Free Concerts

BLOW UP NORTHAMPTON

That was the name of the grant proposal in Spring 08. The Northampton Arts Council granted The Primate Fiasco enough money to pay for gas and food for an out of town band to open for us at our free shows. The venue will make its money from the bar. The Primate Fiasco will probably make nothing unless you buy CDs from us. But it's in town, so if you already have a CD, we'll be fine. This blog will explain the reasons and goals around this project. It's intended to kill a flock of birds with one stone.

GOAL #1

Free Concerts in Northampton. They either pay their hard earned cash to see us, or they just can't go. People deserve it. Free Primate Fiasco Concert here in town. Nuff said. Besides. If we can charge $13 and see over 300 people, we could have a serious party with no door fee.

GOAL #2

If you read the previous blog, you understand that there are only 2 kinds of bands that can successfully play in Northampton. Hard working, established local bands who have been trying for some time and national acts. A band from, say, Burlington VT or Providence RI don't stand a chance. Even if they tour the Northeast, they often skip Noho because they know that no one will show up to see them. If we could have these bands open for us, we could offer them some valuable exposure, making it possible for them to play here in the future. All we have to do is choose a band that our supporters would like.

Usually, when we have our larger shows, it costs us a lot of money in publicity and other things. So we can't really share our earnings with an opening act. We end up needing to recoup our expenses. We generally don't have an opening act. Just guests who play with us. If we had a free show, our expenses would be much less. We could count on a large crowd with minimal publicity. Hence, we don't care if we don't get a fat roll of cash at the end of the night. No big deal. As for an out of town band, they need to pay for gas and food. Enter the grant. The Northampton Arts Council gave us $1000. We plan on using that for 5 shows. $200 each. That $200 can go to a little bit of publicity costs, and the rest will go into the other band's gas tank and/or stomaches. Said band will be able to demonstrate their music to a large Primate Fiasco audience and if they play their cards right, will be able to come back again and pull their own new fans into the room. Noho is no longer shut off from that band.

GOAL #3

This is really goal #2.5 but two words, SHOW SWAP. We've played all over New England and upstate NY at this point. There are a few dark spots. Boston, for example. No one knows us out there. When we play there, the people who see us like us. But thats not enough. More people need to see us or it's not worth the gas (and tolls, and parking, and hair loss due to Boston directions). What we need is a band who is just like us but in that area. We need one in RI, VT, NY, NH, CT. Do I really need to explain where this is going? We have 5 shows to do. That means 5 different bands from 5 cities.

GOAL #4

Northampton has the same caliber of original music as Austin, Nashville, Ashville, Athens, etc. But no one knows about it outside of Western MA. The more bands put this town on their map, the more we will become a destination spot. Bands will want to play here. Other towns will want to check out MA bands. A band from Athens, New Orleans, Austin have no problem promoting themselves as "a band from...". Shouldn't we be able to do that? Shouldn't Alchemystics or Amity Front be able to drop the name Northampton and get some buzz from it? I think it's possible.

STARTING NOW

The first show is scheduled at the Elevens on Sept 19th. Unfortunately, The Elevens will fill up quickly and we won't be able to let in everyone that shows up. Hopefully, the next one will be in a bigger room. The bigger rooms have a much bigger overhead and won't be able to open it up to us for free. So perhaps we might find a wealthy business (or person) who believes in this community and wants to sponsor the event. That would give us the budget to throw an even bigger bash with more fireworks*.

The First band to open for us will be a band out of southern CT called "Stanley Maxwell". They're awesome. We saw them live and were blown away. It's the kind of thing that our crowd would be into. I'm hoping they book another show up here for shortly after our show. That way they can promote it while opening for us. This is a band that really should come to Northampton. Northampton would love them.

Other bands that we've discovered are "Low Anthem" from RI, and "Pariah Beat" from Cambridge MA. Please check out these bands. And if you know of any other great bands who don't play Northampton, send us a link.

-Dave Del (banjo/vocals)

* By fireworks, I mean circusy antics and special things happening either in the audience or on the stage. We've been known to have that kind of shinanigans when we can.

There was a prereq to this post but I took it down. The reason I removed it is because (aside from the fact that it was written poorly) people took some things the wrong way and then commented, which is great. But they put a lot of words in my mouth and then other people were offended by those words. I've attached that previous post here so that it still lives. But I don't want it to be a post where people can comment and warp it. If you want to leave comment, you're free to leave them here or on the next post where the offended folks will be able to look up and see the real intentions before getting their feelings hurt by someone else who doesn't show their name.