JSB Tour

[Weight]

JSB is coming to the West Coast!!!

__________________________________

Thursday July 14

Nanaimo BC

Queens

Friday July 15

Victoria BC

Steamers

Saturday/Sunday

July 16/17

Vancouver BC

Media Club

Wednesday July 20

Nelson BC

Fluid

Thursday July 21

Goldon BC

The Roadhouse

Friday July 22

Edmonton AB

The Sidetrack Cafe

Saturday July 23

Calgary AB

Brew Brothers

Sunday July 24

Banff AB

Wild Bill's

Who's in??

[shainhouse]

See you in Calgary! Cowtown style!

[SaggyBalls]

JSB is big in vancouver.

(somebody dropped the ball and it sure as hell isn't the band...not a very pumpin' crowd but the boys did a bang up job)

i went both nights and was suprised yet again at the meek crowd.

that adjective was fully realized for me when big mike asked me at the folk fest wrap party 'what's up with all the meek vancouver people'...i am glad i'm not the only one that sees it that way.

another adjective i've come to use is 'timid' and 'unempowered'

sure they might be polite and nice...laid back and easygoing on the outside, just as stressed out and worried as everybody else on the inside - or so it seems.

glad to hear some key tunes and see some smiling faces.

and it was nice to finally meet keither!

glad there's some more personality in the crowd.

[p.p.]

On beautiful summer weekends (and weekdays) in most of the west coast, the last place a lot of folk find themselves is in a bar. Unfortunately, it hardly matters what band it is. Oh yeah, not to mention the tens of thousands of people who spent all last weekend on the beach, in the hot summer sun at the folk festival.

And then there's me, who found himself @ the JSB show (they were awsome!), then @ the Yale for Brickhouse (also awsome, but getting a little hazy), then in a hotel room puking my guts out. All round, a good night. I didn't make it for a second.

Hopefully, the boys are having a good rest of the tour.

[SaggyBalls]

can't expect everybody to come out for two nights, PP...

too bad in a way but it's the truth

[Del]

can't expect everybody to come out for two nights, PP...

Especially when they're charging $12 a night to see the same songs and jams they've been milking since 2003...

[c-towns]

how could you del?

p.p. puking? what is this world coming too?

They're in Calgary tonight, I'm not too excited and i can't even go.

[SaggyBalls]

yeah...cover was a shitstick.

they need to be playing bigger rooms. the media club blows. good on em for booking good talent, but it's the crappiest place i've been so far as i've been here...with the exception of the dover arms on denman but it at least had high cielings....

vancouver needs a live friendly medium capacity theatre venue with good sound...

oh do i miss barrymore's.

[Del]

yeah...cover was a shitstick.

they need to be playing bigger rooms.

They should earn the right to play bigger rooms... Maverick's wasn't even near capacity the last two shows they played in Ottawa... Why should they play Barrymore's? Charging a ridiculous cover, while playing the same old songs and jams at a smaller room shouldn't give them the right to play a bigger rooms... JSB is in a downswing... Unless they step it up and provide some new material and jams they run the risk of becoming a nostalgia act... An overpriced one at that...

[SaggyBalls]

for that price they need to be playing bigger rooms.

they still need to reach a new audience and get a bit more push and the only way to get noticed and seen as an 'event' act is to play bigger venues.

if a promoter could get a few key (good) jam acts onto a bill and get some media attention and push then it'd open up. the media doesn't want to push it and the jam promoters don't seem to have the avenues to get the music to a bigger audience.

the bigger guys don't care to touch jam in canada as the media turns its nose up at hippies, their music, and their smells.

it's complicated and competitive - a couple of the big hurdles live music has nowadays.

[Del]

for that price they need to be playing bigger rooms.

For that price they need to play better... Or charge less... When they earn the right to play a bigger room it will happen... Until then they are the next big thing that ALMOST happened from the east coast...

(Why is it you feel the need to tell everyone how to run a bar or venue?)

[SaggyBalls]

curious you bring that up since he pulled the plug rather than it actually failed miserably.

it wasn't around long enough to even get started really.

as far as my position...i'm not talking about shows or venues...i'm talking about push - you know - support? backing? clout?? nobody but us really knows about 'the scene' that we call jam. nobody's taking it to a level where anybody's going to notice it in canada and it's not because people aren't trying. radio doesn't push it, print media barely tries to help out - and even then it's only in cities where jam shows draw well or there's a hippy on staff.

