Also worth noting, David Medaris has more at The Daily Page regarding the MAF.

http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=24287

TrueEndeavors has done a lot for artists outside of Madison and nothing for artists inside.

I'm glad this is out in the open because those rumors have been circulating for too long on the local music scene. Glad too see them shot down.

To Anonymous: When has money ever been interested in helping anyone? Tag is a business man. Business people are interested in making money, so I guess it's no suprise that he obviously doesn't go out of his way to help anybody.
And I'm sure you can ask anyone who's worked directly with him in some way. Like most business people, he's a dick.
But hey, at least he gets some good acts into town. I mean, if he didn't, who would? Oh, I guess someone else probably would. ROCK AND ROLL!

I thought as another major concert promoter in the market I could shed some light on this...

It is all too easy to attack the big bad business man, who is trying to make money.

Frustration kicks in for people like Tag and I because you don't know the process that goes into putting your band on a bill. First, we have to submit you to the bands booking agent who then submits it to the bands manager who then asks, "will they help the show?" We have to say yes at this point, if we say no, they say no.

So then when the band doesn't put the show on their website, doesn't tell us that they have a show at another venue where they are headlining two days later (and thus telling all of their friends to go to that show instead,) doesn't pick up flyers or handbills, and then show up with an attitude to match, acting as though you are doing us the favor, you can guarantee yourself, that your band will never be playing on a national bill again. Because you have made us look bad to the people we depend on to pay our bills.

This is what happens 90% of the time. Other things that local bands have done at the Majestic that can guarantee that they won't be back. Trashing our dressing rooms. When the Hold Steady is backstage putting beer bottles back in boxes and throwing away garbage, we have little tolerance for your desire to play rock star. Real touring musicians don't trash dressing rooms, and they don't throw tv's out of hotel room windows either, This doesn't make you cool, or punk rock, it makes you a jerk.

The onus is not on promoters who make their living on national tours to help nurture the local music scene. The onus is on the local bands to create a scene that is valuable to promoters. Make it impossible for us to ignore you. We put local bands on every show that allows it. Tonight we have two. We want to help, we want to nurture, but do not make the mistake of acting like something is owed to you because you play in a local band.

Several local bands "get it." They show up with no egos, don't harass the headlining band, soundcheck quickly and stay out of the way. These are the bands that continually get asked to come back time and time again, and the bands that we tell agents they should keep an eye on. Some local bands decide that they can do it better on their own. We've had two recent examples of bands who have rented out our room to put on their own show, and both have made money doing it. These are the bands that will create the Madison music scene, not the other kinds mentioned above.

Anonymous...

What band are you in?

I repeat: I have never at any time asked a band to pay to be on a bill.

I'm cool with you going public with the your specifics.

What band are you in? When did this conversation take place? Who else did I make this offer to?

This is either a misunderstanding or a flat-out lie. But you're free to come out from under the shadows and take your shots in public sans the cover of anonymity.

Local bands contact me all the time about opening shows. We evaluate whether they're appropriate for whatever slots we have available, and those we think might work, we pass on to the artist in question for approval.

Regarding the other anonymous poster: we do go out of our way to help others. In the past two weeks we raised over $1800 for Breast Cancer Recovery Inc, and another nearly $300 for the Keep Wisconsin Warm Fund.

No doubt there are some who don't like me out there, but it's not everyone.

We can do better at True Endeavors in terms of meeting the needs of the artists we work with and the fans that attends the shows we put on.

And we can do a better job of facilitating the needs and interests of local artists. Like any endeavor, there's always room for improvement.

But it's absolutely not true that we don't work with local artists, nor is it true that we've ever insisted that a local band pay to be on a bill.

By the way, Amendment #26 was voted down last night. This big bad businessman is very glad that the local arts scene survived an attempt from conservatives on the Council to eliminate the Municipal Arts Fund which for 30 years has supported public art in Madison.

If you don't know what I'm referring to, read my blog, referenced above, in its entirety.

Perhaps we should have a public meeting to discuss ways in which the local music scene can be built up, particularly from the standpoint of local bands and artists.

Perhaps Jesse could moderate. Scott, Cathy Dethmers, Darwin and I could share our experiences and perspectives, local artists could do the same.

Positive engagement and interaction helps the local scene. Constructive criticism/feedback is cool and needed. I'm interested in building up, not tearing down. We're in this together, and that's how we move forward.

Tag didn't mention this but the entire True Endeavors MySpace page is dedicated to promoting shows being opened by local musicians and recruiting local acts as openers: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=57553895

ok I am gonna make this as quick as possible tho this is understandably complex shit everyone has a lot of time and emotion invested in and believe me i understands. I have played A LOT of shows in Madison and my time there helped launch my music career. I played a TON of venues for a TON of diff ppl while I was there and as far as building the local scene I have this to say: 1.) i never opened for a "national" the whole time i was in madison and I am not upset about that, most of the nationals that come to madison are not household names and will not help you advance in your music life at all (generality i know) 2.) it is a PROMOTER job to promote, I know in this day and age some/a lot of the promotion burden has been put on the bands. I am a guy who did a massive amount of "grunt work" in madison. I even got hot coffee thrown in my face tryin' to hand out handbills...no bullshit. Trying to judge a band "worthiness" to play on your bill based on how much of YOUR work they are willing to help you (and in turn themselves, i know) with should be considered extra credit or bonus points. Look, I honestly don't care as I am long removed from madison but I have a bunch of friends there still in this grind (who brought this to my attention) and this is the very grind that help get me going and pushed me out the door. I speak very highly of madison and my time there but in all honesty the local bands don't get a lot of love and I know that and I also know a lot of them are entitled schmucks but those ppl need to be outed and weeded out and not considered in opinion and performance (their choice) Finally I went to Tag's myspace page and saw a you tube video that starts with "bringing music that matters to madison." I think it needs to be more about the music that matters that's already there. If you put a local band headlining a night and put all that oompf behind it and the band played by the rules (i.e. no headlining gig two nights away) then I think you would see the ppl of madison recognize their local talent as "mattering" as much as the national acts you bring that most ppl haven't heard of anyway. One last note since you dropped how things are in big cities... in most big cities LA etc. if you work with a promoter you can not have a date locally (or within a certain mileage radius) within 14 days of the date (on either side) you are negotiating with them and if you break that you are off the bill (that's why you sign contracts.) Oh yeah, and Pay to Play is a fine line to walk, in most cases if you have a decent draw you have nothing to worry about. It goes like this for example: contract reads you have to have 25 paying customers at the show to see your band (the person sits at the door collecting cover charge and keeping a list of who you have come to see, they ask you right away) for every person under that 25 you negotiated you have to pay the difference. For 25-49 ppl all cover charge is split 50-50 with the promoter. 50+ for your band 100% cover charge goes to the band. This is pretty standard for a weeknight gig with a "decent" national or band that draws well. extrapolate these numbers up for bigger shows....pretty fuckin' simple, it keeps your slacker douche bands from even trying to get these slots cause they know they are only gonna draw ten heads and they just wanna write on their myspace "opened for 'fill in the blank '"there goes your ego talk you had b4 which was spot on. You wanna support your scene go to the shows, spread the tunes, call a friend and say "hey man I saw this band and they rocked" simple as that. I got mad love for ya madison but you have always been just a little off the mark from my standpoint....but I LUHVS YA!!!!