[microsound] re: recurrent TABOO question (Booking)

[Matt Davignon <mattdavignon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Jorge (and everyone)

As one of the bookers of one of San Francisco's
experimental music venues (Luggage Store Gallery), I
can give you some general advice about what I know. 

Currently my booking experience is that my venue used
to do a lot of out-jazz stuff, so about 70% of the
requests we get are from musicians like that. I'm
usually trying to pull it in a new direction, I mostly
like things that combine electronic and 'real world'
elements. 

Things that definitely help are: 
1) Going to the venue, saying hello to the curators,
and expressing an interest in local events other than
your own. This is the #1 way to get on a venue's good
side. 
2) Having a sample of your music
3) Providing a 1 paragraph bio we can use for
promotion, which includes a description of what kinds
of sounds you make and how you make them. Describing
what your music sounds like is more important to us
than listing famous people you've played with or where
you went to music school. 
4) Planning on bringing your own instruments, power
cords, etc. We do have a PA. 
5) Helping us in promoting your show. 

Some other random stuff: 

Often when people email us out of the blue, we have to
take a guess as to whether they understand the kind of
music we like to produce. We DO actually receive
requests frequently from rock bands, industrial
groups,  straight jazz musicians and other things that
don't really fit in our scope. That's another reason
why it's good to show up - then we know you know what
we normally book. 

Having a show doesn't necessarily mean you'll have an
audience. 1 or 2 guys will turn up every week, but
other than that, how many people show up often depends
on how many of your friends know about it and how well
your show announcement material is written. 

With some venues it helps if you approach them with an
idea for programming the whole evening with different
groups (usually 2 or 3 groups). Personally, I like it
when bands approach me seperately. I only book 1 night
a month, so it allows me some programming creativity. 

Specify how long you want your set to be. Usually a
time between 30 and 60 minutes is good. Luggage Store
sets are usually 45 minutes. 

Please don't plan a set where you play a tape/cd/file
of backing tracks and sing/play a single instrument
over it. Sorry, not everyone agrees with me on this,
but I personally find it to be a turnoff. 

Anyway, we like having new people at the Luggage
Store, and this list seems specifically geared to the
types of musicians I like to book. If you're
interested in contacting me about this, please do it
off list. 

I usually book about 3 months in advance, but
sometimes my co-curators have stuff that's earlier. 

My mailing address (if you want to send me cd's) is: 

Matt Davignon
265 Vernon St, #201
Oakland, CA 94610



From: Jorge Bachmann <justino@xxxxxxxxxxx>

[...] i was curious about how you manage the booking
process 
[performance and sound installation].
i have never done that and i'll love to understand a
little bit on how 
to do it, so that i can start doing it for my self.
do you have a list of bookers? or venues?...
i will be very thankful for any input regarding
booking.
have a great afternoon
paz
J21

justino

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