{"id":35920,"date":"2015-09-24T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T20:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=35920"},"modified":"2015-09-23T22:20:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:20:31","slug":"my-whole-life-is-a-fucking-show-scene-dissection-featuring-promoter-eddie-gobbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/my-whole-life-is-a-fucking-show-scene-dissection-featuring-promoter-eddie-gobbo\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMy Whole Life is a Fucking Show\u201d: Scene Dissection, featuring Promoter Eddie Gobbo"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Welcome to the first installment of a series exploring what makes a heavy music scene tick. I will be interviewing the people in Chicago who take on tasks beyond playing in a band: promoters, visual artists, audio engineers, writers, etc. We\u2019ll learn about what it takes to build a thriving music scene and what motivates people to devote their time, effort, and expense when financial rewards and even appreciation are scarce. First up, I\u2019ll be talking with my old friend Eddie Gobbo about his work as a promoter.<\/p>\n

If you spend any time in the metal blogosphere Eddie is likely a familiar presence. His noise rock\u00a0band\u00a0Jar\u2019d\u00a0Loose<\/a>\u00a0put out two well-received albums, and he writes regular columns for both\u00a0Metalsucks<\/a>\u00a0(on professional wrestling) and Deciblog<\/a>\u00a0(on football). He is currently readying a new recording project, but I wanted to discuss probably his biggest contribution to Chicago\u2019s music scene: his tireless work booking and promoting some of the best shows in town. Eddie and I have been sharing bills and putting gigs together since we were both teenagers performing at the barn in Woodstock, Illinois where my high school band practiced. As anyone who frequently attends concerts in Chicago could tell you, he is an energetic, loquacious, and committed music scene lifer, so I was certain he would be an excellent starting point for this series of interviews. I sat down with him on a rainy night outside the Heartland Caf\u00e9 in my neighborhood of Rogers Park as Today is the Day and Abigail Williams geared up to wreck the Red Line Tap next door. We discussed his early days booking shows in a classroom at DePaul University, how promotion has changed over the years, the state of the Chicago heavy music scene, and some of his least favorite dick moves bands have pulled.<\/p>\n

Jason Kolkey: How did you get started promoting shows?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eddie Gobbo: I booked my first show when I was eighteen years old. It was at DePaul [University]. This was in the early 2000s; there was a massive shortage of clubs in the city. The Fireside Bowl had just closed down. Bands literally couldn\u2019t find a place to come through and play a show. There was a kid I knew named Mark, who was a friend of mine. He was a junior or senior when I was \u00a0a freshman. He would do hardcore shows at DePaul. I went to one of his shows, and it blew my mind. I loved it. I remember\u00a0Hewhocorrupts<\/a>\u00a0played, and this band called\u00a0Damage Deposit<\/a>\u00a0played, which actually morphed into\u00a0In Defence<\/a>.\u00a0I remember saying to Mark, probably around Christmas of that year, \u201cHey, I need to get my band to play here,\u201d which I think at the time was\u00a0The Muzzler<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

Laughs<\/em><\/strong>. Nope.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe it might have been The Great Showdown or something?<\/p>\n

It\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>The Great Showdown.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All right, sure. So I said to him, \u201cI need to get on one of your shows,\u201d and he said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s cool, dude, but I only book about\u00a0x\u00a0<\/em>amount of shows a year, and I got about two left in me, and they\u2019re already pretty much booked, so that\u2019s it.\u201d I realized either I had to wait till next year, or essentially run a show myself. I was like, \u201cWell, I\u2019m a student here. You have to be a student to rent out this room. Why don\u2019t I just do it?\u201d I booked a room. I emailed about four bands that I really dug and I wanted to do a show with. There\u2019s a million venues now with a million people wanting to do shows. There wasn\u2019t a lot of that back then, so I think that everyone pretty much when they got offered a show was like, \u201cYeah, if we\u2019re down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show went fine. I remember the headliner was a band that I had gone seen a lot at the Fireside Bowl:\u00a0Lord Blasphemer<\/a>. My old band Psycho Scapegoat played with them, and I always loved them. It was a great night. A bunch of kids that came out. All my friends at college came out too, but it was kind of their only metal show of the year, or maybe ever. A moment happened where I remember the singer of Lord Blasphemer, who is just a normal dude, but at the time I\u2019m eighteen years old; he\u2019s probably in his thirties or whatever. I\u2019m thinking this guy\u2019s cool as shit. He said onstage, \u201cThanks to Eddie. This is awesome.\u201d And that kind of was like a light switch getting turned on for me.<\/p>\n

