The Cold War Kids just came through Solar Culture in support of Two Gallants. Holy Shit, were they great. See them at their next gig. Buy their records.
Oh, yeah, they're coming back to Solar Culture on June 15. You have no excuse for missing them.
Not much to blog here, because WE DIDN'T GO, and I certainly didn't work it. Why?
It's a bi-annual exercise in pure exploitation, that's why. Bands get paid $100 each. (Why an out-of-town band would accept $100 is beyond me, unless they're getting paid more, in which case the whole thing REALLY stinks.)
PA companies basically lend their services and their gear to a for-profit enterprise. (Jeb seems to think that a band bringing in their practice-space PA for $100 is somehow acceptable. I say: fine. This is proof that nobody cares if the bands sound good, and it's all about the beer.) If the reason for doing this gig as charity is because "we'll get other gigs," then jesus-h-fuckin'-christ: WAKE UP. There ARE NO OTHER GIGS that the Crawl's promoters handle. What, you'll do the Crawl so you get the priviledge of doing Club Congress outdoor shows for next-to-nothing, too?
There aren't enough good bands in Tucson to warrant the number of stages and venues. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a sound man) to realize that putting big PAs in close proximity to each other is a recipe for disaster. Yeah, a couple of years ago it was a lot of fucking fun trying to get the acoustic performers on the "Americana" stage (on 5th St between Hotel Congress and the MLK apartments) audible over the noise from the Congress parking-lot stage (punk bands) and the big stage on 5th between Congress and Broadway (more punk bands). I mean: why bother?
I have other complaints about how the Crawl runs day-of-show, but those would just make this post too long.
Here's some more proof that it's all about selling beer (and not even good beer--I won't drink Budweiser). I realized this a few years ago when I was working on the Main Stage (with NO support or secuity people at all) and I discovered the source of a bad buzz in the PA: they plugged the fucking beer truck into my PA distro! So, I unplugged it and the noise went away. Then I plugged the beer truck into an outlet in the Rialto. That's when Paul Bear jumped my shit and plugged the fucking beer truck back into the PA distro, ignoring my protests.
Shame on the Tucson Weekly for continuing to promote this exploitational clusterfuck. Shame on all of the bands who think that there's a benefit to playing the Club Crawl.