Maybe not to the people who attended (who seemingly take more interest in their musical career) but there are plenty of musicians who did not attend who could have walked out with a little more insight.

Twice in the past two weeks I’ve had my employees ask that certain bands not be allowed to return - this has NOTHING to do with me as a club owner (I wasn’t even at these shows) and everything to do with how the bands treated my staff. Respect the opportunity to play was a point I think I tried to make.

Another point, under-promise, over-deliver. Here is an email I got about a recent show:

X Band will draw around about 20-30 kids in your area.
Y Band might draw around 10-20 in your area.
Z Band should draw at least 50-100 in your area..so your looking at about 150 kids as the high..and about 80 on the low end.

My instincts told me these numbers were inflated, but I thought, if half that many people come, I’ll still be happy. Well, we were both off - 4 people paid to see the show.

Of course, one of the bands talked to me after and said if they had another show, ideally on a weekend, they could probably get about 200 people. Sorry, dude, THAT was your chance…and if you really think there are 200 people interested in your band, why didn’t more than 2% of them come out for your show? First impressions go a LONG way! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

glenn/506

@Shayne — (2) in your comment is an excellent idea. Bands like FKoN, Red Collar, and HNMTF are going to be playing those shows anyway. Why not bring an out of town band to Winston-Salem (or wherever) next time you play there?

2) What about using semi-local cities for show trades? You guys are big enough to have a draw in Greensboro, Wilmington, Wilson, Charlotte, etc, right? And it’s still valuable for Red Collar to do Tuesday shows in those places, yeah? The touring bands don’t get the benefit of Red Collar’s Chapel Hill draw, but it’s still something and benefits both of you.

3) I think posting these on the website instead of various social networking sites is a good idea. Although, I wish there was some way that our “online presences” could be linked in the conversations.

4) Speaking of online presence, I totally stole your WordPress theme for FKoN’s website. Hope that’s okay.

5) Where do you find time to do everything? Book, promote, practice, tour, write, record, respond to emails, earn money to feed yourself, have anything resembling a social/family life, and still write entertaining blogs…It seems like it adds up to waaay more hours than there are in the week. I’m quitting my job soon so I can focus on just music stuff and I still don’t think I’ll have enough time to do it all. I’d love to hear how y’all divide your time.

xo,
Shayne

1) We need to have another Secondhand Freepspace panel on booking and have YOU (or another band members who’s done the leg work) on it. The first one was just booking in the triangle, the second: the world (or at least, beyond the state line.)

2) Although I realize it’s tough, one reasons bands should say ‘no’ is if it does not make sense for their band. Overplaying, although possibly somewhat beneficial to other parties, might not be in the best interest of the local band. Notice that Ross didn’t list Cat’s Cradle for Hammer - I’m not NOT convinced if they played less, they could be that big. The local acts that do play the Cradle (From Annuals to Old Cermony to SCOTS to Mountain Goats) probably play just as often as any other local band, they just do it over a greater territory (not all in their own backyard.)

3) Here is the email that you reference. And yes, I still reply to everyone who contacts 506, albeit sometimes not as quickly as bands would like. I do this for two reasons. One, I am grateful that so many acts want to play the club…and, secondly, I personally hate it when people don’t reply to my emails…which unfortunately includes a surprising number of bands.

thanks for the props…glenn/506

Thank you for your submission. Here are some other venues in town that
might work better as we recommend acts play a smaller room in town before
their first show here.

JACK SPRAT - http://www.jackspratcafe.com
THE CAVE - http://www.caverntavern.com
THE NIGHTLIGHT - nightlight.dyss.net/
THE RESERVOIR - http://www.reservoirbar.net/.
MANSIONS 462 - http://www.mansion462.net
BLUE HORN LOUNGE - http://www.bluehornloungechapelhill.com

For what it’s worth, I said what I did about HNMTF with affection — those cats love to play, and it shows. One side-effect of that is that a *ton* of people around here have seen them play. Seems to be working for them so far . . .

There are some people (many of them clubowners) who’d see too-many-local-shows as a problem, but that’s a discussion for a different day. And it doesn’t answer your question.

For bands who go on one two-week tour a year (and there are a *lot* of them around), the math works out just fine. You play 10 out-of-town shows during that 2 weeks, and then spend the next 11 months paying back the show-trade debt, with one show a month.

For folks like you guys, in the past, I think one of the possible “game plans” was to sign to a label & then go out on tours as an opener+headliner package with one of the other bands on the label. Plenty of folks still seem to be doing that, but it’s not as straightforward nowadays as it maybe used to be.

Another option would appear to be: magically get Pitchfork to love your ass, generate a ton of blog interest, and then play Local 506 on a Monday night with a nearly-unknown local opener & still draw 150+ people despite the fact that you don’t actually even have a record available in the US yet. Or at least that’s what seems to have worked for Japandroids.

We should trade shows sometime soon,
xo
Shirle’