Touring Smart (with Martin Atkins)

Another cool-sounding thing happening tonight (Thurs., Nov. 5th, again), this time for all your musicians & band members & whatnot out there. Seems Martin Atkins (ex-Killing Joke/PiL/Ministry/Pigface) will be holding a “band seminar” tonight from 7-9PM at the AvantGarden, where he’ll be talking about, well, the perils of touring.

He’s apparently got a book out called Tour:Smart and Break the Band, and from the Website, tonight’s deal sounds like it’ll be somewhat like the not-too-long-ago BandCamp stuff on the same subject, only with Atkins providing his perspective from years of being on the road with various bands. He promises that if you show up, you’ll learn “How to make more money on the road” and “How to get more people to come to your show,” both of which are fairly critical things if you play in a band with any aspirations beyond playing to your spouse and her friends twice and year.

It’ll be a 90-minute seminar — which is free, happily — followed by a 60-minute DJ set — which costs $5, according to Atkins’ site. If you want to check it out, you have to RSVP right here. If you’re interested (and hey, band advice for free is never a bad thing, in my book), do it quick, because they’ll apparently stop the RSVPing pretty soon…

(Big thanks to Marc over at Houstonist for the tip, btw; I’d have missed this one completely if not for him…)