How to fake a tour and get caught!

p90fool

Emp_Fab said:

 I've just emailed the three venues with a link to the OP's article.

You bastard.

To be honest, I think he's flicked through The Manual by KLF from back to front. 

Grunfeld

Vibetronic said:

...Weirdest bit for me is why he's actually spent about £30k of his own money funding a tour which nobody will attend! It's either marketing genius as now he's been rumbled loads of people do actually want to go, or there's something a bit wrong with him.

I worked with someone who spent not far off that (at 2007 prices) on a similar quest -- the buying of social media "likes"; the self-produced albums of music from hired session players; the touring band of hired musos (hello).  This person was also a bit delusional and absolutely convinced of their own talent.  I bet this fella is the same.

I remember having a kind of "reality check" chat once which was quite interesting because what I was hearing in reply was a load of self-affirming bollocks of the type that Tony Robbins etc. pedalled.  There was litterally no touchstone with evidence -- and I was marked down as being "negative".  A strange episode, and reading about this prat in the article reminded me of it.

rossyamaha

EricTheWeary said:

Ahh, pop music history is full of stupid stunts. 

Auto correct kick in?

LuttiS

David Brent film in real life?

Paul_C

MattBanshee said:

literally 3 people turned up

I've gigged in London to fewer than that.

Sassafras

That hair advert doesn't make clear what conditioner he uses.

digitalscream

fandango said:

Give the feller his credit, he's managed to find the funding to write, and release an album, make some videos, bribe folk to like him, and get himself a two-week European Tour.

He might have a screw loose, and he might be a contrived poseur, but if someone can sound that amateur yet generate such media attention (FFS we're talking about him????), then it gives the rest of us some hope.

The reports mention that it was his mum who booked the venues, so I suspect his parents also shelled out the cash to pay for it all.

As for the media attention...loads of people are saying, "Ah, but all publicity is good publicity!". The problem with that is that he's now on the shit list with every venue and potential support band who's come across that publicity, so it'll do him absolutely no good whatsoever. Not only that, but now that he's been rumbled he's shut down the "band's" entire social media presence.

I can imagine that if he'd managed to fake it and subsequently fill venues, it would've made for a great YouTube documentary. As it is, though, it's just a bit of a sad story and a warning to all who think that buying likes and views will help them.

As I said on other threads (possibly on here? I was a bit drunk when I got home last night...), if he'd taken that money and spent it on a decent mixing engineer and a good PR campaign, he may even have got somewhere with it. He'd probably even have enough left over for a US tour.

Legionreturns

fandango said:

Give the feller his credit, he's managed to find the funding to write, and release an album, make some videos, bribe folk to like him, and get himself a two-week European Tour.

He might have a screw loose, and he might be a contrived poseur, but if someone can sound that amateur yet generate such media attention (FFS we're talking about him????), then it gives the rest of us some hope.

Now if we can cobble some footage from Outlane and tack the studio recordings from Sasquatch together, surely we have an album, some promo material, some fans (how many Fretboarders are there - 20,000+?), and the basis for touring the USA?? We could call ourselves The Legionnaires or something. And then we could make a movie out of it ... 

To be fair, we wouldn't need to fake a crowd. Ours was bigger than his by several magnitudes, and we've been "rebooked" by the venue. 

We also have prettier front men 

danishbacon

Isn't this the plot of David Brent's film?

gringopig

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fandango

gringopig said:

The website has a fulsome explanation! Makes sense to me!!!

https://www.threatin.com/

Indeed!

It's a bit "move along now folks, nothing to see here/hear".

bingefeller

He's playing here the night at the Belfast Empire Music Hall.  I wonder if anyone will turn up....

usedtobe

Great name though!

bingefeller

"Live" video.

gringopig

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gringopig

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King85

What an odd sorry.

The guy sounds a bit like Tommy Wiseau

Emp_Fab

Made it to the front page of the BBC News website now!  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-46179210

JerkMoans

It gets better. 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/12/threatin-band-fake-fanbase-tour

There’s guitar tribute vids going up on YouTube

 https://youtu.be/IFTrzDLX2rU

I’m auditioning at the weekend for my tribute band, Frettin’.

Cols

They should have kept going with the tour.  With all that publicity the next gig would probably be packed with hipsters attending it in their ‘cool and ironic’ capacity.