From there, word sort of got around that I was doing shows, and friends that I had were coming up to me going, \u201cHey, I\u2019d love my band to play.\u201d And then other people came up to me, which was something really foreign to me at that time, and were like, \u201cDude, there\u2019s this touring band coming through; would you want to hook them up, And they were really, really good touring bands. At least, they were touring bands that deserved a Chicago show. From then on, I remember I did some shows over the summer there and by the time the next year rolled in I was full force with it. I was doing a show a month for sure. At one point, at my worst, in October I did five shows in one month, which is basically every weekend.<\/p>\n

I got a good system down, cuz it was totally DIY, the exact opposite of how I do any show since then that I\u2019ve booked: you bring in your own PA, you clear out your own seats, your run your own door. You\u2019re responsible for your own security. So if some dude is getting out of control, you basically \u2013 and it happened a few times \u2013 you get a couple of your friends and say, \u201cYou gotta fuckin\u2019 leave, or you gotta calm down.\u201d I was the end-all be-all point man. There was no one watching my back. It was baptism by fire, but one thing I learned early on was that when you take out\u2026I don\u2019t know how to put this, because there was alcohol people would sneak in. But when you take readily available alcohol at the bar out of the mix, and then you take the fact that you\u2019re not in a dark room and it\u2019s not super late at night, you\u2019re less likely to run into problems. I soon found out that the other end of it is definitely true when I started working shows at clubs right after that, where I realized problems are very easy to find once you add those things in.<\/p>\n

Tell me about your single best experience running a show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My single best experience with a show I ever had was\u2026it wasn\u2019t the\u00a0best\u00a0<\/em>experience, but I turned a corner on one particular show, which I\u2019ll never forget. It was right when the venue Reggie\u2019s opened up, and I ran a show for\u00a0The Dwarves<\/a> on Halloween. I was working for MP Shows at the time. I was a very low-tier employee; I was just starting out. There was a big fest out in Florida that all the punk rocker kids in the city would go to, called Fest. It was always over Halloween weekend, and literally they had no one to run this show. It was a trial by fire show, because I knew it was going to be packed. [The Dwarves] were\u2026I love those guys as a band; not the easiest dudes to deal with, cuz they\u2019re old and crotchety. They also didn\u2019t have gear, so I had to rent them specific gear that they wanted. And it was on Halloween, so you up the liquor consumption and just people being asses. It was just fucking crazy. I\u2019ll never forget when I came home from that show I felt like I just gave birth. I for sure popped my cherry that night.<\/p>\n

What is the most important thing bands and promoters can do to get people through the door?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It probably starts with the club a little bit. You will know right when you walk through the door of any club if the staff and the club want you to be there. I really am a firm believer in that. If they\u2019re accommodating, if they\u2019re down with whatever\u2019s going on, and they\u2019re welcoming, you will get that vibe right off the bat, and then it\u2019s like you\u2019re walking into someone\u2019s house as opposed to almost being an intruder in it.<\/p>\n

As far as the bands getting their friends or fans to show, you know, the number one thing a band can do to shoot themselves in the foot is playing too often and compromising your draw doing such. Just try and get your friends to come out first and build from there. If you\u2019re a five piece band, there\u2019s no reason why everyone in the band shouldn\u2019t be able to draw two people out to a show on any given night.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s one thing bands do that pisses you off?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The majority of shows I book I will literally say in every email right before I\u2019m about to confirm, \u201cAre there any shows around that time you\u2019re playing, especially in the area, and if not, can you just keep it that way?\u201d And they immediately say, \u201cNo there isn\u2019t, and yes we will.\u201d And then I\u2019m a hawk. I check my feeds all the time, and I check club listings religiously, because the key is this: I want to see the next band that\u2019s popping, and in order to do that I need to keep my ear to the ground, so I\u2019m not some dude who just sits and says, \u201cAll right, I got my shit booked. Fuck everyone else\u2019s.\u201d No, I see what\u2019s going on. And there\u2019s always some excuse. It\u2019s always, \u201cWell, you know, we\u2019re doing a favor for someone.\u201d Well, I can\u2019t analyze favors or whatever, but at the same time, long story short is they\u2019re getting greedy with it. They\u2019re in a situation where they\u2019re like, this show might have a shitload of people at it. We\u2019re trying to get fans from both sides. And I understand they\u2019re trying to build their name, but once a word gets tarnished with me from a band it\u2019s hard to get it back to that standing. But there\u2019s some bands who have kept the same rapport since day one with me, cuz they stand by their word and it\u2019s fucking great. So that would be the number-one thing they do: they play too much and do that whole thing.<\/p>\n

