So, I'm trying to put together the first in a series of boom mini-tours. I've got two dates and a hole in between. I contact this place, and they're like, "Sure thing." We make price arrangements. Then they didn't put us on the calendar. I send a message, just to be sure, and they read it but don't respond. I'm thinking they're waffling, right?

Man, what the heck? It seems like to be taken seriously on the road, you've got to be big stuff. Otherwise, people just dick you around. Because they can. And you know what? They can.

I've heard of this happening to other bands too, all ready to go on tour when they realize the venue said yes but never put them on the calendar.

Aside from bitching about local venues, which we do here in plenty, bands that are touring should keep tabs on which places suck to play or are unreliable. That would be way more helpful than debating the relative merits of whatever local club is the most hated this week.

I still don't know if Jack's in San Antonio is thumbs up or down, but the Troubadoor in Austin sure has been professional and friendly so far. Anyway, seems like we could pool our resources.

We should start a tour forum.

The Stray Cat in Tempe (more like Mesa) was shitty.

They were easy to book and promised the $5 cover minus $100 for sound. then when we got there they sucked. No free drinks (happy hour prices for the entertainment meant you saved like .50) when it came time to be paid the manager had the nerve to say, well we weren't that busy tonight, I don't think you deserve the door. (They weren't busy because the road was closed and full of cops due to a pedestrian being killed right in front of the bar during the first band) I had to fucken kiss his ass - selling him on my extensive promotion, the fact that I put together the entire show and the fact that we played - to get the measly $50. He said there was only $150 from the door but there was at least 75 people there.

Oh yeah - and they cut off the first band early saying they didn't like their style of music, and then when we were done with our set the sound guy said - uh you can't stop yet till I tell you to.

but such is the road ... you know ... it's the whole experience

shitty. but see? that's good to know.

Stray Cat-Tempe/Mesa, Ariz-easy to book, shitty pay

Troubadoor-Austin, Texas-professional, easy to book if you know a band that plays there, pay unknown

Jacks-San Antonio, Texas-shady to book

These aren't all necessarily sketchy.



On The Y - Sacramento, CA - easy to book, shitty pay, cool mgmt.

The Mustang Club - Modesto, CA - gay-friendly bar with super cool staff, shitty pay, poor PA (we ended up using our own)

Fat Cat's - Modesto, CA - good lights & PA, super cool sound guys, mediocre pay, we got lucky booking this one last minute (literally, we called and he asked us to get to the venue within the next 15 minutes)

The Gig - Hollywood - somewhat easy to book, you have to sell tix though.

Dream Street - San Diego - metal/hesher bar, you have to sell tix, no regular crowd.

Jugheads - Phoenix, AZ - punk dive. AWESOME free beer. mediocre PA & stage.

Studio 111 - Flagstaff, AZ - all ages. Definitely make friends with a Flagstaff band to help promote.

Vaudeville Cabaret - Tucson, AZ - cool staff, small stage with a good PA, free drinks. this place can be easy to pack if you promote well and have a good local. unfortunately, we were there on a butt-cold Tuesday during spring break.

Trophy's - Austin, Tx - the worst toilet in Scotland, and it's not even in Scotland. Just don't do it.

The Pod/EOS - Amarillo, TX - the filthiest venue with the worst stage and PA EVER. Amazing show. All ages. They bought us pizza.

The Hole - Clovis, NM - I love this place. Easy to book, all ages, good merch sales.

Oriental Theater - Denver, CO - all ages. The stage is huge and the venue has a cool vibe, but the sound was bad and all night, the kids opted for the seats in the dark part of the theater, where we couldn't see them.

The Walnut Room - Denver, CO - excellent venue, sound. Wierd crowd. Poor merch sales. It's connected to a pizza place/pub, which is excellent.

Iliff Park Saloon - Aurora, CO - metal/hesher bar. Apparently they recently added a tattoo parlor in the back. All ages on Sundays. Decent drinks, decent pay.

Ogden Theater - Denver, CO - now owned by AEG Live. $10k to rent. Lame.

Starlight - Fort Collins, CO - cool venue in a college town. Promote this one HARD.

Club Vegas - SLC, UT - metal bar. Free drink tickets (1 per band member. 1 ticket = 1 pitcher)!! They bought us pizza too. Big stage, good sound.

The Loft - Ogden, UT - all ages. Upstairs part of a pool hall. Needs hard promo. Easy to book.



That's the best I can do at 8 am.

quote:

Originally posted by gio:

The Gig - Hollywood - somewhat easy to book, you have to sell tix though.

Never pay-to-play. In LA this includes The Gig, The Whiskey, The Key Club, The Roxy,the Viper Room and many others. That is the only way these places make money these days/by scamming tourers/tourists.

Good Places are The Echo, Spaceland, The Scene,The Knitting Factory, The Hotel Cafe, The Silverlake Lounge and The Smell.

If you are a noisey-ish band, pm me for the big list.

word. We opted out of that one. I sent the talent buyer/booking lady an email telling her that selling tickets is a stupid idea for a band that has never played in LA. She pretty much told me, 'too bad, that's how we do business in LA'. I hate California.

This is a great thread. Keep it coming!

I guess the logical next step is for a seperate "great places to play outside of ABQ" thread...

