Local folk rockers Menage recently uploaded their DIY-style video for the song “Tell Me” to YouTube. The song is the title track to their new CD, which was originally slated for release in late June. But according to the band, thanks to Billy Corgan and crew, they may just have to wait.
According to posts on Menage’s homepage, the group was originally slated to release the album at a “double CD release party” with local dark-pop stars Stephanie’s Id on June 29, but claims they were bumped from the schedule due to the nine-date mega-booking of the reunited Smashing Pumpkins.
“Smashing Pumpkins is coming through for a nine show tour and the Peel gave us the boot,” reads a post on the group’s MySpace blog. “This is very sad and disappointing for us locals.”
No new release date for Tell Me has been announced. Not surprisingly, no local date for Stephanie’s Id’s latest albumGrus Americanus has been announced either, although the group has a number of other east coast CD release dates from June through August, and an Asheville release some time during that run is inevitable.
— Steve Shanafelt
UPDATE: According to the Menage’s MySpace blog, the CD release party for Tell Me will now take place on Wednesday, July 18, at the Grey Eagle. Doors open at 9 p.m. No word yet on the opening band or what, if any, role Stephanie’s Id will take in the show.—S.S.
UPDATE: The band recently pulled down their announcement about a CD release at the Grey Eagle from their MySpace page, and instead posted a Thursday, July 19, gig at the Grassroots Festival in Trumansberg, NY. So, still no local CD release just yet.—S.S. 5/23/07
yet another obvious reason why the orange peel does not care about the asheville msuic scene, beyond what they can directly profit off of.
Silverman: I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Even the most altruistic of businesses would have a hard time turning down nine days of pure, hand-over-fist profit. Sure, Menage and Stephanie’s Id are local, but it’s not like they’re going to sell out the place for even one night. The Pumpkins WILL almost certainly sell out the place solid for more than a week. I’m not saying its right, or even fair, but it is certainly understandable.
To me, the real question is what, if anything, the Orange Peel will do to make it up to the bands they’ve had to bump.
Agreed. The OP is not a local club. Perhaps by geography and staffing, but it stops there. It is a regional/national circuit club. It is what it is. I’m not sure that the OP owes those bands anything, other than the option of a future booking. Business is business, especially on that level. I know that both of those bands work hard, and are great people, but anybody savvy to the music business knows that these things happen. Regularly.