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Bands Atempting To Book Tours. o_O


Fraser Mac

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Guest Exposure @ Lemon Tree
What the fuck?, that doesnt even make sense!

I was just agreeing with him. That we are entitled to have different opinions.

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Not Directed at toxic distortion. Ment for A Few Others.

but i remember when toxic d did that, they had their page plastered with seemingly fictional dates in the US, with no actual dates confirmed. Theres a big difference between doing that to big yourself up, and simply putting down future plans, just for example in my bands case, to 1. let promoters see what dates are available incase the date we go after is not available, but incase they are keen to book us, and 2 to let people know what we are planning to do in the future. and i think the later is especially important so as people don't forget about your band if your having a quiet period.

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but i remember when toxic d did that, they had their page plastered with seemingly fictional dates in the US, with no actual dates confirmed. Theres a big difference between doing that to big yourself up, and simply putting down future plans, just for example in my bands case, to 1. let promoters see what dates are available incase the date we go after is not available, but incase they are keen to book us, and 2 to let people know what we are planning to do in the future. and i think the later is especially important so as people don't forget about your band if your having a quiet period.

I'm really sorry but HAHAHA, theres a difference between being a cunt and not being a cunt. The discussion about these apparantly fake US dates and a HUGEEEEEE tour we also apparantly had planned have been discussed over and over, i think everyones slightly bored...

also its clearly been stated this is not about us so... point? general discussion and all but even im bored of discussing my own band!

and also i dont think you can comment on 'bigging yourself up' as Marionettes have only done 1 tour with like 4 or 5 dates? so your post there makes you sound like your a well established full time touring band when your not? but fair enough you have another one planned and atleast your getting out there.

anyway I'd say this thread is directed at Saikano or Ramsey.

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If you guys want the abuse to stop, abusing other bands is not the way to do it. It appears to me, he mentioned your band, and didn't actually take a dig at you so maybe let your balls drop before you go around being so defensive.

Dude, you're on fire. I wanted to give you rep for this too.

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I'm really sorry but HAHAHA, theres a difference between being a cunt and not being a cunt. The discussion about these apparantly fake US dates and a HUGEEEEEE tour we also apparantly had planned have been discussed over and over, i think everyones slightly bored...

also its clearly been stated this is not about us so... point? general discussion and all but even im bored of discussing my own band!

and also i dont think you can comment on 'bigging yourself up' as Marionettes have only done 1 tour with like 4 or 5 dates? so your post there makes you sound like your a well established full time touring band when your not? but fair enough you have another one planned and atleast your getting out there.

anyway I'd say this thread is directed at Saikano or Ramsey.

I'm not stepping in just because it's my band you're referring to but seriously stop picking fights on here you just ask for trouble and you get it every single time. I'm not going to get into tit for tat arguments with you because I'm above that (call me a snob or whatever you like I won't reply to what you post) and seriously he wasn't making fun of you for "bigging yourself up", because that is exactly what you were doing.

Besides who said anything about established? Yes we go on tour......is that not what a touring band constitutes? Fuck it, I'd rather rim Jennifer Saunders than type anymore.

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and also i dont think you can comment on 'bigging yourself up' as Marionettes have only done 1 tour with like 4 or 5 dates? so your post there makes you sound like your a well established full time touring band when your not? but fair enough you have another one planned and atleast your getting out there.

Doesnt matter The Marionettes are amazing . . . You're Nae

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Guest Exposure @ Lemon Tree

Jesus Christ, Toxic Distortion got mentioned in this thread, and not one person slagged them off, and VOJ is on having a go at the world again.

Seriously dude, just stop it, you're doing yourself absolutely no favours. It's blatantly obvious that a lot of people on this site don't like your band or your hair or whatever. All you're doing is adding fuel to the fire. A lot of people come on this site just to take the piss of folk, and you're a prime target because of the style of your music, and the way you dress etc. I'm not saying they're justified in doing it, but that's just the way it is.

You might think that you're managing to keep Toxic Distortion on the minds of people in Aberdeen, and in doing so, getting a bigger name for yourselves but the fact of the matter is the folk on here taking the piss aren't going to come to your gigs, and they're not likely to go home and start talking about how the Toxic Distortion guys are really wide etc so that the word is spread around the city and beyond.

