In the course, you\u2019ll learn how to build a\nbusiness as a touring artist, from the first gigs to the first national tour,\nwith lessons that range from booking to marketing and attracting an agent to\nprotecting your mental and physical health on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the course topics is how to grow your live\nperformance career from local to regional and eventually national. Several\nstrategies make it easier, including building in an ever-widening region around\nyour home base (Hub and Spokes touring) or in between your home base and a\nmusic industry hub like Nashville, NY or LA (Straight Line touring). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I first learned about one of the more clever\ntouring strategies when I booked a date on the debut US tour of the now\nmultiplatinum band the Police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of my first jobs in the music business was\nhelping to book a Boston nightclub named The Rathskeller. \u201cThe Rat,\u201d as\neveryone called it, had become the local hub for a burgeoning genre of music\nbroadly dubbed \u201cNew Wave.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boston bands like the Cars, who went on to sell\nmillions of albums, built their early fan base and got signed playing at the\nRat. National and international bands like Blondie, R.E.M. and the Ramones all\nplayed their first Boston gigs there. Even Metallica and Tom Petty played early\ngigs in this dingy basement venue that held at most 400 people crammed in so\ntight that the fire inspector would have had a heart attack. When the music got\nreally loud, scared rats would literally scurry over your head on exposed\npipes, trying to escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day we took a call from a booking agent that\nwe knew who wanted us to book the Police. None of us had ever heard of this\nEnglish band whose US record deal with A&M Records consisted of a then\nunreleased single called \u201cRoxanne.\u201d Despite all that, the agent insisted that\nthey wanted to\u2014 even had<\/em> to\u2014play at\nthe Rat for three nights in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were very skeptical, but then he made us an\noffer we couldn\u2019t refuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Police would play the Rat on a Sunday through\nTuesday\u2014three of the hardest nights to draw a crowd at any club\u2014for just $300\nper night vs. a percentage of the door. Even back in 1978, booking a band from\nEngland who had any kind of record deal for $900 total for three nights felt\nlike a pretty good deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Police rolled into Boston on Sunday afternoon, crammed with all of their gear in an old Ford Econoline van. No fancy crew. Just the band unloading and setting up their own instruments. I will always remember Sting, sheepishly asking for an advance on the first night\u2019s $300, so that the band could afford to buy something to eat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Right after an early soundcheck, the band dashed out the back door for the first of many college radio and other interviews they would do over the next few days at MIT\u2019s 760 watt WMBR\u2013FM with a volunteer DJ who broadcast using the name Oedipus. He talked to the band, pitched the three days of shows and played \u201cRoxanne,\u201d the only music they had with them, twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/online.berklee.edu\/takenote\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/The-Police-publicity-still.jpg\")