PRESS RELEASE: Reptet Announces West Coast Tour

[Johnny E]

Cafe Metropol, Los Angeles

[Chuck Nessa]

Cafe Metropol, Los Angeles

Looks like he's ready for a firing squad.

[John B]

We're doing a performance/workshop at Central Washington University in Ellensberg on 5/17, Seasons in Yakima on 5/18, TBA in Missoula on 5/19, Sandpoint, ID on 5/20 and a high school in the day on 5/21 then home. I guess the Sandpoint show would be closet to you. We had a show agreed upon for Center Stage in Spokane on 5/19, but the guy bailed out because of a big parade or something that he forgot about.

We're heading out to Seattle on the 17th for a few days. I was hoping to catch a show, but can't imagine we'll get too far beyond the city. Are any of these close to the city? (I know that Yakima isn't too close by but am clueless on the rest.)

[Johnny E]

We're doing a performance/workshop at Central Washington University in Ellensberg on 5/17, Seasons in Yakima on 5/18, TBA in Missoula on 5/19, Sandpoint, ID on 5/20 and a high school in the day on 5/21 then home. I guess the Sandpoint show would be closet to you. We had a show agreed upon for Center Stage in Spokane on 5/19, but the guy bailed out because of a big parade or something that he forgot about.

We're heading out to Seattle on the 17th for a few days. I was hoping to catch a show, but can't imagine we'll get too far beyond the city. Are any of these close to the city? (I know that Yakima isn't too close by but am clueless on the rest.)

No - none of those shows are very close to Seattle. Yakima and Ellensburg are both about two hours from Seattle and the others are farther. Bummer.

[(BB)]

Reptet killed at The Zombie Room (formerly The Spread, formerly The B-side) while also doing significant damage to a tambourine and a few alt.country.rock brain cells. Great energy, amazing musicianship and all around incredible show for the masses that assemble to witness the thunderous magnificence that is Reptet. Enjoyed meeting and talking with the whole crew.

If anyone has the chance to see this band and doesn't, you can not say you have lived a full life.

John, Hope you guys had a good show up in Sandpoint.

Bill

[Chuck Nessa]

I hope all concerned understand there are girls in this band.

[(BB)]

I hope all concerned understand there are girls in this band.

My apologies, I meant "guys" in it's most inclusive understanding.

The edition of Reptet that hit Spokane had:

John on drums

Sam (that would be Miss Sam for those keeping score) on trumpet, slide-trumpet, some even littler-er slide looking thing

Ben on bass

Ben (off to join the circus) on trombone

Chris on baritone and tenor sax

Izaak on tenor sax, bass clarinet and general chaos.

Edited May 21, 2007 by (BB)

[gslade]

hey all. I have a quick minute on a friends computer so I thought I'd give a quick recap. The show in LA was nice. We got a nice write up in the LA Weekly. Medjuck was there with his lovely wife. RDK was obviously there. Izaak came out dressed as a penguin for the final few numbers. Noise complaints from neighbors ended a wonderful night abruptly.

The SF show was crazy. It was packed with people spilling out into the street. The horns started down the block while ben and I flailed away on bass and drums in the club. Like the pied piper it seemed the horns had drawn the minions from the mission district to our little venue. One woman did handstands then whooped herself into a frenzy with one of our tamborines until she fell backward over our merchandise table. She laid there twitching her ass and thighes to the beat. It was trippy as only a San Francisco gig could be...or should be.

I hope to see gslade at the Mobius in Ashland tomorrow. Back to Seattle on April 4th just in time for the start of the new baseball season.

I am sorry I missed this show, Johnny. I had to work down in Sacramento, and then in Reno (my current part time consulting gig sucks as I end up never knowing what I am doing in the coming days and weeks). It sounds like the band had a very good west coast swing. I will catch up with the Reptet soon.

[Adam]

I'm flying up to Seattle today for a couple of days. Any shows?

[Johnny E]

Reptet killed at The Zombie Room (formerly The Spread, formerly The B-side) while also doing significant damage to a tambourine and a few alt.country.rock brain cells. Great energy, amazing musicianship and all around incredible show for the masses that assemble to witness the thunderous magnificence that is Reptet. Enjoyed meeting and talking with the whole crew.

If anyone has the chance to see this band and doesn't, you can not say you have lived a full life.

John, Hope you guys had a good show up in Sandpoint.

Bill

Well folks, let me back up a second and let ya’ll know how cool my friend Bill is. When our high profile, high paying gig in Spokane got canceled due to the Lilac Parade (the concert venue’s right on the parade route and the booking person forgot that their club closes the day of the parade) I contacted Bill to see if he knew of a place we could play in Spokane. We had a show already scheduled the next day in Sandpoint, ID about an hour away so we really wanted to score a gig in Spokane for that Saturday night. He gave me contacts which led to the gig, put the band up at his place for the night…ALL SIX OF US, and made us his homemade pizza for dinner (which was soooo tasty I couldn’t believe it – gourmet style!). His daughter is the most adorable little 6 year old you could ever meet…a musician in the making, she played duets on violin with our bassist Ben and on accordion with our sax player Izaak (on melodica) and she gave me really helpful tips on how to keep a hula-hoop going. I’ve never been able to figure those things out. Special thanks to Bill’s wife Karyn who I’m sure knew little about us before our arrival in Spokane. She was so welcoming and supportive - shared tales of their time in the Santa Cruz Mountains and hipped us to some Spokane history and current politics. Their house is beautiful and Bill’s record collection is quite impressive. Thanks for everything Bill and family.