Hamilton's a great example of how push works.

we don't see scofield playing ottawa or a club in toronto or the flecktones in ottawa for a non-jazzfest gig. the hammer has promoters that have a crowd and are able to get more people than just hippies and jamfans out to shows. the local entertainment rag has given the cover to jam artists...that never happened in london for me. i rarely got any push from campus radio except when the music director had a personal interest in promoting a show. I'd flyer and poster and they'd get ripped down and people I'd tell always said 'i've gotta see what my friends are doing'...and it was just a London mentality.

anyhow, i'm not about to get into this. you're just poking and prodding when you don't know the score. true you go to shows and love it but as far as i know you haven't tried to do whatI've done. I worked 80 hour weeks to keep a music venue open in a city that had few appreciative showgoers. when my club closed, the bacchus lounge and the rose and crown closed. it was a bad year for pubs, clubs, and live music venues.

but hey - what do i know. I was just there, involved. only to have a bystander try to belittle me and point out a surface negativity more than a year after the fact.

[shainhouse]

JSB played atleast 5 brand new songs to 120 screamin' fans in Calgary. I only recognized '80s Runway Model' and 'Now They Will Know We Were Here.'

The venue was awful and the sound crap, but they put on a good show. Can't fault them for not offering new material Jay, because I just saw first hand that argument is facetious. Loads of new songs... Very 80s sounding.

[SaggyBalls]

Shain's right. night 1 of the vancouver madness had only 2 old songs.

they're writing and writing and writing in the long while I hadn't seen them.

[hamilton]

Hamilton's a great example of how push works.we don't see scofield playing ottawa or a club in toronto or the flecktones in ottawa for a non-jazzfest gig. the hammer has promoters that have a crowd and are able to get more people than just hippies and jamfans out to shows. the local entertainment rag has given the cover to jam artists...that never happened in london for me.

I seriously hope that you aren't trying to compare JSB to Bela Fleck & The Flecktones or John Scofield. An article in View wasn't why Club 77 was packed full for both of those gigs.

[Del]

Hamilton's a great example of how push works.we don't see scofield playing ottawa or a club in toronto or the flecktones in ottawa for a non-jazzfest gig. the hammer has promoters that have a crowd and are able to get more people than just hippies and jamfans out to shows. the local entertainment rag has given the cover to jam artists...that never happened in london for me.

I seriously hope that you aren't trying to compare JSB to Bela Fleck & The Flecktones or John Scofield. An article in View wasn't why Club 77 was packed full for both of those gigs.

Well said hamilton!

[SaggyBalls]

well said but logically fallable.

if it wasn't for that little extra push the scene wouldn't be quite as strong. people find out, get out, and then keep coming out. if an article can get even an extra 10 people out to smaller shows, then 5 of them keep coming back for more, that's a few more new faces than you'd normally have - then those few people bring more people the next time and so forth.

i'm not comparing JSB to established acts. there's a reason those guys are more established and get paid way more than the canjammers.

Hamilton gets so much awesome music and it's all due to the hard work of the promoters and publicists getting the smaller acts more notoriety in the media. it doens't happen in too many places. look at almost every free entertainment rag and then look at how many of their cover and semi-feature stories draw parallels to exclaim magazine articles - or at least draw content from 'indie' rags.

I like JSB - the music and the band. they're a good time and are tight together. I don't generally go out of my way to see them too often but when i can i will.

anyhow, established professional acts generally draw regardless of small media push...scenes need that push to be able to bring those established professional acts.

you need one to get the other unless you want to lose your shirt.

[p.p.]

There's no need to get worked up in defense of someone lashing out on a band around here. From what I've seen in the past 7 or 8 years on these message boards is that people only start shitting on a band when they have a solid fan base already who is overly supportive. In other words if tonnes of people love it, some have to dislike it. It actually works in favour of the band if people lash out. Then there's more responses, more views of the thread and all round more promo. Sometimes in some instances, having people shit all over you in these messageboards is excatly what it takes to get a band into national publications like Relix Magazine, right Shane?

"All press is good press".

[hamilton]

if it wasn't for that little extra push the scene wouldn't be quite as strong. people find out, get out, and then keep coming out. if an article can get even an extra 10 people out to smaller shows, then 5 of them keep coming back for more, that's a few more new faces than you'd normally have - then those few people bring more people the next time and so forth.

Agreed, if you're talking about smaller bands, but the only examples that you chose to give were of acts that have been around for longer than the term 'jamband' has.

i'm not comparing JSB to established acts.

Then why mention established acts while discussing JSB?

While I agree that the promoters in Hamilton do indeed do an excellent job, you're overlooking some other factors - the most obvious one being Hamilton's location. People can get to Hamilton in less than an hour's drive from the GTA, Kitchener/Waterloo, Guelph, Brantford, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, etc. That makes for a population base of over 5 million people. Not every city is so fortunate to have such a highly centralized location.