“Here cum germs!” – SBB revisited, new mp3, booking rant
“Here cum germs!
Peace and love is a silly thing!”
Alien Sex Fiend
Last week’s SOPHISTICATED BOOM BOOM was big fun (despite all our efforts to make it “the party to end all colds ever” didn’t work: I heard rumours about some people still being ill. We had anti-infection-masks and lots of handkerchiefs as deco and trading cards with cold symptoms like ‘cough’ or ‘sniffles’ and if you traded them and got all four of them you got a free multivitamin with a shot of vodka drink. We should have stuck to the plan to put echinacea into every drink that night. The dancing started pretty early which always is nice. It got rather crowded too, but comfortably crowded. With Inger and Wally we had wonderful people at the bar (and sssssh! top news: from the next Sophisticated Boom Boom on, 2nd of March, Wally will be joining the dj team). Musically it was the usual crossgenre joyride and I enjoyed myself very much. I remember vaguely that Casioheart played some Matthew Dear song that was nice and Discobert played a sweet Flying Lizards tune but as they don’t send me playlists I still don’t know which. Lazy sods, I tell you, all of them! Oh, and even the minimalism of “Fizheuer Zieheuer” worked on the dancefloor. It’s such a great tune to hear loud. My favourite new indie song is “You! Me! Dancing!” by Los Camesinos or what they’re called, and my bad taste track of choice is Mika – “Grace Kelly”, which tops off (wanna-be-?-)-gay mainstream glam à la Scissor Sisters with a hint of Freddie Mercury. Thank you wonderful people for making it such a great night, and here’s the flyer for the next one, so yous don’t miss it:
If you manage to classily contribute to that theme with your styling or some party utensil we might consider breaking our rule and play a tune you request. Seriously, so far I’ve only had one idea how to translate that “my reality is better than yours” slogan into deco, but we’ve still got a month of time and I’m sure we manage to get some holodeck or whatever to make it a proper party theme.
One of my latest bootlegs got played out too, “We’ll Never Be Your Friends! You Are Alone!” and here it is available for free download and ready for your praise or abuse!
Tonight, beware: Someone has let out those damn dogs again -> The wonderful ELECTRIC DOG dj team rocks the DESI with their unique blend of electrofunkminimalacidhouse or what do you call it? The other club night of choice for me would be REGGAE HIT THE TOWN, the strictly-original-45s rocksteady / reggae night at the K4. I guess I’ll drop by there first and then head to the dogs.
Last week was a bit quiet. Biggest news were booking-related: it seems to work out that in May JOAKIM will come to town, and hopefully TED LEO in June. Both of whom get me so excited that I hardly dare to say it loud cause I only will believe it when they step up the K4 stairs.
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I’ve got a little booking rant that I have to get off my chest but I ensure you it has absolutely nothing to do with the artists I’ve just mentioned! It was some other bands’ agencies that have pissed me off lately.
I hate it when you get a contract that is obviously an overzealous standard thing written by a totally unsensitive agency and with it comes a rider (technical stuff, catering etc.) that obviously comes directly from the band and shows them as nice down to earth people with a sense of humour, and even more important: as people who you instantly sense as being more on your level of handling tour things than on the level of their brown-nosing agency that sees the next big thing in them, the next band that could make them rich and whom they desperatly try to get the biggest comfort possible, or rather: what they consider to be comfort. I feel sorry for the bands that because of such agencies end up staying in some cheapish hotel where they have to get up early and have bad breakfast instead of getting a comfortable and caring private accomodation where they can get up late and get some decent breakfast.
Another thing I hate is when agencies repeatedly ask back about promotion, trying to make you feel as if you didn’t care about the band because you haven’t found one more zine or radio to present their band. Well, part of our work sure is to promote our shows. That means postering, flyering, getting the word out to media of all kind, and I dare say that we do quite a good job in that. What we don’t do and won’t do is repeatedly phoning every single paper, zine or radio station and get on their nerves till they present the show. We don’t say no to presentations and we often get them but it’s not our goddamn job to do that kind of intense and annoying promotion work. Get a promotion agency if you want that shit. Oh, that doesn’t pay? Really? FFS, that’s exactly the point: Don’t waste our precious time with your wanna-be big business antics if we talk about shows that maybe make 80-150 people come out. Or don’t work with us.
Another thing: Guestlists. Do you really think the 10th webzine that presents a show makes more people come to that show? It only shoves more people from the paying side to the guestlist side. If you can afford that, what about you paying for those guestlistspots from the band’s guarantee and explain it to them that the club is crowded but we haven’t made it over the break even? We can’t afford and won’t accept having guest lists on which a quarter of the audience gets in for free. Hey, for example: Why put all the members of a local band +1 on guest list just cause you book them? That might mean the loss of 12 paying people for us just to make your clients feel ‘special’. Fuck off. If you want to do that kind of ‘showcases’ then find someone else who pays for it, not the kind of d.i.y. promoters we are.
Oh my, to even have to think about stuff like that with shows of that size is ridiculous. It really spoils the fun and I have to like a band very much to work with such agencies again.
Did that sound bitter? Please, believe me, I’m not. There still are so many great bookers or bands who book themselves out there with whom it’s a real pleasure to put up shows, but most of the time that simply gives me a big beaming smile but doesn’t make me want to write a praise about them. Although they really deserve it.
To those out there who think: “Ha, that’s what happens if you work with bigger or more business oriented agencies!”, let me tell you: From my experience that’s not true. Over the years I or we have got shameless requests from bands that don’t even have a booker but book themselves, there was some asshole behaviour from d.i.y. bookers, and I have had absolutely fair and nice experiences with some of Germany’s biggest agencies. There’s no ‘rules’ about that anymore. These days they all deserve individual rants and praises.
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Another thing: The anti-gay website I wrote about before seems to have proven to be a hoax. I can’t see the point of that joke, if it really was one. Nevermind, there are more christian groups worth being disliked. 😉
For example, one of my pet hates are Jesus Freaks veiling their recruiting camps as d.i.y. punk clubs, like 13eins in Ansbach who are on myspace too and, funny little guys they are, seriously tried to add me. Also, any promoters of hardcore shows that put up bands with christian messages, please stay away from me.