so a couple years ago my bro-pal sean joined in w/ four other duders from various akron/cleveland bands to do a halloween cover show at one of the two cool venues up in LOTH (land of the heartless) cleve. they dressed like & covered refused, named their band Party Programme. wish i'd have been able to make the trip & catch them back then.
WELL after that sean moved to LA since his cool job let him do that & work from wherever long as they could occasionally send him out on business mission flights to wherever. guess where his latest has been? back to crakron for a week or so. the other dudes hear about it and say "dude! we should do refused again while you're here!" then they lined up two shows this fri & sat at a couple venues up norf. i hear about this and say "dudes! let me line one up down here in cbus the thurs before those!" and they are totally down w/ it.
venue here (treebar, formerly treehouse) used to be my regular hangout & i'm still pals w/ the guy that runs the place & a couple folks that work there & they're now letting me join in on booking (i'm only doing it occasionally when i feel like it though). so, luckily i grabbed the date & got to work on it. it was A BITCH finding locals to add that fit the bill, everyone i wanted to add couldn't do it for one reason or another. FINALLY found two acts good for it (Beggars & Southern State), awesome.
next interesting experiment - i made this the venue's first free no-cover show. paying the bands out of pocket. pal who runs the joint (which is small) that an average weeknight show brought around 30 people in, unless it's a big act for the place (like jucifer, they suck live IMO but tree is where they play every time they hit cbus now) so $5 cover x 30 peeps split to 3 bands = $50 per band. not much but not bad, at least for the locals. imagine if it's a touring band from far away the locals are cool w/ splitting more to them. anyway... so i also made batches of buttons for each band, my treat, also letting party programme use a few of my cabs & my orange head so they have less to haul down, they're also crashing at my place tonight, so i do feel like the $60 i'm gonna give 'em on top of what's leftover of the 100 buttons (50 each for the locals) to give out at their next two shows. on top of that, my amazing mom is a badass seamstress and made a mini-version of the backdrop refused used at their show in NY once upon a time (i didn't get to see them but a pal had a pic of it), which i'll gladly let the guys take w/ them if they want.
so, as of last night, all of that's ready for tonight. last night treebar's open mic night was FUCKING DEAD. granted it was freaking frigid cold out still, but man it made me a bit nervous... warmer today & tonight, i know some peeps who're pumped to see this will be there, just damn i am nervous about it being a weak turnout...
ok thought i'd share that rant. cross your fingers for me dudes!
i'd have invited her to the show (she comes see me play once in a while when i'm in a band) but i know she wouldn't have enjoyed screaming your ass off punk. 
she's more the wallflowers / maroon 5 type...
