It's a fact of life that folk and pop-folk artists who were big in the 60's/70's/80's and are still touring play smaller venues they did back in the day (for example, when
Spider John Koerner comes through town once or twice per year, one is more likely to find him playing at the
Plough or
Sally's than
Club Passim (whose official name is Passim Folk and Music Center but in its quest for a younger audience has dropped the reference to "folk", re-branding itself to "Passim", read
Nov 01, 2010).
It must be frustrating for vintage artists to be upstaged by youngsters with less talent but more sex appeal to 20-something audiences. This seems to be the case for
Vance Gilbert, who recently decided to take matters into his own hands regarding bookings, or rather lack of, at the
Tupelo Music Hall in New Hampshire.
But should an artist take issues like this public, or instead handle the matter personally and privately, perhaps engaging a professional publicist? Here is an example of how the do-it-yourself approach recently went bad for Vance. The posts below were copied from
his personal Facebook page 12/3 at 8:20am.
OK, its been long enough without asking.
After years of successfully playing there, why does this place refuse to hire me yet keep my picture on the front page of their website as the first thing you see? Doesn't that seem weird to you? If you frequent Tupelos as your favorite place to hear music, give 'em a call and tell them you want to see me there: (603) 437-5100.
im vance gilbert and i approve of this message hell i wrote it......
....and this series
Hey All,
Apparently the calls have drawn the ire of the owner of Tupelo, so you can stop. It wasn't my intent to have folks call up pissy and angry, it was more to get folks to let him know I was out here still and to just have me there.
My apologies to Scott @ Tupelos (see my later post in that thread that says how I love the place) and to anyone else that may have seen my intent as being animosity laden.
Yuck, I guess for now I'm a dikk.
oops.
Lesson learned: Fans by definition are dedicated and loyal. Inform and motivate them in positive ways, such as turning out audiences, not in ways that will backfire and certainly not in a way that will "...piss off a pretty decent promoter."
The upside is this faux pas could bring light to the fact that some very talented people are no longer getting gigs at larger venues that used to support them. Is your favorite (former) folk venue booking artists who were inspired by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Huddie Ledbetter and Odetta or the Beatles, Madonna, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber? Let the booking agent and, if a performing arts center, the board of directors, know how you feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment