In case you haven’t noticed, live music in Greenville is back with a vengeance. The concert calendar is filled up everywhere from clubs like Gottrocks and the Radio Room to bigger venues like the Peace Center.
One interesting thing about the Radio Room’s calendar is the amount of repeat performers on the schedule. Local and regional acts like Quality Time, Ill Intentions, Maxx Good$, Daddy’s Beemer and Cry Baby are leaping onto each other’s shows, in some cases acting as support acts after headlining their own shows.
It’s not a coincidence, and it’s not because of a lack of touring bands to fill out a club’s schedule — these bands are making a conscious effort to help one another out.
Quality Time. Photo provided“I think we’re realizing how important the community aspect is of playing shows and how happy it makes us to show up for each other,” says Pearson Parham, singer/guitarist for the Upstate emo band Quality Time. The band supported Ill Intentions at Radio Room on June 19 and will return on July 9 as part of local band Curfue’s album-release show. “I know it makes me happy when people do it for us.”
“It’s important that we all support each other,” says Upstate hip-hop artist Maxx Good$, who played his own headlining Radio Room show in late May and supported fellow Greenville rapper Shyland Flowers at his June 25 album-release show. “Greenville isn’t necessarily a small town, but the hip-hop scene isn’t very big. We all know each other, so we just look out for each other whenever we can and try to contribute to the ultimate cause, which would be to gain popularity.”
Good$ brings up an important point. It’s not just about camaraderie; sharing shows is also about cross-pollinating audiences.
“That’s a major component,” Good$ says. “It’s about bringing our resources together and making sure that the community is thriving. When we collaborate, we’re bringing in a crowd.”
Cry Baby, an indie pop band out of Charleston, headlined a show here in June and recently hopped onto the same Curfue show as Quality Time did. Cry Baby’s Joey Haines says the band has set up entire tours based on collaborations with local bands.
“It’s always been about teaming up with local musicians,” Haines says. “We’ve toured around the Southeast and Midwest and all of that was possible because of local bands. Whether they’re based out of Nashville or Atlanta or the Upstate, ultimately it helps us meet people in that city and have people come out because they want to see their friends.”
Haines says that these collaborations can create networking opportunities for bands that don’t have larger entities booking tours for them.
“When people are bigger they may get put together with other bands by their agency or their label,” he says. “But for us it’s really more of a DIY network of bands. There are so many great bands in so many cities and when you show up to play with them, their fans come out. And then you make new fans and when you go back to that city people already know who you are. That’s been the story for us in the Upstate. It’s one of the strongest places for us to play right now, and none of that would be possible without us teaming up and making something happen together.”
And if all these bands on the same bill sound different from one another, all the better.
“We end up being paired up with people who are different from us,” Haines says. “And it’s cool because people get to experience different aspects of music. It’s nice to have some variety.”
Note: This approach seems to be working. All of the shows we mentioned in this piece sold out.
