Introducing……..
Let’s be honest, all you hopeless hipsters out there need some serious advice. And who to better advise than Denver’s own Matty Clark — rock club owner, Zebroid, daredevil, and pretty smart guy. We’ll kick off Ask Matty with some advice on how to get a show at a rock club.
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Dear Matty,
When’s a good time to talk to you about booking a show at your bar/venue?
On a super-busy night when we are three-deep is the perfect time to ask me if your band Noone and the Whothefucks can play here sometime.
Sorry that was mean. Hey I’m fucking tired! Jeez. But I will tell you right now, talking to me or any other of our other bar staff about getting your band booked at the bar is useless. While I may own my place I, as many venues do, employ a booking agent. This is a guy whose job is managing the calendar and putting shows together. Shoot him an e-mail, he will get back to you about available dates, etc. And remember that pestering and perseverance are two different things entirely. Don’t give up, but don’t sour people by nagging constantly. If it’s a good fit I’m sure we will have a date for you somewhere. Normally if you are a new band and haven’t played out very often, you have to look at your show as a kind of proving ground. Promote in advance, crush it on show night and you’ll probably get booked again. You can’t just book a show do nothing on your end and then expect people to come. You have to work at it. My band Zebroids has to trick people into coming to our shows with false promises of free drugs and pizza. Feel free to use that approach.
This reminds me of something I find very funny. One time a guy came up to me and asked if my band wanted to play a house party show at his place. I asked him when the show was and he just said “oh, I don’t know. We were thinking of having shows at our house sometime”. It made me laugh so hard. It was the most useless conversation. Hey do you like pasta? Yeah I love pasta! Wanna eat pasta with me? Hell yes I do! Well I’m thinking about making pasta sometime. Not right now, in the future. Just in general. NOW I’M HUNGRY FOR PASTA. Good thing it’s Tuesday and the baked pasta special is going down at Famous Pizza. Arrivederci!