No publicity please!
by James Glazebrook
What really bites is that we would have been allowed entry if we were on the press list. The only reason we weren’t was that I deliberately chose to buy tickets, to put money in the pockets of one of my favourite bands, Innerpartysystem (a fledgling group who, in this tough climate, have already been dropped by one major label). I would have posted Zoë’s photos here, and written a no-doubt glowing review (they’re amazing live) for BANG BANG BERLIN.
But it turns out the venue doesn’t want the publicity. I don’t know about headliners 3OH!3, but IPS are smart enough to know about the power of both fans (which has kept them alive) and good content. This is a band whose punning Never Be Content EP was launched with a video, below, all about the potential of media, marketing and advertising – albeit for harm. They know that the more words and images “out there” about them, the better.
So this must be the venue’s policy. But it doesn’t appear on their website, their tickets or even on notices at their doors. And they’re using is as a reason to turn people away, while tickets are left unsold at their box office. I understand why Berghain don’t allow cameras, because the lack of records of the superclub’s inside space actually adds to its legendary status (and leads to bonkers descriptions like this). But, Columbiahalle’s little sister venue is certainly not Berghain, nor are the clubs that are rumoured to be adopting similar policies. In fact, we don’t know what these places are like, because we aren’t going to them – and without any publicity, no-one else will.
So fuck you very much C-Club. Here’s hoping the city’s red tape chokes you off real soon.
[…] that space where mine and Zoë’s music tastes collide: emotronica. We love Depeche Mode, Innerpartysystem, School of Seven Bells, Linkin Park (yes, really)… and now we love […]
C-Club won’t let you, and neither will the majority of places that care about keeping any kind of mystique. It’s not them, it’s you. Please wake up to the fact that they do not need any extra publicity. Do not take it as an affront – Berlin’s bubble is bursting all the faster when people document the very features that make it special.
Thanks for the comment Ed, it’s good to get another point of view on this.
The thing is, I’ve been to C-Club and I’m not sure what makes it so special that photos of it would lead to it being overrun. Unless it’s Berghain, a venue’s a venue’s a venue – doubly so when I’m there to review a gig. I’ll get photos of the band, write it up, and spread the band and venue’s name further.
Also, Berghain is always full to capacity so legitimately has no need of publicity – but the gig we went to wasn’t even sold out, which suggests that a little cooperation with media wouldn’t hurt C-Club.
Honestly that’s just how some venues are. Many venues in LA are like that. You need a press pass to bring large (professional dslrs) cameras in.
That stuff drives me as crazy as the majority of music videos being blocked on YouTube in Germany because GEMA and YouTube can’t agree on pay-off and record labels seem to side with GEMA. Is that worth losing the publicity YouTube can provide the artist and the label? Silliness.
Oh yeah, maddening. That made my 30 day song challenge, well, challenging! I appreciate the anti-corporate we-don’t-care-about-being-successful/popular vibe here, but sometimes they go TOO FAR.
I know! We missed using 70 different German verbs in sentences for nothing!!!!!
That really is a shame… 🙁
He was a big guy, naturalich, but yes – it is a sucky, small-minded, short-sighted attitude that I would expect of London but not here.
Life sucks when there is some little guy with a title who thinks he’s king of the toilet cubicle.