Thursday, October 25, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The other one
There was another come-on from a guy that promised bookings and great things. Turned out he was setting up auditions - 5 of them- in fact around LA and all these bands were supposed to appear and audition for him. I assume he will take you on if you audition and are willing to pay him for his services. My band doesn't do auditions- it's pure silliness. Especially, when you can get booked on the basis of your YouTube videos.
Come ons and wheeler dealers
So, there's a listing on Craig's List in LA for a event featuring new and upcoming bands. I send in my band's stuff. The guy calls me. They are doing a big thing in a banquet hall in a couple of weeks. They want to book bands (for free, of course). They have a Clipper player coming to shake hands. The guy says he likes our band, but he wants to see us in person. I tell him we are playing for 3 hours over at the Westchester Triangle the coming Friday night. It's three minutes away from where his venue is. He says he'll come see us. We performed. No one showed up to introduce themselves, so I figured he came, maybe, and didn't think we were a good fit. So the following Monday there's another ad up on Craig's List for a similar kind of thing, but it was worded differently and didn't discuss the details, so I put our band info in thinking it was a different thing. The same guy calls me. We talk and he says to come over to the venue the next day to meet and look at it. I go. Its a couple like the picture above and they are there renting the hall. They have a teen age looking kid with them that is a DJ. We look at the hall. It is apparent that the guy does not know what kind of music we play and perhaps did not listen to the links at all. I tell him what we do. It's a nice big room with a stage. I tell him we will only come if we get an hour set. But we will rent the use of our sound equipment for the event if they are interested. The woman tells me she has not heard our music and asked me to send the links again. I hear nothing for a week and 1/2. Then I get this message at 11:00 on a Sunday night:
HI DAN THIS IS -----------; I MET YOU AT THE PROUD BIRD RESTERAUNT, ABOUT THE ---------- MEET AND GREET, VARIETY SHOW ON THE 26TH, IM NOT SURE IF MY HUSBAND EVER GOT BACK WITH YOU OR NOT BUT WE DID VIEW YOUR LINKS AND LIKED YOU GROUP. ARE YOU STILL AVAILABLE FOR THE 26TH? IF SO CAN YOU CONFIRM WITH ---------. THE SHOW IS AT 8PM. IT HAS TAKEN SHAPE WELL SINCE WE TALKED THAT DAY. IT IS A VARIETY SHOW, DUE TO THE FACT THAT WE HAVE SO MANY GENRES OF MUSIC REPRESENTED. PLEASE CONTACT ----------- (323)XXXXXXX, IF YOU ARE ABLE TO PERFORM. I WILL ATTACH AN EVENT FLYER.
THE WEBSITE IS ----------------------. (which is a pin-up site) IT SHOWS A FEW OF THE ARTISTS THAT WILL PERFORM THAT NIGHT. WE ARE ASKING EVERYONE TO PREPARE ONE OR TWO SONGS. TO PERFORM. YOU WOULD BE ONE OF THE FIRST TO PERFORM. ALSO CAN YOU PERFORM THE FASTER SONGS OR MORE UP BEAT SONGS IN YOUR SET. AS SOON AS YOU GET BACK TO ME I CAN LINK YOUR SONGS/VIDEOS ONTO THE SITE AS WELL. P.S. HOW MUCH WOULD YOU CHARGE US TO USE YOUR MICROPHONES AND SPEAKERS SHOULD THAT BECOME NECCESARY? THANK YOU
I emailed back saying we wouldn't participate if we couldn't do an hour set. But I was still interested in renting sound equipment to them (thinking that if they wanted that, they might agree to an 1 hour set. This was the response:
OH, OK I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND, PLEASE FORGIVE NEGLIGENCE IN CONTACTING YOU BACK SOONER. IT IS MY FAULT I THOUGHT THAT IT HAD BEEN TAKEN CARE OF AND DID NOT CHECK. IF WE DO NEED TO USE YOUR EQUPMEWNT I WILL HAVE ROBERT CALL YOU BACK A.S.A.P.
Not a peep.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Lots and lots of music
Rhubarb at Westchester First Fridays channeling our inner Old Crow Medicine Show. Really played three days in a row with Ed here. The band did this and then went to the Manhattan Beach Hometown Fair and played on the main stage:
Did discover a thing you have to do at a bug stage with a sound guy who's never heard the band, you need to announce who's going to solo in the next number- so he will give them the sound they need. The first fourth of Betsy's banjo solo wasn't because the sound guy didn't realize that's what we were doing.
I got a comment about Amish folks being referred to as Nazis in a previous post- I just thought the picture really summed up the attitude of these web Folk calendar people because I know that they are all 70 and still polishing their Peter Paul & Mary vinyl.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Folk Nazis
I've been trying to get the band's booked gigs up on Folk Music Calendars on the Web, Nothing happens. So I emailed two of them. A guy from Folkworks.org finally responds saying they don't post Farmer's Markets because there are too many of them. He doesn't bother to address the fact that we are on the Main Stage in Manhattan Beach for a major yearly fair. Or the main stage at the Brentwood Art Fair.
The second one I got was from this woman - you can only find her if you type Alive & Picking into Goggle- why do I bother?
"Hi: please provide the telephone number for each venue at which your group appears, in order that the listing can be verified before we publish it. Thanks! "
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan McNay
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