Today we’d like to introduce you to Danny Laake.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Danny. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
BLVR Booking started between two friends in a college house in North Denton. We both played in a pop punk band called The Victory at Maple at the time. We moved into our house on Boliver St. with two other roommates on June 1, 2015, and on June 2, 2015, we threw our first house show, dubbing the venue BLVR St. Paper Company. We saw lots of variety booking there, anything from acoustic gigs with a single-digit crowd count to a New Years’ bash with clean over 200 people. Being able to have a controlled environment to learn how to book and manage shows was a huge blessing because once we moved out and went our separate ways, I knew how to book, promote and run a concert from beginning to end.
Moving out of Denton was a challenge: I no longer had a central venue to run my shows out of. Around that time, I met Joey Seley of Killer’s Tacos. After getting to know what they were about as a venue, I decided to take my passion for booking mobile and changed my brand to BLVR Booking. Since then, I’ve been steadily hosting between one and six shows a month for the better part of 5 years, with rare break months in between.
A massive part of my journey as a booker and promoter has been identifying and catering to the genre of math rock. Math rock, which can be identified more as select elements of music composition rather than a genre as a whole, relies on unconventional syncopations and time signatures to play around the beat. As an up and coming genre in the national scene, it has been present in Denton at a local level for years, with bands like Two Knights, halfsleep, Abelia and Biscuit Head holding down its presence in the area. I took my love for the genre and decided to hold an annual festival dedicated to it – now dubbed Plus Fest and on its third year of bringing the DFW math rock scene together.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
When I look back on my challenges, they seem so small. One of my biggest challenges was the falling out I had with the person who taught me out to book. They were a huge part of my college experience and the one who helped get me into the local scene in the first place. Our splitting made me resent the “local band dynamic” if only for a little bit, but being able to work with local bands that had a non-toxic relationship has spurred me to love and believe in local music again.
The only other biggest challenge I’ve had is remaining consistent. I’m a solo company other than my incredible partner Shelby, who does logistics and runs door for BLVR whenever she can. Other than BLVR, I play in punk rock band Brave Days and math rock band Yearner, work full time as Mobile Marketing Manager in downtown Dallas at the marketing agency Raze Media, and am a cat dad to two wonderful felines. So I’ve definitely had thoughts of adding a trusted partner or two to the BLVR name. That’s coming soon, though, I suppose.
Please tell us about BLVR Booking.
BLVR Booking is a local show promotion agency. We have taken our occasional stab at tour booking, but that’s certainly not a specialty. More specifically, we specialize in small-to-medium size shows that mesh touring acts with the best and most relevant local talent for riveting three to five band gigs. Genre-wise, we are mainly booking math rock, pop-punk, emo, alternative, indie, progressive, mathcore, punk rock, and shoegaze.
I huge part of our identity in the scene here is the Plus Fest Math Rock Festival, which has seen bands from all over the US, Japan and hopefully other parts of the world in future iterations. I’d say I’m most proud of this concept as a whole and the sense of community it garners here. We’ve had people drive from Connecticut, fly from California and Florida, and couch hop from Chicago to watch and meet bands at Plus Fest. It really draws out the die-hard fans of math rock, and as a die-hard fan myself, it brings me the utmost joy.
I think what sets our company apart from others is the care we take in curating the genre-matching and overall feel of the bands we pair together. I would argue we consistently dish out some of the most cohesive bills in the DFW area. Moreover, I take massive pride in the local talent we choose to work with. I vet the bands that I book heavily. We make sure the bands will promote our shows and represent the genre and our area well.
Lastly, I really love that we don’t push presales. Business-wise, it’s not the quickest way to the top. But what I’ve found is that selecting the right bands who have decent followings, promoting heavily with posters, social media and word of mouth, and creating the right atmosphere day-of promotes a much, much more community-centered atmosphere than pressuring bands to sell 25 presales or something. And the quality of the relationships made in that atmosphere breeds something stronger than just a booking company and local bands.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I were to start over, I would probably haggle more on some certain bands’ guarantees. I’ve definitely paid way over the top to get certain bands on stage in Denton, and I definitely shelled out more than I should have. I also probably would have hired a new person on by now, but as I said, that’s coming soon.
Contact Info:
- Email: blvrbooking@gmail.com
- Instagram: @blvrbooking
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BLVRBookingServiceDenton/ https://www.facebook.com/PlusFestTX/
Image Credit:
Ryan Michaela Townsend
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