NWB - Community Blog

Hey ICE band here - we already do our own night at the Hope and Anchor in Accrington and do promo for it ( fliers/posters/forums etc).

Also starting a monthly Friday residency at the Wellington Hotel Clayton Le Moor and again will do all the promo as per norm.

To be honest if you're in an originals band you're expected to promote the gigs anyway.

Yes we hire places if we have to, we use all our own lighting and sound if we have to and we sell tickets of we have to and usually play decent crowd as you can see here http://www.iceband.net/eyegallery6.htm .

We also, play venues out of town where it’s not possible to do physical promotion and we have to leave it to the venue, which usually means no one knows there even a gig on. If we have to leave the promotion of a gig to the venue, 9 times out of 10 there are no posters put up and not leafleting done. Shame really

If we can do it ourselves we will and although it takes time and effort, it’s really paying off for us

Yep its difficult but if you're serious about pushing the original material then unfortunately you have to take the rough with the smooth. Its pretty soul destroying sometimes when you play out of town and its obvious no promos been done, its very easy to become a little complacent and let your performance slip but the way we view it in the ICE band is that you never know who is in your audience , even if your audience is small you still give the same professional performance each time and you still stand outside the venue and in the town centre handing out fliers ( you never know you might actually drag some of those people in ) .

Another way for originals bands to get their stuff 'heard and seen' could be by doing support slots for some of the covers bands.
We would more than welcome any originals band to come and play there stuff at some of our gigs, and I'm pretty sure quite a few other covers/tribute bands would feel the same.

It's a win win situation as the venues/punters get double value and Two bands will be promoting the gig. The originals band would get the chance to play in venues that otherwise probably wouldn't hire them (for the reasons above) and their costs would be lower due to less equipment needed etc.

Yep we'd be up for that.

that works well - we've just had a new band - IDOL PROMISE - (see what i did there nigel!) supporting us for the same reasons
- albeit theyre another covers band (and brilliant i might add) but it secured a booking!
'try before you buy' its the future!!!

We're looking for gigs from March onwards if anybody wants to book us :0)

got a few venues in mind where landlords would be ok with it...would have to run it passed them first...watch this space!

Thanks guys you're all lovely xx

The reason original bands aren't as 'in demand' (for want of a better phrase)....and this doesn't query the quality of the song, although like Mr NWB said 'not everyone's Lennon/McCartney'.....is

familiarity!

If I go to my local boozer on a Saturday night and there's a band on, well great....however they're not the be all and end all. My attention doesn't just go to the band...I go to the bar, go out for a smoke,talk to my mates, have a laugh etc etc. I can't afford the attention span to listen to new songs...by and large I just wanna hear something I know (vaguely) and have fun.

An analogy is when you go to a concert (say a Pulp gig). You're really there for songs you are familiar with...if they came on and did a dozen completely new songs you'd come out saying 'Yeh, but they didn't do Common People etc'

Pub gigs aren't even concert situations, they're pubs, where like it or not, people go to do more than listen to a band.

Another analogy is what we do (vaguely blues)....we have a library of millions of songs we could potentially do, and would like to do...however for pub gigs we have to keep it reasonably commercial. The fact is that people enjoy music they are familiar with...hence you hear something on radio 1 a few times and start to like it...thats what makes radio playlists so important. If you get one radio play, thats a good achievment, but won't get you anywhere till its played regularly and it gets inside people's heads.

It even took a couple of plays to get into new Beatle's albums when they were released.

Now what 'original' bands need to do is not write a new 'song' every five minutes...and feel they have to play new songs every gig. The Ice Band is a great example...I've seen em about a dozen times now at least, and gradually I've become familiar with their music...so now I'd go and watch em in a pub and be quite happy to listen to em in that environment...but they've worked at it!

Its totally absurd to even contemplate a band that writes their own stuff to have the ability to entertain a Saturday night pub crowd..it just doesn't happen (or rarely.

I had McFly (yeh them again) come to one of my open mic sessions just after their first number 1. Nobody paid attention to em really till they did 5 Colours...which they'd heard before.

There are venues that welcome 'original' bands (and I hate that phrase...maybe new music') but its too much of a gamble. Six crap bands on the trot and there's no audience the week after. If you get a band that plays 'summat they know' even if the band plays crap, the punters have an 'image' of that song in their heads so enjoy it more ...
Its just how it is! Even the Beatles started as a covers band...can you imagine them playing an evening of 'Within You, Without You' music in them Hamburg clubs? Course not LOL

I trust this is a definitive answer...now back to my wall papering...yeh still not done it LOL

Yep Alec think you're sick of our Dance with Fire dat dats now arent you luv :0)

We have done a lot of self-promotion gigs and we are a covers band. Until recently we did 4-6 a year at a Social Club, but they started to mither us to do more as the bar takings were always good.
It worked really well for us and the venue. We used to do it on Friday, when they never had entertainment on and I could never understand why they didn't just put acts on themselves.
If we start doing it again, I would look at hooking up with an originals band to share the evening. Would be a vast improvement to our vocalist doing his Solo act of cheesy club numbers, although that did work well with the clientel.

When I was first in a band in 1977 we did our own events but at the time with the punk explosion there were plenty of opportunities to play simply because people wanted to hear the new stuff.

Since being in the Sanity Clause we have put on our own events. We organised a three day event in Preston/Lancaster/Burnley a few years ago around Mayday as well as other one off gigs. Trouble is sometimes once you've organised everything, sorted out the other bands etc you can be so knackered that playing becomes a bit of a chore. Having said that we are thinking of maybe doing something around Mayday next year though (as it's over a weekend) if we can get other bands involved and share the organisation etc. The last one did make a profit that we donated and we would be doing the same again. We are too long in the tooth to worry about 'making it' and do our own stuff because we enjoy writing songs and developing them. We do do a few covers but won't put in covers that everyone seems to do.

Steve (The Sanity Clause)

Original bands today.... Pah

When I were in an original band we had to make our own instruments with old Corn Flake boxes and string, build a venue ourselves and staff it. Put out 1,000,000 flyers advertising the gig and pay punters £ 400 a man to come and watch us.
..... And you try telling original bands that today ......
;-)

Seriously though a good idea to have a support band. Would work in bigger venues.

Good luck to all bands here

Best wishes

John

I used to dream of making musical instruments out of string and cardboard boxes.nnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. lol

LMAO John!
Actually, I remember Genesis when they were a support band, on £30 a night. I still remember our management/promotion company charging around the Bucks/Berks/Hants/ Oxon countryside with posters and flyers and buckets of paste!

Rob

Rob.

How I envy you :-)

Best wishes

John

John,
you wouldn't if you'd had to clean the spilt paste off your upholstery!!;-)

Rob

Lol Rob

Would love to meet up for beer and probe your memories of that time sir

What you doing at weekend?

Best wishes

John

Probably coming to the Eddy, though I do have a Christmas dinner to go to earlier on the Friday. Should be there sometime over the weekend, though, so should see you,
cheers,

Rob

See you then matey

John

@ John, he's a nice bloke, met him last week at our gig. Albeit for one minute LOL,

Rick.

Sorry Rick, but I was on a promise (even if it was from the mrs ;-))

Rob