- Chris

AC/DC - It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll Lyrics)

Ridin' down the highway
Goin' to a show
Stop in all the byways
Playin' rock 'n' roll
Gettin' robbed
Gettin' stoned
Gettin' beat up
Broken boned
Gettin' had
Gettin' took
I tell you folks
It's harder than it looks

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
If you think it's easy doin' one night stands
Try playin' in a rock roll band
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll

Hotel motel
Make you wanna cry
Lady do the hard sell
Know the reason why
Gettin' old
Gettin' grey
Gettin' ripped off
Under-paid
Gettin' sold
Second hand
That's how it goes
Playin' in a band

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
If you wanna be a star of stage and screen
Look out it's rough and mean

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll

Well it's a long way
It's a long way, you should've told me
It's a long way, such a long way

quote:

Originally posted by antonia:
...I had to fucken kiss his ass - selling him on my extensive promotion, the fact that I put together the entire show and the fact that we played - to get the measly $50...

Maybe you should have kissed a little more than just the ass.

Or sharpen the kissing skills.

Just sayin'...

For us I think just being on the road is a great feeling. It's def. not very profitable and a lot of dues must be paid. From our experiences, the shows that we thought would be the biggest end up being the smallest and the ones we thought would be bunk, ended up kicking ass. You just never know what to expect when you're rolling into a new place. We've found that on the 3rd and 4th trips to Denver and Arizona we've finally started getting little followings in those areas and people are psyched when we come back to play. The first time to a city can be pretty rough... esp if you're playing with crappy local bands. I think the most important thing to do is try and make contacts with good local bands in other cities and get on a bill opening for them. That has worked best for us.

quote:

That's the best I can do at 8 am.

Gio, your list is really great. Thanks so much for sharing all that info. Sounds like you guys went freaking EVERYWHERE this summer.

Hell yeah! This thread is a good idea, I say. We should move the whole topic to it's own forum or make a master rocksquawk list. I'd be happy to do the data entry if someone wanted to set it up.

It could be like:
Venue Name...Location...Contact Info...Booking Tips...Pay...Notes (like this place is shady, they didn't pay us, or it kicked ass, etc.)

Also, we've had some luck just playing with people from out of town and then visiting their cities. By "some luck" I mean it looks like it's going to work out this first time that we're trying it. We're kinda new to this.

Anyone have any luck in Tucson?

We played at Plush in Tucson. It was very quality, clean, large, working equipment. Not really our crowd, but... A lot of locals have played there; I think they had a booking guy who used to live here and now works at their version of the edge? The town seems to support music: we played for their version of the Crawl and the city blocked off like 20 square blocks and did all kinds of promo. But I hear their bands don't get along well, they don't have much of a "scene." I heard it from a few bands, that they didn't have any "band friends." A ton of venues though: their crawl had twice as many places to play as ours does. It was the first one though, so who knows if they kept it up.

There was a lesbian punk bar right across the street that was more our speed. That's where I'd try next time.. what was it called? Damn! I forget.

I'm no expert though, we were only there once and only stayed a couple of days. It was so fucking hot I thought I'd die, even at night.

we played the tucson crawl a few weeks ago. it was fucking killer. tucson has a cool little downtown sorta similar to abq but still a bit rougher around the edges. the hotel congress is one of the coolest venues ever. imagine if la posada hotel was hipper and had the launchpad in the lobby ... that's hotel congress. you can get the other venues here... http://www.clubcrawl.net/

wow, yeah. that looks a shit-ton better than our crawl. a dedicated website? with a music player? a cd compilation? three outdoor stages? A line to get into downtown? more venues? and that city is only one bigger than us in largest us cities. also, 8 is a much more reasonable start time. You could almost walk to el paso and phoenix from there...

let's all move there.

I wouldn't say it was a shit-ton better. It had it's share of problems too. The coolest thing was how the entire downtown was fenced off so you could drink in the streets!! (doubt that would never happen here)

quote:

Originally posted by WebMonkey:
I wouldn't say it was a shit-ton better. It had it's share of problems too. The coolest thing was how the entire downtown was fenced off so you could drink in the streets!! (doubt that would never happen here)

Ok. If not a ton, how many shit-pounds better would you say it was? That's metric shit-pounds.

I never get tired of metric system jokes.

"Metric shit pounds"?

Think in kilograms for metric, dood.

Some additions to Gio's list.

The Eagles lodge in Pocatello Idaho: Hard to find the talent buyer you have to find bands that play there on myspace and get them to tell you who to contact. All Ages up stairs where the band is. 21 + on ground floor. Amazing show, great turnout, very supportive of touring bands, very high merch sales. Lots of Hugs.

Club Underground in Reno Nevada: They won't book you. You get a show through an independent promoter or through another band. Big space, huge PA, two wheel in bars in the main room and another permanent bar in seperate room with audio and video feeds to two monitors on each side of the bar so they can do all ages or whatever, Poor merch sales (for the size of the crowd) No door pay when we were there because they barely made enough to pay Alien Aunt Farm when more people were there to see the local. The promoter felt sorry for us and gave us 100$

Stitches in Salem Oregon: Send them music that they can play regularly at the venue and they will come. All Ages, no bar, easy to book, weird crowd (just really weird people,lots of ICP t-shirts but they love to rock) owned and operated by Christians with a message but they don't turn away bands even obscene ones. Bands keep some or all of the door. Merch sales are inconsistent.

The Gadfly in La Grande Oregon: Mostly all ages but has a bar, in the basement of a coffee shop with free wi fi, bands split door with the venue, decent merch sales, crappy pa but good engineer, play with a local that has draw and will promote, easy to get on a show with bigger bands, be nice to the local tranny he/she is the program director for the colledge radio station and is very supportive of the venue and any band that plays there.

Shit. I was born in Poactello.