Arts DEVO

Don’t you like my band? One thing Arts DEVO’s alter ego has learned in his 11 years working as arts editor and/or calendar editor at the Chico News & Review is that more complaints will be filed in response to screwing up the listing for Joe Rockstar’s Wednesday night coffee-shop gig than for the exposé on his mom embezzling money from Girl Scout cookie sales. And despite any overblown conspiracy theories on the evil arts editor’s artist-killing intentions that sometimes follow an overlooked listing (or other perceived slights) being a source of hemorrhoid-bursting pain in my ass, I am pleased that musicians care and are passionate enough about their art to speak up about it.

To be perfectly blunt, though, most of those who have ever complained to me don’t communicate with the newspaper otherwise. They rarely send listings of their shows (or they send them after deadline), and they rarely send news about their band’s milestones (new album, big shows, etc.).

I care about the local music scene. I’ve been a member of it for a couple of decades, both as a musician and a promoter, so I actually do know what’s up. Plus, as an arts editor, it’s my job to cover the entire scene. I might blather about my particular kinks in this column, since it’s where I spill what I’m thinking and feeling about my life in the Chico community. But I talk about other stuff here as well. And when it comes to the rest of the space in the CN&R where music is covered, I’m all business. For those who don’t know how it works, here it is in black and white and 0’s and 1’s:

The calendar: Submit your local gig to the CN&R calendar by the deadline (one week before the issue in which the date of your event falls) and you will be listed in our printed Nightlife section. That’s it. On rare occasions, we edit out print listings if we run out of space (we omit recurring events in these cases), and we do occasionally make mistakes. But no live shows are simply omitted. No genres of “live” music are left out. And, even if you’re late, there is no deadline for the online calendar. Post it, and it’s live.

One more note: If we make a mistake, please let us know. If we are unaware of the problem, we can’t fix it. It is our mission to be a trusted and thorough source of information, and we depend on the community’s input to help us achieve that. Plus, CN&R Calendar Assistant Mallory Russell is super chill and hip and someone you should know. Drop her a friendly note: chicocalendar@newsreview.com.

The “picks”: Each week, we choose four “picks of the week” in the Nightlife section. We try and keep a balance between shows featuring local and touring bands, and over time we try and spread the love and feature as wide a range of styles as possible. Pro tip: Include photos or links to photos with your press releases, and keep a high-rez publicity photo or four available on your website and/or Facebook page.

Music features: Mostly, it’s math. There are 52 weeks; we’re a weekly; so there are 52 music features. I know that everyone wants a feature on their band, but there are only so many slots. Much like the calendar picks, the goal is to be balanced in our coverage.

And, every year I take a methodical look at how we did the previous year and try to make changes to do better the next. Looking at the 36 weeks of music features we’ve covered so far in 2014, we’ve done 15 stories on local acts and 21 stories on visiting musicians or other music topics. And the genre spread looks like this: rock (5), blues (4), funk/jam (3), indie (3), metal (3), music fests (3), experimental (2), rap (2), punk (2), classical (2), ska (1), Americana (1), jazz (1), folk (1), electronic (1), big band (1). Not perfect, but other than maybe needing to do a feature on a country artist, I’d say that’s about where I’d want it to be.

Pro tip No. 2: Send your press releases and photos at least one month before your show. We plan our stories two to four weeks out and if we get info on your rad show happening next week, there is no room left on the stage even if we wanted to turn the spotlight on you.