Clap Your Hands Say No Hard Feelings

After being indirectly vilified by CYHSY & co, Pipeline Productions, which books the Bottleneck, gives us the straight story. I got this candid, sincere email this morning from Julie over at Pipeline. I don’t know about you, but this softened my heart quite a bit. I move that all parties be forgiven, including CYHSY’s manager, and also the band itself — not just for the part they played in this drama but for ripping off the Talking Heads and for having a silly name. And let’s thank all of them for an edifying reading experience.

first, my email:

From: “Jason Harper”

To:

Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 2:02 PM

Subject: Ad Astra

Hi Julie,

Jason from the Pitch here. I wasn’t there, but I’ve been told by some

unhappy souls who were that Ad Astra got bumped off the Clap Your Hands

bill. I realize these things happen, but I was hoping to get an answer from

you as to why exactly this occurred.

Thanks,

Jason

Julie’s response

Hi Jason,

Basically it was a huge miscommunication between Pipeline and CYHSY’s

booking. I had thought that we got it okay’d to put a local on the bill,

when in fact they never wanted a local on there. The booking agency made me

take them off. Clap Your Hands (the band itself) had nothing to do with it,

I hope that doesn’t leave people with ill feelings towards them. It was a

really bad deal all around, and I feel really bad about the whole thing

julie

Julie Ibach

Pipeline Productions

Bravo, Julie. So, to summarize: Pitch contributor April Fleming goes to see Ad Astra Per Aspera, the Brunettes and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Bottleneck Thursday night. For some reason, Ad Astra gets bumped. April gets loaded throughout the rest of the concert. Ad Astra fans are mad. Speaking on their behalf, and totally blotto, April sends an email through CYHSY’s Web site, demanding an explanation for why Ad Astra got bumped and criticizing the Clap for not being supportive of local bands who haven’t made it yet because they were once a local band, too. April adds a barb to her missive, suggesting that CYHSY owes much of its fame to Pitchfork Media. Hoo doggy, CYHSY doesn’t like that allegation. Both band and manager write April to defend their honor and blame local promoters for booking a local band — the very idea of which, to them, is unheard of — on their two-bands-only-damn-you bill. Neither really apologizes, but band guy comes out looking nicer than manager guy. Lastly, Julie from Pipeline emails, explaining the whole thing and showing genuine remorse.

Case closed.

Ah, but wait! We still haven’t given Ad Astra Per Aspera a consoling pat on the back. Let’s drop by the audio page of their site and grab a few mp3s and listen to them while performing a strip tease for our cat. Good plan? Good plan.