Syracuse Ska Forum

How often do YOU think we should try to schedule ska shows in Syracuse?

I say every 2 weeks UNLESS we are blessed with the opportunity/ability to find a venue that will allow us to do a weekly show (for example a sunday matinee type deal) where we can charge a small fee (3 or 4 bucks) and vary the bands that will play each show (3 or 4 different bands a week). I think it would give any high school band or new band starting out the opportunity to get alot of practice performing in front of people and could easily accomodate touring bands who happen to come through the area and need a show on short notice.

If the bands were different each week nobody would become too sick of seeing the same band over and over again and if the venue allowed us to rent at a very cheap price we wouldn't have to worry about losing money. Especially if the bands were mostly local, or touring and looking for a show as opposed to money.

While this is very unlikely to happen I think in theory it would be very cool, if a kid could count on seeing a good show same place, same time every week or two for a cheap price, I'm sure each time they'd bring someone new, until eventually the attendance at shows significantly grew.

I'd be very interested to see what people thought about this idea.

I'd say once every 3 weeks.

It gives the locals that may or may not become staples practice with an audience but more on their own to practice in general.

As far as a big show like getting a big name out of towner...That should be rare. I mean come on you gotta build that need for it!

Having an affordable venue is no longer the issue. Now its just figuring out how much is too much, hence the poll. I've noticed there are basically weekly punk and hardcore shows (at least as often as not) and I'm wondering if that'd be overkill for us.

IF we could get a good Syracuse ska jam group assembled, doing a weekly show would be very easy. That's how Chris Murray got his weekly Bluebeat Lounge off the ground (2 years and counting now) in LA. It's always been anchored by the "Chris Murray Combo", which is Chris and whoever he can get to play with him that week. And of course, he's now joined every week by touring ska bands. For that sort of deal, I think we'd need to go on a weeknight like Chris did, because you really don't want to compete with everything on the weekends, including our own, bigger shows.

Honestly, I'd be thrilled if we even could get enough band members organized to pull off a Ska Night on a monthly basis, in addtion to monthly all ages shows that would keep going.

Once we locate a bar that wants a college crowd (the Half Penny Pub is no longer in that business), we can easily do a monthly college ska show night as well. The college thing needs a venue, but nothing else does now.

Well?????????????

Here's my take on it:

Currently there are not enough local bands to pull off weekly shows. Bi-weekly is pushing it. I would look at probably tri-weekly or once a month. The kids would get bored of seeing the same local bands every week, it happens. Also it would give the bands more of chance to focus on writing more songs.

So I would say all-local shows maybe once a month, and then any other bigger show you can get to the area, whenever possible.

Yea if you can get a bunch of bands in on it you could do it more frequently and just do a rotating schedule based on what people like. I didn't factor in affordable venue.

We've already proven we don't have to use local ska bands to fill the "local" slot on ska shows. We have and will continue to use non-ska local bands on local ska shows, when of course there are some solid out-of-town ska bands available for any particular date. Hobo Slobo was the main local draw on that Taj Motel Trio show and they did exactly what we expect a local band to do (turnout was hurt more by the last minute nature of the show). Joey Driscoll and Aiyana Catori have worked well too for local draw and they aren't ska either.

Unless we get a kind of local all-star ska band together that can play a lot (which would be a very cool goal), we won't use any local bands more than once a month and out-of-town bands far less than that.

Don't worry about that part. The real question is: How much ska is too much?

I'm addicted to good ska and would happily see bands every week (a la Bluebeat Lounge) if they were mixed in with other good acts (local and not).

I guess that I'm really wondering if anyone else feels that way ...

We have a couple non ska openers but even they have been repeated allready. Punk and hardcore can do a million shows cause there are a million bands from all over. 2 week intervals are fine.

I vote every two weeks. The Ska Jam night sounds like a really great idea, if we can ever get it together. I'd totally be there for that whenever I could. But as far as regular local shows goes, every two weeks sounds good because I think by the end of this fall (if The Benefits get back together, and The Push thing works out), we'll hopefully have enough local ska/non-ska bands to keep it interesting and still give the bands who aren't playing that night enough time to practice.

Personally, I too would love to have a show every week with a different Ska Jam crew there and then a couple different bands each week. That'd be a really awesome thing and I would totally go out to.

If it's non-ska opening bands you're looking for, the Ska Jam would provide a great oppourtunity to try bands out. We could just talk to them and tell them that we want to have them play for us, but it's just so we can see how our crowd reacts to them, and then we'll go from there with them.

Big shows are fun. The frequency of touring bands here in Syracuse is good enough for me right now.

ive gotta say one all ages show a month. i think with this plan kids would be really thirsy for some ska by the time the next show comes around. this of course would mean more kids would attend each of the shows, which is what we want of course.

however i think in addition to one allages show a month i think we could do a college show and/or a large show in the same month and not run into problems. a large show would be a band like reel big fish, streetlight manifesto or the pietasters.

theres my two cents

i would have to say about once every 3 weeks or a month. if we did a show weekly, kids would have the mentality that its ok to miss the show cause they could just catch the one next week. if we havea show monthly or 3weekly(dont think that can be counted as a word), we draw anticipation for the show because people are anxious to see a show by the time a month rolls around. we just dont have enough local bands to ensure that the shows wouldnt get repetetive- people would get tired of hearing the same acts over and over and turnout would most likely drop.

there's my 2 cents as well

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pete