Desperate?

When you're in a bind on a Saturday night and really need a moustache to tie everything together...worry no more. Just find one of these Fuzzy Face Moustache machines and you're golden.

Model Stranger Graffiti

A fan took a picture of this graffiti in the Elbo Room bathroom. We sure hope so!

How does C3 Radius Clause Benefit Local Chicago Bands?

That of course assuming your band isn’t at the level to play Lollapalooza. By this time you may have heard a bit about the investigation into C3 Presents, the coordinator of Lollapalooza, being an anti-trust. There is a

great review by Jim DeRogatis here for your reference.    

C3 is being investigated for what seems to be a far too rigid radius clause in their contracts with artists hat perform at Lollapalooza. These clauses keep the artists from playing in Chicago and 300 miles round for a good portion of the year. C3's attempt to protect their investment in the festival has caused negative repercussions to midsize venues in Chicago, however has created voids that local acts can use to their advantage.

Of course if you are a concert goer in Chicago it has been noticed less national acts are touring through during the summers since Lolla arrived.

At a first glance a dipping economy, reported lacking concert ticket sales and high gas prices seem to be the reason less bands are touring and less music is in Chicago. With a closer look you will find that those factors are only a small part of what is happening and this radius clause is affecting the city’s music scene. This is the obvious part. A not often noted aspect about this whole situation is the affect this has had on the indpendent market in Chicago.

Consider that the 120+ bands that are being kept from performing within 300 miles of Chicago for most of the year are leaving a whole lot of vacant slots stacking up in some of the midsize Chicago venues. This is now giving a lot of independent local and touring acts shots at clubs they never would get a shot at. This void in the touring market though Chicago has increased the opportunity for a flourishing independent market and changed the climate tremendously both for the good and the bad.

Touring Smarter

So yesterday Kevin and I had a chance to visit the Tour Smart Plus seminar at Invisible Records. Being a big fan of  the Tour Smart book we had to stop by and see what the seminar would entail. Unfortunately we were only to attend one day but the topics covered were more than enough to get our heads spinning. Gary from Jagoff covered SEO marketing and social media. The classic 7-11 panel included talks on copyright, guerilla marketing and accounting. Also covered breifly was basic video editing, sponsorships and screen printing basics. I wish I had my camera on me to share more shots but I didn't bring one! WHAT A MISTAKE!

I did have a second during the 'Packaging' coverage to shoot some photos of this fantastic example of creative packaging from my phone. 'Marrow', a San Fransico based band, did this creative and custom packaging for their "Sunshine Enima". Not included in these pictures was the prescription that had been filled out custom to Martin whom pulled this from his personal collection for display. The band prescriped this pill to it's fans and when you open the pill you find a USB drive that you can pull the record from! How CREATIVE! :

These pictures are just a fine example of Martin Atkin's outlook on being independent and more importantly creative through every facet of your brand. The quote of the day on packaging for me was when Martin said  something along the lines of... "You never hear about anyone getting off on unwrapping cellophane off a new CD. Be original and find a way to package your product to be consistent with what your band is doing".

I would love to share more about this weekend but there is much work to be done today. I reccomend this seminar to anyone in the music/film/art industry. The concepts and philosophy are applicable to artists. For more information on the seminars you can visit the Tour Smart Plus website here.
Winner of the Model Stranger Fan Club naming contest to be announced later this week!


Until next time!


Stephen Francis