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Reposted from dw/OH!:

Back from Cleveland; Thoughts About Starting a Music Booking Collective

Got back from Cleveland yesterday and had a nice time. Expect longer writings from both myself and Areila regarding the whole event.

Yes, I will argue with anyone that Columbus has the best local scene in Ohio and many other scenes.

Yes, I will argue that there's so many great bands around here that it sometimes scares me to the point of not being able to sleep any more.

No, I don't think Columbus' national touring scene is where it should be. Two cases: Both Ted Leo and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are hitting Cleveland and at this point they're not coming through Columbus. What the F?

I actually contacted Ted Leo's management to try and book a show for him out here because I love the new record so much. No response. Maybe I need to get some people together and start some sort of music collective and help bring in bands that Little Brother's, Factory, etc. aren't bringing it. Because if they're not going to do it, maybe we can do it together. The website had huge success with our local shows, perhaps we need to start hitting up the national talent as well.

Suggestions about this? Let's talk.

Inspired from David A. Cobb's post on Houston Calling http://www.donewaiting.com/houston/

Check this:

I would like to mention a group of individuals who have taken it upon themselves in the past few years to bring about a change in the Houston scene on their own terms. This is a group called Hands Up Houston, which promotes itself as a "booking collective." This may be nothing new to you, but it was when I first heard of it. In Houston it is a concept that is way overdue.

These guys bring bands to town that otherwise might just play in Austin or maybe not at all. Bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Rival Schools, BRMC, Aeroegramme, Interpol, The Warlocks, Low, and many more have been to town as result of their efforts. You can view a list of all of the gigs they've sponsored at their website: http://www.handsuphouston.com.

dooooooooooo it.

there's obviously the talent to organize it and the people to help it grow. there are good venues to play. there's a university, with lots of kids looking to go to shows. the audience is there.

donewaiting:
if you build it, they will come.

TOTALLY dig the booking collective idea and would be glad to help with that. I kind of do something similar for my band, trying to find mid-sized national acts to come to Columbus so we can open for them, it doesn't happen that often though b/c you have to look at their already existing tour dates and hope for an opening between dates close to Columbus. Then, hunt down their booking person and that's just half the battle. I'm pretty sure Chris Wood (Woody) would be a helpful partner in this as he's been doing it for years and has a pretty new venue to house these shows. There is one aspect we have to take into account: when a national act comes through, they expect certain things according to their booking contracts and most venues in columbus, their booking agents act as the 'talent buyers' too which means the venue must agree to a certain payment amount and any other bizarro contract settlements. most of the time, these aren't a big deal, but when looking for gigs, we can only go so far before we have to pass it off to the 'talent buyer' which is kind of frustrating if they don't follow through. It would be excellent to have a few of the booking people at venues working with us on a regular basis to help kick start things for the Columbus scene in terms of national acts.
Those are my 2 cents on it...hope it helps a little!

I can see it now:

DUFFY PRESENTATIONS PRESENTS: RADIOHEAD w/ WILCO playing at BERNIES Wednesday, 7 PM. ALL AGES - $45.

Charlie, you got one thing wrong: this is a collective, not just me!

But the photo, price point, venue and band info is all correct.

As previously mentioned ... Chris Woods is doing a great job of bringing bands to town (press release just went out announcing a Fruit Bats show at the Factory in May!!!!). The whole Collective idea is great but we, as a whole music community, really need to go out and support the bands that are coming to town -- make Columbus a place where bands want to play.

With that in mind (ha! plug alert!) ... EVERYBODY GO SEE AEREOGRAMME ON APRIL 1. Let's fill that room!

-Chip

My problem with the Factory is YES, the venue is bringing good shows, but that lounge vs. main room situation needs to improve.

Even at The Sun show the booming house music was overpowering them at some times, and in between songs it was just so lame to hear the next room go be so loud.

I'll be at Aerogramme Tuesday, Soundtrack of Our Lives Saturday, and many more shows. I already bought my Yo La Tengo tickets.

But the town still needs help.



robert.

Duffy, you are an exception to the rule. Why, if I were a young whippersnapper like yourself I would be at all those shows as well. But, as a grizzled old man with a family, getting out isn't something I can do that often.

There are certainly downfalls to the Factory. Having two rooms right next to each other isn't ideal, especially when they are competing with each other. And, the venue isn't located where the kids are (OSU campus), but, then again, I don't know that that many college kids would go to the shows even if The Factory sat on the corner of 15th and High.

-Chip

Dont know if you all are familar with Garageband.com, it's a site where musicians can submit their music to be downloaded (like mp3.com.) the catch is that in order to post your songs you have to first review other peoples songs. In this setting, bands can get objective opinions of their music. Based on these reviews the songs are rated.

Anyway, what if on this site robert, you put up a song a week or something, then have people listen to the tune and give constructive feedback (or empty insults if one so chooses.)

Just a thought.

Oh, and ill be rocking out at the st james tavern this friday, march 28th. Ill be playing both acoustic and with the band.

You already know I'm into this idea Robert and the fact I've got experience both as a club's talent buyer and as an independant promoter won't hurt at all!

