What cities of Europe do you think is more positive than others to visit when you're in a band who wants to tour and sell shit.. I have heard that BERLIN is the new centre of the earth? London - overrated? what about Paris? Prague and all of this places.. Does anyone know better than me? (I think it is not hard)

best wishes

countrybojj.

France (and Paris first) is shit...There's real rock'n rollers in France but nobody listen at them..Take a chance as a stranger (perhaps you would sell a few vinyls !!)

Since the topic is here and is being re-used I just wanted to point this out: Portugal is always good.

I know, coming all the way just to do a show in Portugal is hard and expensive but if you are next door, in Spain, its totally worth it to drob by for a couple of gis in Portugal.

Lisbon has some cool places that host as many events as bands want to come and play. There a thirst for good live acts and people are appreciate of the bands' effort to come and play for them. Also dont be put off if you find yourselves in the south side of the river, they have an active scene with great stuff happening with dedicated crowds in the most unlikely venues.

If you are in the south check in “Loule” (town) for “Bafo de Baco” (venue) its THE spot for rock/garage/punk in the “Algarve” region.

If you are in the northern area go to “Porto”, its the second largest city.

Spain's always a good one, Germany, Italy...most of Northern Europe in fact!! South of England is tough...mostly fairly depressing and demoralising!!! North of England used to be more like going into Europe, maybe it still is...haven't done any shows oop North for a while, with the exception of Edinburgh earlier in the year, and Glasgow last year [both great shows by the way].

Bands are very welcome to come play the Fratcave in Bristol if you are doing a tour. You can contact us through the Hi Class Joes page. The gigs are small 50-100 people but we pay you reguardless of wether we brake even or not. We have an all Vintage pa system and vintage amps and drums should you need them. Bristol is 120 miles west of London.

haha yeah this tiwn is a french Manchester !

sometimes at the entrace of the town there's a sign which says "Stay home, too much pollution" due to all the factories ...

but it's a good city to play , people wants to have fun there !

Time For Tiffin said:

Always had a good un in Le Havre

Have to agree with Mr Tea ("you crazy fool") bout gigs here in the UK.

I'm still sore from all the times we've been shafted by promoters over the years.

Agreed fee's change a few days before gigs and after your travel arrangements have been made with the promoters knowing its going to be difficult for ya to pull out.Or.....ya only get 20% of the fee slapped in ya hand after the gig.I'd give it a miss.

Heard only good things bout Germany from friends but never played there.

For me France is the place.Ya get fed,watered and given a place to sleep for the night plus ya fee and the crowds are bonkers and up for it to boot!

Always had a good un in Le Havre.

Yeah, we hear a lot of good things about France and Switzerland as well as St. Petersburg (two bands from Tübingen were I live played there and were stunned).

As there is a lot of shows in Paris those times, it depends ...

we can have a blast on week days and a shitty weekend or the contrary...

For example tomorrow i play the last show with one of my bands and there's also some friends playing 5mn walking from the club...

Yes Germany is good, but so is France, Norway, Finland and Spain, Italy is a bit quiet but they pay quite well and the food is amazing of course. Germany and Spain seem the best for selling LP's & merch etc. UK and especially London is shit because promoters are tight and dont wanna put their hands in their pockets. Its got nothing to do with attendance. I've played gigs in London with 100-200 people and the promoter still gave a bullshit lame excuse about losing money and didnt pay us. On the other hand I've played venues in france and germany to 20 people and still got 300€. The difference is they stick to their word and dont bullshit. You either get a door deal or fixed fee and they always stick to it, whereas in UK it can be hit or miss if you get your money, so a lot bands miss it out on European tours. The minimum normal fee for playing here in Sweden is around 2000sek about £200, I dont know many UK promoters that think £200 is a low price for a band. I hear so many stories of bands playing UK and getting shafted with money and the same promoters names keep cropping up with the same bullshit excuses. It seems some London promoters dont know how to arrange a gig or put on a show, my advice is if you cant pay the bands dont book 'em, or get whats coming. But.... there are some great promoters there too of course but unfortunately they are few and far between, I will mention, PJ at Dirty Water, Neil at Stay Sick and Carl at Go Go cage they always pay well and stick to their word

I think Gringo has hit it pretty much on the head there. All of Germany, and the big (and some not so big) cities of France, Italy and Spain all worth visiting for bands.

As a promoter in London its probably worth pointing out WHY bands don't get paid as much here in the UK. The main reasons are 1) general attendence levels are lower here than in mainland Europe, and 2) lots of venues organise shows themselves in Europe rather than promoters, and they usually have bigger budgets to work with can afford to lose money if a night is quiet.

Also...

1) London is a huge city and takes time to travel around. People often wanna go to shows but don't cos it will take them 3 hours to get there and back on tubes and buses. It doesn't sound a lot, but it takes it toll.

2) in London theres lots of venues AND lots of promoters. Its not unusual for me to do our regular garage night and then find out later 2 promoters I've never heard of have suddenly decided garage punk is their new love and have organised their own party the same night. so we all suffer.

Having said that I and others do put on garage bands and have 200-500 showing up. But in general we work with below 100, causing headaches with money...Many bands know this, but many also don't.

Is S.t Pauli an area or club or street?

In Germany Hamburg is the Rock`n`Roll capital-city.It has a very big "underground" scene with lots of clubs and pubs.And the BEST-it all happens in St.Pauli-so you can easily walk from club to club.All the rock bands I met they loved Hamburg because of St.Pauli-it`s also the red light district.Also those bands often stay longer in Hamburg and make DJ-events in the clubs or spontanious unplugged gigs in the pubs.

Hamburg-St.Pauli is also where the Beatles started to become stars!!

The only city in Europe with a similar flair is Amsterdam.

So try out Hamburg and you`ll see...

thanks for that maid. really helpful.

At the moment for Garage Punk bands I would say all of Germany - Highlights would be Köln, Hamburg Berlin and they buy stuff. All of Spain - Highlights would be Gijon, Leon, Madrid, and the star would be Valencia (rock and roll city). South of France - Bordeaux, Montpellier, Lyon - Paris is overrated. North of Italy between Milan - Bologna - Genoa. All of Switzerland (pay is good and they buy stuff). In Austria, Vienna and Graz have a bit of a scene at the moment. The Benelux region is a bit quiet at the moment maybe some others can enlighten me as to why that is. London is overrated and the rest of Britain is hard to ring any kind of money out of to be worth it sometimes (but the people are really cool of course). I know nothing about the east except that some bands I know tour around Czech quite regularly and I was just contacted recently about playing in Moscow and St. Petersburg (Beat-Man has played there) so it seems there are starting to be bookers for Garage music out there now. Hope this helps and good luck guy.