Amore's Pizza & Lounge is having a Saturday Cypher which I'm going to check out for the first time this weekend partly cause I'm looking for some regular hip hop events in Raleigh.
Saturday Cyphers occur on the last Saturday of every month at Amore's featuring hip hop djs and mcs. Showtime is around 10 but I hear the last one hadn't really started by 11 though I'm assuming the dj will be playing while folks show before the mcs perform.
Amore's looks like a great place to hang out so I'm looking forward to doing something other than just grabbing a slice on my way through.
Promo Note:
Last Saturdays are hard to remember, Amore's isn't listing this event (or any events) on their MySpace page and I've heard these Saturday Cyphers got off to a slow start.
I'm sure they're building through word of mouth and probably targetting via on and offline social networks but I think something like this could do well if properly promoted and I have some ideas about how that could work.
Not trying to give folks a hard time but I don't see people really working the streets or related events these days though some flyers are being posted for shows and varying degrees of online publicity occur. I know everybody's online but that means that less people are promoting on the streets and offline person to person to strangers so less noise gets in the way of such outreach.
Update:
So I head over to Saturday Cypher, which I would rename Last Saturday Cypher, and got there around 11:20 knowing they weren't going to start before 11 for a 10 pm show.
The dj was playing rock music though, by the third track, a Beastie Boys song appeared before returning to rock and some other genre that, whatever it was, wasn't hip hop. In any case, it was way too loud for the room but maybe that's cause everybody was standing outside?
I got my discount Angry Angel, spoke briefly with Mic Savvy who seemed very cool, drank my beer rather quickly and left at 11:30 because I just wasn't in the mood for such nonsense. If the dj was playing hip hop, I would have hung around for a second beer and waited to see if anything happened but I felt restless and some nights I just can't tolerate poorly run, off-topic enterprises even if the acts to appear may actually be talented.
Which they probably were but who'll know? They have no web presence and they don't have much of an audience. I was seriously considering offering my services for free to help publicize the next show and test my ideas about how to market shows to young people in Raleigh but that's not going to happen cause there's not a solid base on which to build.
What was doubly sad was the block was all about black entertainment and the biggest crowd was the line of people waiting to get into the third floor club, whose name escapes me, that probably didn't have much of anybody inside cause they were forced to stand outside for the purposes of wack club marketing.
There was also a rather talented hip hop/R&B act, the Balance (?), playing at The Five O'Clock Sports Bar with no audience. I know school's out but I hadn't seen anything about this show either. The Five O'Clock MySpace page doesn't list anything and neither does Indyweek .
Seriously, if the club and the band drop the ball, is it any surprise that the spot is dead?
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