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[Sam L4]

I'm taking this from www.edinburgh-music.com - just to warn anyone out there.

I'd just like to bring to your attention, a Glasgow based promoter, Scottish Music Network (www.myspace.com/scottish_music_network)

We began having problems with him, after he failed to turn up for a show he booked our band for along with three other bands. He has made no attempt to apologise or justify this to any of us.

After we then failed to turn up to another of his shows, purely out of principle, his response to us was:

"you will not get a gig ioff me or any the promoters i know in the city again"

After speaking to another band (Screaming Blue Murder) who tried to pull out of a gig unavoidably, they told me he'd said to them:

"If you do not play I will still expect full payment fromy our band, if I do not recieve this I will be forced to contact all the major promoters in Glasgow and let them know not to book such an unreliable band"

I think you'll agree that this sort of response from a so called professional promoter is a bit out of order, and shows him to be obviously exploiting local unsigned bands, with the sole interest of making money.

We have spoken to other bands and acoustic artists who have had similar experiences with this "promoter".

We hope you will support us in our attempt to stop this from happening to any other bands.

Thanks for reading.

4th In Line

[Cloud]

Cheers for passing that on

[Jim Stax]

When you say "he failed to turn up" do you mean that the gig never happened or he simply didn't bother being there in person?

[Frosty Jack]

I think we need a bit more info on this before we go slating anyone. All we have so far is one guy's post on Edinburgh-music, with nothing else to actually back up what he says. Could always just be a personal beef, after all "we failed to turn up on principle" isn't exactly the best way to do things either. I can't find any mention of trouble with him anywhere else, and there are a few positive comments on his myspace. Obviously it wouldn't be a great shock if a promoter turned out to be a charlatan, but we don't know that he is. Let's get a bit more info first. Anyone else heard of/dealt with him?

[Jim Stax]

Frosty For Prime Minister!

[black_matter]

I agree with frosty that more needs to be heard about the situation but he does sound a bit of a prick.

[Lester Burnham]

I've heard of SMN before and I personally haven't heard much about him (positive or negative) in regards to how he is as a promoter so yeah, as Frosty said... would need more info.

[Sam L4]

I'll look for more about him. I emailed them asking about their gigs and it was basiclaly, sell us a bunch of tickets and then you will get to play.

Sounds like pretty straight forward music industry practice to me........

[ben_1903]

Right

tears of grace are playing for smn on the 31st august. We know the deal isn't great...but

so what?

The scene up here is a lot lot nicer to bands - down there it is more difficult and bands don't have it so easy. For a first gig in glasgow and maybe a stepping stone to better gigs we don't mind if it isn't as straight forward as up here.