BRAIN: Touring info that's phat!

[Si Halley]

Subject: Re: BRAIN: Touring info that's phat!



> Finally, I heave heard that Mr Brown was concerned that few BOC fans
> attended the Alice Cooper convention that BDS played last year.  As one
who
> was there, I strongly believe that this was largely down to the poor
> publicity for that event.

I`m sorry, but I have to take issue with this.
I`m talking specifically about the convention here. I had no direct part in
the BDS shows in Camden and Stourbridge that preceeded it.
Firstly, the event wasn`t a BOC event, so pubicity was aimed squarely at
ALICE fans (Joe was fine with this). I DID post info to this list, and also
the official BOC news mailing list which Melne forwarded to the membership.
I have no access or knowledge of any aol lists and it was never suggested to
us that there was an outlet there. I DID ask when I posted here that the
message be forwarded to any other outlets I didn`t know about.
There was also a website (www.sickcon.co.uk still there which tons of
photos, some video and stuff of the event), listed in all publicity, with
full details. Maybe if the BOC fans had been more responsive either here or
via private email, they could have helped publicise Joe`s first UK
performances in years.
You have no idea how hard we tried to get publicity for the event. The very
fact that we got Joe, Neal and Dennis LIVE on BBC radio(which I announced on
this list) for an hour of interviews and music was, I think, pretty good! We
tried for Total Rock but they wouldn`t respond to us. Classic Rock wouldn`t
respond to us.
 Metal Hammer, Kerrang, etc...

Secondly, we sent publicity info out to every rock music news source we
could find including photos, history, bios etc. Quite a few online news
sources ran the story but the paper press totally ignored us (with the
excpetion of Record Collector and Powerplay) despite phone calls and emails
trying to get them interested. We spent 9 months trying to organise the
convention and ended up with an almost sold out event. Obviously enough
people knew about it.
If you are refering to lack of paid adverts in magazines like Kerrang and
Classic Rock, we simply couldn`t afford them. Advertising costs tons of
money, even for small adverts. We didn`t have that money to pay 100`s of
pounds for small adverts after agreeing payment with the band, especially as
we didn`t think such adverts would make much difference (they didn`t as we
were close to a sell-out). In fact verbally Kerrang eventually promised us a
FREE advert and we designed one to their sizes and sent it through to them,
only for them to withdraw the offer.

This was a fan organised event for charity and as such the initial money was
coming straight out of the organisers own pocket. We lost £xxxx (yes four
figures) on the show, yet we STILL paid the band and honoured our pledge to
give a percentage of money to charity, and are STILL looking into Sickcon2,
aiming at Oct this year.

>It seems to me that one sure way of boosting
> attendances for a tBS show / tour / convention would be to use the
upcoming
> BOC shows to help spread the word - leafletting, word of mouth, whatever.

I agree. Word of mouth and mailing list posts assured the Alice event went
well. However we had the problem that Alice toured AFTER the convention so
leefleting wasn`t any good. Also, it costs money of course and the return
isn`t great. Example: there was an Alice related show a couple of years ago.
Thousands of flyers were handed out directly before at the Alice show just
round the corner. It was in local papers, national press and everything.
Attendance was very low.

I`m afraid that the bottom line is that while Alice/BOC are still well know,
with a resonable fan base, even much of that fan base only knows the main
acts. Few outside the hardcore fans on the internet knew BDS existed. I`m
afraid the same is true with The Brain Surgeons as they also have no product
released in this country and there is no UK record company support to a
tour. While not directly involved with TBS tour, I'd LOVE to see Al and
company in the UK having bought all the albums (except the new one so far)
direct from the US. But Mick Brown needs to be able to make money bringing
them over. When Al first mailed me about a possible tBS tour and convention,
we called around the obvious UK venues and many simply wouldn`t even talk to
me about it!!! I couldn`t believe it!! However I`m sure Mick (he is a GOOD
guy) has the same problem. It`s sad, but TBS have no name recognition over
here outside the hardcore. Same as BDS who`s shows were very poorly
attended, except for the convention of course.

> I would love to see tBS over here .... but please don't blame me for not
> committing to a very vague proposition from a promoter who doesn't really
> seem to want to promote .....!

There was nothing for you to commit to!
You can`t promote until you have dates fixed. While I have a little inside
knowledge, I *DON'T* know the specifics of this particular tour, But if you
can`t get the dates acceptable to both bands, venues and promotor, there`s
nothing to promote. If Mick had given you dates, and they turned out they
were wrong, you`d have complained about that, having made arrangements to be
there.
Mick is one man, trying to make a profit by doing what you want and helping
bring tBS to the UK. I`m sure that if you have a venue, willing to pay
enough to cover costs (food, hotels, travel, publicity etc) in the time
frame he`d LOVE to hear from you (as would I for possible future things).
For the Alice convention we had fans volenteering to print up their own
flyers and distribute them, they put banners on their web pages, they made
suggestions, called into Alice phone-in`s to mention the convention(even US
ones!).

To organise a tour with an 'unknown' band is very difficult in the UK
without relatively big money which we, or Mick, don`t have. Even with Al
kindly dropping fees to a minimum and being as helpful as possible, the
venues still need to know they`ll make money and the promotor has to be sure
he also doesn`t lose. That means operating on a shoestring.

tBS WILL get to the UK I'm sure. But the time has to be right for all
concerned.

I`m sorry if this seems like I`m having a go at you (it`s not my intention),
but I think that the fact we, as Alice fans,  managed to get Neal Smith,
Dennis Dunaway and Michael Bruce (and Joe of course) on one stage in the UK
for the first time in 30 years to a near sell-out crowd was a major
achievement and dispite losing a ton of money, I am immensely proud to have
been involved in the event which was a HUGE success on all but a financial
level.

best wishes

Si