You'd probably be better off applying to be on Big Brother and be a total cunt on there if you want your band to be famous.

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Back on topic...

So - we just finished a tour last week of 3 nights in London, one in Manchester and one in Glasgow. How did it go? well, I had a fuckin riot, as did everyone on the trip. How did the gigs go? We pretty much played for nothing in every venue as nobody had heard of us. We played to an empty venue in Camden on the opening night, due to the promoter booking 2 Scottish bands and a Japanese band for a Monday night gig, and charged 6 on the door for the pleasure. We opened for the Grants at DeathDisco in Notting Hill, which eventually was a packed gig, but not when we played. In Manchester we headlined well past 11pm, and followed a dreadful local band who emptied the venue for us, again not many people there to see us. Glasgow was pretty busy, but then nearly everyone there had seen us before...

Oh yeah, and every venue invited us back to play a decent gig later in the year, pretty much based on seeing us live as opposed to hearing a us on CD - cause lets face it how many CDs will they get through the door every day? My point being (as Glasgow demonstrated) that you sometimes have to bite the bullet and play to an empty venue in a strange city if you're gonna make any progress. Christ knows we did it often enough in Aberdeen before anyone took us seriously, I wouldnt expect any different in any other city. The success of the first tour would I'd imagine be better judged on the attendance at the 2nd...

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Exactly - sums the whole thing up.

I doubt I'll ever go on tour now. The Underkills all happened too late in our lives to have the fun we could have had with it. If we'd started the band when we were 17 instead of 23, we would have been all around the country regardless of how good/bad we are.

Music is about enjoying yourself as much as anything else.

We're all settled down with fiancees and decent jobs etc now, so touring would have to be kept to a week off work and doing a few gigs around Scotland, which would still be magic fun and might still be done.

So are we man - If you can dream it, you can do it :up:

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Back on topic...

So - we just finished a tour last week of 3 nights in London, one in Manchester and one in Glasgow. How did it go? well, I had a fuckin riot, as did everyone on the trip. How did the gigs go? We pretty much played for nothing in every venue as nobody had heard of us. We played to an empty venue in Camden on the opening night, due to the promoter booking 2 Scottish bands and a Japanese band for a Monday night gig, and charged 6 on the door for the pleasure. We opened for the Grants at DeathDisco in Notting Hill, which eventually was a packed gig, but not when we played. In Manchester we headlined well past 11pm, and followed a dreadful local band who emptied the venue for us, again not many people there to see us. Glasgow was pretty busy, but then nearly everyone there had seen us before...

Oh yeah, and every venue invited us back to play a decent gig later in the year, pretty much based on seeing us live as opposed to hearing a us on CD - cause lets face it how many CDs will they get through the door every day? My point being (as Glasgow demonstrated) that you sometimes have to bite the bullet and play to an empty venue in a strange city if you're gonna make any progress. Christ knows we did it often enough in Aberdeen before anyone took us seriously, I wouldnt expect any different in any other city. The success of the first tour would I'd imagine be better judged on the attendance at the 2nd...

precisely, im glad you guys had a good time on tour too. looking foward to the 5th

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To be honest, it's relatively silly to bother playing other cities until you've honed your craft within aberdeen and managed to attract a few people to your gigs that aren't just your mates.

Seen a fair bit of that about. Even bands that don't attract many mates along to gigs in Aberdeen and very few genuine fans will go and book 'tours'. It might be fun for them so if they want to do it, people are willing to put them on and their expectations are in line with reality (playing to people who don't know who they are or playing to 0 people), so be it. I do however think it is quite silly.

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Guest idol_wild
Seen a fair bit of that about. Even bands that don't attract many mates along to gigs in Aberdeen and very few genuine fans will go and book 'tours'. It might be fun for them so if they want to do it, people are willing to put them on and their expectations are in line with reality (playing to people who don't know who they are or playing to 0 people), so be it. I do however think it is quite silly.

