By Greg Clow - courtesy of Stained Productions & Feedback Monitor

This past Saturday, Sheryl and I spent a good part of the afternoon postering Queen Street West for our upcoming Tape Delay event and toronto-underground.com. As always, we tried to be as careful as possible to follow a rough “code of conduct”, which basically boils down to trying not to cover posters for upcoming indie events whenever possible. Posters for major label artists, condo developments and such are fair game in our minds (they’ve got big-ass budgets to blow elsewhere, so they should leave the streets to us poor folks), but unless a fellow “little guy” has completely covered a pole with a whole buttload of posters that make it impossible to avoid covering one or two, we always make a point of trying not to cover their work.

We realize, of course, that this is a fairly naïve set of rules to live by, since the postering world in Toronto is pretty much lacking in morals, and any posters that we put up are generally ripped down or covered up within a couple of days. That’s fine, it comes with the territory, and we’ve learned to live with it.

However, on Monday afternoon, Sheryl was out on Queen doing some research for toronto-underground, and she noticed that a vast number of our posters were covered by posters for an upcoming industrial & electronic club night that is happening around the same time (but not on the exact same night) as Tape Delay. While we’re not paranoid enough to think that the DJ and/or promoter for this night has a vendetta against us and was out to specifically sabotage our work (I don’t think either of us have even met the guy), it still stuck in my craw.

So I’ve been stewing on it for a couple of days, and have dug up some past thoughts, and as a result, I’ve formulated the following rant which I’m going to subject you all to. It’s sort of a series of thoughts and tangents, so it might seem a little fractured in places, but hopefully my points will come across.

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RESPECT

It’s a small word, and a simple one. We all want it in one form or another. And I’d like to think that we all try to give it to others as much as possible.

So can someone tell me why the hell it seems to be so lacking amongst the movers and shakers in the “scene” here in Toronto?

Actually, let me qualify that: There are a good number of DJs, artists and promoters in the underground gothic, industrial and electronic scene in Toronto who DO have respect for their peers. I’ll give them some props a little later.

But the folks I’m talking about here are the ones that seem oblivious to the fact that they are working within a network of people who all have the same goal: to put together good, fun, cool and exciting events for people from the Toronto underground to come to and enjoy.

They’re the people who don’t seem to recognize that in order to keep things interesting and alive in the scene, we have to encourage musical crossover and explore new venues, new genres, new ideas.

They’re the people who don’t seem to realize that in a scene as small as the one we’re all operating in (and let’s face it - in the grand scheme of things, it IS pretty damn small), we have to work together and build upon each other’s work, and go out of our way to not screw each other over.

Now, don’t get me wrong - I’m not here to accuse anyone of being intentionally malicious or nasty. Yes, there are a few assholes and bad apples out there. But most of the fellow promoters and DJs in town I’ve met and dealt with - whether in the goth, industrial or electronic scene, or some combination thereof - have been nice and decent folks.

But sometimes, it just seems like they don’t realize that we’ve gotta stick together if we want to go anywhere. I don’t know if it’s an ego thing, or a competition thing, or just plain obliviousness. Whatever it is, it’s starting to piss me off.

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When we were postering for Tape Delay on Saturday, there were a lot of posters up for that evening’s Deep Sea Fish event at Reverb. Not exactly the same crowd, perhaps, but I know that more than a handful of people who were into old school industrial (which is the music that Tape Delay will be featuring) and who are now into the psy-trance stuff that Deep Sea Fish does. Hell, a couple of the DSF DJs used to be rivetheads!

I therefore made a conscious effort to try and not cover the Deep Sea Fish posters, since I view us and them as being part of the same extended scene. What’s good for us is good for them, and vice versa.

So you can probably understand how frustrating it is to find that someone else in the same position would not make that effort, and would instead cover a huge number of our posters with ones for another electronic event practically right away.

Postering is a hard enough process as it is. Lots of large record labels and other major companies think that plastering the streets with posters for some product or other will give them “street cred”, even though said product will probably sell a million copies without them monopolizing our space. And there are the meat markets down in the club district that can afford huge, glossy, full-colour posters which they use to cover every pole (and the posters on it) from here until doomsday. Not to mention the fact that city workers come around every few days to strip the poles in most areas.

Basically, we’re being screwed enough by the big guys. So getting screwed by our fellow little guys hurts just that much more.

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Last summer, Sheryl and I had a talk with DJ Lazarus where he brought up the idea of a bunch of local promoters, DJs, bands, etc. getting together and creating flyer packs to hand out at events and other places.

The premise was to get a sponsor to provide small bags with their logo and some sort of little incentive inside (i.e. get a candy store as a sponsor, and have some candy in each bag), and then have all the promoters/etc. provide a certain number of flyers each month which would be stuffed in the bags. Each promoter would then take a bunch of the bags to distribute at their events, and a schedule could be worked out each month for distribution at stores, concerts, etc. so the work was evenly shared.

We thought it was a great idea! It would help the promoters get their info spread farther and faster, and would hopefully expose audiences to stuff that they might now know about otherwise. There would be some issues to be dealt with, of course, like the fact that club owners don’t really dig propaganda for events at other clubs to be distributed in their space. But the pros would definitely outweigh the cons.

So I mention this idea to a few other promoters, and the responses range from apathy to “I don’t really want my events associated with so-and-so’s events”.

So much for THAT great idea.

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Of course, it’s not all bad.

Lloyd (DJ Lazarus) deserves a huge pat on the back for what he’s done in the past couple of years. The Darkraves bring together an amazing mixture of people from across the electronic music spectrum, from trance and techno to industrial and ambient. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the hard trance stuff that is usually featured in the main room, but I have a huge amount of respect for Lloyd (and his associates like Phink and others) who has managed to create such a popular event without compromise, and who continues to push the boundaries by including a side room which has featured everything from jungle to psy-trance to synthpop to dark ambient.

And then there’s Squid and his new Toronto Industrial Kollective. Barely born but already kicking ass, TIK is proudly blurring the lines between industrial, techno, electro and pretty much every other electronic genre that’s out there. Apparently, I’m already an honorary member or something, so you’ll probably catch me spinning at one of their events soon enough. :)

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In conclusion - a challenge.

This coming weekend is Victoria Day, considered by most people to be the unofficial start of summer in Canada. And summer is obviously the busiest and most successful season for club nights and other entertainment events. So starting this weekend, I challenge all of my colleagues to start making an effort to help each other out a little more, and to step on each other’s toes a little less.

I don’t mean that we should all start promoting the other guy’s work to the point that out own projects start to suffer. Just try and do some little things to make it better for all of us.

If you have an e-mailing list, use it to spread the word about other events that you think your subscribers might be into. If you’ve got an event coming up, contact your peers and offer to have a stack of their flyers by the door. Do some brainstorming to try and think up some ways to do things like cross-promotions and co-presentations.

And please, for the love of God (or Gaia, or Satan, or whoever) - TRY NOT TO COVER EACH OTHER’S POSTERS!

Greg

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