Hittin' the Clubs

So last night Jim, Steve and I (Scott) embarked on phase one of operation 'get some gigs at clubs downtown'. We met with mixed results.

First we hit the Tranzac club, at Bloor and Spadina. We played here a year ago with Zak Sheppard, and we kind of liked it; big stage, lots of fun. We get there, and there's a doorway to a small pub type area, and then there are the doors to the big stage area. In the big stage area, it looks like a community theatre production is rehearsing, so we talk to the woman behind the bar, who turns out to be the woman who books bands. Anyway... it turns out one can rent the big stage area, but she doesn't book bands back there, she books for the tiny front area. AND it turns out that it would be between 600 and 700 dollars to rent the good stage space. That would mean to break even we'd have to charge a hefty door price, which we're not really motivated to do. We gave her a CD and our press kit and moved on.

The next two places we had similar results. We hiked to the mod club, which was way south of Spadina on College. This is a BEAUTIFUL club, we're going to push to have our CD release party there, but we also just want to get a gig there. We walk in and there are four big wooden doors inside the foyer to the actual club. Jim tries one, then another *at which point I figure it is closed and that we might as well head back* but the fourth one turns out to be open. So we go in, and there's nobody around. Jim walks to where he could see into the back room and there's this short incomprehensable western European man who's cleaning staff. Thankfully, like Chris Farley in Waynes World *a security gaurd who somehow knows all the answers* this guy knew exactly who we should talk to about booking, and when he'd be in. So we'll go back tonight.

Last, we hit the Elmocombo, where the owner does the booking, but wasn't there. So we left our contact information and left it a sort of 'don't call us, we'll call you', unfortunately. We'll try there again, in case he is actually there.

So tonight we've got more places to go, this time more focused around queen street. While last night wasn't dissiapointing, I hope tonight we actually see some booking people and make an impression that hopefully will turn to gigs.

_Scott