When I first announced that I was starting a monthly gig night with the Recycle Collective, the mighty Stig warned me that I should expect a hail of demos and requests to play at the gig.
‘no’ says I, ‘it’s not that kind of gig, people will realise and I’m not putting an address on the website for people to submit demos’.
But Stig was right. Today I got two emails from people wanting to play. I don’t mind getting them, but it’s an ominous precedent, in that I really don’t have time to start trawling through MP3s or listening to CDs to find stuff. And as I said to Stig, it’s not that kind of gig.
So, if you’re reading this thinking about sending something in, here’s the scoop –
– The musical spectrum of the gig is more about an approach than a style – the looping/improvised/chiilled nature of it lends itself to unusual solo performers, loopists and interesting improvisors. If you’re a straight down the line singer/songwriter or a jazz quartet, there are other places where what you do are going to work much better.
– if I already know you, especially if we’ve played together, great, ask away, we’ll see if we can sort something out. the likelihood is that I’ll ask you anyway when I get the chance.
– if you decide to email me anyway, please send a link to an MP3, and tell me exactly what you do on stage, what you play and how the set-up works. If I don’t know you, or know of you, already, the chances of me booking you for one of the two main sets on each gig is pretty minimal, and therefor it would just be a 10-15 minute guest-slot in the middle of the gig, with no sound- check etc. I wasn’t planning on adding anything like that at all, but having Jeff Taylor come and do his thing on Wednesday was so sublimely wonderful that it’s made me want to use the gig to showcase people that I think are amazing. If I just quite like what you do, I won’t book it. Nothing personal, it’s just that I already know enough people who are really good, and even then I’m only going to book the ones that are amazing. This isn’t an ‘open mic’ slot at all. This is about me trying to use the evening to showcase huge talent (like Trip/Jeff etc.)
If you’re just looking for a singer/songwriter gig, your best bet in London is The Bedford .- Tony Moore who runs it is a tireless campaigner for great acoustic music and songwriting in London, and runs nights that are purely devoted to multiple act lineups.
Please don’t take it as a slight on what you do – I’ve got a pretty precise vision for the evening (if it continues beyond March at all – a lot depends on how many people turn up in Jan/Feb!), and I’ve said it before but it bears repeating that I’VE NO DESIRE TO BECOME A PROMOTER – I book my own gigs, I put on gigs that give me the chance to play interesting music with interesting people to interesting audiences, and if in doing that I can provide a space for massively talented people to do their thing too, that’s magic.
I guess the best thing you could possibly do is come along to one of the nights, and say hi. If you bring a load of friends with you, I’ll certainly be feeling very positively disposed towards you! 🙂
Soundtrack – Chris Tarry, ‘Project 33’ (V. talented Canadian bassist living in NYC)
Can I play with you? Please … please, can I?
I know that I don’t technically play any looped stuff, but I can recycle about a million and one thrash riffs which all nearly sound about the same anyway, so that’s pretty close!
Chugga-chugga-chug chug,
Chugga-chugga-chugga chug,
Chugga-chugga-chug chug,
Chugga-chugga-chugga chug … ad nauseam!
😉