I wrote a whiny post about how I needed to leave my job working at the bar in order for me to get out of this rut I’ve been [verb]ing* in.  But why talk about it when I can do something about it?

Right!

In order to get the ball rolling, I posted an ad for my job on CraigsList.  Initially I rejected this idea simply because it cost money to post a job description.  But this is a necessary step in trying to loosen some of my ties to the music business thereby freeing me up to focus on the music part.

But wow, I had no idea how regularly people peruse that site.  Within the first 72 hours, my email has been straight up INUNDATED with a DELUGE of people who want my job.

And all these applications are the cholestrol clogging up my Series of Tubes!

For now, that’s a good thing!  Though I’ve often characterized the job as thankless and repetitive, going through the motions of working here has let me meet some great people with novel ideas.  It has given me the pride of putting on many a show that had the genuine intent of helping a band do what they love – to play.  That’s it.  The point of the venue is to play a show.  Profit? Pfft.  Create a scene? Yeah, right.  Explore the dark corners of sonic experimentation for the furthering of music theory? …who the eff do you think you are?

…to finally be the “cool” crowd? Let’s see how cool you are as soon as we get your ass stupidly drunk with our mighty tasty drink specials. Not so clever now, are you, hipster?

Nope.  Our veteran musicians know that when you play at our venue, you play because you want to play.  And how many venues in Los Angeles can honestly say that?

Ranting on the LA scene aside, some of my candidates are better than others – but I think our bar owner’s hiring strategy might have influenced my interview queue.  See, this may sound TOTALLY SEXIST, but I’m interviewing the females first.  But I have good reasons, I swear!  It’s because:

• I’ve worked with women in this underground/booking industry before, and they are less likely to have musicians and managers try to pull a “fast one” on them.  If the client party is male, they interact with a female booker in a way that tries to impress them.  If the client party is female, they interact with a female booker in a way that tries to avoid a cat fight.  Moreover, a woman will not take crap from prima donnas, and our venue could use some oomph behind our (completely sincere!) altruistic ideals.  Or at least this is what I’m hoping.
• A female has taken my position temporarily before, and the hidden secret bitch superpower she possessed turned out to be an INCREDIBLE asset to getting shit done.  See, if I put my foot down, bands throw a hissy fit.  If a lady puts her foot down, bands cast their gaze downwards and say “yes, ma’am.”
• There needs to be more women in this industry.  Seriously.  Damn sausage fest up in here. (fun note!  www.sausagefest.com exists, and is incidentally Totally Safe For Work; that is, unless you’re not down with carnivora.)
• Surveys and studies show that women may very well be better at multitasking and organizing than men are.  Well, hell, no wonder our booking was in near shambles when I was running it.
• I am not basing this on looks because I would rather she get the job done than spend it inadvertently flirting, as some employees might have done in the past.

So I’m going to put this out there on the interwebs to help me prep for interviewing people:

If you were applying for my job at the bar (booking bands and doing live sound) what would you want to know about it?

*What does one do in a rut?  Steer?  I’ll leave it up to your imagination.