More by: Ryan
First off, putting on a show for a band seems easy right? Well it’s not, and if it is then you doing it wrong. Lets go over a few things you need for a show to happen.
- PA system
- FOOD FOR THE BANDS
- OPENING BANDS
- FLYERS
- PLACE FOR THEM TO STAY
- CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE MONEY
For some this may seem like a lot, but these are must haves for any show. It is a lot for any one person to take on I will admit that. I hate doing shows alone. Really it makes me want to stop doing shows. Because one person has to all this work just so nobody shows up and nobody gives a shit anyway. You make food and people are not even in the band come over and eat your food. Then you ask them for 5 bucks and they look at you like you are a fucking asshole. It’s all on you and nobody else fucking cares because it’s your show. The idea of one person doing events like this is such an American way of doing things. In this country that’s what we do we want all the glory and credit so we run with the ball all by ourselves. In the world of punk it makes no sense that we don’t run everything as a collective. Think about the effects of a group of people doing shows. One person makes flyers one person cooks dinner for them one person gets them a place to crash and so on so forth. This works, and when I realized how much it works I was in Europe about 5 years ago.
My old band I OBJECT went to Europe for 2 months. Before this I still always cooked bands food and took care of them, but like these people did. Every night a group of people would make you food, then in the morning another group made you breakfast. You sat around and ate with the locals BEFORE THE SHOW not like in the US where maybe somebody will have some food to cook after the show at fucking midnight. Each had awesome flyers, and people working together to hang them all over the city you played in. It was truly awesome to see people working together like this. They also had huge squats to sleep in all ran by a collective. This is when I realized how fucking awful it is to tour in the US. Don’t get me wrong we have some great people and every time one of my bands goes on tour we get treated very well, but I just don’t see the collective aspect. I see one person busting ass to make it all happen, and that sucks. Europe treated me to the time of my life. It make me realize if you can’t cook food if you can’t do all things listed above then DON’T DO THE SHOW or ask for help its really that simple.
I am not trying to direct this towards anybody, but rather offer advice as a show promoter and a person who runs a label, and this site. I am burnt out on the world of punk and hardcore in this country. When I started this site it costs almost 400 bucks to build which Bob a columnist on this site did for me. And that is a huge deal. Most sites like this would be three times that at least maybe more. So thanks to Bob for making this happen. After it was built I did a benefit show at my house. I cooked food and had some bands play. I collected 35 bucks from that. So after I cleaned the yard and paid for the food, then gave the money to the out of town bands I lost money. My point being it all fell on my back nobody else. An old friend of mine used to put on all the shows in Daytona Fl. He also did a yearly fest called THIS IS FOR YOU FEST. This was the best HC punk fest I ever went to. Each year I had a killer time. My old band played 4 years in a row. A couple years back POSITIVE NOISE was invited to come down and play it, but this year Billy had stopped doing it. It was also in Orlando Fl. This was the final year of the fest. It just did not have that awesome feel to it like the years past. Billy was at the fest that PN played so I asked him why did you stop doing the fest and shows in general. He said the best thing he could have “I love punk and hardcore and I hate fucking cops, and that’s what I was a cop who walked around picking up trash telling people not to drink telling bands they need to go on doing this and doing that” He also said “ I am 39 years old I want to go skateboard/hang out go to shows I don’t want to police them anymore” This to me makes the most sense. If Billy had a collective behind him I am sure things would have been way different. Now today the fest is gone in FL and that sucks. Now you just have THE FEST sponsor by Miller beer FUCK THAT! THIS IS FOR YOU FEST was the fuck you to THE FEST in Gainesville because THIS IS FOR YOU FEST was a real HC punk fest put on by a real hardcore punker, but it’s just too bad he was alone.
I have begun to look outside of the world of punk to find that community I miss so much. In no way I am done with punk and hardcore, but as far as putting on shows I am reaching my limit. I am sick of the bare minimum in the scene. I love places like the DAAC, but I see almost no flyers for events. What about a team of cooks to provide food? What about making this town the coolest music town in the country today? It’s so possible, we have all the resources to do so we just don’t use them. I truly believe Grand Rapids Michigan could be the best punk town in the US today if we could only work together. Look at this site look at these awesome columns. Look at these bands/people/venues/zines/labels it goes on and on. If anybody out there ever wants to do a show collective/label collective/flyer collective contact me, but please only if you are serious. Please take time to check out the LA scene these days. They are running a record store/label/show collective and more from one scene of punx. Check out www.myspace.com/rawponxla
One last thing I will comment on is the new Comp all the bands recorded for. At first I was stoked but then I thought about it and I said fuck it I don’t want to do this alone again. The last one was cool, but this not my scene it’s our scene so we should do this comp together. In my opinion the comp is dead, and can only be brought back to life by a collective of people.
