Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/17/profiles-of-threatin-singer-w.html
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What’s the worst that could happen?
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Fake it ‘till you make it.
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It’s an interesting story that has the unfortunate side effect of encouraging a narcissist. If it works there will be a few more attempts at this–that won’t work.
It wouldn’t be the first publicity stunt to backfire, though.
So I looked at the thumbnail and my first reaction was, “a woman? Isn’t it always a man who pulls this shit?”
Jared is not a woman, he’s just really pretty.
From what I understand, bands make like no money playing at these small venues. You get paid a paltry fee to show up (some times a hundred bucks). You most likely make no money at the door, though sometimes you get a percentage if more than X number of tickets are sold. The venue does make money on tickets, but more money on drinks. For bands to MAKE money, it’s at the merch table and tip jar. At least that is what Danial from Aesthetic Perfection explained one time in a post on the realities of touring for smaller groups.
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In this case, Threatin was covertly acting as its own booker, which means he rented the venues at significant cost and sold tickets directly. This is why Eames isn’t in any real trouble, though he lied about ticket sales. It’s just very annoying to the venues, because they make the real money from the bar, and no-on turned up to see Threatin.
I suspect that Plan A was that the well-respected local bands he hired to support Threatin would bring a significant number of people in who would remain to see Threatin.
So a buried lede in all this might be that local bands no longer have significant offline audiences who will turn up to see them locally.
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Deliberate and meticulous cargo cult as practical summoning ritual. I mean, the most disturbing thing is by how little this differs from what it appears studios do all the time for pop stars they cultivate themselves (as opposed to self-made bands who sign on to a label). I think the lesson here is that even if all pop-acts sound and look like generic shit, it isn’t as easy as it looks to make that generic shit sell. So…props to the studios, I guess?
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Social media has opened up opportunities for all kinds of grifters, large and small.
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It’s more likely that Threatin didn’t do a good job picking its local acts, that the venue was too large for them or that the local acts’ fans weren’t willing to pay the cover to see them perform an opening set. For that matter, a local band presumably plays in local venues fairly often. Anybody that wants to see them can see them when they’re headlining.
Realistically, the opening act is a draw for a headliner people already wanted to see–they add a few percent to the audience.
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@beschizza Both links in the article go to the Rolling Stone article.
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They’re going to need this guy at Fyre Fest II.
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Trying to “make it” can do some crazy things to people.
One day perhaps he’ll accept that it wasn’t happening for him and be happy and ok with the effort. He can always write mediocre songs in his spare time.
I know that feel.
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I reckon if something like this was easy to do, a lot more people would be trying to do it.
Ref the Brinsley Schwarz story - it may have turned out not as planned but I don’t think it entirely backfired…
Here’s some further notes about that (to amplify the last four paragraphs of that story - and in case some of you don’t read it, but go on, it’s fun). 
MD of Famepushers was Dave Robinson. THE Dave Robinson who was later the joint founder of Stiff Records. (If you do not know all the artists Stiff brought to the fore, go Google it or try here.)
The Dave Robinson who hired a train to take the last of the Stiff Records tours round the UK in 1978 - the press loved it - the Stiff gang arriving at every gig via the local train station. (I booked that tour for my student union. I still think the Lene Lovich LP released then is a great listen - Lene was one of 5 artists on the tour). Earlier Stiff tours had launched Elvis Costello and Ian Dury.
So this story is an early example of how Dave always had a eye for making a splash and was not afraid to give it a go, however outlandish. Also, the bass player in Brinsley Schwarz was Nick Lowe - later featured on Stiff tours, a key member of Rockpile alongside Dave Edmunds, and writer and singer of “I Love The Sound OF Breaking Glass” among many other achievements.
The last four paragraphs of the story linked to above attest that this stunt was not a failure at all - even if the desired outcome turned into something else.
Edited to add some pics for fun
The train
And the label of the tour sampler freebie LP. I still have mine. The label reads “Not For Resale. You’re extremely lucky to get this - you probably don’t deserve it”
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I’m assuming that the openers were what Rob was drawing that off of.
But IIRC the coverage. The openers were very small or new acts booked as openers rather than headliners specifically because of that. That’s how opening acts at these medium scale shows work, they aren’t supposed to be the draw.
Plus threaten claimed to have presold all or most of the tickets so there would have been no to low push from the venue and opening acts to move tickets and get their own crowd there. And it seems like fans of the openers were the only people to turn up, sometimes in numbers that are pretty decent for the level we’re talking about.
Threaten seems to have worked hard to fake local and online support without actually putting his music out there. Didn’t have a backing band before this tour scam was booked, doesn’t appear to have played a single show. So they couldn’t have been a draw. Noone knew the fuck they were. And in reality they’re probably considerably less popular than the bands opening for them.
And that’s your problem. It’s not just that smaller venues rely on alcohol sales and regular attendees. These smaller bands rely on access to the audience from headliners to build the sort of following Threaten faked. Those opening acts probably could have filled the room if they busted their asses, or if it was the sort of pay a cover and check it out show that doesn’t require paying up for a prebooked ticket (that’s purportedly sold out).
Guy attempted to jump right from dicking around in his basement to European tour. But buy claiming to have presold the tickets, without even attempting to. They basically ensured the rooms would be empty, and noone else could generate much of a crowd.
I’m not very sportsball savvy, so maybe I’m missing something. But isn’t the whole point of a game that it’s as close to an objective test of ability as possible? It sounds like Ali Dia played well in his first match and they still let him go for lying about where he’d played before. I see the reasoning since dishonesty is antithetical to the ideals of good sportsmanship, but I would still think it would call into question their selection process if a player otherwise up to their standards of ability had to lie to get a try out.
He was massively outclassed in the one game he played. Southampton didn’t let him go for lying, they were in the middle of an injury crisis, but he disappeared a few days after the match.
Looking at the other teams he played for it looks like he was a decent player at around level 10 of the English league system. For comparison, only levels 1-4 are professional (level 5 is professional in practice, but it is officially a semi-professional league)
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Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for elucidating.
I’m a Nick Lowe fan, which is why I remember that story at all (Brinsley Schwarz actually being just a little before my time).
I’d still argue that the publicity stunt was counter-productive, and that the impact those guys had later on was more because they kept at it than anything else.
