You may have gone to see the "Pietasters" play at River View Cafe last December, or maybe you saw some other band at one of the local bars. Do you ever wonder what goes on "behind the scenes"? Me too. Who got a hold of the band? How did they swing that, and what is involved in the deal? I asked Chris Miller, who had been booking bands for the Fraternity AXP until recently when River View Cafe shut down, to let me in on how concerts are set up.
CHRIS: "The way it works is, we send a proposal to Cellar Door of what they let me know that the band wants to make so I figure out...I try to make a bargain with them. Then Cellar Door sends me a contract and they take 10 percent whatever the band makes, basically. That only started recently that we had to start doing it separate because before, you just paid the band the extra money."
I got to see copies of old contracts with Cellar Door. As far as Miller knows, the only Cellar Door of Virginia is out of Virginia Beach. He got The Pietasters separately (I got to see the proposal he sent to them, personally) He's good friends with them. I noticed on the proposal that the band was invited to stay at the AXP house rather than pay for a hotel.
So they can stay with you guys? Or did you just invite them to?
CHRIS: "Yeah, we invite them to, like, some of them. Like (The Pietasters) we did, and they ended up staying and hanging out till Four in the morning. That is when I drove the last guy out to the bus. They got on the bus and left at six in the morning.. They're in LA now, doing a new album.
On the band nights, I try to do anything and everything I can for the bands. If they want towels on the stage, I'm on it. They seem to like working with me, I always make sure they get their money and everything."
CHRIS (cont'd): "Basically what the Fraternity does, as far as the bands go, is we do promotion. That means we make a flyer using the press kit. [The kit] usually comes with a picture and info. [Anything] we feel like using to "hype up" the band on the flyer, we post them EVERYWHERE. We have a table usually, on campus for a couple days straight and then the Fraternity can basically get free entrance (to the concert)."
What's the word on RiverView?
CHRIS: "The word with River View, if you're curious about that is he apparently was in some kind of financial trouble and basically, he didn't let anybody know anything. A bunch of his employees didn't even realize that they were shutting down."
Their phone was out at the end of November!
CHRIS: "His phone has been turned off. He had his cell phone. He had a cell phone for his manager and three of his bouncers and one or two of his bartenders. He bought them all cell phones and was doing it that way.
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