Thanksgiving and Tequila

Happy Thanksgiving – to celebrate – give yourself a free t-shirt when you buy a copy of the book from our new superfast merchandise service Merch Squad and THANKS for all of the great reviews/blogs etc. Tour:Smart just got 5 STARS from Record Collector magazine, and it's 7th straight 5-star review from Amazon.com customers!

Heres something from Tequila Ray Max -

TRMax:
I just read your new post on Suicide Girls. It's great to see someone in your position willing to give advice.
In your opening paragraph, you talked about helping "bands that are doing something other than sitting around, complaining and waiting for a record deal to land in your lap". Although I'd put myself in that category, I have to admit that a lot of the time, I find myself guilty of "sitting around, complaining and waiting for a record deal to land in your lap". But it's not from want of trying. The deal is, I'm 100% prepared to work as hard as necessary to achieve my goals, which at this point are basically to be in a position to tour, record, release albums - basically exist as a functioning (and hopefully successful) band. My problem is not knowing what to do. I admit I'm pretty clueless.

MA:
OK, so get ready, get the pencils and your brain sharpened and generally do the walk that boxers do around the ring before a fight, kind of pumping yourdself up physically to try and counteract the ‘oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck’ mentally. EVERY step from now on needs to be super careful because it's SUPER important... you have already hoped that a great show will have a ripple effect across a certain part of the business or a certain part of a city/state/genre... take on board, swallow the pill that a bad show will (because of Murphys Law) do ten times the damage. SO – work accordingly.

TRMax:
For the most part, I've not been the one in the band making the phonecalls, but this time I am. And I'd like to do it all, and do it properly. If I know that doing something will work, I'll work at it all the time.
I've got a three-piece band that uses a drum machine after too many let-downs with human drummers. One of us works a full-time job (flexi-time), two of us are on benefits. The gigs we do are usually one-offs in "circuit venues" the likes of Barfly, The Garage, Clwb Ifor Bach (we're in Cardiff), and the occasional Valley's pub. I expect our experience is the same as countless others, but I want to take it up a level. I've considered getting a manager or agent, but not only has that proven difficult, I'm not even sure it's a good idea since everyone says they cause more problems than they're worth.

MA:
The way you are going to take it up a level is for YOU to carry on taking care of this stuff. Just to let you know – this isn’t any mysterious hyperbole, tougher than degree course shit – its just a fuck of a lot of small stuff all the time. Some of the stuff needs to be sorted out and prioritized – but, other than that and a bit of imagination – you are fucking GOLDEN. I’d take a hard working band with no agent/manager over a slacker band with agent and manager any fucking day of the week. As long as you pay attention, and don’t let yourself get side tracked by other people's bullshit – trying to side-track you and/or convince yourself that there is another way - you will get fiurther and further and further (and then have a set-back) but then keep on getting further.
No mystery, no shit. You can make a huge difference with no money down. (well a tiny tiny bit)

TRMax:
I don't expect you to give me an exhaustive step-by-step guide to doing everything in the world, as that would probably be impossible and also defeat the point of me learning how to do all this myself. But I do have questions:
Money - does anyone (at our level - unsigned) ever get paid for gigs?

MA:
NOPE – whatever they tell you

TRMax:
The circuit venues don't pay out. The best offer you get is a so-many-flyers-in-the-door system, but it's hard to generate enough crowd support on a regular basis to cash in, and next to impossible in a town you've never played where nobody knows you. Is this just a marketing problem?

MA:
Yes exactly – do not go to any city uinless you are SURE OF THE OUTCOME (thatnks Sun Tzu) get on the net – get with other bands – FIND OUT... don’t even think about taking any money – the $50 you’re not going to get doesn’t matter right now. Rather find other bands that will play for nothing and share equipt so the evening isn’t a total clusterfuck. (I think we’ve talkied this through with you guys before or in the comments)

TRMax:
Does a low crowd draw mean a band sucks?

MA:
It means you’re not paying attention to the marketing – this is HALF OF IT... its difficult to stand in the middle of an empty club and convince yourself that a band is amazing – well, why isn’t anyone there?????

TRMax:
Should bands be asking for money up front? If a promoter books you, shouldn't they be the ones doing the promoting, since they call themselves "a promoter" after all?

MA:
There is no such thing as a promoter, there is no such thing as a guarantee, EVERYTHING is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY………

TRMax:
Would doing gigs in unconventional venues where we take all the door, pay for the venue and PA Hire and do the advertising ourselves work better, given we'd be foregoing the prestige of saying we played at such-and-such a place?

MA:
Well, how much cooler to add ‘promoter’ to your resume – also I guarantee tee you you’ll learn some great lessons along the way and holy shit – maybe create a venue that feels better for you than other places you have played – or at THE VERY LEAST – a greater respect for the people who are doing it out there…

TRMax:
Does prestige and being able to say you played such-and-such a place even matter?

MA:
Not as much as being able to say you played the MaxFest on ther main stage... other bands and promoters will treat you a bit differently – other promoters might give you a break if they think they might need someone in your neck of the woods sometime?????

Ok – I’ll keep this sucka rolling………

Call me, e-mail me – I could be sitting at the table hogging your tofurkey tomorrow – sprouting out great advice in between courses…but, you gotta call me or e-mail me… i did a freebie consult to JAMESON out on the west coast there… and, BOY do I have a couple of GREAT pics from that AND finally saw the great Pegasus Unicorn in ERIE, PA – what a fucking great fucking place – THANKS to all who came out to the art gallery and the club and for being so understanding of my 18 second gap in between a couple of my DJ tracks there – is that too long???

Don't forget Chemlab is on tour in the US now - you can check out all of their tour dates at the Chemlab MySpace Page

And our calendar has been updated with new Tour:Smart band seminars, DJ nights, book store appearances and more, stay up to date at our Tour:Smart Event Calendar

Peace love respect and all of that from the UK……

MarteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeN

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/news/all/22703/Thanksgiving-and-Tequila/