Most promoters want to get into your pockets,
DNA is already in your genes.

I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately, pondering the greater questions. Of late, there has been a prominent query inside my head, forcing me to reckon with the "hows and whys" of my life as a promoter. If the truth be known, I cannot come to grips with any real reasons. Being a promoter in the music scene is not the fame filled existence that all of you think it is. If you boil down the essence of promoter-hood, it becomes indistinguishable from that of a riverboat gambler. I take some money, I put it on a band to ride, if somehow I parlay it into a bigger pile of loot then I have gone against the odds and beaten the house. But mostly I just enjoy the ride and try not to be tossed in the river when I lose.

Take last Saturday for example. A band called the Brown Whornets had come to Northern California from their home base in Austin. I have worked with them in the past and I know that they can really put on a show. Besides being an extremely tight nine-piece fusion collective who escalates from weird pondering klezmer to full blown punk insanity, they are also highly dramatic and funny. Working with the Brown Whornets is, to say the least, a guaranteed hell of a hoot. So I look for an opening band that has a name, a draw, and is compatible to fill out the bill. I find Meyow, a three-piece, grinding circus dirge, whose onstage antics and pun-filled songs made for a bizarre evening of entertainment. So now I had a genuine Rock and Roll show.

I decided to make the event all-ages. Across America, all-age venues are being shut down and there are less and less opportunities for the kids to go out and enjoy an evening of rock. The venue I picked is called the Epicenter. It is a new hall, who the owner gave me, despite the desirability of a Saturday night show, for a mere $150 (that includes the soundman). I got local artist Matt Loomis, who can draw flyers like nobody's business, to create a masterpiece for the event. Cost, $25. I then went about promoting the event to the local papers, got a pick of the week in one of them, and proceeded to distribute about 100 flyers.

Now Chico is not a big city, but on a Saturday night there is about a dozen or so shows that one can go see. Big name shows might garnish up to twenty bucks to attend, but I decided to keep the price low, not gouge the kids and count on quantity of attendees. I charged $3. A friend donated $40 worth of pizza for the backstage area and by the time ShowTime got under way, the bands were well-fed and starting in on cases of Budweiser. To cut to the chase, the door receipts that night was $120, which means 40 people paid and I afterwards I didn't even have enough money to pay for the room. I do not think this is too unusual in the promoter biz, but whenever it happens there is a loud sucking noise at the cash box, like universes collapsing upon themselves.

So what did I do? Well, I gave the band $50, gave the hall the other $70 and went home $80 (plus another $40 for the flyers) in the hole and unpaid for all the work I did. And guess what sport fans, I've been doing this for over a decade! Ahhh.. now the aforementioned soul searching becomes apparent. I'm not even sure why I do things like this. I think I just like being able to facilitate traveling bands. There's nothing like seeing some beaten up Chevy or recycled ambulance, pull up to a club, in a city they have never been to before, a State whose accent that have never heard before, and start to unload a bevy of monitors, drums, guitars and bass cabinets. I've seen bands travel thousands of miles to play one show for just the bartender and the doorman. I've seen bands push their van to the gig, because the trany blew when they were entering town. I guess I feel like If there are these dedicated souls wandering the country trying to play some music, there's got to be people like me willing to give them a chance.

On the other side of the coin there is the high rolling promoters. Those deep pocket investors, who actually do get some of the glamour of the biz, and walk away counting big wads of dough. These heathen have been known to do some pretty shady things to make sure their concerts are off the hook. Calling the cops on other clubs that are having competing shows and generally ruining the chances of the competition in nefarious ways. I've seen Bill Graham Presents step on smaller promoters, and I've seen other big wigs crush the little guy just to insure the fur lined insulation of their own pockets. I guess it's no different than any other business, but I always thought that music was the focal point of shows, not money, and in many ways I'm right and wrong.

I feel that Jambands is an earnest attempt to try and pull together like-minded souls, so if you're on the road and need a place to play in Northern California, look me up, chances are I'll put together a show for you.

So, until Heaven helps this fool get some airlift, you can count on me to play it low to the ground. And like John Holmes, I'm long down the road. Peace out!