See bands before they play the 9:30 at the Red & the Black.

Hi. Just wanted to encourage people to not only see the great music coming out of the 9:30 but also venues like the Red and the Black.


www.myspace.com/sarahpray/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8hdtN740SE
www.myspace.com/kanefurious
www.myspace.com/themodernsociety

for example check out the above line up Tuesday 9/15 at 9pm.  There's so much good music on any given night in D.C.!

www.redandblackbar.com

wow. It's not our fault the booker at R+B can't get "good" bands and refuses to work with local promoters to get better shows and more exposure. I've no doubt some of the bands that play there aren't bad, but burying four unknowns on a bill together and under-promoting it doesn't really help. And posting on here isn't likely to get much love either. While the location isn't great, and it is a little smaller, I'd much rather go to the Red and the Black over the VL, if just because of the upstairs bar and the lack of surly bartenders. Though I'm not sure either venue draws big numbers, at least VL pulls some names from time to time. Perhaps there is something to be learned there.

edit: Not trying to be an A-hole, but it is my gut reaction to street-teamers or venue staff doing this type of thing on here.

Yeah, everything redsock said except for the part about prefering to go to the Red and the Black over the VL and the bartenders comment.

redsock wrote:
edit: Not trying to be an A-hole, but it is my gut reaction to street-teamers or venue staff doing this type of thing on here.

agreed, but i can deal with the way that this guy presented his promo.  he's awright in my books… still highly doubtful that i'll be checking out these bands, but at least he's going about it the right way. 

pray8587: hopefully you will post any future announcement to this thread, instead of starting a new one each time a band comes blowing through town.  best of luck to you.

book a band i've heard of and i'll check the venue out

Smylie wrote:
book a band i've heard of and i'll check the venue out

Yeah, I've always wanted to see a show at the R&B, but I've never even vaguely heard of ANYONE they have booked. And when I've went to the trouble to check out their bookings, I've been disappointed. :(

My guess is that the poster is one of the bands involved in this upcoming show and not the venue and quite frankly I'd like to see more bands posting here….  One can only take so much about Constitution hall, etc around here.

and saying one won't go out to venue because you've never heard of a the bands is a bit a cope out…. i saw a great band i'd never heard of at the Asylum on Friday night.  a friend of mine likes playing the Red and Black, because the staff enjoys when he plays there.

kosmo wrote:
My guess is that the poster is one of the bands involved in this upcoming show and not the venue

I assumed as much. Seems like too much of a coincidence for pray8587 to not be somehow connected to the Sarah Pray playing this gig.

Outer Body Llama played there on Valentine's Day this year..

For those that don't know Outer Body Llama has been rocking DC since 1994..They still play every month or two around town…

Anyways its nice of them to give local bands like Outer Body Llama a chance…The Black Cat will only allow certain types of local bands to play…. As I recall R&B also had a good low price beer choice..

Getting to and from though- getting a cab after the show- was a problem.

hutch wrote:
Getting to and from though- getting a cab after the show- was a problem.

the X line plies its slow-moving way along H Street NE… with NextBus loaded up on your smartphone you can just pop outside when the bus is about to arrive and travel to more cab-plentiful parts of town (or Gallery Place)…

And yeah, it's lame to only go see bands you know.

Doctor wrote:
And yeah, it's lame to only go see bands you know.

True, but if you want me to go see 3 bands I've never heard of on a Tuesday night at an inconvenient club - you should do more than post 3 Myspace links with no description whatsoever of what the bands sound like.    I can be easily swayed, but someone needs to convince me that this is literally worth losing sleep over.

Julian, wrote:

kosmo wrote:
My guess is that the poster is one of the bands involved in this upcoming show and not the venue

I assumed as much. Seems like too much of a coincidence for pray8587 to not be somehow connected to the Sarah Pray playing this gig.

Stop with the silly logic! ;)

i wonder how many bands that have played the red & the black have actually gone on to play 930 club. off the top of my head i can only think of vampire weekend.

<insert snarky comment about Vampire Weekend not being worthy of playing rooms bigger than the R&B here>


Deer Tick played the Red and the Black last year or in '07 and the 930 this year but they were opening for somebody (Jenny Lewis?).

The Red and the Black should be boycotted by bands and patrons should look elsewhere for local music in DC. Members of a local band that I have seen regularly were screwed the last time they played there in terms of their take of the door. The show brought in a decent crowd, but most of the money that was collected at the door was given to the door man. The person running the sound board had no clue what he was doing and the staff was generally rude to the bands on the bill. Bands in DC have a hard enough time and don't need clubs screwing them to add to their difficulties…

And I have heard this complaint from more than one band, so it was not necessarily an off night. Stay away…

ShadowWalker wrote:
The Red and the Black should be boycotted by bands and patrons should look elsewhere for local music in DC. Members of a local band that I have seen regularly were screwed the last time they played there in terms of their take of the door. The show brought in a decent crowd, but most of the money that was collected at the door was given to the door man. The person running the sound board had no clue what he was doing and the staff was generally rude to the bands on the bill. Bands in DC have a hard enough time and don&#039;t need clubs screwing them to add to their difficulties…

And I have heard this complaint from more than one band, so it was not necessarily an off night. Stay away…

A decent crowd with a venue capacity of 99 people? 25 people in there would make it looked packed. :)

The Red and the Black should be boycotted by bands and patrons should look elsewhere for local music in DC. Members of a local band that I have seen regularly were screwed the last time they played there in terms of their take of the door. The show brought in a decent crowd, but most of the money that was collected at the door was given to the door man. The person running the sound board had no clue what he was doing and the staff was generally rude to the bands on the bill. Bands in DC have a hard enough time and don&#039;t need clubs screwing them to add to their difficulties…

I have heard this from many bands.

I admit I'm pretty biased in my hatred for the Red & Black, but I used to book there and I know firsthand how they operate. Nobody there gives half a fuck about music or treating bands with respect. The sound system is a joke and they have the bartender running it. Local bands are better off playing a house show. Or the Galaxy Hut, if you want to play in a shoebox. I tell bands to skip DC if the only play they can get is the Red & Black. It's just not worth playing.

I&#039;d much rather go to the Red and the Black over the VL, if just because of the upstairs bar and the lack of surly bartenders.

seriously, redsock?  the surly bartender comment may have been accurate pre-2007, but when i was booking and managing the velvet from 2007 to late 2008, we did not have surly bartenders.  i bartended three times a week, and even though i may be opinionated, i am certainly not surly.  and neither is the rest of the staff.  also, the velvet's sound system and booking are far superior to the red and black.  there is no comparison between the two venues, except that the red & black serves shitty food and the velvet serves no food.

the velvet lounge is a completely different place now than it was before 2007.  the only thing that remains is that we still run shows late.