could recognize who he was.
So Gu Yi chatted with the other party for a while.
Then Taylor asked: "Why do you want to have a concert?"
Gu Yi did not say that he wanted to make money, nor did he say that he wanted to increase his reputation, but said: "Because I want to surprise our friends who helped us a few days ago."
And this friend is naturally Uncle Reiner.
If there wasn't Taylor on this level, Gu Yi thought about inviting Uncle Lena over if there was a concert in China in the future.
But now that there is such an opportunity, Gu Yi still wants to give it a try. Anyway, even if he fails, it will not be a loss. At worst, he can get an appearance fee of more than ten or two hundred thousand and end the show in one go.
As for the rest, you can get back to work and go out to spend money.
Taylor was also confused, so Gu Yi told how he met Uncle Reiner and how they made a bet.
"I remembered that there was such a band more than ten years ago, but then they seemed to have disbanded for some reason. Do you want to hold a concert here just for this Uncle Reiner?"
"Yes, our New Bee band's songs have a high number of plays on YouTube, and we are also somewhat famous in China, so if we only hold one show by then, the tickets should be sold. If we can If this wish comes true, we can give you all the money earned from the concert."
Gu Yi's move is called retreating to advance.
Because according to their current capabilities, it is impossible to hold a concert in Amerikan. If this Taylor can help, it will be a trivial matter to make money. The main thing is to increase their fame.
In addition, with Uncle Reiner's relationship, they can also gain a lot of favor.
In addition, being able to connect with Taylor is already the biggest benefit.
After hearing Gu Yi's thoughts, Taylor thought about it.
"Then when are you going to open?"
“As long as it’s before September.”
"Okay, but I also have a condition, that is, you need to authorize me to cover the song "We Will Rock You". After all, holding a concert is very troublesome. Although you said you can make money by then, there is also the possibility of losing money. .”
It’s not that bad to use the cover license of a song to buy the right to hold a concert.
This is not just a change of concert, but also a ticket to enter the European and American music scene.
But since it is a negotiation, we must strive for greater benefits.
"We will rock you" is certainly a classic, but "Uptownfunk", "we are the champion", "Beat it" and "My Heart Will Go On" are not classics. There are too many classic songs. Now Gu Yi is like Just like a child from a landlord's family, I don't feel sorry for him at all.
What's more, it's a cover license instead of selling the complete copyright of a song.
At that time, if Europe and the United States want to use this song, they will still have to buy it from themselves, which is equivalent to spending money on publicity in the early stage and waiting for rewards later.
Gu Yi agreed on the spot to give Taylor the cover copyright of "We Will Rock You" for free, but at the same time he made a new request.
That is, Taylor will be a guest at this concert to sing three songs, and Taylor's appearance fee must be included in the proceeds of the concert.
The reason why Gu Yi made this request was to expand Xin Bee's reputation again, so he needed to keep pushing.
Taylor didn't expect that something as simple as asking Gu Yi to be a guest would end up involving so much.
But he is indeed a bit greedy for "we will rock you".
But you can’t sing it in concerts without buying the copyright.
After Taylor talked for a while, he agreed, but he felt that just by doing so, he was equivalent to taking part of the benefits, and then giving out even greater benefits.
"But Mr. Gu, I remember you are a creator, right? I can agree to all your previous requests, but after all, when you hold a concert, I have to help you take care of a lot of things, and my appearance fee is very high. So I have one last request, which is that you help me write a song that suits me. If you can agree to this condition, I will help you prepare a concert in Madison and let you complete it for Uncle Reiner. dream."
"good."
Among the many conditions, this one is the least demanding.
It’s just a song. When the time comes, just find a top-level English song that’s popular on earth and put it out.
As for that kind of super classic, Gu Yi still couldn't bear to part with it.
In this way, they negotiated all the conditions back and forth.
Both parties felt that they had made a profit, but only Gu Yi knew that he had made a huge profit.
Not only can you be a guest at Taylor's concert.
And being able to have a concert at Madison Square Garden without having to worry about anything.
Ding Liang was also very happy.
In the fourth season of "Extreme Life", he was inexplicably taken away by Gu Yi again.
After seeing everyone off, Ding Liang went directly to the editing team.
"Work overtime. Everyone is working overtime these days. If you are too busy, you have to work two shifts. Today's material is too important. Today's material is stuck at the end of the second issue. In the first issue, it is stuck when Gu Yi takes the Spider Spirit. Put on the clothes, and then Yu Xue finished painting portraits of a few people who looked like gangsters."
But after finishing speaking, Ding Liang felt uneasy. After all, Taylor's entry added too many variables to the program.
"I'll be working overtime with you these days. If we can do a good job in the first two phases, then no one on the website can surpass us in any data."
Ding Liang felt as if he had been given a shot of chicken blood at this moment, full of energy.
After the two returned, they took a shower and got together again to continue talking about the concert.
"I just checked that the average concert here is less than one and a half hours, but usually some singer friends will come to warm up the show, which will make the concert last longer.
But we don’t have any friends here, so Taylor comes up to sing three songs and chat for a few minutes at most. "Yu Xue said as she sat on the bed with her mobile phone and her feet on Gu Yi's legs.
Since it was getting late, there was no photographer in the room, and the cameras installed in the room were also covered, so Yu Xue naturally seemed a lot more casual.
Gu Yi said while pressing Yu Xue's feet: "In one and a half hours, there will be about twenty songs. We can meet this condition now. Excluding Taylor's three songs, it will be seventeen. In addition, let Reiner The uncle sang two songs, leaving only fifteen songs.
The audience at that time will definitely not only be these foreigners, there should also be many international students or tourists, and there may even be our fans who fly over to watch the concert, so there must not be too many Chinese songs.
Then we can find more songs that can heat up the atmosphere. In addition, we only have three English songs now, two of which are sung by Lao Zhu, so we have to make some English songs during this time. "
"Let's do this. When the time comes, we will leave six Chinese songs among our fifteen songs, and then take out a total of nine English songs."
Hearing this, Yu Xue felt that Gu Yi was putting a lot of pressure on herself again.
"To apply for a concert, you must submit songs first. So you have to make six new songs in such a short period of time. Can you keep up? Will it be too tiring? If not, let's sing a few more Chinese songs."
"I'll try my best. I'll put out as many songs as I can by then. It mainly depends on Taylor's time. I'll call Lawrence tomorrow to ask what the cycle for applying for concerts is, and when the time comes, What things are needed.”
"OK."
Early the next morning, Ding Liang rubbed the dark circles under his eyes. He had been here all night yesterday because he wanted to ensure the quality of the first two issues.
But seeing that it was getting brighter, he went out and made another phone call.
He made this call to Zhou Le.
"Hey, Zhou Le, have you been busy lately?"
"Director Ding, you're not busy. What's wrong? Did something happen to Gu Yi over there?"
"Haha, this guy Gu Yi is so good. How can anything happen? I'm calling this time to ask if you are free in August?"
"In August, I have to go to a music festival alone. Jia Zhe has two variety shows to be a guest. What's wrong, Director Ding, aren't you filming a variety show in the United States? Do you want to do a double show?"
"That's not true, it's just that Gu Yi has found a lot of work for me here."
(End of chapter)
