here's a new thread (i think it's new anyhows) with a purpose. you are gonna book a show out of town. where you gonna play? there's the tried-and-true system of looking at the tour dates of a band you dig, and seeing where they played. this is supposed to be a kinda supplement to that. this is what i have to share with you based on my experience booking and playing shows here in DC. you should share your experience and info for your town. nothing is gospel of course, but if you got nothing much to go on, or if you're a trusting type person, you can look here and see what somebody had to say about booking a show in town XYZ.

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WASHINGTON, DC
ARLINGTON, VA
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THE BLACK CAT (DC)

the big dog of the local venues, not counting the 930 club which is the monster big big dog, probably out of your league (930 is where i saw mission of burma, hot snakes, etc). look at the schedule and you'll see at least a couple bands you know of. the mainstage is *the* place to play. but it's not super likely that you will. the melvins will play the Mainstage (big room, upstairs). just saw The New Year on "the backstage" (smaller room, main floor) though, so don't be too bummed to play there. soundsystem for the backstage is piss-poor, often the only thing mic'd is the vocals. maybe the kick. maybe not. in terms of sound, it's probably the worst, or tied for the worst with the Galaxy Hut (below), but in terms of "cool" or "the place to play", this is the place. lots of tattoos, lots of trendy people (in the good way, if you're not put off by that). think of the Empty Bottle (chicago) meets the Double Door (chicago), all under one roof, on two floors. nice jukebox and a pool table, too. attached restaurant has lots of vegan fare, if that's your deal. can't speak to the booking process so much, as my then-band had the good fortune of opening for bob mould at a show a couple weeks before i was calling them to book a show, which they gave to us without a demo based solely on that fact. again, think empty bottle. but very cool people work here, play here, and hang out here. run by Dante (from the old DC band Scream) and rumored to be financially backed by dave grohl.

http://www.blackcatdc.com/schedule.html

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THE VELVET LOUNGE (DC)

a little more gritty and dirty, hole in the wallish, and home to a lot of the more rockin rock shows that aren't at the black cat. website is notoriously non-updated. mysterious fourth band is added at the last minute. people argue over which slot is whose. also the only venue in town that i've played at twice, so, go figure. the owner (and booking agent) chris can be a bit of a tool. like when he wears his hair in a ponytail and wears a velvet smoking jacket like hef would wear or something. but it's the third biggest venue on the normal-scale (i.e. not a capacity over a thousand) and it's good for rock rock rock. SVT OWNERS BEWARE of the fact that the stage is on the second floor, and there is no elevator! you will be stairing it up and down with all your gear. no kitchen, BYOFood.

http://velvetloungedc.com/

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DC9 (DC)

i don't know a whole ton about this place cause it's been open less than a year. good sized room, nice soundsystem. some of my friends bands play here rather than anywhere else (by choice) so i believe it to be band-friendly. not a whole lot i can say about it except that from what i know, it's all good. again, SVT OWNERS BEWARE of the fact that the stage is on the second floor, and there is no elevator! you will be stairing it up and down with all your gear. also, i have no idea who does the booking, i've not had a gigging band in the months that this place has been open. not sure if they have food or not. hrm. also, big fans of the DJ, this place has fuelled the controversy with locals arguing over "rock is better! don't have DJ's!" vs "DJ nights are fun, and help clubs make money to stay open!" this club is very DJ friendly, i hear.

http://dcnine.com/index.php?page=calendar

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THE GALAXY HUT (ARLINGTON, VA)

getting a little smaller now, the stage is actually just the floor, right in front of the big plate glass window to the sidewalk outside, folks walking in and out the door might bump your guitarist. folks might stop and look in the window at the back of your drummer's head. when my previous band played there, the cops came and said it was too loud. we were *really* loud though. but definitely one of the best places in town, even though it's actually across the river in arlington. the owner, alice, is very cool, and is herself an awesome singer. doesn't usually book too far in advance. lots of cool artwork on the walls. nice intimate atmosphere. better suited for the "not-gonna-blow-your-head-off-with-volume" type stuff. the audience is literally from like 5 to 30 feet away from you. kitchen has one of the best grilled cheese sammiches around.

http://galaxyhut.com/calendar/calendar.html

I had a great time at the Black Cat. Everyone there was friendly and helpful. An well-stocked, diverse bar. The lack of PA downstairs gave me ample time to drink myself silly. Dinner waiting for us backstage after the show was the cherry on top.

mb

hey fuckers! tell us about your town! what's the difference between tt's and the middle east? what's the clubs in austin? what about ohio? penn? etc?