PUNKS BEFORE PROFITS is still going I have a new record coming out this week from a band called DRAIZE from Boston… killer hardcore. I have a bunch of new projects I will be working with after my film LOCALLY BUZZED comes out August 21st.
Until next time let’s see what we can do together!
It’s one of the reasons Spit For Athena fizzled out. House shows treated us better than criminal fuck-you-in-the-ass bars and venues, but even the house shows were sketchy. My drummer was driving two hours for no gas money, no food, and we’d just get a shrug and “C’mon, be cool.” Another favorite of ours was the fucking “Benefit” label. It’s a benefit show, so it’s okay to fuck the bands out of basic fucking compensation!! Yeah!! No. We’re weren’t a desperate fucking high school band playing any toilet just to get our name out…we were doing okay, had a few albums out, some press and shit, and we were still getting treated like dogshit, because that’s how bands are treated by empty-headed fuckwads who, no, do not have a decent PA, add their friend’s shitty band at the last minute and bump everything back two fucking hours so we play at 3AM, etc., etc. The parts that I miss about playing shows and touring do not currently outweigh the many negatives, the bad memories, the simple financial realities. You can tie an acoustic guitar to your back and bike across America, but good luck if you’re driving a van full of electric amplifiers. Just be cool, bro! It’s a benefit…or something.
I hate seeing local and regional bands getting treated like that. You are expected to buy the gear, then go perform for free. Meanwhile someone is buying a new pair of carharts, or having mom send them a new pair
good column! its a real story! i’m combating these demons whenever I put on basement shows!
Word up. I can’t say it’s the primary problem, but there has been a shit ton of shows this summer. Grand Rapids has some reputation of being a place for bands to come through, but perhaps there is a critical point where there is just too many shows. We aren’t that big of a city. I know there is at least 3 shows, and maybe 4 this week, and that’s been the case for the past couple of months.
Shows should be an event, a community gathering, where there is food for touring bands as well as a place to stay, a decent show turnout, etc., and the current saturation waters down shows in my opinion. It seems whoever runs the show does have to take care of bands in every way, and though I haven’t booked a show in a long time, I know it’s quite the burden. It’s been building up for a few years, and I can’t say I have an answer. I know some bands I see shouldn’t even be on tour, and that takes away from legit bands who have put the time and effort into what they do, and rightfully deserve the same effort from the hosts. I know we want to do favors for our out of town friends, and we should, but it might not be a bad idea to be more discriminate in choosing the shows to book.
That being said, SHOW ATTENDANTS!!! if you go to a show, it’s not hard to plan ahead and bring a few bucks. Seriously. If it wasn’t for the people booking the shows you wouldn’t have anywhere to drink, at least throw some frogskins their way.
Good points. I know I haven’t been able to make it to the crazy amount of shows this summer and certainly haven’t been able to afford it. My living on the lakeshore makes the expense more intense, but from what I can tell most of us show-attendees are in poverty, if not below it, so I know other people have to be struggling with the sometimes $20+ a week price-tag for shows this summer. It just doesn’t seem feasible that an area this small can sustain this much traffic without something getting compromised in the process. Not that I’m not totally stoked on all the excitement and activity; its just a simple quality vs. quantity situation.
great great great point. Less shows
Too many shows spreads the wealth too thin, and waters down the scene. And yeah, bring some money to the show. I hate paying full price, only to have some asshole with a 6pack of beer, or some trust fund train hopper, pulling the , “I only have some change, is that cool?” If you dont have the money, at least sneak in, you cheap lazy fuck
I came across this site, and was immediately stoked. Read this particular entry, and was fucking ecstatic! What a simple, effective idea. Like you, I have been booking shows for years, having any and all responsibility’s fall on one person-me.Forming a collective of like minded people-a group for making flyers, another for food, lodging and sound=a really great idea. Like you, I have toured Europe and was shocked at the differences between the U.S and the “E.U”-Especially the way touring bands were treated-Like being paid nightly, not to mention food-which was a huge help, (and at least for us, the insane amount of free beer!)At any rate, having a group of people in any certain area to help with shows,(and all that goes with it) is a great idea! I’m definitely going to suggest it in my town-it’ll certainly help with all the burn out that almost all of us feel after awhile.. Thanks for writing this, glad I came across it.
