General

The information on this page addresses the common concerns and questions for performers. We hope this information is useful to enhance your performance as well as provide an enjoyable experience for our patrons.

The venue

Based on a Chicago style blues joint, JJ's Blues is a long, narrow rectangular room. Unique to this venue are numerous mirrors and glass covered photographs hanging on the walls the two longest walls are concrete. This makes the room very, very bright and probably more difficult to play than most other venues. The main concern is volume level, since our venue doesn't dissipate sound readily - echoes, phase cancellations, standing waves etc can detrimentally affect your sound. On stage, standing next your amp you may not notice any problem - however in the vicinity of the bar where the reflected sound intersects the sourced sound the audience will experience an overlay of notes if the volume is high enough that the reflected notes can interfere. We want you to sound your best and want to make this very important point - if you are playing louder than 100dB (hope that's enough) your sound will be mushy in this room, patrons are less likely to stick around…you get the idea.

Stage setup

JJ's provides a house PA, microphones, cords, stands and stage lighting. You are certainly welcome to use your own equipment - be sure it's labeled to make sure your stuff goes back home with you.

If you've played here before you're aware of our small stage, although we've had bands that have 10 members on stage they had to careful not to fall off. Be sure to leave room for you!

Special note to musicians - we highly recommend using a stand for your amp that tilts upwards. The benefits are:

• the sound is directed upwards and goes through your ears first giving you an accurate feedback of the sound level
• the soundwaves from the amp are not directed to the walls which can cause phase cancellations and standing waves
• the audience is not in a direct line to the amp that is sitting on the stage - this is critical. An amp blasting away at the level of the performers legs is at ear level of the audience. Get it?

Load-in is typically one hour in advance of the show during the week. On weekends the first band will set up on the dance floor (typically) allowing the second band to load-in the stage anytime after the doors open at 6pm.

We don't dictate how many sets, breaks etc...you are empowered with the control of your performance but we expect professionalism. Be aware of the audience energy and be prepared to adjust accordingly.

Start and stop times are not written in stone, the size of the bands, the flow of the show and other factors can affect these times. We have shows at 7-ish and 9-ish.

For weekend shows we have a dedicated engineer for sound and lights. If you have a sound engineer that's familiar with our Mackie mixing console they are welcome to operate it.

Promotions

JJ's advertises in three newspapers every week for upcoming performances. Our ad agencies usually get pictures for the ads from the bands websites, if this is not available we recommend that you provide us with promo materials. Electronic jpeg formatted files are preferred as we can easily email the files to all the agencies. Poster sized artwork that we can post inside and outside the venue are also desired.

Marketing your CD's, t-shirts etc during your performance is welcomed. We typically set up a table near the stage for these promotions.