Or another thing is showing up\u2026I don\u2019t want to say showing up late, but showing up with their heads up their asses. You can show up late and be organized: we\u2019re getting it in, we\u2019re fucking double-timing it, and it\u2019s fine. But if you show up and it\u2019s like, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Actually, if I take this all back, the number-one thing which is really becoming a problem would be the band that has too many cooks in the kitchen. You gotta have, in theory, a point man for each band that you\u2019re in. Or some people have multiple ones, but you have to at least be on the same page with shit. So literally I\u2019m in a situation where a band might email and be like, \u201cAll right, what\u2019s the details for whatever show?\u201d I\u2019ll give it \u2018em, and then the next day someone from the same band will email me, \u201cSo what\u2019s going on?\u201d And it\u2019s like, dude, you\u2019re obviously not communicating, and that annoys me. I actually sent a pretty nasty email to someone recently and said, \u201cListen, I\u2019m not talking to you guys until you decide at a band practice who you want to talk to me. When you find that out, email me and say this is gonna be the guy, and then we\u2019ll discuss shit.\u201d And they just didn\u2019t fuckin\u2019 get that. They have yet to email me back with that. They eventually will, I\u2019m sure. I don\u2019t wanna talk to multiple people; I don\u2019t have time to reiterate the same shit about the same mundane details. So that would be my number-one pet peeve at this juncture.<\/p>\n

All right, we\u2019ve both been doing this for a little bit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely.<\/p>\n

So how has the fact that everyone\u2019s using Facebook and social media changed your role?<\/strong><\/p>\n

From a promoting standpoint, it has made it easier. It\u2019s very easy to get the word out and shit. Back in the day, I remember when we were coming up a lot of stuff would fall through cracks if you didn\u2019t have your ear to the ground. It would be like, \u201cThat band\u2019s playing\u00a0tonight<\/em>?\u201d It was very word-of-mouth, very flier-based, which I miss. Back in the day, if you didn\u2019t have a fucking handbill for your show, your show was going to hurt. The majority of my friends coming up, we had fliers on our walls. It was kind of makeshift wallpaper. You either put it up to remember it or as a badge of honor that you went to a show.<\/p>\n

I had it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I miss that aspect of it, because the fliers come secondary, and because of it the other thing I think fucking sucks is you\u2019re in a situation where it\u2019s very easy to be in a band based around social media these days. If you have the Facebook likes, if you have the ability to spread it around, you\u2019re going to be able to leapfrog people that have been putting way more grassroots work in before you have. So before, man, it was sort of a pecking order. You start at the bottom and work your way up. And if your band progressively gets better, you\u2019re going to succeed over time. Now it\u2019s not necessarily the case. Bands will leapfrog each other all the time because of social media or whatnot. Just the way it fucking works. The funny thing is a band\u2019s popularity is deceiving. So-and-so band can post something on their Twitter or Facebook and get a bunch of likes, retweets, what-have-you, but you don\u2019t know who\u2019s fucking liking that shit. It could be their girlfriends, their co-workers who don\u2019t care about music at all.<\/p>\n

So I miss the old days, but it does make it a lot easier, because with the click of a mouse or keyboard I can spread word to hundreds of people that a show\u2019s going on. So maybe in my older age, now that I\u2019m in my thirties, it works out better that way. Cuz if not, I\u2019d be doing the old-school thing, which I did, standing outside every show in the cold and all that shit, passing out fliers.<\/p>\n

So along with that, you\u2019ve been doing this\u00a0here\u00a0<\/em>[in Chicago]\u00a0<\/em>for a long time. Is there anything that\u2019s special or unique about this scene that makes you want to keep being involved in it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think we have the most organized and respectful heavy music scene in the United States. I\u2019ve seen a lot of \u2018em. If you go to Brooklyn, they have the great bands coming through and they have the great clubs, but there\u2019s an attitude about it, and if you don\u2019t look or act a certain way then it becomes, \u201cI\u2019m just gonna go sit at the bar.\u201d These days especially, man, when a touring band comes through Chicago it takes a lot for kids to be like, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m just not feeling it.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll get that Midwestern hospitality in some cities. For example, Pittsburgh is a great one for that. That city in particular is great because it is the gateway to the Midwest but also touches the East Coast, and they recognize the East Coast occasionally has a more stuck up mentality in certain areas and they want to get away from that a little bit. You\u2019ll find though in smaller markets, clubs don\u2019t sound as good or the organization isn\u2019t there. So we have the best of both worlds here.\u00a0And the thing is, if a club here has their head up their ass and they don\u2019t accommodate bands or promoters to get a show rolling that would be organized and fun, then that venue will be short-lived. They\u2019ll get thrown under the bus right away.<\/p>\n

