Agreed. The Funhouse in Seattle is the same way with the juke box, but they turn it off between bands and the sound guy usually puts in a CD that doesn't gel with the music that's on stage. John Carlucci suggested a DJ and I think that's a great idea. I hired one for my show witht the Woggles back in 2005 and it really made a difference.

MikeL said:

BTW, a really cool jukebox can make the place a real draw. There's a place here in Pittsburgh called Gooski's; it's not much more than a neighborhood bar where bands play on weekends, but they have the coolest jukebox in the city, full of punk, post punk and garage rock classics, along with a smattering of glam rockers.

I like clubs that have a kind of coridoor shape with no barriers in front of the stage. The worst club I know is the Astoria in London because it cuts the audience off from the stage so badly with barriers even though the stage is as wide as the club. The Highbury Garage is so much better, saw Guttermouth there and it was a class act because the audience could interact with the band, like in the Underworld but without being able to fall over the stage.

Toilets should be cold and basic but enough of them. Also if you could soundproof them and play folk music with whistles then that would kick arse. I think the Panic Room in Essen pipes forest music or something there.

Keep the drinks in plastic beakers with no glass bottles. Glass gets broken on people's heads and on the floor and isn't pretty.

No comfy seats, it's a club for rockin out and not lounging. Plus I remember working in Octogon in Bangor (no garage music unless you are counting that British urban shite) that comfy seats got messed on and torn up easily. The retarded clientel didn't realise that the cushions they were sleeping on had been vomited on 3 times in one week.

Clubs don't need windows but if you could have some kind of food then that would be cool. Like hot dogs or something. Also what sucks in Germany is that unlike in Britain there is no law obliging clubs to serve free water. And if you have a shitfaced friend or are self in need of rehydration then free water is a must.

BTW, a really cool jukebox can make the place a real draw. There's a place here in Pittsburgh called Gooski's; it's not much more than a neighborhood bar where bands play on weekends, but they have the coolest jukebox in the city, full of punk, post punk and garage rock classics, along with a smattering of glam rockers.

Being fair to the bands. That reminds me. The person you have doing sound? Pay him or her from whatever the bar makes that night like you would any other employee. As a musician, I got screwed way too many times and then I found out why. Sound person got paid from door admission, FIRST. Ummm, nobody came to see him or her. And bands had to split what was left. Really? I pretty much started choosing only one place to play in town and that was the Funhouse. Only place where I knew the club payed the sound person like an employee and not a rental.

Okay, here's more. I meant to write more the first time around, but I got called away.... The biggest mistakes people make when putting a club together are cutting corners when it comes to the stage & sound system. C.B.G.B's was the biggest dive in town, however, Hilly was smart enough to invest in a great PA & very talented sound men. If you are a serious fan of music, that's where you should put your money. Everything else is a waste of money because it will just get trashed anyway. Face it, this kind of music attracts rowdy people. I've seen club owners waste money on fancy tile in the bathroom & six months later it's all covered in graffiti or cracked anyway. Stay away from cement floors, as Rod said, go with wood. Put as much wood as you can in the music room. Make sure the stage has enough room for at least a 5 piece band and that there are good monitors for the bands to hear themselves. (I agree a monitor behind the drums is also a good idea). Have a secure area for the bands to stash their gear in-between sets. Give the stage easy access for movement of gear from the parking lot to the stage. Ramps to the stage are preferable. Down time in between bands should be kept to a minimum or you an lose the crowd. So making it easy to move one band to the next is crucial. Have decent lighting so the band is visible for the patrons, but don't go overboard. Baking hot lights directly above a musician's head will kill the energy level onstage. Have enough electrical outlets for a full band on each side of the stage. A few fans for the musician's on the side of the stage can really help on a long hot summer night. Keep the admission price low & the drinks affordable. Especially in a recession. Once people are there, they will spend money on drinks but if the door price is too expensive they won't come. Be fair to the bands. They are what brings people through the door. Don't forget that. Make it worthwhile for them to haul all their gear to your club. Pay them & let them have some free drinks. Treat them with a little respect. You're all in this together. Have a DJ in between bands that plays good music that will fit the theme of that evenings bands.

John Carlucci said:

Windows & mirrors are the worst thing you can put into a club for acoustics. It makes for high end distortion.

really like the Dead Boys, during the same year I got into Velvets, Television, MC5, New York Dolls etc

Yes, scales. There should be all kinds of blues and country (yes, country) tabs out there.

"One day I was listening to a DJ play Presley's 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' - I turned the radio up and shouted, 'That sounds just like us playing!' At last someone was recording country music with a beat. That's what Rockabilly music, or Rock & Roll was to begin with - a country man's song with a black man's rhythm. I just put a little speed into some of the slow Blue's licks." -Carl Perkins

All the 60's garage guys learned from early rock and rollers and blues guys (Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, etc). Learn those and songs and you'll know half the stuff from the Beatles, Yardbirds, Animals...and the list goes on

You'll be able to tweak it so can control when the feedback kicks in or not. If you want it to feedback the whole time you'll be able to set it to do that to if you want.

Petulant Child said:

so it will always feed back with the pedal plugged in and its just a matter of tweeking it so that i like it?

Mardy Pune said:

Rats are cool pedals. I reckon you'll be fine. You'll learn how to control the feedback by setting the gain levels on the rat and amp and work where you can stand to be able to control the feedback; proximity to yer amp will have a big bearing on the amount of feedback you'll get and how you can control it.


