Uncle Sac wants you!

As relentlessly self-promoting as the Scene Weasel is, he still has a scintilla of pride—which is why you’ll never see him hitting up, say, a local retailer of Hawaiian shirts for any kind of sponsorship deal. Yes, the Weasel does like to dress with “pizzazz,” but that sponsorship thing leaves him a little iffy.

Um, any of you haberdashers that specialize in all-black goth clothing looking to throw a chunk of change my way?

OK, in all seriousness, it’s like this: The Music Industry Consortium of Sacramento, better known as MICS, will hold an event inside the MoMo Lounge—that’s the place upstairs at Harlow’s, 2708 J Street, where you can spark up a stinky cigar and won’t get bum-rushed to the gutter—on Wednesday, April 21. The idea is to get venue owners, booking agents and concert promoters to sit down with artists (including bands), their managers and agents to hash out the nuts and bolts of performing—“promo kits, live sound, hard costs, payment methods, guarantees, out of town booking, insurance and safety issues,” according to the MICS Web site, www.micsac.org.

According to the site, the mini-confab “will be a forum for open dialogue to dissolve assumptions about booking issues and create clear communication between all concerned parties in this important area of the industry.” So far, so good.

If there’s a problem, it stems from nomenclature.

First, calling your little get-together “Bootcamp for Bands” might not be a marketing home run at a time when the country is at war in Iraq and your target demographic—the young, 20-something musician—is slightly jittery about getting drafted and sent overseas to fight, should the Selective Service be revived.

Second, it’s not a boot camp. It’s a two-hour event, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The Scene Weasel never got sent to real boot camp, but he is aware that they last a lot longer than two hours, that cocktails most assuredly are not served and that the only guys with the primo stogies are the ones who are barking the orders.

And third, boot camps tend to favor an authoritarian, one-way imparting of information—not exactly a “forum for open dialogue.”

But if that sounds like your kind of military engagement, you can show up at Harlow’s next Wednesday. If you’re a MICS member, it’s free; if you’re not, it will set you back $5. Be sure to bring a Roi-Tan Banker or Swisher Sweet or whatever it is that Arnold smokes these days.