Now the show itself has a back story... here goes:

I booked the gig at a place called The Spread. I clearly stated that we would only have a local opener if they were willing to except a 70/30 split of the door. If not, we’d do the whole night. This was clearly understood. Our publicist sent out all the press releases, press kits and posters a couple weeks before the show. A reporter from the Spokane daily newspapers entertainment section contacted us asking for a high resolution photo and bio. So I was under the impression that we were getting a write up. Well, I get an email and voicemail from the club owner 4 days before we’re gonna be hitting the road. Not only have they added two rockabilly/alt country bands to the bill and it was now going to be a three-way split for the door money, but apparently the name of the club is now The Zombie Room. I was livid. I told the guy that this was totally unprofessional and that we were very angry. I told him that I had to check in with the rest of the band to see if we still wanted to do the show, but we might not. After consulting with my band mates, we decided to go ahead with the show. We knew that the club would not tell people we weren’t coming and our ‘no-show’ would reflect negatively on us, not them. I called them back, said we’d do it, as long as we headlined. They said fine.

Well we get settled in at Bill’s place and I go and pick up the paper and wouldn’t you know it, the Rockabilly band has a big write up and we got jack shit. The local paper must have gotten word from the club and from the bands press folks that they were going to be there and they assumed that we were no longer playing. These guys are not very well known and it was their fist appearance in Spokane as well. So, of course the club is filled with folks with greazed back hair, wearing all black and swiggin’ the Jack Daniels waiting for some rackabilly. That band is now saying they want to headline because they got the big write-up in the paper. We’re thinking, “how else are these people gonna fuck us?” So we decided to go into our wardrobe and pull out our secret weapon…“The Pinks”. Occasionally when the time is right we all wear pink, with pink cowboy hats and crazy ties. This seemed like the perfect gig for it. We put together the most fire breathing set we could muster, complete with giant walls of free improvisation and absurd theatrics. The sound guy mic’d us up like a rock band. It was LOUD. The horn players were running through the club honking like an angry heard of shaven yaks. A lot of the men in black went fleeing the club to smoke cigarettes on the curb out front until we finished. Izaak did a Jimi Hendrix on his already badly beaten tambourine. Half way through our set the sound guy is saying “One more song!!!” We were like, “Fuck ya’ll, we got this gig high-jacked from us, we’re gonna play our full set – NO EXCEPTIONS! It was an angry set. The sound guy didn’t know how to handle us. We tore the roof off the sucker and showed them fools that a “jazz” band can kick some serious ass. I felt kinda bad for the band that followed though. They simply could muster that kind of intensity (and absurdity).

Now you have to understand, we were coming off a series of concert hall performances, college and high school jazz band workshops and the like. We were kinda getting used to being treated with a semblance of respect. We hit this gig and it was just horrid. We made $67 as a band on a Saturday night in Spokane. For a little perspective, we made $300 the next night, a Sunday in Sandpoint (population 6,000). The show itself I’m sure was incredibly entertaining to watch, but the way it all went down just left a bad taste in our mouths. Hopefully we can reschedule the original gig we had booked for the concert hall and come through Spokane again soon.

And again, thanks to Bill and his beautiful family for opening their home to us and being such big fans. Oh, and thanks for that Tchicai CD – smokin’!

-john

Edited May 21, 2007 by Johnny E

[RDK]

Sorry to hear the gig sucked, John, but it does make a great story.

Reminds me of that time Aykroyd and Belushi sang "Stand By Your Man" in the redneck biker bar!

[(BB)]

Hell, I didn't know it was that bad for the $$$.

We could have had a big ass Reptet BBQ and passed the hat and you probably would have come out better than that. Oh well.

Once again, it was a great time and I hope you guys/gals make it back this way soon.

Bill

[Johnny E]

Hell, I didn't know it was that bad for the $$$.

We could have had a big ass Reptet BBQ and passed the hat and you probably would have come out better than that. Oh well.

Once again, it was a great time and I hope you guys/gals make it back this way soon.

Bill

Yeah well, everybody knows it already, but you can't start to fully understand how sleazy this business is until you start dealing with some of these vile blood sucking scum known as club owners. Not all are like that, but a good majority have little to no regard for the musicians. Most refuse to use contracts and most ditch you the moment something (in their minds) better comes along. I'm certain that if we had gotten that write-up we could have played the entire night, had a better crowd and made a lot more money. But the owner made the decision that a rockabilly band would bring in more people than a jazz band. Hence, we got screwed. But I think that show may have been one of the more entertaining shows we played on our tour from a viewers stand point.

It's all good. The tour did well finacially so all's well.

And that pizza was so yummy!

Edited May 21, 2007 by Johnny E