by Henry Owings
319 Packing out your show by inviting your entire extended family does not mean your band is massive, nor does it give you license to argue for free entry at the local nightclub.
320 If your band is drawing more than 80 percent dudes, you should break up and go into weightlifting.
321 Stop blaming the promoter, the booking agent, the club, and the label. Instead, start blaming yourself.
322 If you’re playing small venues after headlining arenas, save your fans the “we wanted to get back in touch with our fans, smell the sweat, see the faces” stuff. Just admit that you’re not as popular as you used to be and then move on. And in this case, “move on” means break up.
323 If you’re unsigned and without a booking agent, free music festivals hate you and your struggling band. Nonetheless, they will still gladly take your entrance-fee money as a sort of “idiot tax.”
324 If your band has hired a film crew to document your performance and you draw fewer people than are in said crew, pack up your van and go home.
325 Never ask a venue about booking another show while a member of your band is being escorted out by security.
326 If your band just formed a month ago, don’t ask that guy who books shows at the local club to “book a tour” for you because he might “know people.”
327 If you require a booking agent, hire only those who have actually been on tour. They will know the merits of good routing and the perils of bad.
328 You cannot include a reprint of a record review in a show poster.
329 Unless you’re just starting out, playing your hometown more than three times a year is best left to cover bands.
330 If promoters ever double-book a show on your band, you’re allowed to club them with this book until they can no longer move.
331 When the promoter tells you the van will be fine in that No Parking zone, it will get a ticket.
332 If the promoter starts off a conversation with something along the lines of, “So, about this guarantee,” you’re completely justified in stealing any equipment from the club. Consider stealing the 8-balls in the club’s pool tables first.
333 Never accept beer as payment from the club or promoter unless the entire band is filled with raging alcoholics.
334 The worst club in Europe is always better than the nicest club in America.
335 If you can stretch your limits far enough to say “hello,” “please,” “thank you,” and “goodbye” to the sound man and the other bands on your bill, such niceties will make your life a lot more interesting (and maybe even a little longer) than anything produced as a function of your well-worked “attitude.”
336 If your tour manager dresses like the band or has an identical haircut to a band member’s, then said manager must be kept in the production office as much as possible.
337 Anyone riding with the band is required to load and unload equipment.
338 Ensure that your tour-bus driver is everything you’re not: sober, muscular, nice smelling, law abiding, and uninterested in prostitutes.
339 If you decide to hire someone to do sound or lights for you, let him do it. You can not tell how it sounds or looks to the audience from where you’re standing, so don’t pretend like you can. If the sound or lights aren’t good, then it’s your fault for hiring someone who can’t do the job.
340 Never let your “buddy” tour-manage unless he knows what the back end is.
341 Don’t yell at your stage crew; they have the power to pull the plug on any one of you at any moment.
342 Do not take to constantly criticizing your sound man’s ability during a tour. No matter how funny you think it is, at some point during the tour, he will begin to consciously cripple your future.
343 If you’re in a band with more than one useless member, always head-count members at every stop. That will save you from getting a call shortly after you start driving and having to turn around to pick up whoever Joe-drag-their-ass is in your band.
344 Be sure to have one of those enormous Rand McNally maps and at least one person in the band who knows his elbow from the interstate. Online map programs will only keep your van driving in circles.
345 If you want to get out of driving a night shift, wait until everyone is asleep, slam on the brakes, and then announce to everyone you’re dozing off and are afraid you’ll kill everyone. Their hearts will be racing and someone will be wide-awake enough to drive. Then, you can crawl in a comfortable spot in the van and get some good, sound sleep.
346 As soon as you go on your first tour, put a piece of duct tape above the driver’s side visor that is marked with everyone’s initials. It will serve as your permanent driver rotation. Anyone who misses one of his shifts will have to endure a double shift. This is one of the simplest and most time-tested rules of the road.