As far as guarantees go, they are almost always due at the end of a show. The only time money would have to be payed up front is if the group wants a deposit of some sort...but that's pretty rare with the bands you would probably be dealing with.

Yeah- somebody tell me where all the OSU kids are? We have the biggest campus in the country and those kids are nowhere to be found.
I know that is all I did in college...

Oh yeah...the reason venues think all ages shows are a pain inthe ass is becasue there's almost never any money in 'em. Most places make their money off booze sales and the door goes to the bands and the production staff with maybe a slight percentage going to the house.

That's probably why so many "all-ages" bands constantly feel ripped off...it's becasue the house is keeping most of the door becasue they can't make dough off booze.

in '89 i was a freshman at osu. prior to that i had grown up watching mtv and listening to fm radio. i wasn't really exposed to new music or "alternative" music which, at that point, really was alternative. i was excited when i came to osu because i thought, finally, i'm going to get exposed to college radio and college bands. what i discovered when i got to columbus was that there were no college radio stations and my roommates listened to groups like new kids on the block and the outfield. so much for my exposure to college rock.

i think that's the deal with the kids these days at osu. they've been brought up on mtv and the backstreet boys and other bad music. a majority of 18 to 21 year old kids could care less about seeing a band like soundtrack of our lives at little brothers when they could be at the newport seeing a creed knock-off band. it's too bad but it's a way of life.

i know that osu does have a radio station but it's only available on, or very near, campus. it would be great it they had a station like WOXY out of oxford, ohio where they'd be exposed to artists that aren't that far from the mainstream but just far enough away that they aren't in rotation at a "safe" station like CD101.

i think local media, the other paper and particularly the alive, are doing great jobs of writing about bands that fly below the radar. are the kids at osu reading about these bands? i don't know, but my suspicion is no.

-chip

yeah the osu students are lame to the nth degree, i know i'm one of them. they just listen to whatever MTV tells them to listen to, that and whatever hip hop stuff is big at the moment. they don't go to many shows because all they care about is getting trashed and that's cheaper to do at some lame party, since they don't give a shit about the music anyway, no need to go to a show.

whatever, so a vast majority of students are lame idiots (or i think so) that doesn't change the fact that c-bus has some good places to play and about twice the population of any other city and a better local music scene than any other ohio city. we should be getting as much action as any cincinatti, cleveland or toledo. the consortium must rise and flourish!!!!!

i just don't really want to believe that... I mean I have had countless conversations on where the hell they all are - and the best I've come up with is that 18-21 year olds really can't go where our scene hangs. We tried playing all ages shows- Several at Red-16 but really the OSU students aren't there either.
So they can't come see us play. We have to play show's like ComFest and the Art's Festival and Spring outdoor shows etc- to give them a chance to see us and even if they like us that can't really check us out on a regular basis anyway.
So we just stick with our scene and our friends and our friends bands and our friends draw and our scene gets bigger and we just have fun and love it all.
I saw them all, by the way, at The Vine's show- and by "them" i mean all the kids who should be at our shows. The truth is there are all kinds of kids at OSU and I'm not gonna write them all off b/c they don't show up- theirs got to be plenty of cool kids that I would want to hang out with.
I bet they have NO IDEA what's going on in this town, - no idea that there's even a local music scene like there is, filled with 25- 35 year olds, who make great music. They're happy enough with the big act's, hell why not Mtv is powerful- and the music is good.

Oh well...

i think it's just the way things are now too. i mean, music is SO easy to get your hands on. an example ... back when i was in college i LOVED greenhorn. they never put out a cd, only a smattering of singles (and i didn't own a record player). the only way i got to hear their music was to go see them live once a month or once every other month. the shows were usually packed (at stache's) because people knew they couldn't just go home and throw a greenhorn cd on to get their fix or download songs. seeing a band like greenhorn back in those days was something special.

i caught a mini-greenhorn reunion (mark didn't play) at andyman's treehouse a few weekends ago and there was 15 people there -- many of whom were related to or friends with the band. it was sad that the place wasn't packed.

on another note, i once saw a band called those bastard souls which featured members of the grifters, the dambuilders, and jeff buckley's band play to about 25 people at little brothers. 25 people!!!! the resumes of the various band members should have made at least 100 people show up.

-chip

i think its great that you guys can be so optimistic about the osu students, and i may have been a little harsh calling them lame. but fact is not many of them are into music and what music they listen to is 99% of the time dictated by the major media MTV, what not. on the other hand getting drunk as often as possible is something 99% of them do care about and they don't like things like music getting in the way. even my friends who do go to shows around here think i'm weird cus i'll drive a couple hours to see a band i really like. pretty much the bottom line is that students are lazy and mainstream music is very homogenized and i don't think many people just care about any bands or music in particular very much. which i think is lame, people should be passionate about some things, and my comrades seem to be apathetic about everything. the osu crowd is not something that anyone should be banking on, college students are getting more and mroe high schoolie with their obsessions about image and crap like that, until somone is big they won't care about them too much. this doesn't apply to everyone, obviousy, just the majority of students, obivously there are also many that are into music the way i am, unfortunately they are a small minority of the entire population.