BOOKING HISTORY: The first show I ever booked was for the Primate Freedom Tour, and I booked it at the Wilson Center with the assistance of Wade and Ryan Fletcher. Wade and Ryan were the first punks I met that setup shows, and their DIY ethic and concern for human rights was inspiring. The show was a great success thanks to promotion from Serge from the Goons as well as Wade and Ryan. The bands that played were Citizen Fish, Harum-Scarum, The Goons, and The Ruins (from Florida). Once I graduated from a private high school that drilled me like a workhorse, leaving me without much of a social life, I went to Goucher College and established a new club called the Independent Arts Collective. I used this club to reserve spaces on campus to throw concerts, and I was happily able to get some of the main spaces on campus for this. I threw my first show there for Voorhees from the UK in the Pearlstone Atrium, across from the student mailboxes. People looked in disarray as Voorhees pummeled through thrash anthem after thrash anthem. The role of exhibiting such extreme music in a public atmosphere was something that I valued. I wanted to create new musical experiences for people, and that's what I've continued to do until this very day. After my first year at Goucher, I worked as a ramp agent for an airlines to save up and get my own PA system. I spent $3000 on a super nice Mackie PA system. I should have purchased something smaller and more portable but I was overcome by the size and wattage of this PA. Each active speaker of this PA had 2 15" speakers and a horn rated at 1500 watts! This is really the kind of PA that needs to be hung up in a large venue away from the mic. I used the PA to do sound at shows and had the hardest time getting levels without the bastard feeding back despite my careful mic placement behind the PA. This led to sheer embarrassment as I wanted to do my best at sound for these bands I was booking but could do nothing based on the power of these huge, active speakers. Therefore, I ended up selling the PA to obtain a smaller, more portable Mackie PA. In retrospect, I wish I had kept the larger one for personal use with my own music, but I was naive and not concerned with solo music at this point in my life. I left Goucher after deciding not to pursue a degree in political science and needing some time to focus my energy on what I really wanted to do. However, I continued booking at Charm City Arts Space, a basement and gallery space in Baltimore that allowed booking based on membership. The essence of Charm City Arts Space is that it's a 100% DIY space that was fixed up by kids that are into punk and hardcore, and is still running today based on their efforts. After a semester or two passed, I attended American University for a semester and a half until a lame bout with depression took over and made me want to drop out again. However, while at American University, I continued booking shows by starting the Independent Arts Collective there as a new student organization. I booked several large and successful shows here before I left. During this time period, I also booked a couple of successful shows at the University of Maryland with the help of my friend, Alecks. I had gotten quite a bit better at doing sound with this new PA I had purchased, and did sound on the side for other shows that I booked wherever I could. During my hiatus at American University, I turned my focus on helping out touring bands through booking shows throughout 2004 and 2005 at the Warehouse Next Door, generally through one of the primary booking people there that actually lived in DC. I was getting more and more into doom, stoner rock, and experimental music. The first show I ever booked at the Warehouse Next Door was for Ruins (from Japan). I picked them up at Dulles Airport, drove them to Guitar Center, then my parents house to pickup my gear that they were going to play on, and then headed off to the show. I was able to secure them a hotel room at the hotel I was working at during that time, and everything slipped into place really well. After that experience, I became increasingly interested in doing whatever I could to bring the bands that I loved to the Washington DC area, working with such well-established booking agencies as Thunderdome, Nanotear, and Tone Deaf Touring. I worked with other promoters to make successful shows, and I developed a partnership with Scott Verrastro of Clavius Productions. Scott Verrastro and I were generally into the same music and had none each other since developing a friendship at the Boston Terrastock Festival of 2001. Scott Verrastro and I teamed up to try to revive the DC doom scene by booking some of the older bands from the Pentagram family that were active yet just hadn't played out in awhile (like Unorthodox, Wretched, etc.). The Warehouse Next Door years remain some of my favorite in my time of booking shows in Washington DC. The venue always sounded great and was run through solid, independent people. After awhile, the owners of the Warehouse, who used the Warehouse Next Door to help fund their art gallery and play space decided to turn their backs on what had become a beloved DC venue and turn it into a restaurant. While all this was going on, I was attending George Mason University and consistently booking shows through the Independent Arts Collective that my friend, Adam, from Mass Movement of the Moth had previously established there. During my three years at GMU, I've been able to book some shows with multimedia elements, using the Johnson Center Cinema as a venue. Through the aid of a friend who had regular access to projectors, I was able to show footage while shows were going on. I did a show focused on the works of Stan Brakhage, and I did another show where I played Heavy Metal Parking Lot prior to a metal show. GMU served as my backup for shows when I was unable to book at the Warehouse Next Door or the Velvet Lounge. Sometimes, I wanted to do shows for bands that weren't very well established, yet touring and doing them at GMU proved to be better because I didn't have the overhead that I had with the DC venues. As my last semester at GMU is ending, I'm going to be focusing on booking shows at the Velvet Lounge where my longtime friend, Scott Verrastro, has become the primary booker. Scott Verrastro has done more for the independent music scene than anybody I know, and I have gained a wealth of knowledge about music from knowing him. His sense of diversity and proclivity for what makes a good show has enriched the DC music scene. The Velvet Lounge remains a core venue in DC for independent touring and local bands without being chained down by Clear Channel or silly dance nights. When I move to Raleigh in November, I hope to continue Detournemont Productions by booking there. Until then, feel free to get in touch and I will do what I can to get you a show at the Velvet Lounge.