In this week's edition of the "people really fucking suck" newsletter, our top story is pictured to the right: yes, that's a kiosk trackball on which someone has not just stuck, but smeared a giant wad of chewing gum. Dear whoever-you-are: fuck you very much.
So remember last month, when it sounded like we'd decided to do live music on a more regular basis? Yeah, I thought so too. It really seemed like Barry and I had finally made a decision, and dammit, something was going to happen. Then we talked to a few more people, and we heard thirty ways it wasn't going to work, and all the decision drained out of the room.
Alexis put out the word to the existing set of promoters we work with that if they want to do a show that is A) live music, and B) not on a weekend, then we'll give them the room for free. They all liked hearing that, but the world's not exactly beating a path to our door. I'm sure it will help, but I seriously doubt that that alone is going to get us where I want to be, which is at least one live act a week.
What we really need is to find some promoters who know live music, and who are ok with a situation like: promoter and band pay the sound guy and split the take of the door. If we can do that and get around a hundred people in here, we won't be losing too much money, since we can run with a pretty stripped down staff. But this is not a lucrative arrangement for anyone involved, so we need to find some person (or more likely, set of people) who's obsessive enough about live music to be willing to do this basically for free, and talking bands into playing nearly for free as well. Of course, if everyone's working for free, but we still only get 15 people a week, we're still losing money, so we need that rare thing: a band with a draw, who are also willing to work for cheap.
Ron and Caroline have both expressed some interest in doing this, so we'll see how that goes. Ron's working on putting together his first show, and Caroline might do the same once she gets back from tour...