Okay, last thing. This is your opportunity to talk about any projects you\u2019ve got coming up that you\u2019re excited about.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To wrap up our talk about promoting, being in my thirties, I don\u2019t want to think I\u2019m on my victory lap with it, because I\u2019m not. I don\u2019t see myself stopping anytime soon, and I thought at one point I would\u2019ve.\u00a0 I thought when I was eighteen and I was hungry to do this that when I was in my thirties there\u2019d be an eighteen-year-old that\u2019s also hungry to do it. I haven\u2019t seen it yet. I see kids who have the idea, and they wanna be the cool kid for two seconds, but they lack the certain skills that either I\u2019ve picked up over the years or I\u2019ve taught myself in my own way. I don\u2019t see anyone who could take the reins and do what I do. The people who I feel are on my level from a promotion standpoint are all people that are older than me. And actually that\u2019s a huge feather in my cap, because I think I\u2019m the youngest person doing this shit that does it right. Like I learned a lot from\u00a0Shane Merrill<\/a>; he\u2019s about ten years older than me. He has ten years experience on me, and he does outstanding shows, and he\u2019s a good friend. I think he\u2019s a fucking great promoter. It\u2019s just frustrating though, because, again, there isn\u2019t a twenty-some-year-old nipping at my heels. I\u2019d welcome that.<\/p>\n

I think another problem any up-and-coming promoter has is they feel they need to be totally vested in a band in order to do their show. I like to think if there\u2019s a market for them here and fans are going to dig them, I don\u2019t necessarily need to be the big fan of them, because I\u2019m more representing the scene and what they want. If you have that mentality as a promoter, you\u2019re going to fucking succeed. If you don\u2019t, you\u2019re going to get tore up in two ways: you\u2019re going to find yourself leaving great shows on the table and not doing your job as a promoter and ambassador of the scene. And the second thing is when you do get a good band coming through, you\u2019re going to be so much a fan of that band and so stoked that you\u2019re going to run the show improperly. Meaning you\u2019re going to give that band too much money, you\u2019re not going to run it in an organized fashion, you\u2019re going to be front row when you should be at the door, and at the same time you\u2019re just doing it to stroke your ego and say, \u201cI booked so-and-so band way back in the day.\u201d There\u2019s no legs with that. There\u2019s no staying power.<\/p>\n

I think the best tip I can give anyone who wants to do promotion is be a fan of every band that you book, no matter what, in some way: I like this riff, or I\u2019m the biggest fan of them and all their records. And at the other end of it, don\u2019t be too much of a fan to them. Business is business. You have to be able to separate that, cuz if not you\u2019re going to have some band\u2026I mean, I\u2019ve worked with bands that I fucking worship that turned out to be, at least in that evening that I worked with them, total assholes. And I could either do two things, which is go cry in my pillow afterward, or separate that and be like, \u201cWell, I have a business interest in this too; let\u2019s try to make this work.\u201d At the same time, because of that, you can still remain a fan of the band, even if they\u2019re dicks.<\/p>\n

From a personal standpoint, I have a new project coming out. \u00a0Over the last five years, I\u2019ve been really into more garage-y type stuff, and that was a huge influence that I wanted to embrace with that. All my bands since day one have been pretty metallic, and we\u2019ve aimed to be crisp. This project is also crisp and metallic, but at the same time has that organic rock \u2018n\u2019 roll feel that I really wanted to embrace that I haven\u2019t been able to, frankly, in my whole music career. It\u2019ll pop around the New Year. And then it\u2019s shows from that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m excited to get back onstage, but at the same time I\u2019m not\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>excited, because my whole life is basically a fucking show. I never have separation anxiety. Doing what I do keeps me fulfilled one way or another.<\/p>\n

(Photo by John Mourlas)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the first installment of a series exploring what makes a heavy music scene tick. I will be interviewing the people in Chicago who take on tasks beyond playing in a band: promoters, visual artists, audio engineers, writers, etc. We\u2019ll learn about what it takes to build a thriving music scene and what motivates people to devote their time, effort, and expense when financial rewards and even appreciation are scarce. First up, I\u2019ll be talking with my old friend Eddie Gobbo about his work as a promoter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":35921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[478,12],"tags":[5195,2026,5193,5197,5196,5194,5198],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/gobbo.jpg?fit=1200%2C872&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}