It’s a meeting where all the top promoters, booking agents and personal managers come together and discuss how their week has been going. We’re free to ask questions, and everything they say is on the record. The only ground rule is that we cannot attribute any information to any one person.

Like the guy who constantly drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He told us about the new dates for The Juliana Theory. Or the woman who kept cracking her knuckles, passing gas and smacking her lips while she outlined the new tours for Rodney Crowell and The Dandy Warhols. While we can tell you what they said, we’re prohibited from telling you who said what.

So we can’t tell you the name of the guy who always brings a chainsaw to these meetings. He likes to sit in a corner and yank his power cord while rattling off dates for War, The Psychedelic Furs and The New Deal. Or the man who barks like a dog, all the while scribbling down the latest changes in Ratdog’s schedule on last Sunday’s racing form. We’re sure the individual stories behind these unique individuals would be fascinating. But rules are rules.

Which is really a shame, because when a man is dressed like the Good Witch Of The North and has two dwarves attached to either wrist by a long chain leash while he recites tour dates for Festival Con Dios and An Evening Of Guitars & Saxes, you really want to say who he is.

Not to mention the people who appear as various historical figures. There’s Napoleon in the center of the room, talking to Stalin and Hoover about Unified Theory and Fighting Gravity. Which reminds me, the wife wanted the name of J. Edgar’s dressmaker.

To the outsider these meetings must seem very surreal, like stepping into an alternate universe existing in its own space and time. But for us, it’s just another meeting, just a little gathering of the biggest movers and shakers in the live music biz who have come to discuss the current state of the concert industry. Just another one of our little weekly get-togethers.

Yep, it’s just another Thursday group therapy session.