Booking Bands
I book bands sometimes.
I hate it.
It seems like it should be fairly straightforward. Clubs book bands, bands play in clubs. Find a club where you want to play, find a band that has the kind of music you want, and boom, there should be a match. But for some reason it never actually works like that. I’ve been on both sides of the booking game, and I know there is a huge variation in the quality of the band and you have to be careful as a venue to be sure you get the level of musicianship that you are expecting. Some places are good for beginning bands, some are not. But it seems like it should be pretty easy to tell, pretty quickly, how good and how professional the band is. And yet . . . many clubs act like I act when salespeople cold call my home - I put them off and don’t pay any attention to what they’re selling. My attitude is that when I want to shop, I’ll shop, and I will not, by golly, be told by any salesperson that I have to shop right now!
But club booking doesn’t work that way. They need and want bands to approach them, but they still often act like you’ve interrupted their dinner and they can’t bebothered.
Not all club music buyers are like this, of course. There are plenty that listen to the band, decide if they are right or wrong forthe club, and then tell you straight out. Badda bing. Simple.
Just not the norm.
Anyway, I found this clip of a booking agent talking about booking bands. What she says is not funny, but I found the clip to be very funny, as it looks like she is actually saying about three times as much as the audio gives you. For some reason the video and audio are not synched up and her mouth is moving a mile a minute, unlike the word you are hearing. And it doesn’t say this, but I think she is standing on south Congress street in Austin. Check it out.
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