How NOT to advertise your show
This is a bit of a cautionary tale. Some of you that frequently lurk around the Craig’s List musicians section might be familiar with this story. There were a bunch of postings over the past week advertising a particular show. That in itself will get some people irritated because it begins to seem like spam to some when it is posted day after day…but the real thing that got the interwebs in a tizzy was the tone of the ads…
“Come out and help XXXvenueXXX ‘grow a pair’”.
“XXXbandnameXXX and 3 soft bands have been lumped together. LOUD ROCK might OFFEND the sissies.”
“If this [ad] is making you pissed off you wouldn’t enjoy the show either.”
…etc.
This misplaced bravado provoked a response from Craig’s Listers. In a town with such an interconnected music scene as Portland’s is, the last thing you need to be doing is making yourself look the fool and publicly insulting other bands. By the day of the show XXXbandnameXXX had posted an apology blaming the offensive posts on someone associated with, but not in the band. Regardless of who had been doing the postings, it was obviously not kosher and they realized the mistake. By the night of the show they were contrite and seemed genuinely apologetic. The other bands on the bill were accepting of the apology and everything seemed copacetic. The ROCK heals all wounds… Lesson learned, turn the page.
***
A further lesson was learned by yours truly. I have decided that it was inappropriate to leave this post up without redacting the band name. As I said, I think they learned their lesson, and nothing further is gained by leaving this out to be potentially stumbled upon in the future when someone searches their band name… the other lesson I learned was that “Monarch” whiskey is NOT GOOD. I can usually enjoy almost anything…not Monarch.
