To My Nashville Friends
I love you all.
I have had ten offers of extra wristbands. You guys rock.
But the issue was never about the wristband - it was about getting there and and making all of the arrangements to see as many Nashville bands as possible! The wristband is 30 bucks - thats no big deal. Usually when you get a press pass you get a list of all the bands, the schedule and most importantly a list of all the contacts for management and record labels - or at least the guy in the band that acts as the tour manager! I asked for one over a month ago - twice. No one ever responded. In order to get my employer to fork out the money to get me there, pay for a hotel and all the other crap I would usually have put together a plan of action and presented it - you know, who I was gonna try and see, how many different bands I would be able to make contact with, who I had set up interviews with - I really don't have the time to even go, I have my own show I'm DJ'ing Saturday with Giant Bear and Dirt Foot, but I wanted to do it because you guys were right up the road and I'm totally pro-Tennessee, but I'm getting ready for ACL right now and I'm pretty slammed! If It was just about buying a ticket and driving to Nashville and hanging out - I would be there, which would be fun for me - but might not have done much for the bands.
The funny thing is I had given up - but John Fry - my boss - got a VIP invite and forwarded it to me and asked me if I was planning on going. I told him that last month I had been considering it - but it was so late it was gonna be really hard to pull it together. But since he sent the email - I tried time one last time - and you saw how that ended up.
I wasn't trying to be a total bitch by posting our exchange. But it did piss me off. And I actually pulled it down the next day until I got several emails from bands asking what it had said because they had been told to check it out. So, I reposted it because I think that if that is the promoters attitude - it is a major disservice to the bands playing the shows and is totally shortsighted. None of the bands that have been listed in Next Big Nashville's press material made it "Big" because they were big in Nashville. They got label attention because they were able to draw crowds throughout the country. And many of them were able to do that because of coverage they received on blogs - just like this one. Not because they were in the Tennessean or on the local news.
I get invited to festivals like these constantly, so without seeming overly full of myself, I was just a little miffed that I had to work so hard - just to get a response. I get sent tons of requests for coverage via Myspace all of the time -I've never accused anyone of not selling themselves when all I had to do was click on their profile.
Anyway, I just wanted to do this follow up and let everyone know that at this point its really impossible for me to just pick up and come, even though I would love to. I have a huge agenda on my desk right now and I am mapping out ACL - making a plan about who I have time to see, emailing managers and bands about recording their sets and scheduling interviews, figuring out who overlaps, and trying to schedule my time for the afterparties - like this one:
But if I was going - this is who I would go see:
De Novo Dahl (their set at SXSW was amazing!)
LYLAS
Eef Barzelay
Hotpipes
Josh Hoge
Dixie Dirt
The Mattoid
The Pink Spiders
David Condos
The Lonely Hearts
Jared Micah and the Hats
Plex Plex
Freedy Johnston
and I probably would have been turned on by countless others.
Maybe next year - but I'm probably banned!!! ;)
I have had ten offers of extra wristbands. You guys rock.
But the issue was never about the wristband - it was about getting there and and making all of the arrangements to see as many Nashville bands as possible! The wristband is 30 bucks - thats no big deal. Usually when you get a press pass you get a list of all the bands, the schedule and most importantly a list of all the contacts for management and record labels - or at least the guy in the band that acts as the tour manager! I asked for one over a month ago - twice. No one ever responded. In order to get my employer to fork out the money to get me there, pay for a hotel and all the other crap I would usually have put together a plan of action and presented it - you know, who I was gonna try and see, how many different bands I would be able to make contact with, who I had set up interviews with - I really don't have the time to even go, I have my own show I'm DJ'ing Saturday with Giant Bear and Dirt Foot, but I wanted to do it because you guys were right up the road and I'm totally pro-Tennessee, but I'm getting ready for ACL right now and I'm pretty slammed! If It was just about buying a ticket and driving to Nashville and hanging out - I would be there, which would be fun for me - but might not have done much for the bands.
The funny thing is I had given up - but John Fry - my boss - got a VIP invite and forwarded it to me and asked me if I was planning on going. I told him that last month I had been considering it - but it was so late it was gonna be really hard to pull it together. But since he sent the email - I tried time one last time - and you saw how that ended up.
I wasn't trying to be a total bitch by posting our exchange. But it did piss me off. And I actually pulled it down the next day until I got several emails from bands asking what it had said because they had been told to check it out. So, I reposted it because I think that if that is the promoters attitude - it is a major disservice to the bands playing the shows and is totally shortsighted. None of the bands that have been listed in Next Big Nashville's press material made it "Big" because they were big in Nashville. They got label attention because they were able to draw crowds throughout the country. And many of them were able to do that because of coverage they received on blogs - just like this one. Not because they were in the Tennessean or on the local news.
I get invited to festivals like these constantly, so without seeming overly full of myself, I was just a little miffed that I had to work so hard - just to get a response. I get sent tons of requests for coverage via Myspace all of the time -I've never accused anyone of not selling themselves when all I had to do was click on their profile.
Anyway, I just wanted to do this follow up and let everyone know that at this point its really impossible for me to just pick up and come, even though I would love to. I have a huge agenda on my desk right now and I am mapping out ACL - making a plan about who I have time to see, emailing managers and bands about recording their sets and scheduling interviews, figuring out who overlaps, and trying to schedule my time for the afterparties - like this one:
But if I was going - this is who I would go see:
De Novo Dahl (their set at SXSW was amazing!)
LYLAS
Eef Barzelay
Hotpipes
Josh Hoge
Dixie Dirt
The Mattoid
The Pink Spiders
David Condos
The Lonely Hearts
Jared Micah and the Hats
Plex Plex
Freedy Johnston
and I probably would have been turned on by countless others.
Maybe next year - but I'm probably banned!!! ;)