347 Seriously reconsider bringing your dog (or any pet, for that matter) on the road. It is rather cruel to the dog, your van will smell like dog food, and one of your dumb-ass bandmates will inevitably lose the dog somewhere along the way.
348 As tempting as it is, don’t speak in “in-joke-ese” around everyone you meet while on tour. They’ll quickly realize that you’re a self-absorbed boob.
349 Always “idiot check” after the show, no matter how drunk you might be. There’s no telling what you left in the dressing room, on stage, or somewhere in the club. Sometimes you’re lucky just to get all the humans in the van.
350 When asked what band you are upon arriving at the club, respond with “the one that rocks.”
351 Load in is hard to time just right unless you have a hard-ass tour manager. Usually, you’re really late or waiting outside the club for some goofball promoter to show up and let you in. Always be stocked on books, magazines, movies, and general downtime diverters, or you’ll lose your sanity after about a week on the road.
352 Bands that can’t set up quickly cannot possibly be good.
353 Sound check isn’t a goodness check. If it were, you would probably have flunked it.
354 A sound check is the bit where you check to make sure the sound is going to be okay. It’s not your next rehearsal.
355 Never expect to get a sound check when you are the middle of three bands.
356 Sound checks should never last more than one hour.
357 No man-bags sitting on top of amps during sound check.
358 Learn the sound guy’s name before sound check.
359 Never plaster the toilets with your band’s stickers unless you want the public to equate your band name with going to the bathroom in a really disgusting place.
360 When you see a band’s sticker on the sweet spot of a urinal, don’t put your band’s sticker over it. It’s not the kind of promotion you want.
361 The worst bands always write their own names on the wall backstage.
362 When you write your band’s name on the wall of a dressing room, the next band in there will write “sucks” next to it. Spare yourself.
363 Never make a mother and daughter both show you their breasts to get backstage. It’s tacky.
364 From the second they were delivered, backstage couches at rock clubs are never cleaned. Think of the crazy things that have been done on or near these couches and then proceed at great personal risk.
365 There can be no backstage dressing room without a crudely drawn penis on the wall. If you don’t see one, immediately draw one on said wall.
366 No one is allowed backstage without a pass unless they’re hot or have drugs for the band.
367 All-access passes look idiotic in small clubs. If there’s no backstage, you don’t need a backstage pass.
368 Memorize this phrase, it will serve you well: “No, I will not get you backstage.”
369 Never put condoms on your rider.
370 Don’t try to write the “funniest” rider ever. They’re never as good as you think and typically lead to band humiliation.
371 It’s always best to request more booze on your rider than you’ll
actually need. Plan on having an extensive liquor cabinet once you are dropped from your label.
372 Asking for ointments on your rider is a good way to both creep out the promoter and quickly reach legendary status.
373 If you’re a vegetarian, don’t trust the promoter to feed you. You’ll be lucky enough to trust them to give you your guarantee, let alone food without meat in it. Better yet, if you’re a vegetarian, don’t go on tour.
374 Drink tickets may be made of paper, but divide them up like they’re gold. They might be the most you’ll ever get out of a club.
375 If you’re playing at a venue that agreed to feed you, tell them to order something other than pizza, because you’ll be eating a lot of pizza on tour.
Laminates are a very popular form of ID. Here’s how to tell who’s who.
1 HUNG AROUND THE NECK: This person does not belong anywhere near the stage or dressing rooms. Identify him as a poseur and don’t even offer him water.
2 HUNG FROM THE BELT: This person may work for the band or it may be a laminate from a completely different show. There’s still the possibility that he is a poseur. Offer him the deli tray only.
3 IF A LAMINATE FROM ANOTHER SHOW IS VISIBLE: This is otherwise known as “resume on a rope.” This person is immediately classified as a poseur. Do not pass dressing room; do not collect hummus.
4 IF A LAMINATE FROM A PREVIOUS TOUR IS VISIBLE: This person blew it at the after-show the last time and the band still doesn’t want to see his or her face this time around.
5 IF A LAMINATE IS CONCEALED OR STILL ON THE HOTEL BED: This person probably actually needs one but is still probably a poseur. The only difference is that he’s getting paid tonight.
376 Keep dietary choices out of music. You’re not special.
377 It’s a great feeling to have a rider, but be careful how many joke items are on it. A baggie full of cinnamon is one thing, but a bathtub full of mulled cider comes out of your guarantee.
378 Strip those crummy riders out of your contracts and pack your own white towels and energy drinks.
379 Asking for socks on your rider is a good idea, but you’ll rarely get them. Purchase a cheap package of socks that you can throw away after each performance. The overall effect is better-smelling feet, which equals a much better smelling van.
380 No guest list for journalists, ever. If they don’t want to pay to get in, they don’t like your band enough to write something good about it.
381 If you can be courageous enough to go with a no-guest-list-for-anyone-ever rule, you will be making sure that only people who truly want to see your band will be the ones who show up to see you play. In the long run, this strategy will prove to be a very good thing.
382 No guest lists at benefit shows.
383 Before hitting the stage, do not have a group huddle/prayer session with your bandmates, especially when the other bands on the bill are in the dressing room. They will correctly assume that your band should be ignored.
384 No pre-show warm-ups or athletic-style stretches.
385 When arriving at a club, avoid any manual labor by urgently leaping out of the van screaming that you have diarrhea, running to the bathroom (spending a few minutes there), saying hello to everyone in the club, getting a drink at the bar, and starting a conversation with the barman. Then, return to begin sound check and divert attention with: “Hey, I got us our drink tickets!”
386 Don’t get caught pumping iron in the “green room” right before going on stage.
387 Doing stretches or jumping jacks on stage before you play tells the audience that something bad-ass isn’t about to happen.
388 Don’t wait until the last minute before you go on to burn one from the band’s communal pipe. Then, don’t make the crowd sit through your residual coughing and wheezing. Plus, pot is a bush-league drug designed for suckers.
389 You can never come on stage like a rock god if, moments before, you were setting up your own equipment.
390 Never try to play along with the house music while you’re setting up or waiting to start your set.
391 Having someone come out to “pump up the audience” and introduce your band for anything less than a stadium of people is a juvenile attempt at “playing” arena rock.
392 For their pretentiousness alone, anyone in a fur coat onstage should be set on fire.
393 Any member of a band wearing a heavy coat onstage at an indoor gig, unless he’s in an igloo, is more likely to be a fashion model than a musician.
394 Bands that wear suits should never do summer tours.
395 You cannot rock while wearing a rubber bracelet.
396 You should never have a music stand on stage.
397 Headbands can never be worn on stage. If you do, you’re either a bloated has-been or a trendy action figure. Wristbands, however, are completely acceptable.
398 Unless you’re sitting on a horse, lose the cowboy hat.
399 Don’t smoke when you’re actively playing your instrument during a performance. Many have tried before you and failed to make this look natural.
400 Never be the guy in a band who wears a ski cap on stage. As you’ll undoubtedly find out, houselights do not have a cooling effect.
401 Middle-aged men in bunny suits on stage are not entertainers, they’re borderline pedophiles.
402 Always wear shoes on stage. Sandals don’t count as shoes. Nobody wants to see your feet.
403 Always keep your shirt on.
404 Don’t wear black. Even if you’re fat. It makes you look like you have a disembodied head. People only want to see disembodied heads if there is blood dripping from them.
405 Unless you actually beat your wife, wearing wife-beaters on stage is strictly forbidden.
406 If you need to wear glasses on stage, they should stay on without the help of a sports strap.
407 Wearing earplugs anytime, anywhere is an admission that you are too old for rock and roll.
408 Unless your ringing ears hinder performances, decibel-reducing headphones are not allowed on stage.
409 Men can’t wear women’s clothing on stage if they, indeed, look like women.
410 Unless you’re performing directly facing the sun, hats, sunglasses, or bandanas are never allowed.
411 No white belts unless you had a karate match immediately preceding the show.