To be honest, Aberdeen isn't a musical city in any way at all - so few people go to gigs generally, regardless of the quality of the stuff on offer (both touring and local acts). It is by far the most musically apathetic city I have ever attended/played/promoted gigs in. I don't think any band should use their crowd pulling ability in Aberdeen as a gauge of how well their stuff will go down elsewhere. If you book via the right promoters, then you'll play to the right crowds who will probably like the music. Speaking from personal experience, people always respond to live music better in other towns and cities.

Booking a tour, if done properly, is never silly in my humble opinion.

I think if more people were proactive and supportive in Aberdeen then it would fucking thrive. As it is, Aberdeen lacks cohesion and support amongst a lot of the bands and artists. Bands should help and support eachother - across all genres - not become petty, bitter and competitive, which seems to be the underlying theme of this thread.

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Guest Tam o' Shantie

Never played a gig anywhere in greater London without a decent crowd, and always sold mad merch & records there. Same can't be said for Aberdeen. We had a lot of nice fans in Aberdeen, but didn't always play the right gigs and the place got bored of you. There is no valid argument that you must have conquered Aberdeen before considering playing elsewhere, if anything we were taken more seriously locally after touring, despite having the piss taken out of us for booking it to begin with...didn't seem to be something local bands did at that time to be honest.

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Guest Exposure @ Lemon Tree
To be honest, Aberdeen isn't a musical city in any way at all - so few people go to gigs generally, regardless of the quality of the stuff on offer (both touring and local acts). It is by far the most musically apathetic city I have ever attended/played/promoted gigs in. I don't think any band should use their crowd pulling ability in Aberdeen as a gauge of how well their stuff will go down elsewhere. If you book via the right promoters, then you'll play to the right crowds who will probably like the music. Speaking from personal experience, people always respond to live music better in other towns and cities.

Booking a tour, if done properly, is never silly in my humble opinion.

I think if more people were proactive and supportive in Aberdeen then it would fucking thrive. As it is, Aberdeen lacks cohesion and support amongst a lot of the bands and artists. Bands should help and support eachother - across all genres - not become petty, bitter and competitive, which seems to be the underlying theme of this thread.

That is a brilliant post.

So many people in Aberdeen don't give a shit about live music or arts/culture etc. Even the people who are involved in it are quite often self centred and view it as some sort of competition, rather than trying to help each other out.

I've been told at some of our early gigs "you should have headlined you're far better than that pile of shite" by our mates. I suspect they're just saying that because they've got a massively biased opinion of our band because it's our mates.

These same mates don't even come to our gigs anymore, so you couldn't have liked us that much if you wouldn't keep supporting us.

Apathy from all angles really. There are a few people who try very hard to promote not just themselves but other local bands, and bring other great acts into the city but it's really not enough, and it's a hard slog to get people to take an interest at times.

I'm going to name names. Hats off to:

Phil for his Slanted and Enchanted nights as well as the gigs he's lining up, for going for it with his Debutant tour, and for supporting a LOT of gigs.

IMP for putting on shitloads of amazing gigs.

Ross Calder for bringing some very good bands to Aberdeen and giving local bands the chance to support them, despite facing shitloads of criticism.

There are of course others, but these 3 stand out for me. :up:

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One of the things ive noticed of late is the lack of local bands who actually have a "following" as such.I speak from my own experiences of putting on locals and hoping folk will come see them and then nobody does as well as a couple of other shows ive been to recently.I think as phil has said apathy is the biggest obstacle that stands in the way.

It doesnt seem to be a problem in the "Meatalcore" scene (easiest way for me to describe it, no offence intended). One of the reasons I think this is the case as theirs alot of youngsters who go to the shows and havent become Jaded older farts yet.

I think the main reason that "metalcore" scene is thriving just now is the sheer amount gigs that take place, deenfest usually have a couple of shows a month at least and must be at least 3 or 4 other folk who regularly put on shows and this is inspiring folk to do the same.

This was something that I realised the other day, it maybe slightly misplaced in this topic.