Right on the money. I am a “promoter” and as much as I love doing all this work to see a killer band play, it gets tiresome. I run around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to juggle chainsaws in order to make sure the show is well promoted, the band is fed and paid, and I forget to just have a good time at the show. When the Houseman House was operating, it was similar to a collective. We did everything together, including cleanup. This needs to happen more. I am in. I want to help.
I am very into the idea of getting things together as a collective if you want to start something in GR email this site and i will hit you back and we can work on something. It would fucking rule to have a show collective
Nice column Ryan!
Sadly, I think a lot of folks in the United States that are into punk eventually start to look outside of the punk scene for the type of community that you are describing.
I haven’t been to Europe, but I am familiar with the anarchist punk scene there and it seems to me that there are some critical differences between the European scene and the U.S. One of the big things for me is that the scene in Europe is much more of a “community,”–there are squats (for people to live), food not bombs style projects (for people to eat), infoshops (for education), collectives (to ensure work actually gets done), etc. Moreover, many punks in Europe are part of an oppositional culture that regularly attacks the state (through protests, direct action, squatting, etc). To me, this is all necessary to have a punk “community” and not just a “scene.” In Europe, punk is more of a counter-culture than it is in the U.S. I’ve also heard folks talk about the larger number of “old punks” in Europe and I think that is directly related to the fact that the punk community does a lot more to meet people’s needs.
By contrast, in the U.S. I think the punk “scene” is pretty much just a social scene. Sure, there are some areas where it has moved beyond on this and there are many examples of punks in the U.S. doing rad things, but for the most part I’d argue that the punk scene is just about music (largely not political), drinking, and having a “good time” (whatever that means). Obviously, I just generalized a lot and punk means a lot to me, but I’d say what I just said was a fair (if somewhat harsh) assessment.
All of that said, I think a show collective would be rad. It could be a way to make the punk community stronger and more positive. Things like Gilman St and ABC No Rio (venues) are run collectively, while groups like Positive Force DC (a show collective) have made big impacts on their scene.
I also tend to think that a show collective would encourage more folks to get involved as it would give a person a clear path of involvement. When I was in high school I always thought it would be cool to book shows, but I never really knew how it was done. Had there been a collective in Grand Rapids, I probably would have gotten involved.
I think this is a really good article, and you definitely touched on incredibly important things to setting up a good show. Collectives definitely make things work more smoothly and put less burden on individuals. One thing that I think is crucial to having a good show, that you totally failed to mention (unless I’ve misread/missed a comment) is a zero-tolerance policy for racist, sexist, anti-queer, transphobic, oppressive bullshit.
The Oppressions of Women, People of Color, Queers, Trans and Gender-Variant Folx don’t magically disappear at punk shows. Sometimes mainstream bullshit we’re seeking to escape is launched at us at full force, maybe even worse than what we face at work, school, and other spaces in our daily lives.
As a genderqueer identified kid who is queer as fuck, when I go to a show after a long day at work where I’m not even out to my boss cuz my pronouns probably wouldn’t get respected anyways, I want to have fucking fun and thrash out hard, not get called a faggot (as an insult) by a straight dude, get threatened for standing up for myself, or told what MY gender is and that my identity is some how less valid than the identity of some straight cissie (cisgendered) dude. Fuck that.
Too many times I’ve seen music spaces been “just about the music,” and nazis and old creepy dudes who molest younger girls and sexually harass other ladies are allowed to stay. Shows should NOT be kept safe and comfy JUST for straight white people and dudes (and maybe some assimilationist queers), while remaining dangerous (and not dangerous in the fun raging hardcore punk way) for the people they oppress.
Just something I thought worth thinking about.
From the 45 year old creepy dude at the shows. Fuck you, not for being a fag, but for being an asshole. Stand up for yourself part time and get treated like a part timer. Your such a fag, then tell your boss and live with it, dont come to punk shows then talk shit about people online.
No one has gone out of their way to make me feel very comfortable at a show lately. You call yourself a fag online but get offended cause someone calls you a fag?!?! Talk about fucked up,,,, go take another paxil.
I dont know where you went for a punk show, or who you saw. Did you go to the west side bootboys clubhouse to see max resist and the hooligans? Then no wonder you got knocked around.
Most punk shows make it perfectly clear, that you can be queer.
WOW,,, no kidding??? I have been saying this to people for years and years. It finally sunk in? Good job.
Maybe this will sink in some day.
Why rent the sterile art gallery to put on shows? The place only holds like 40 people. Meanwhile there is a dedicated PUNK ROCK VENUE over on the west side?