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"Moral Dilemna"

We've been asked to play the Essex Fm Roadshow this Sunday.
£400 for 30 mins in front of a couple of thousand people.
Now, my problem is this:

I despise local radio, Essex FM especially for churning out the same old pop noise and generally suffering from regional radio apathy. Do I refuse to do this, out of principle

Or

Do I agree, we take the money and use it towards studio time, equipment etc, you never know who might be listening and any press is good press etc?

They wanted us to mime and we point blank refused unless half-way through the song, me and the bass player switched.
So, at least we get to do it live.

But..Essex Fm?...it's gonna be screaming kids and Essex folks there to watch the station dancers to their stuff.

So, integrity and dignity or £400 and some "regional" radio exposure?

Just make sure you get paid prior to going on stage and then let rip! After you have exposed your music the wider public, you have to do something to make the public REMEMBER you. Swear, take your clothes off, have a fight, make a speech on something controversial, anything that will get you local or even national media coverage can only be a good thing.

Oh we're going to do it.
And we're going to love it.

Loads of little kids there to watch jugglers and a Robbie Williams Tribute band (I'm kicking him in the balls, when will I ever get a chance like this again?).

We play for 30 mins to a crowd that will look like dogs staring at the tv and then collect the money and come home.

Back on the Essex FM issue - it could certainly be worse.

My band once played at the Mercia FM (West Midlands) tent at the Stoneleigh Festival (full of farmers). The festival was good in that it had some of the first playable PlayStations I had encounted before launch but apart from that, pretty dire.

We had to play 3 times a day, 3 days running in a line up that included Strike (U Sure Do) and some guy from an australian soap.

The most memorable moments were watching a ten year old girl run full tilt accross the front of the stage, terrified with her hands over her ears (Rock 'n' Roll!) , and between songs hearing an announcement that the annual cow judging contest was about to commence.

I still shudder when I see the name Stoneleigh on the map. If you do it, good luck.

£300 for two midgets.
I thought that was quite expensive, but they were excellent.

Midgets should be in more bands, and Parker are setting the trend.

Nice blokes, top dancers and one of them is a stunt midget.

He does stunt-work for child actors in movies.
So, we had a stunt midget.

Beat that.

Yes.

Use the mighty midgets of rock!

Excellent.

I think we've found the answer.

We played Camden last night, and for one song, we had two midgets onstage swaying from side to side.
Lovely.

We rented two midgets and they tore it up!

Midgets rock, midgets in rock rock.

Essex Fm: Midget Music

Do it.

But end the set with screaming.

Lots of screaming.

And get some kind of exploding monkey action too.

You know, just a big cuddly monkey toy on set, that looks harmless enough, but stuff it with entrails and blood, and have it explode at the end of the set, covering the small children in blood and guts.

That would be cool.

On a side note - do you not think you could wrangle more than £400 out of them? A total no name band I was involved with got £250 from the local council for playing in a stage made out of the back of a lorry with a pannel removed, to a high street crowd of about 15 on Halloween evening.

If you've had radio play and your audience will be significantly larger, maybe they're not giving you enough.

Milk it for all it's worth!

Oh but drink, smoke and swear as much as you can :-D