deathbydanny

I already posted my question and long ass backstory in your announcement thread, but I'll just copy and paste it all here.

I am the guitarist in a hardcore punk band. Before that, I was half of an acoustic guitar duo, and yet before that, guitarist in a straight up punk band. The punk band was pretty easy to book- venues were practically a dime a dozen, there weren't very many punk bands (meaning punk kids would practically flock to any punk band) and we were one of the longest running local punk bands, lasting ten years.

Now... the scene is equally as starved for hardcore punk. Yet, it's next to impossible to get booked, because venues have closed in droves, and the ones that remain open... not to sound stereotypical, but they're pretty much nothing but hipster hangouts. Of the venues that still book, they'll only book their friends' bands (which invariably last a couple of months) and, from the outside looking in, despite the fact that we're different, that we have a great sound (IMHO) and that, when we "tour" (meaning one of the members has enough extra money to pay for gas to go out of town), our crowds are surprisingly great. Yet, getting booked is next to impossible, because we aren't friends or otherwise known to hipster bookers, and though we've gotten many a compliment on our demo, we still get the "this isn't the sound we're looking for" bullshit pretty often. (EDIT- we even get this when we've played a venue before and made them tons of money. Bookers around here have only one thing in common- a reluctance to book "non-indie" bands. Bookers around here rotate like the punchline to a joke, but yet we always get the same "not the sound..." crap. However, again, when we play out of town, we get some great reception but can't really afford to tour all that often.)

Sorry for meandering, but I wanted to give a little backstory since you'd mentioned this:

If you want to know how to get good bookings with your favorite acts, how to expand your fan base, how to (and how not to) get invited to play the best venues, I’ll be there to spill.

Yes, I want to know all that. Would you kindly indulge me?

• How long were you in the coma?
• What was your experience like while you were under? (dreams, vague awareness, "trapped in a dream", etc.)

Fellow GERD/hiatal hernia sufferer here, with the great pleasure of acid burning so many ulcers in my esophagus and stomach that I quite literally have to stop or extremely cut back my intake of acidy drink and spicy food, lest it turn into a malignant cancer.

Feels.

Sort of unrelated, but oddly, my gastroscopy wasn't all that bad. All I remember is being told what they were about to do, and then waking up and it was done. Functionally, it was like being put to sleep for half an hour.

The news I got when I woke up sucked, but the procedure itself wasn't terrible.