Petulant Child said:

I have a rat pedal and a peavy trans tube amp thats about 9 years old

Mardy Pune said:

Hollow bodies are great for feedback or bad for feedback depending on which way you look at it. Personally I love the feedback you can get out of a hollow body. What sort of pedal/amp setup are you going to use with it?

I have a knockoff of a Gibson 137 (anyone ever heard of a Crestline?) that I've been using with the natural crunch of a new Vox combo (VOX AC30VR it's a 30W 2x12 transistor with a tube to warm it up). I have a HiWatt that I use on special occasions. The sound is god-like in perfection.

so it will always feed back with the pedal plugged in and its just a matter of tweeking it so that i like it?

Mardy Pune said:

Rats are cool pedals. I reckon you'll be fine. You'll learn how to control the feedback by setting the gain levels on the rat and amp and work where you can stand to be able to control the feedback; proximity to yer amp will have a big bearing on the amount of feedback you'll get and how you can control it.


Petulant Child said:

I have a rat pedal and a peavy trans tube amp thats about 9 years old

Mardy Pune said:

Hollow bodies are great for feedback or bad for feedback depending on which way you look at it. Personally I love the feedback you can get out of a hollow body. What sort of pedal/amp setup are you going to use with it?

Rats are cool pedals. I reckon you'll be fine. You'll learn how to control the feedback by setting the gain levels on the rat and amp and work where you can stand to be able to control the feedback; proximity to yer amp will have a big bearing on the amount of feedback you'll get and how you can control it.

Petulant Child said:

I have a rat pedal and a peavy trans tube amp thats about 9 years old

Mardy Pune said:

Hollow bodies are great for feedback or bad for feedback depending on which way you look at it. Personally I love the feedback you can get out of a hollow body. What sort of pedal/amp setup are you going to use with it?

I have a '71 Harmony Meteor which sounds great overdriven. Really nice, controlled feedback with this one. It was really quite a find. I bought it back in '95 when I was trying to break into vintage guitar dealing along with my bandmate. Problem was, everything we were buying, we liked so much, we didn't want to turn around and sell any of it. I only paid $175 for it. At first I didn't like it much, and even after my friend did a bunch of work to it, it wouldn't stay in tune very well. It wasn't until I really decided one day that I was going to try playing it again, and often, that either one of two things happened, I developed a "touch" on this guitar, or it just needed to be played in order to be right. Either way it sounds awesome now, like a cross between an ES-335 and a Gretsch. Somebody mentioned Nugent; I guess you could also say it's a little like one of his Byrdlands, being that the neck is short and it's a thinline hollowbody. I played a cover of "Baby Please Don't Go" in one band with it, and the tone was strikingly similar to his . I play it through a '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb re-issue with an Ibanez Tubescreamer. I also have a Vox Distortion Booster which I used for leads.

I have a rat pedal and a peavy trans tube amp thats about 9 years old

Mardy Pune said:

Hollow bodies are great for feedback or bad for feedback depending on which way you look at it. Personally I love the feedback you can get out of a hollow body. What sort of pedal/amp setup are you going to use with it?

I have an EKO from the end of the 60's and think it's the ultimate rock'n'roll hard on!
Sounds like a frying pan and can't be tuned but it's great on distortion and fuzz! Feedback can be the only problem and before you gig with one you need to check your configuration on a high volume.

GENIAL !

Scopitone N°14 - SHEETAH ET LES WEISSMULLER

I 'veen been playing guitar for many years.I own a hollow body,a peavey t-60 and a gibson sg 1961 reissue.So now its time for my surf guitar.At the beggining i was sure about tha jaguar.I said there is no question,i am just gonna get a jaguar.But the mosrite idea occured to me.They are pretty expensive but here's the deal.

I just noticed several free tracks by Dan Melchior& Das Menace over at the Free music archive http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dan_Und_Melchior_Das_Menace/ - a few from his upcoming album Catbirds & Cardinals plus some "unreleased rarities." Not to mention the live on WFMU songs I'd already taken advantage of.

Thanks, Dan!

i don't know about folk punk, but this is some punk-folk: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/the-donegal-mafia/113945405297874

Maybe obscure isn't the right word. I think cover bands doing "indie" covers (as opposed to top 40) can still make money. But yeah, I get what ya mean.

Rockin Rod Strychnine said:

Really? The only way I can see a band getting paid well when doing obscure covers is if you're the opening band for a garage group who's now succesful doing originals and throwing in a few covers.

The Ills said:

Maybe its for the money, i think even doing more obscure covers, cover bands can still gig almost anywhere, and get a pretty penny for it.

Really? The only way I can see a band getting paid well when doing obscure covers is if you're the opening band for a garage group who's now succesful doing originals and throwing in a few covers.

The Ills said:

Maybe its for the money, i think even doing more obscure covers, cover bands can still gig almost anywhere, and get a pretty penny for it.

Maybe its for the money, i think even doing more obscure covers, cover bands can still gig almost anywhere, and get a pretty penny for it.

I bought my turntable at the Guitar Center of all places. They have some decent relatively affordable turntables & cartridges for DJ's in their live sound department. Mine has the pitch control you speak of. I also added a phono pre-amp I picked up at Fry's and I'm in vinyl heaven.

Rockin Rod Strychnine said:

I thought those two small buttons on the front near the left were what you used to change between 45 and 33. That knob with the red light? I remember some kind of turntable that had a pitch thing like that. When the red light came on, you knew youhad correct speed.