Thursday, July 29, 2004
Bring Out The Gimp
Last night's Fez club gig, The Gimp, was my first public appearance (he he) since the news of Sonic Undermind's passing. Thanks to everyone who said they were sorry to hear the news it seemed like almost everyone who was there had something to say. For a while I was thinking, "What the hell are we splitting up for?!" It passed though. Anyway thank you all for your support. I was having a long chat with Emma (Access All Areas promoter) about how supportive our local scene was and how good that was. It is pretty awesome how much help/support/advice you can get if you need it.
I think sometimes this supportive network of Reading music people is perceived as being a bit of a clique, some people must find it intimidating to think that all these bands / members / promoters / sound guys etc. know each other. It's not really though. People are quite happy to get to know people from new bands or whatever, alternatively maybe we are keen to extend the clique so we can take over the world! BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. *ahem* Sorry.
I found it pretty easy to get to know people. When Sonic Undermind started trying to get gigs a couple of years ago we didn't know anyone on the local scene. We'd known a few people back when we were at school but they weren't really around any more so we had to start from scratch. There were a lot fewer venues and nights than there are today and we were struggling to get any gigs and really struggling to find venues who'd be prepared to let us put our own night on. We were a bit naive as well. Back then we were called The Unholy and we sent a CD and bio to someone our bass player knew who was helping set up a Festival in Henley. The bio was the usual stuff you know, singer comes on stage in a bathtub of boiling acid bearing domestic animal skulls. Ther was talk of satanic rituals and sprays vomit and blood... or was it bloody vomit? We knew it was a hillarious exaggeration and we'd all have loved to put us on a bill based on that bio if we were promoters. Unfortunately we had some feedback from the festival organisers that perhaps we weren't suitable for a family festival. To this day I really hope that the reason we didn't get it was because someone read what we said on that bio and believed it all.
At some point around that time I found Josaka and Berkshire Live, and from there I heard about Luisa Seacroft's new Unsigned Showcase magazine so I picked up a copy. Enjoyed it all other than one part which was called The Executioner (or something like that) that was a kind of comedy slating of some local bands. I had a bit of a go at that article saying it wasn't very supportive or something. Actually I think I thought it wasn't nasty enough to be really funny but let's pretend I was being nice. Somehow I ended up reviewing Joski and Mantequila at the Rising Sun Pub for the magazine the next day! Through reviewing for Josaka and Unsigned Showcase I got to meet loads of bands, promoters, sound guys etc. some of whom became good friends. Suddenly we knew the right people to ask and getting gigs and things got a lot easier. It probably helped that we tried really hard to promote those first couple of gigs and packed the place out. Being a bit interesting and not totally boring or shit also probably helped a little. Anyway it could easily have been the case that we died before we ever even got a gig if it wasn't for meeting people through Josaka.
I did have a point to this post... ah yes, I remember now. If you are part of an upcoming band and you want to get gigging and whatever but don't know where to start you should try and get involved with the scene in some way. There are loads of really nice people around come and meet us! Go and say hello to bands after you've watched them play if you like them, offer to help out our hard working promoters who mostly don't make any money from their gigs and are just trying to break even doing something they love. If not that write reviews, articles etc for Josaka or offer to help design artwork or whatever. If you can't do any of that maybe you can do something else.
I will avoid ranting here about bands who piss and moan about promoters 'not promoting' but do nothing to help or promote themselves because that's a whole different topic.
Thanks again to everyone for the support and hopefully I'll have news of a new project sooner rather than later. I got some... let's call them interesting suggestions yesterday.
I think sometimes this supportive network of Reading music people is perceived as being a bit of a clique, some people must find it intimidating to think that all these bands / members / promoters / sound guys etc. know each other. It's not really though. People are quite happy to get to know people from new bands or whatever, alternatively maybe we are keen to extend the clique so we can take over the world! BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. *ahem* Sorry.
I found it pretty easy to get to know people. When Sonic Undermind started trying to get gigs a couple of years ago we didn't know anyone on the local scene. We'd known a few people back when we were at school but they weren't really around any more so we had to start from scratch. There were a lot fewer venues and nights than there are today and we were struggling to get any gigs and really struggling to find venues who'd be prepared to let us put our own night on. We were a bit naive as well. Back then we were called The Unholy and we sent a CD and bio to someone our bass player knew who was helping set up a Festival in Henley. The bio was the usual stuff you know, singer comes on stage in a bathtub of boiling acid bearing domestic animal skulls. Ther was talk of satanic rituals and sprays vomit and blood... or was it bloody vomit? We knew it was a hillarious exaggeration and we'd all have loved to put us on a bill based on that bio if we were promoters. Unfortunately we had some feedback from the festival organisers that perhaps we weren't suitable for a family festival. To this day I really hope that the reason we didn't get it was because someone read what we said on that bio and believed it all.
At some point around that time I found Josaka and Berkshire Live, and from there I heard about Luisa Seacroft's new Unsigned Showcase magazine so I picked up a copy. Enjoyed it all other than one part which was called The Executioner (or something like that) that was a kind of comedy slating of some local bands. I had a bit of a go at that article saying it wasn't very supportive or something. Actually I think I thought it wasn't nasty enough to be really funny but let's pretend I was being nice. Somehow I ended up reviewing Joski and Mantequila at the Rising Sun Pub for the magazine the next day! Through reviewing for Josaka and Unsigned Showcase I got to meet loads of bands, promoters, sound guys etc. some of whom became good friends. Suddenly we knew the right people to ask and getting gigs and things got a lot easier. It probably helped that we tried really hard to promote those first couple of gigs and packed the place out. Being a bit interesting and not totally boring or shit also probably helped a little. Anyway it could easily have been the case that we died before we ever even got a gig if it wasn't for meeting people through Josaka.
I did have a point to this post... ah yes, I remember now. If you are part of an upcoming band and you want to get gigging and whatever but don't know where to start you should try and get involved with the scene in some way. There are loads of really nice people around come and meet us! Go and say hello to bands after you've watched them play if you like them, offer to help out our hard working promoters who mostly don't make any money from their gigs and are just trying to break even doing something they love. If not that write reviews, articles etc for Josaka or offer to help design artwork or whatever. If you can't do any of that maybe you can do something else.
I will avoid ranting here about bands who piss and moan about promoters 'not promoting' but do nothing to help or promote themselves because that's a whole different topic.
Thanks again to everyone for the support and hopefully I'll have news of a new project sooner rather than later. I got some... let's call them interesting suggestions yesterday.
# posted by Mike @ 15:25 
