If you’re in a band and you’ve walked the streets with a stack of flyers for your next show weighing you down, then you’ve no doubt felt the exact same pain, frustration, disbelief and indignation that I’m feeling right now. What’s wrong with people? Why is everyone so pathetic and disinterested? You’d think that I was trying to sell time share, life insurance or those deaf people’s cards that you HAVE to pay for instead of just trying to promote good local music.

This time the show in question is an all ages, strictly no drugs or alcohol show at the Pavilion skate-park. The show features us, two other Durban bands and an out of town band from Pretoria. So, I woke up earlier than usual, packed the car full of flyers and posters, hopped in and off I went. As it was not my first flyer mission I kind of knew what lay in store for me. I was expecting my fair share of upturned noses and vacuous, uncaring stares, but I had a good feeling about this one. The flyers were fancy, there was an out of town band on the line up (that’s a big deal to Durban audiences) and the show was AT the Pavilion, which meant that I wouldn’t have any problems getting posters put up around the centre and that I wouldn’t have to avoid any truncheon wielding security guards. Or so I thought.

My first stop was my local pub, Chiltern Park. Chiltern’s a great way to start any flyer mission. I know it may sound a bit Cheers and ‘Where everybody knows your name’, but the owner Brad always greets me with a smile and replies, “Yeah, put them wherever you want pop star", when I ask him if I can put up a poster or dump some flyers. After Chiltern everywhere else is depressing for the ‘flyer merchant’.

The only places that are likely to accept flyers are; personally owned businesses, like bottle stores, pubs and tea rooms or shops that think it’s cool to have flyers advertising shows, like skate shops or Idols. Stay away from all franchises, especially petrol stations at all costs. They REALLY don’t care at all. You’d think that, seeing as how these places are all in public and have blank, empty walls that get looked at all the time, that a designated ‘notice’ area for local events might not seem that out of the question. Most peoples replies are that they make the place look untidy, but that’s a brush off if I’ve ever heard one. You should see how neatly I can stack a pile of flyers on the counter or Prestik a poster to the wall, it’s not hard.

After Chiltern, I went to the local tea room, whose owner, I noticed, is giving my requests for flyer space a fair bit more consideration these days. I’m sure that it’s not going to be long until he starts turning me down. That’s usually how it goes, people ‘put up’ with and tolerate it for a while. Then it seems to become irritating. The local bottle store, as always, was a pleasure. Even though the poster says ‘Strictly no alcohol or drugs’. Next stop, the Pavilion.

Once inside, I walked straight to the Management office with a small sense of pride. I know it sounds lame, but I thought that it would be cool to see a poster with my bands name on it on one of the main notice boards that are all over the Pavilion. That’s how it works, people need to see a poster like that, that they don’t have to dig to find, to take you seriously and not see you as just over eager hobbyists.

I couldn’t believe it when the woman behind the desk told me that she couldn’t put up our posters because they’re not for a ‘Pavilion event’. “But the show’s at the Pavilion", I pleaded. “Sorry, you can leave the small ones at the info booth". Fat lot of help that’s going to do, how many people likely to come to a punk show at the Pavilion skate park are going to stop at the info booth? I didn’t even know where it was.

Next I got turned down by Musica. Musica??!!!? Aren’t they a music shop? Isn’t their slogan ‘Listen With Your Soul’? The guy at the counter wasn’t even listening with his ears when I tried to explain that the poster is simply advertising a local show, at the very same centre that his shop’s in, and not some kind of rival CD sales. I just wanted to put a neat stack of flyers on the counter or something. It seems to me that Musica would be just as happy if there were no local bands, just people like ‘Fiddy’ Cent and Kanye West that they can really get behind, promote and sell. Look & Listen’s attitude has changed quite a bit recently as well, when faced with requested poster space by an unsigned band. They’ve got a listening station table where you can dump flyers, but nowadays it’s out of the way around the corner and would only get seen by people that are actually listening to a CD. A bit impractical if you ask me (not that anyone is). The clerk took my poster with a sense of disdain and said that she’d have to run it by the manager first. I’ll go back and look for it soon.

After that I’d had enough of the Pavilion. Just before I left though, I walked by a few guys wearing skate shoes and baggy pants. One had a Mohawk so I approached them and offered them some flyers, “There’s a cool punk show happening here", I said, “Come check it out". They stared straight at me and walked straight by into Y.D.E, as if their hands were too good for my flyers. That’s the worst kind of brush off, the personal one. Look, I know people get a few flyers trying to sell them stuff at traffic lights, but surely they can tell the difference when it’s just an honest guy trying to get the word out about a show? It’s not like I was wearing a Trellidor or Nokia shirt or something.

That was it. I was SO over the Pavilion. As I was leaving, I remembered something Brad had told me at Chiltern earlier. He said that his younger brother and all his friends liked Punk, Emo, watching bands and just music in general. He said that they all hang out at the local Baptist Church and that seeing as how this was an all ages, strictly no drugs or alcohol show, just down the road that they might let me put a poster up on the church’s notice-board. A great idea in theory, everyone wins. The local kids that are usually too young to watch any live music get to go to a show and we get lots of new faces in the crowd.

The car I parked next to had band and skate stickers on the bumper, so it looked like the right place. It’s not often that I really go to any kind of religious sanctuary, like a church. So, walking in I was a bit nervous. I saw a sign that said office and a friendly looking guy with no shoes on. I asked him if I could put up one of the tiny posters on the notice-board. I explained that it was an all ages show and that it was happening just down the road. “Sorry we can’t advertise anything that’s not church related. If we did we wouldn’t know where to draw the line". Hmm, surely a call like that’s not too difficult. Let give the honest musician that’s just trying to let the locals know that there’s a show going down in town some time, but don’t let say, Coke or KFC advertise their latest specials.

Where have all the Community notice boards gone? I prestiked a small poster up on a blank notice board at another local mall and had it ripped down by the same security guard that just stared blankly at the BMW 4 X 4 parked in the disabled parking space. People just aren’t interested. For some reason when you explain that you’re in a band and playing a show in town you expect them to kind of get behind that and respond with a vague sense of loyalty or pride. Or at least not treat us the same as a Blockbuster Videos flyer dispenser handing out flyers in a Mr. Video, video store.

Most people don’t want to advertise anything that’s ‘for sale’ anywhere else. This new kind of fervent defence for your own retail space and rigid rules and restrictions imposed when receiving flyers is a fairly new development. People, in general, used to be a lot more receptive to the idea. There was a time when you could advertise your show, no matter where the venue was, on the corner of Clark road and Umbilo road, one of the only meeting places for the Durban alternative music scene. Nowadays, flyers handed out in and around that area HAVE to be for either Burn or The Winston. Even if you just want to put them on the windscreens of cars that are parked in the road. Times have changed. By the end here, it feels kind of like I’m losing the plot a bit and that this is turning into an unfocused, whiny rant, but I’ve been burnt so many times on well intentioned flyer missions and wanted to write something like this every time and haven’t. Maybe I’m not totally alone though. When I talked to some older people about my frustrations, they replied, “The local Spar used to have such a big notice board by the entrance. Now, they only use it to advertise Spar products". That’s that then, over and done.