In the series of ‘How to not get your band booked‘, first off I recommend reading the piece I just linked, and second I bring to you ‘The 39 annoying things that bands do‘, written by the booker of a renowned underground St. Louis venue called the Creepy Crawl.
This helps us get a glimpse at the venue’s point of view in terms of booking, and makes us realize that although bands consistently think that their gigs are their time to shine, and theirs only, the venue shouldn’t have to put up with all the ego-inflicted individualistic nonsense.
Great read that guarantees many laughs.
Here are a couple of extracts:
2. Out of town bands that show up and say “We decided to bring another band with us, don’t worry, they just need gas money and pizza.”
9. The out of town band that was lucky to get the gig, brought absolutely nobody, bitched all night long about their time slot, when told they had 1 song left in their set play 4 more anyway who when being paid out $50 in gas money asks “Is this the best you can do?”
17. Bands who pester you to book their bands “side-project”. Side-project is another name for self-indulgent crap so embarrassingly bad they can’t dignify it with a name and gives them a cover why none of their friends will come see them “perform”. (Would you go see your friend masturbate if they asked you to come watch?). Note to bands: think of your side-project as a project never to get booked again.
26. Bands who when you tell them they have 1 more song left because they’re running late into their set decide to play a 45 minute opus full of self-absorbed guitar solos which in the course of playing covers in its entirety side 2 of Pink Floyds’ Dark Side of The Moon.
32. Bands that give long-winded lectures about respect… how we need to respect each other, the world we all live in, ourselves, God, our fellow man, other “artists”, Picasso, Left-handed midgets, respect this, respect that etc etc… What are these guys in the Mafia? The next morning you discover the parking spot they were parked in the night before is completely covered with empty water bottles, soda cans and Taco Bell.
39. Bands that read this list and then send us emails like this one:
“dont take this the wrong way i am just a guitar player but ur annoying list was some what funny, but it makes u guys seem like a bunch of pricks u would not have ur joint with out the annoying bands. i frequent ur place when my friends play but if u dont treat the bands that deserve respect with respect they will not play shows and tell others and so on and so forth just a little concerned.“
… This is just a small sample of annoying things that bands do that we came up with at the Creepy. We could go on and on with this….
Read the rest of the 39 pointers here. You can also access this document by going to the Creepy Crawl’s website here.
And as mentioned above, if you want another hilarious read on “How to not get you band booked”, I highly recommend you read How to not get your band booked (a veteran’s tail).
mruff.
That’s one dead on accurate list!
very F@*&ing funny
From a musician:
5 Annoying things about clubs owners/managers/wannabes
1. Clubs who have no following at all, relying on unknown bands to fill their pathetic rooms.
2. Clubs that charge bands for using a broken down PA manned by a stoned out “soundman” who’s experience is limited to mixing on the club’s POS board.
3. Clubs that can’t or won’t hire professional bands, but instead eek out a living exploiting bands so young and dumb that they haven’t reached the point in their life where they can merit a paying gig.
4. Clubs that treat these young players with distain even though it’s their friends and family who are the only ones who would pay 6.00 for a beer in your shithole.
5. Clubs that expect bands to promote and sell tickets in order to be “paid” for performing. Hey schmuck, your the promoter, it’s a musicians job to entertain the people, not bring them.
Oh, we also got some dirt on club owners:
http://gigdoggy.wordpress.com/quotes-articles/#codeword35
:)
Right on Martin. If owners hired consistently good acts in genres that fit their clubs, they wouldn’t get inconsistent turn out. They present their customers with a grab bag of musical horrors, then act surprised when people are reluctant to come through the door. Bands should be screened as according to how they represent the club, not by how many bored family members or friends they can con into showing up.