next exit

The music scene here in Vancouver slays me.

Today I went to pick up tickets to the Ted Leo & the Pharmacists show and to Interpol.

Interpol I found out about by reading the very dodgy music section in the Georgia Straight. The GS seems to be waffling these days – not sure if they are going to list all the things that they have in their print version on the website. Thus, forcing people like me (who only read the Georgia Straight for the Music section, as a general rule) to actually pick up a copy/ waste paper.

I am not even going to waste my breath talking about Discorder. I am careful not to talk too much smack about a magazine that friends, past and present, have been involved in. It seems safe to say that their motto is ‘if you don’t already know about it – you won’t read about it here until after it has happened… if at all’.

The Ted Leo show, though I am a dedicated lover of the band, I had not heard hide nor hair about until Sarah emailed me asking if I had bought my ticket yet. She found out about it only because she was already at Scratch Records to buy something else.

And while *I* was at Scratch, I also realized that The Frames are coming. I have seen no indication of this anywhere else. What the fuck? How often do they come here (from Ireland)? Not often. That’s for fucking sure. To be sure, to be sure!

For the last 15 years I have tried to support places like Scratch records. I have tried to save some cash by buying tickets there – and tried to avoid using Ticketmaster wherever possible.

Now that Scratch and other places are basically selling tickets at their places that have already been processed by Ticketmaster, I just don’t think that I can afford to attempt to support them anymore. The service charges are fucking ridiculous. If I had known that the Interpol tickets were going to end up costing $36 (I think they were advertised as $28.50), I actually wouldn’t have bought them. Ticketmaster takes $5 of my money and Scratch takes another chunk. And for what? Dude at Scratch lets his telephone buddy know that he will ::sigh:: have to call them back. He has an ::eye roll:: customer or something. Moral of the story is: if Ticketmaster is going to save me $3 on a ticket price, Ticketmaster wins.

Now that there is basically only one mid sized venue – I can see that the Commodore is going to be banking on its monopoly. Ticket prices are beyond inflated.

Maybe the Red Room will step up to the plate and cut back on their halter-top dance-party nights and start getting some more live acts in. Chances are that Pub 340 is going to be taking up more space on my dancecard too.

I guess I am showing my age when I recount tales of $3 shows at Southwall and $8 shows at the Starfish Room.

It would surprise most of you to know that the music scene in Winnipeg is far superior to what we have going on here. More venues. Cheaper shows. Less places that kick you out at 10:30pm to make room for canned music dance parties.

Hopefully the nostalgic sounds of Interpol will soothe my agitated mind when they arrive in April. Until then….

Blargh!