Is there any job in the music biz more damned than being a local show promoter? Sure, the dive bar sound guy is universally understood to be insane, and the music publicist is, perhaps rightly, always described as an oily, formless animal akin to a living turd. Yet unlike them, the promoter is cursed with sapience and the knowledge that there are only two ways their career is going to go. They’re either going to be a Sainted Fool or The Worst Scumbag In The World. I won’t linger on the latter. If you’re curious, just imagine someone who is both lazy and self-aggrandizing, with terrible taste and a thirst to suck up your money. They love radius clauses, corporatization, and either not showing up or booking their own band on the bill. They’re going to eat before you, if you eat at all. The Sainted Fool is a dying breed, which is part of their curse. You see, unlike their scumbag brethren, they truly believe in the transformative power of music, good taste, and supporting the bands and audience, which makes them incredibly stupid with money. Dumb ideas like eclectic bills, handmade flyers, and paying people outstrip their finances. The poor things just want to bring a little individuality into the shitty world of your local music scene, yet their passions sap their pocketbooks and eventually their will to live. Take my advice, you’re better off being an influencer or making review videos of other people’s music in front of your garbage-ass record collection.

I, unfortunately, have not taken my own advice. I am ashamed to say I have been a Detroit show promoter for the past 15 years. Before you break out the pitchforks or, worse, cyberbully me, let me offer up some feeble excuses. First and most important, I only book and promote one show a year, on Dec. 26. It started in 2010, in total scumbag fashion, as a way for my new band Protomartyr to play a gig. St. Stephen was the original protomartyr, and I thought it was extremely clever marketing to have it on his feast day. The British call it Boxing Day. The Irish call it Wren’s Day. We Americans don’t call it shit. Much like the day before Thanksgiving, it does seem like a fine time for drinking and an excuse for folks to escape their families around a holiday. Besides those initial craven attempts to secure a prime show for my middling band, I offer up my bona fides as a true Sainted Fool as my second excuse: I lose so much money.