Beatle Bob vs. The Bluebird: Boycott Drama in St. Louis

According to a letter posted on the 52nd City blog, notorious concert-goer Beatle Bob is attempting to orchestrate a boycott of The Bluebird:

Attention, St. Louis bands, club-owners & booking agents, and local media:

Just wanted to tell you about the Bluebird Club restrictions on bands that have been hurting not only the local bands but you groovy club booking-owners as well. I found out from some local band members who appear at the Bluebird club, cannot play another St. Louis music venue three weeks after they perform at the Bluebird.

This is totally uncalled for and is strictly unfair to both the bands trying to make a living as well as to the club owners who try and book the best bands for their fans. Let’s all hope the bands stand up to these restrictions by boycotting performances at the Bluebird.

Beatle Bob

Now, this whole boycott seemed fishy to me for two reasons:

1. Clubs all over the country have similar policies and, from a business standpoint, it makes sense: Clubs book bands to bring their fans. Bands, especially local bands, are more likely to deliver a higher turnout for a single event if they aren’t playing smaller gigs all over town every week. Because, let’s face it, unless your band’s name is Wilco, you can’t reasonably expect to bring a packed house night after night in the same town. Don’t oversaturate the market; leave the people wanting more. I can definitely see how this sort of policy might upset some bands, but it could be a lot worse. Hell, it’s not like the Bluebird’s instituting a pay-to-play scheme or anything.

2. This is coming from Beatle Bob. More on this point later.

To clear this up, I got in touch with Mike Cracchiolo, one of the Bluebirds’ co-owners (and, full disclosure, co-worker of mine), to get his side of the story. Here’s what he had to say:

I haven’t bothered to respond to anyone yet, but a few folks have been asking, so here’s the rundown. You can draw your own conclusions.

-Bob doesn’t have his facts straight; we don’t have an official blackout policy. Our unofficial guideline is that you can’t play the Bluebird within 2 weeks in either direction of another gig, or within 4-6 weeks of your last gig at the Bluebird. It’s extremely difficult to enforce because there is very little precedent for it in St. Louis so a lot of times we have to ignore it just to round out the shows. We also give a lot of leeway to bands that we know will work hard and draw well, but the bottom line is that there is no hard and fast rule as of right now.

-The portion of the policy that he is criticizing (the weeks following a Bluebird gig) is the one that least benefits us and most benefits the other clubs. The weeks preceding a Bluebird show are way more important to how a band draws at our club.

So it’s all a big misunderstanding about a club policy? You’d think a simple e-mail to the Bluebird management could’ve cleared that up and avoided any cries for outright boycott. I thought that maybe Bob, who occasionally hosts a Thursday night showcase at the Lucas School House, was running into scheduling conflicts with bands already on the Bluebird’s events calendar. Turns out there’s more to the story. As Cracchiolo tells it:

Bob was recently asked to leave the Bluebird because he did not pay and was not on the guest list. He had been in twice before that (on the guest list, I think). All three times, he simply rushed past the doorperson; the third time it happened to be me. When I asked him if he was on the list he just nodded and said, “I’m Beatle Bob!” I made the call to have him thrown out and he was told not to come back without either paying the cover or actually being on someone’s guest list. He hasn’t been back since.

Hmmm. Why does this not surprise me?

Beatle Bob, for those who don’t know, is a fixture of the St. Louis music scene, but he’s also something of an enigma. What we know for certain about Bob is this: He’s a man in his mid-fifties who sports a mop-top and vintage clothes, and he claims to have gone to at least one show a night, every night since Christmas Eve in 1996. When you see him at a show (and if you live in St. Louis you inevitably will), he’ll be at the front row completely enraptured in his own unique dance stylings. His dancing has even earned him a small, national cult following — he’s become a staple figure at the SXSW fest and he was asked to emcee the final Guided By Voices show in Chicago four years ago. He’s also been featured in stories in the Associated Press and Blender magazine. There’s even a documentary in the works about Beatle Bob.

But that’s about all we know. Nobody knows where he lives, or if he even has a home. People who have driven him back after shows report being asked to let him out at random intersections, at which point Bob would dash into the woods and out of sight to keep his lair a secret. Nobody knows if he holds down a steady job, but he has repeatedly claimed to be an employee of KDHX in an attempt to get into shows for free and acquire free merchandise from touring bands. His sticky fingers have allegedly gotten him banned from Vintage Vinyl, and there are eyewitness accounts of Bob stealing other people’s properties at shows, adding to his reputation as a kleptomaniac. Some speculate that he has Asperger’s syndrome, but no one knows for sure.

Whatever it is that makes him tick, there’s no doubt that he’s a huge fan of music. But his sense of entitlement to the music — the idea that he shouldn’t have to pay for concerts or merchandise, or that it’s okay to elbow others to claim his spot up front — rubs a lot of people the wrong way. So Beatle Bob got into trouble at the Bluebird and was told not to come back unless he followed the rules that everyone else adheres to, and he responded by calling for a boycott of the club. Like I said, seems fishy to me.

In the meantime, we might not see Bob’s dancing at the Bluebird, but maybe we’ll see some mop-topped impersonators pop up for ’60s night of the Under Cover Weekend come September 6th. Start practicing your moves now: