Solid State

Hey there, Solid State.

Since we've (sort of) been  talking about band marketing, I thought I'd pass this along. I'm not sure if this kind of thing has been done before — I'm guessing it has, though maybe not locally — but it seemed pretty creative to me.

Local reggae outfit, Pulse Prophets, are releasing their new CD, Breathe,  this Saturday night at Nectar's and have an interesting promotional gimmick lined up. For $5, you can enter a raffle to have the band play your house party. The proceeds from the raffle will go towards converting the group's van to run on veggie oil. So it's sort of for a good cause to boot! In a self-serving sort of way, I guess.

There are, of course,  a few stipulations involved. According to the band, they are:
- The Pulse Prophets will not be responsible for any noise violations.
- The Pulse Prophets will perform two sets with a break in the middle.
- The Pulse Prophets will rock your party!

Fair enough. But who supplies the weed?

Additional restrictions are that the party must be within 100 miles of Burlington, the band needs a 10'x20' space in which to perform and that the scheduled date will be mutually agreed upon. Sounds fair to me. However, I might have pushed a little harder on the rider if it was my band.

Back in the day, I briefly did some intern work for Higher Ground as Alex Crothers' assistant. One of my duties was photocopying contracts and mailing them out to bands. My favorite part of the job was reading the "artist's demands" section because they were often hysterically over-the-top.

I'm guessing I'd be violating some sort of code of ethics/law by divulging specifics, but let's just say that a certain heartthrob singer-songwriter, in addition to the standard booze and food requests, actually included condoms as part of his deal. Specifically, Trojans, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure a particular size was designated.

Some of the requests were almost comically simple in comparison. A rather iconic folk figure asked merely for this: a pot of black coffee and a ham sandwich. Awesome.

In closing, here's a picture of an idiot:

That is an actual tattoo of the New England Patriots' logo emblazoned on the side of this gentleman's head. Not only that, the dude has plans to replicate Patriots QB/golden-god Tom Brady's helmet by tattooing another logo on the other side of his head and the number 12 at the base of his skull. But "only if the Pats win the Super Bowl." Right. 'Cuz, that'd just be really dumb otherwise.