well --- the "lead time" on organizing the next festival is coming up... any ideas? and how far are we now from clearing up the debt of the last one?!

robert bonotto
http://robertbonotto.homestead.com/index.html

Best chance for cracking the national media:

1) LOTS of lead time (set a date ASAP and start sending announcements now).

2) Multiple mailings (only flocks of mail seem to get on radar).

3) Hire a 'new music' PR company like Sacks & Co for a few months (yeah @ 3-6K per month - dreaming huh?)

4) Get Budd or Anderson or some other luminaries in the American music scene to play (and then get and 'Absolute Anderson' campaign going to pay for the PR company)...

5) Multi-level marketing of all those Cd's we gave ya'll (or sell 'em as coasters to a restaurant supply house).

Peace.

I knew Claiborne was from Mars. Those crop formation tatoos on his scalp were a dead givaway!
I'm also ready to see Heasley at this years Grammy win "Tuba Album of the Year". Maybe a duet with Sting?????

JB

I am also looking forward to Monepelier - We love that town, especially on a sleepy August evening!

Of course, its relevant isolation is a problem. I doubt that the Village Voise would have covered it if Kyle Gann hadn't been participating, but nontheless, it's a friendly, fertile environment.

Our concerns in Loondom are the same old liet motifs:

1) Better equipment over all, which includes PA systems with two sets of speakers, 1 big set pointing at the audience and a small set for the performers to monitor on. We, for one, will, if we're invited to return, bring our own monitoring setup this time (perhaps our own PA as well), just in case. On listening to the playback of our performance at Ought One, we found that we 'killed' pieces without letting them fade out normally simply because we couldn't hear the 'tail' of each piece. So a lack of monitors was detrimental to our performance.

2) SECURITY - is there any way to have a locked room with *VERY* limited access so that performers can stow their gear once their gig is over and enjoy the rest of the festival?

3) Less going on at one time. One performance at a time still feels optimum to us (of course that would call for an overly long festival), but four or six really feels like too many. And the lack of ticket takers, signs etc. led to more confusion and to less revenue for you (yeah, easy for me to say, as I didn't organize it).

4) More sponsors/advertising/visibility/signage if possible (if possible, find so pro PR/Fundraising person and let them have at it).

5) Some organized 'jam' sessions would be nice.

6) I agree with everything that Tom Heasley said (HI TOM!). I'm coming from an ex rock&roll background, and I'd love to 'pop up' a few pieces. I really follow Zappas dictate that New Music can be fun and entertaining as well as challenging. And perhaps it's not a sin if it's accessable as well. Lemme tell y'all a little story:

We haven't been able to penetrate the 'New Music Mafia' veil in NYC, so we've been laboring 'beyond the pale' to wit: The only clubs we've gotten into lately have been Rock& Roll clubs featuring punk/funk/metal bands and NYU & Columbia students boozing it up. And you know what? We come out after a Ramones clone band or an acid metal band and start looning into that Big, Loud PA, and they love us! We really shine with a powerful PA because our music is (technologically and sometimes timbrally) from that context. So we sound like a rock band from Mars or something, and they can relate.

These rock clubs that've given us a shot have given us the best, most exciting gigs we've had with people actually whooping and cheering - kinda ironic to say the least.

There was nothing reserved or staid about 'em and I got no problem with making a bunch of 20 year old co-eds hoot and holler, if it's on my terms, playing my music.

So we might be future-pop or xeno (really xeno as in off-planet) pop, or mutato-pop at times. I think some of those high-schoolers and college students around Montepelier might really get into SOME of the music and I for one don't want to scare 'em off.

So yeah, what Tom said....

Peace Y'all

Tom,

Fragmentation into too many categories has been nonpop's downfall in the mainstream media. Once you have visibility, fragmentation is fine ("No, my music is happy house dub, idiot!") It doesn't really matter what you call it, so long as it isn't one of the dreaded words, and it is simple. We've settled on nonpop for all our work now (including the NonPop International Network, http://nonpopradio.com/), and are beginning to make progress with that visibility.

