The Smiley Smile Message Board

I'm in the middle of booking a national tour that's going to run from July through mid-September.  I hadn't posted about it here because, besides probably a Wilson tune in the middle of the set, it's primarily to promote my own music and I've already taken up too much Smiley Smile bandwidth with that.  I had thought until today that it was going to be mostly solo, or with pick-up musicians, but now it looks like it might be possible to get my whole band to the east coast for a brief period provided we can get enough work to pay the air fares.  This would be at the tail end of August.

So here's what I wanted to put out there.  If I could find a gig or two that would pay well enough, I'd be willing to stage part of the Dennis and Carl Wilson set as part of it.  We wouldn't be able to do the entire show, and we wouldn't be able to do more than one or two dates, but that would be enough to justify bringing the band out.  It would have to be somewhere in the northeast...NYC, Boston, Philly, in that general area, to coincide with shows we already have booked.

I don't know if anyone has access to a promoter that could do the guarantee or would be interested in taking this on themselves.  It's really just an idea I had as I'm trying to figure out how to get my crew across the country, so I'm posting about it.  This is really just thinking out loud.

Incidentally, if anyone would like to help out with any other part of the tour, or wants more information on it, I would welcome that. It is going to hit most of the U.S.  Some of the dates are posted at my myspace page:  www.myspace.com/adammarsland (http://www.myspace.com/adammarsland).  My e-mail is adamghost@aol.com if anyone has any ideas.

I can't really help you (unless you want to play in a coffeehouse for $20) but as a resident of northern New Jersey, I would love if you brought the Dennis/Carl set to the area.

Well I might play a coffeehouse for $20 on an off-day!  ;)

Come to Philly Adam! It's about time you came down here  ;D

Adam, how about Atlanta or Athens, GA? Both cities have a lot of great music venues -- Variety Playhouse in Atlanta and the Melting Point in Athens are perfect venues for you. Right now there's a huge music festival (Athfest) going on in Athens, running all weekend. Another perfect venue if you were here in the Southeast.  ;D

On a related topic -- are there any thoughts in any of the BB-related music camps of taking POB/Bambu on tour? I know from experience that the Chaos Band can sure do the music justice.

We've let it be known to a few powers that be that we'd be willing to do it, but we don't want to take on the burden of putting it on ourselves, especially when it would be expensive to mount and promote and it would take time away from the original music.  So it's really a question of if someone wants to promote a tour like that (as Jeff Green and a few others did in 2006), we'd probably be happy to do it, but it's just too much for us to mount on our own on top of the rehearsing and also promoting the original stuff, etc.  So far no one's expressed an interest although honestly, my band is not that well known outside certain circles, so someone may be out there that would want to do it if they knew it was a possibility.

I'm open to going to both Philly and Athens/Atlanta, and have put feelers out to both places...the trick is I'm pulling together 45 shows for this tour and my contacts in those cities are not solid, so I don't know if it will happen or not.  If someone knows a promoter/club booker or perhaps a band that would want to help host a show, please get in touch with me and I promise I will follow up on it.

What size venues do you typically look to play, Adam? I'm in Minneapolis and presumably not on your radar for this time, but if you're ever looking to come to the upper midwest, I'd be glad to help with securing a venue.

Thanks so much Luther!  Actually, I usually do play Minneapolis, although it looks like this tour I may have to skip it for purely logistical reasons...I'm in Denver on 8-10, Omaha on 8-13 and probably 8-12, Kansas City on 8-14, and then I'll probably be on St. Louis on 8-15.  I suppose I could get up there on the 15th if St. Louis falls through.

I play all kinds of venues.  For solo shows I find coffee houses and small, punky dives work the best, and of course the nicer singer-songwriter places when you can get into them.  For the band shows it varies a lot.  It's really how well does the club treat you, and what's the quality of the bill.  And, of course, getting paid!

Came to Milwaukee, Shank Hall. Check it out.

Might be a little tough to get in there...they book mostly nationals that draw in the hundreds, and usually carry their own openers...