Some Los Angeles clubs, like, fer sure!

Medium-sized / big clubs (if you're, like, famous or something):

Knitting Factory
Troubador
Henry Fonda
El Rey
House of Blues

Smaller clubs (if you, you know, like, have some fans, or whatever):

The Echo
Spaceland
The Derby
Fais Do Do
Temple Bar (weird West Hollywood / West LA "hipster" crowd, which is somehow less obnoxious than the East Side "hipster" crowd)

Holes-in-the-wall (if you're, like, well, you know, The Transmissions):

The Scene (Glendale)
Mr. T's Bowl
The Smell
The Bigfoot Lodge
Di Piazza's (Long Beach)
Zen Sushi
Silverlake Lounge (for some reason this whole-in-the-wall with one of the worst sound systems ever and no stage of which to speak consistently books bands that should be booking shows at clubs in the next bracket. Go figure...)
14 Below (although expect a rather lame Westside / "party music" crowd)
Anarchy Library (Downey)
Louisiana Hots (Palmdale, which is the desert north of LA. Pretty fun crowd, starving for good music, 10 years behind the times)
Good Hurt (Venice Beach post-hippie crowd)

Clubs on the Sunset Strip (or thereabouts)
Uggh, puhhleeze, the Strip is sooo fifteen years ago. Like, gag me!
[/b]

toomanyhelicopters wrote:hey fuckers! tell us about your town! what's the difference between tt's and the middle east? what's the clubs in austin? what about ohio? penn? etc?

The difference between TTs and Middle East? That is easy. The Middle East hates bands, plain and simple.

TT's are a bunch of very nice women that are just happy you are there and do what they can to help. One small warning... if you are a band from out of town and you are going to have a 'meal deal', opt for the cash if you can. Spegetti boiling all day long with thin watery sauce just does not say 'Boston' or even 'Cambridge' to me. There is a great seafood restaurant right up Mass Ave from the club.

if you are a band from out of town and you are going to have a 'meal deal', opt for the cash if you can.

c'mon man, that's a given no matter where you're playing.

t.t.'s is great. my favorite place to play in boston. they are nice, have a good sound guy, give us a guarantee and then actually pay it at the end of the night. first rate.

we no longer even try to book shows at the middle east. mayfair is right they hate bands.


i live on marthas vineyard (for those of you who don't know it's an island about 5 miles off the massachusetts coast. summer home to shitty celebrities) there are few places to play. most of the bands that come through are washed up reggae/funk crap.
offshore ale is the only place that will give small out of town bands a show. it is actually a lot of fun to play. so i guess if you ever want to come to the island call offshore ale. yeah.

-e

hstencil wrote:

if you are a band from out of town and you are going to have a 'meal deal', opt for the cash if you can.

c'mon man, that's a given no matter where you're playing.

Not true. Marty, that guy in Buffalo cooks a great meal when he books you in town. Also the Congress Hotel club in Tuscan serves up food to die for. Maxwell's in Hoboken has great food and a very attractive waitress. The Black Cat in DC has some good food sometimes. The Empty Bottle in Chicago has Bite Cafe which is really great.

Places to pass on club-made food even if you are poor and hungry:
TT The Bear, Cambridge (though that is their only fault)
Speaking in Tongues, Cleveland (are they even still around?)
Middle East, Cambridge (I got sick from their food on two separate tours)

This is an excellent thread. Thanks for the outtatown heads ups, y'all.