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To be honest, Aberdeen isn't a musical city in any way at all - so few people go to gigs generally, regardless of the quality of the stuff on offer (both touring and local acts). It is by far the most musically apathetic city I have ever attended/played/promoted gigs in. I don't think any band should use their crowd pulling ability in Aberdeen as a gauge of how well their stuff will go down elsewhere. If you book via the right promoters, then you'll play to the right crowds who will probably like the music. Speaking from personal experience, people always respond to live music better in other towns and cities.

Booking a tour, if done properly, is never silly in my humble opinion.

I think if more people were proactive and supportive in Aberdeen then it would fucking thrive. As it is, Aberdeen lacks cohesion and support amongst a lot of the bands and artists. Bands should help and support eachother - across all genres - not become petty, bitter and competitive, which seems to be the underlying theme of this thread.

I agree with most of this (but especially with the last paragraph).

However, I think possibly different genres and different people's experiences may determine how 'good' or 'bad' you view aberdeen's (and indeed other city's) music scene. There are a lot of other variables involved too, such as what other bands you play with, the venue, the promotor of the show, what day of the week the gig is on and even if there is any other good gigs going on that night.

In my experience, Aberdeen isn't that bad - and all the bands we have toured with have really felt appreciated playing up here and had some great responses from pretty decent crowds (although that may be in part due to ourselves having an ok fanbase here). Edinburgh on the other hand, is comparatively rubbish considering it's nearly double the size of Aberdeen, Perth has nothing going considering it's size, whereas shitty little arbroath can be great on it's day. Glasgow is the only place in Scotland that I feel is better than Aberdeen.

Those are just my experiences in the musical circles in which I exist though, and certainly not an accurate representation of what anyone else may experience.

This is the real clincher though:

Booking a tour, if done properly, is never silly in my humble opinion.

Because even though "properly" is a relative and subjective word, most people have no idea how to do that (hell, I wouldn't know how to book a tour so I'm lucky other bandmates/labels/bands/promoters have done it on my behalf!)

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Slightly off topic but still relevant. I often wish Aberdeen or even the UK as a whole was a lot more in the American frame of mind when it comes to music.

I read up on a lot of the American Music Forums, Especially Rig-Talk and I get jealous when it hits me how the Americans have a lot more going for them musically than over here. They are more enthusiastic and supportive when it comes to their local music scenes and generally about playing, Instruments, gear and music as a whole. There doesn't seem to be the arrogance that you get over here and also the UK seems to be getting more and more distant with the live music scene and focusing on giving more opportunities to manufactured pop.

I had the chance not too long ago to relocate to Australia and the States but backed out. I do regret it now and wish i went just for the music scene!

I just think countries like america have it so much better

Also the bas****s have a better range of gear than us that we can't get over here without hassle and paying over the odds!!

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Slightly off topic but still relevant. I often wish Aberdeen or even the UK as a whole was a lot more in the American frame of mind when it comes to music.

I read up on a lot of the American Music Forums, Especially Rig-Talk and I get jealous when it hits me how the Americans have a lot more going for them musically than over here. They are more enthusiastic and supportive when it comes to their local music scenes and generally about playing, Instruments, gear and music as a whole. There doesn't seem to be the arrogance that you get over here and also the UK seems to be getting more and more distant with the live music scene and focusing on giving more opportunities to manufactured pop.

I had the chance not too long ago to relocate to Australia and the States but backed out. I do regret it now and wish i went just for the music scene!

I just think countries like america have it so much better

Are you comparing anywhere else in the UK (other than Aberdeen) to the States?

Moving up here from Leeds, there was a huge contrast. Not as much going on, not many DIY friendly venues, heavily populated by cover bands and youths playing bad metal. Essentially, not really much that I'm actually into (Punk rock, post hardcore and all that), which was surprising seeing as though the kind of thing which seems non existant in Aberdeen is pretty much the main thing that is going on in Leeds, or was when I left anyway.

You'd expect every city in the UK to have thriving music scenes, but Aberdeen seems to suffer from a small town mentality in comparison to Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield etc (I use those as examples as they are the only ones I know well). I guess its kind of hard to build anything up that is going to hit the ground running when there seems to be a distinct lack of small 50-100 capacity venues, especially for DIY bands, bands just starting out etc.

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