We hate the term professional. So much so that we tend to refuse to work with people who inconvience us with petty requests for “performance agreements” or “percentages.” We work as a team to offer up whatever we can for bands to play in, whether it be a warehouse, a gay bar, a house, or anywhere that we can plug in an outlet. Our shows are often free, or cheap, or the proceeds go to charity. We have spent all of our free time and money to keep this company and this festival moving forward, and we resent it when people tell us that we have ever made any money off this (for obvious reasons). Many promoters can pay their rent with the proceeds from shows, while we would rather put money in the pockets of bands who work hard to bring us good music. We don’t require demos and often hear bands for the first time when we put them on stage. We feel that someone has to offer bands a place to start, a place to grow, and a place to call home while they hone their skills. We have had the pleasure of working with most local bands, bands from as far as England, Canada, and beyond, as well as bands who played one show and broke up. We are in this as long as it is fun, and we give a great big fuck you to bands and folks we have worked with who talk mad shit about us due to stupid reasons (i.e. not being paid enough, not enough free beer, not enough communications between their own bandmates, high expectations for venues when they don’t really play anywhere else, releasing our records on cd-r). We do our best, and expect you to do the same. If you don’t like how we do things, then do them yourself. We promote the D-I-Y ethic in every way. Do it yourself or quit complaining. We prove this is possible. We want you to help make this scene bigger and better. We want more venues, more bands, more zines, more everything. We do this because people ask us to, because we want to, and because we love to. We never make any promises, and we have tons of people who dig on how we do it. We are not profit oriented, not into major label/radio bullshit, and we are interested in keeping this scene alive. You should be too.
- Miss Anastasia, Robbie, and A Girl Hurts Productions