I guess I'll write a little about the clubs in Chicago. Feel free to amend or disagree....

Schuba's is a great sounding wooden live room. Steve, who does sound there half the time is a killer sound tech. Good monitor mixes. However, the room is small and you may have to take your gear out immediately after a set and keep it in the van, which is a nerve-wracking experience.
If you play with a friends band, a gear share may make things easier on you.
They usually have a 50% off menu for bands at the adjoining Harmony Grill. Good eats.

Empty Bottle is a total dive, but they often have great shows. The few times we've played there, Che has done an awesome job with the monitor mix and helped make our shows feel effortless because it was easy to hear. They have a cat in the bar who shit on the stage before we loaded in. Perfect.
It's tricky to get into this room, as there are scene politics involved, but Pete who books there is nothing but extremely polite and will respond to emails even if it is to say "no can do."
They usually test out new bands on their free monday night shows.

Beat Kitchen is set up kind of like Schuba's with a front bar separating the live room with a door. The sound separation is nice, but you have to keep and eye out for set times, as you may miss something. On weekends, they have a greatly reduced band menu (4 dollars for a good burger is rad) and will always setup a band tab that you can clear at the end of the night.
Ted and Brandon are both really excellent soundmen, though Ted tends to have the PA much louder over all. Brandon made the monitor mix of my microphone sound the best I've ever heard it one time.

the Hideout is a cosy, cosy place. They stopped doing rock'n'roll shows for a while and kept it on the quiter side of things, but that seems to be changing back moreso now. Great staff. Mike is a more than adept soundguy. The nice thing about this room is that people really go there for the music. One of our finest moments was coming into this quiet delicate part in a full room and we couldn't hear a single soul talking. It was unbelieveably thrilling. Tiny space, but the crowd pays attention.

Double Door is only worth playing if you play loud, dumb rock. Stadium style drum sound for all bands regardless of the music kinda eats it. If you have, and I quote "two guitars, bass, drums and a frontman" this room will let you sound as huge as you envision it. If you have "three keyboards, a guitar, a drum kit and three mics," the soundguy will say "shit.", get really pissy with you and ask you incredulously "where does your frontman go?"
The are cheap with the drink tickets and I know for a bonafide fact that they've bounced checks to bands.

the Big Horse is a "cut your teeth" bar/burrito joint/club with "wrigley-style" trough urinals and is terrible. It's a good place to pay yer dues, but man, you gotta get the hell out of there. Do not eat at the Big Horse unless you are totally smashed. The drinks are overpriced and the sound is assballs, but if yer from out of town, it'll at least get Chicago on your band's resume.

the Fireside Bowl is an institution. They just can't get rid of it. It smells, you don't want to touch or lean against anything, but dammit if they haven't put on some unbelieveable shows (brainiac, blonde redhead, trenchmouth, like eight billion other bands you love) and the sound is surprisingly great. The bowling lanes are in a constant state of disrepair, but every blue moon, they get them up and running again. Great for mathy punk bands and whatever else. Brian, the booker there is a machine. He does the stuff for Bottom Lounge (more on that one soon) and Triple Rock in Minneapolis ('zat right, or is it Milwaukee? I forget.). Way polite, super friendly and arguably the hardest working promoter in the city.


HTH


Faiz

Not true. Marty, that guy in Buffalo cooks a great meal when he books you in town. Also the Congress Hotel club in Tuscan serves up food to die for. Maxwell's in Hoboken has great food and a very attractive waitress. The Black Cat in DC has some good food sometimes. The Empty Bottle in Chicago has Bite Cafe which is really great.

I was just speaking in general, there are always exceptions. Didn't play the Congress in Tucson but at Solar Culture they served a decent vegan-y dinner (even for me, a vegetarian, it was a little bland but better than, say, Subway). Maxwell's has good food, yeah, although slightly bar food-y. Great American Music Hall in SF seems similar though fortunately the last time I was there a friend took me out to some swanky joint down the street (my the Tenderloin has changed).