Trad. Jazz lead by Pianist and Sax virtuoso Hugo Simmonds.
This is the real deal…!!

3-5pm

The 3rd Monday of every month is our resident stand-up comedy night “Funny Peculiar” where for £3 entrance, you can see some of the most exciting new comedy talent on the circuit. Funny Peculiar’s aim is to showcase comics who we believe to be Hot, (once they are officially deemed Hot and on the telly and with a DVD to flog, it’ll cost a lot more than three quid to see them) and so a night of incendiary comic talent is practically guaranteed.
The show starts at 8pm and lasts until approximately 10pm.

Once a month, usually on a Thursday, we hold our “Nu Acoustic Guitar Night” where we invite some truly renowned acoustic guitarists to our stage for what are wonderfully intimate gigs. So far, we’ve had modern legends such as Mchael Manring (USA), Thomas Leeb (AUS) and Jon Gomm (UK) and coming soon, the legend that is Preston Reed and the best acoustic guitarist in the UK (we think), Clive Carroll. These are concert-type shows with rows of seating and a strict no talking policy.

From Feb 21st, we’ll be putting on Sunday afternoon shows every week. They’ll be hosted by our regular New Orlean’s style Jazz and Blues musician extraordinaire Hugo Simmons and will feature a different line up of musicians each time.      These gigs will be entirely unplugged so expect double basses, tons of horns, Banjos, Steel Pans and just about anything else that makes a sound. If you fancy a mellow drink and chat after a bit of Sunday shopping, or you want the ideal hangover cure from the night before, look no further!

Courtesy of Yamaha Pianos, we’ll soon be keeping the music flowing with regular early evening gigs featuring a whole host of solo performers. These sets will start at 6pm most weeknights. Expect to hear Blues pianists, Jazz guitarists, singer/songwriters and various other mellow rumblings. These gigs will be listed on our “Gigs” page and we’ll be kicking these off towards the end of February.

Enjoy!

Having said that, a local band thatʼs done a decent amount of promotion will add an extra 20/30 people to the bar and as a result, get booked here more often. I’ve been a professional musician for 10 years and Iʼve noticed that the bands that actively promote themselves are the ones that get the record deals, tours, management, etc. Unfairly or not, bands that rely solely on playing the gigs, rarely get far no matter how good they happen to be.
These tips certainly arenʼt a definitive A-Z of promotional tools but instead, just a couple of the really essential ideas that Iʼve picked up as a musician and, more importantly, as a bar owner and music promoter.

Whether the gig pays £600 or £60, promote it like it is the last gig youʼll ever do. Just because youʼre making no money from the show, doesnʼt mean that you donʼt want as many people watching as possible. A packed house almost always leads to something else whether that be an offer to play at someoneʼs wedding, a feature in the local paper or best case scenario, a record deal.

Always send the venue several good quality posters. The better the poster, the more passers by will stop and look at it. At least 30% of our weekly cliental come in because of the posters in our windows. Likewise sending the venue a bunch of fliers for them to stick around the bar beforehand works wonders. When people are in bars, they ALWAYS read whatever happens to be on their table.

Wherever youʼre playing, find out who the music editor of the local newspaper is and send him an e-mail asking for a feature or a mention youʼd be surprised how often they agree and even if they say no, youʼve only wasted a couple of minutes trying. The same thing goes for local radio stations.
If you can financially afford it, try not to do more than one gig a fortnight in the same area. Itʼs more important to play once to a full house that twice to two half full rooms.

Make sure you have a website,myspace page, youtube channel, Bebo account, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, etc…. Itʼs mostly free and is used for a reason – it works! Make sure you hand round a mailing list sheet during your gig. So many bands donʼt bother and I think theyʼre missing a trick. You canʼt expect every member of an audience (thatʼs been drinking) to remember your band name, website address and next gig location. Get their e-mail address and once a month/ week send out a band newsletter.

Have something to sell at the gigs. CDs are the obvious merch but thereʼs also t-shirts, lighters, plectrums, etc all with your logo on. Ordering these products in bulk may cost a bit initially but in the long term, youʼll make a profit. The classic example of a musician that promoted himself well is Moby.  Whilst everyone around him was busy doing as many gigs as possible, he supposedly spent his most of his time promoting, making contacts and focusing exclusively on special one-off shows. Not quite sure how he paid the rent at that time but it worked out ok.

Hope these help…!
Michael.

PS – One more thing… be weary of venues that insist on you bringing the entire crowd. It means that the “promoter” isnʼt doing his/ her job right.

We wanted to create a bit more user interactivity in the site, so we have sections where you can comment. Feel free to comment on up-coming gigs etc (and my ramblings!)

Also, we have recently been interviewed by TheBlueSoul.com about the venue and how it is going along so far. If you would like to check it out you can find the interview at http://www.thebluesoul.com/roundmidnight.html