Jersey Mike

I recently accepted a new contract with another venue. It’s much smaller and not nearly as centrally located as my primary venue, but a fun room nonetheless. It’s more of a “neighborhood bar” than anything, but they want to increase their bottom line by expanding their music programming for the weekends. Consequently, my workload has increased in the way of fielding calls, emails and calendar-crafting. Which has inspired today’s post.

Far too often, I get calls from bands who simply do not have their shit together. No website. No MySpace. An email address that’s difficult to spell or sound out (Me: “What’s your email address?” Them: “stixxvoxx69atAoldotcom”) Twitter? What the heck is that? Facebook? Nah, but we have six hundred followers on MySpace!

Sigh.

So here are a few more tips for young bands (or older ones who may have forgotten) who want to get into the calendars of music venues…but can’t figure out why they don’t get booked.

1. If you call (and you really shouldn’t) – know what you want to accomplish.
Do you have your thirty-second elevator pitch ready? Or will you fumble and make it up as you go along? Most every talent buyer or club booker I know hears from hundreds of bands all wishing to do the same thing: get booked and get paid. So when you call (again, you really shouldn’t unless you have a preexisting relationship with the booker) make sure you know what you want to say and get it done. There’s nothing worse than me taking a call from a number I don’t recognize and have to listen to a band pitch their act and then not even have a website to direct me to. Or a band who, until the phone call, I had never heard of ask me what I can do for them.

2. Don’t call. Email.
I realize this will contradict what I explained in Number One, but knowing that most people don’t listen, I’ll say this as well. Personally, I would much rather get an email (or two or three) from a band who wants to play with a simple “Hey! Really love your room. We’d love to play sometime. Here is a link to our site/MySpace/YouTube, etc.” This way, when I’m sitting here in my giant, climate controlled office in a skyrise high above the streets with my receptionist screening calls, sushi-delivery at the door and all the free time in the world, I can click your links and see if what you’re doing will make sense in our calendar.

3. Patronize the place you wish to play.
The first time The Hold Steady played Harrisburg in 07, following the announcement, I immediately got inundated with requests from bands who were hopeful to get the opening slot. And I had to laugh, because I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen any of the members of most of the bands who inquired at a show or an open mic. And THEN, a few of them had the audacity to tell their friends what an asshole I was for not booking them (I know this because it’s a small town and your friends aren’t as loyal as you think they are). Some of my favorite bands to work with are the ones to come to other bands shows, pay the cover on ticketed nights and generally participate. This is a participatory industry. You cannot expect to receive without giving back in some capacity.

4. Be persistent, but not annoying.
Send an email. If you don’t get a reply in a week or two, send another one. If you know the booker is going to be at a particular show, stop by the show and introduce yourself. Sometimes, the best way to “break through” the chatter is to go old-school on my ass. Come into the venue, have a beer with me and tell me in person why I should book you. And then thank the person for their time and go enjoy the show…maybe make note of what that band is doing and how you can relate that to what you’re wishing to accomplish.

5. When you DO get booked…
Sell that show as if your life depends on it. Think “If I don’t get 150 people out to this show, my life will END”. Well, maybe not THAT extreme…but you get the picture. Times are TOUGH. Budgets are being slashed like a going out of business sale and you need to make me (or any buyer) realize that we made the right decision when choosing to book you. There have been bands who have BEGGED me over the years to give them a shot. And when I finally gave in, they didn’t even send a poster to the room. Promote your show. Tell EVERYONE you know that you’re playing. But more importantly, do something to make them WANT to come see you. Be different. Unique. Use that noggin to create a compelling reason for your friends to take time out of their schedule to come to a bar and spend their hard earned money supporting your band.

Or, just stay in your garage practicing those Nickelback covers and playing backyard barbecues in the summer.

U.S. District Court Judge Blanche M. Manning last week dismissed a lawsuit against eBay by the city that claimed the auction Web site is a “reseller’s agent,” which would have made the site liable for collecting the 9 percent (5 percent for many cultural events) amusement tax on resold tickets.

Way to go, Chicago. You greedy bastards.

Hey Harrisburg- maybe we’ll just start selling all of our tickets on Ebay….

They’re calling for five or six hundred tickets to be sold.

At a hundred bucks a pop, that’s around sixty grand in gross ticket sales.

And considering that this group putting the event together is most-likely not a non-profit (and it certainly isn’t “educational” or “charitable” by any means), I’d say that, yes, the ten percent amusement tax IS going to be due on the Linda Thompson Inaugural Ball.

You see, THIS is the kind of shit that I’m worried about. I’ve written before about “selective enforcement” (a federal crime) and if the Amusement Tax is NOT paid on this event, then I’ll be at city hall banging my pots and pans together.

Steve Ketterer (until he retired) watched my events like a HAWK. And it’s simply because I’ve been publicly challenging this tax since I started promoting events in Harrisburg. Had I been a “good citizen” and remained quiet about it, then I’d probably have several thousand dollars more in my bank account today.

But we paid. Every. Single. Show.

Now, Linda, it’s your turn. Maybe now you’ll understand the lunacy of this tax and will be prompted to do something about it.

All we want is a fair playing field.

And what’s fair (at this stage of the game) is for you to pony up your five thousand dollars due in amusement tax on your event.

It’s that time of year. A time for us to look back and reflect on everything that made oh-nine the winner of a year that it was.

So here they are- my favorite blog-moments of the year.

Janks Goes To Jail- Captain Janks from the Howard Stern show was making his rounds at dive bars hustling for cash to get more Oxycontin. And with the help of this here blog, he’s sitting in a jail cell right now. Making sweet prison love to a guy named Bubba.

Simple Sneakers Makes Good- I bought my first pair of Simple Sneakers in 1995. And I still have them. But the new pair I bought in oh-seven fell apart. And Simple proved to me that they ARE a company with a good moral fiber running through them.

Dunkin Donuts Cleans House I love me a medium hazelnut, cream and sugar. And I want it QUICK. The Dunkin Donuts on Second Street was in shambles…and I like to think that this blog shined some light on it. Thereby effecting DD Corporate to clean house. Now the coffee is quicker.

Baby’s First Stalker I had a stalker this year. (S)he was sending me a plethora of odd items in the mail. And writing this simple letter and posting it on my site dissuaded any additional packages.

A Blogger Meets A McNugget Schiller I had this great idea to track down the guy who did the “I’m Into Nuggets, Y’all” rap commercial for McDonalds and write a story about viral videos. I thought it came out great…but it was one of my least-read posts of the year. Oh well.

“Pathetic Blogger” is born Our fearless new mayor (If Reed was “Mayor for Life”, Linda is “Mayor for Now”) made a comment to the press. It was “Those people on those blogs are really pathetic people”. And a sensation was born. Fear not, Linda. We’re pathetically plotting our plans….

Papenfuse Sign Language Remember the hulabaloo over the Capital Blue Cross signs on Front Street? That was a heluva time we had, wasn’t it? And it was also a win for the little guy. High five, once again, Eric. Tremendous win for the people.

And one of my favorite stories of the year- Semantic Adventureland. “Bro…if I returned this movie the day after I rented it…and it was on-time, you or you or you [there were three employees behind the counter at this point] would have to take that movie from the return bin and place it back on the shelf where it belongs. “Comedy”, in with the “B’s” somewhere after Back To The Future and before Boogie Nights. And you wouldn’t charge me a restocking fee then, would you?”