Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Janice Scroggins is Dead

Our hearts go out to the Portland music community and the family of the awesome pianist Janice Scroggins, who died suddenly of a heart attack on May 27th, 2014.  Very sad!




RIP Janice Scroggins.  Look here for a brief obituary.  Photo by John Rudoff.

Tuesday, May 06, 2014

Enough already with the exposure...it burns, IT BURNS!

The Preachers have been spending a good amount of time recently fending off promoters and bar owners that would love for us to play for free, or close to it.  For the "exposure," of course.



A gal that has a weekly public access show asked us to play and be videotaped at a new music venue on Seattle's west side.  This gig of hers is always free, and we actually did one of these sessions last year.  The problem is that we have never met a single person that actually saw that specific show, either live or as an archived performance.  Not one.  So we turned the offer to participate down.

However, we did contact the west side club about a possible gig, which precipitated the usual kind of funny back and forth with the club owner.  First, he wanted to know many people on our e-mail list would show up at a gig.  How could we possibly know the answer to that question? So for giggles we told him that 50 percent of the folks on the e-mail list usually show up.   He responded that that's what ALL the bands say, and that very few people usually show up because of an e-mail invitation. Frankly, I agreed with him, but I was curious why he was asking a question that he already knew he answer to?

After hearing our modest compensation request, he told us that he only guarantees "new" bands $125 for the night.  Plus, he only has to pay his most popular band (that packs the place, apparently) $250.  So, we scratched that one off the list too.

Next we were approached by someone that wanted to "live stream" one of our paying gigs on the web. For free, of course.  We discovered that anyone that wanted to watch the performance on the web would have to pay.  We were told that any money collected would apply to the cost of putting the event on the web, and the band would not be compensated.  Thanks, but no thanks!

Finally, Stoop Down's other band, The Market Street Dixieland Jass Band, approached a new club in the Public Market area about a gig.  The deal?  The door, minus $150 for the sound guy! They decided not to play there for some reason

Enough with the exposure already - it's killing us!

You can find out more about the Boneyard Preachers here.  See you at the nightclub!