Michael, John,

More later on this, but budgetarily, making the festival longer will be nightmarish. Every day of the last festival was another several thousand dollars in accommodations, food, rentals, and hired support -- and we scratched every source for discounts and donations. We plan to fundraise for a full sound staff this time, and more days = vastly more cost.

Also, the concentration on a weekend is good for public attendance and media coverage, with the constant options. I try to think of this as for the public as much as it is for us; I'm not sure we're ready for a more leisurely schedule, unless our sponsorship grows dramatically.

I'm not opposed to a longer festival in principle. I just know David and I can't do it -- the last one nearly did us in. We'd need a full support composer volunteer complement from the start (by this summer) to arrange for equipment, sites, volunteer staff, corporate fundraising, etc., etc.

John,

The Pyralisk project is stalled once again, last I heard. They are facing city code issues that are too expensive at the moment. I haven't spoken to them for a few months, though. I'd love to use that space.

All,

My own concerns, other than money, are better signage, better performers for the some of the music (we can talk about some disappointments), and satisfactory and bountiful equipment. The former and latter are solvable ... the performer issue is quite a struggle.

This weekend I was at a performance of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project ... about 60 musicians who are top-notch (and included two who played at Ought-One, Ha-Yang Kim and Nathan Davis of Odd Appetite). I've made an opening with the director, and it's possible to bring them to the festival at a substantial cost.

More as time goes by ... nothing's fixed right now, except "NonPop". :)

Dennis

Is the 'Non-Pop' designation really necessary, not to mention desirable? It's too easy. Things are not as "black and white" as they - perhaps - used to be, right? The cd I released last year was on the New Age Voice charts for three months. Hearts of Space recently featured it along with a Stuart Dempster track. What if Phil Glass, Laurie Anderson or Harold Budd want to come - just to mention a few? As far as that goes, I'd like to come...It's a very interesting and complex world we live in - shouldn't our activities and nomenclature reflect this? I for one would love to add a truly great 'pop' album to my discography.

Best,

Tom Heasley

John's idea of having only evening concerts would free up the days for sound checks, technical rehearsals, etc...

Back when feedback was being solicited on zip-one, I wrote some thoughts down, but didn't submit them. Well, I've reviewed them again, and find a few that might be relevant, though they are both a little pie-in-the-sky, not to mention wordy...

1. It would be great to have one venue that was a full-time theater or arts space, complete with permanently installed sound system and light system, and technicians who work for the space and know all the systems. I wonder if the Pyralisk (community arts space in Montpelier) will be finished by '03?

2. Less Days, More Nights?
One possibility is to spread the event out over a Thursday through Sunday time frame (or Saturday through Tuesday), with concerts only at night. This does several things:

- Frees up days for some participant-oriented things like workshops, lectures, demonstrations, softball games, cookouts, etc.
- Night-time concerts don't conflict with the audience's desire to spend a gorgeous Saturday afternoon outside. On a totally beautiful summer day (like Saturday, August 25 was), a lot of Vermonters I know will elect to work in their gardens, go for a canoe ride, hike in the mountains, etc., rather than go to a matinee concert.
- Week nights like Monday, Tuesday, Thursday don't have the entertainment competition of weekend nights. At least here in Brattleboro, Monday and Tuesday night concerts aren't competing with a lot of other entertainment opportunities like like bar bands, movies, plays, etc.
- Sound installations could keep running during the day.
- I understand that more days is harder for some participants to attend an entire festival, though, so maybe this one is a bad idea...

All for now.
--John

Robert,

A very good idea (the discussion group and the icepops).

Martha Mooke had requested time for a discussion group as well, but that, along with the improv sessions at night, got swallowed up in the Great Goddard Debacle -- i.e., no time left to get it done right.

This time, I think we have time!

Dennis

i'm VERY glad it'll be in montpelier again. i thought it was the perfect atmosphere for the festival (maybe we needed to sell icepops in the shape of Your Favorite Composer). i hope we can include a composers' discussion group or something, so long as we hide the blunt instruments first.
everbest
robert bonotto