By Vish KhannaIn perhaps one of the silliest, WTF moves ever, Montreal’s Snailhouse were apparently dropped from opening two Beach House shows in France, because the Beach House camp purportedly didn’t want two bands with “house” in their name on the same bill.
The long-standing project of Wooden Stars/Bell Orchestre member Michael Feuerstack, Snailhouse have been working steadily as a band in recent years and are touring behind a new EP called Monumental Moments. Or at least, they’re trying to.
Speaking to Exclaim!, Snailhouse’s Kyle Cunjak said the band got word of the show cancellations from the Beach House camp last week, forcing Snailhouse off the bill at shows in Rennes and Clermont-Ferrand, France, on November 5 and 6, respectively.
“Even though there was a contract and we said we’d change the name to ‘Mike Feuerstack’ they still said ‘no,’” Cunjak said, adding that the debacle left Snailhouse scrambling for make-up dates.
“I really hope it was the management and not the band, but really, what a fucking dumb move to pull on an independent touring band,” Cunjak said.
So take heed Crowded House, House of Pain and Bauhaus if you reunite, or even you Hugh Laurie, should you ever end up touring behind some musical production of your dramedy House: some houses may not be big enough for both you and Beach House.
UPDATE: Beach House have issued the following statement regarding the Snailhouse show cancellations:
We would never kick anyone off of a show because of their name being vaguely similar to ours. That would be incredibly silly. What Snailhouse seems to have construed as a major dick-move move by us must be the result of some translation mix up between the French promoter and our Flemish booking agent regarding the redundancy of the word "house". Our understanding is that they were never actually booked or contracted. All of this seems to have been born of confusion over a small miscommunication. The whole thing would be comical except that we fear that the folks in Snailhouse were offended and, as anyone who knows us would know, that bums us out.
Tour dates:
10/22 Hamburg, Germany - AstraStube 10/23 Oldenburg, Germany - Polyester Klub 10/24 Kiel, Germany - Prinz Willy 10/25 Göttingen, Germany - Pools Club 10/27 Braunschweig, Germany - Nexus 10/28 Berlin, Germany - Schokoladen 10/30 Magdeburg, Germany - Blauer Bock/URBANPIRATEN 10/31 Munich, Germany - Import/Export 11/1 Graz, Austria - Scherbe 11/3 Vienna, Austria- Fledermaus (Vienna Songwriting Association) 11/4 Passau, Germany - Unterhaus 11/6 Paris, France - La Fleche D'Or 11/8 Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Dwaze Zaken 11/9 Dusseldorf, Germany - Brause 11/10 Bonn, Germany- Kult 41 11/11 Arnhem, the Netherlands - House show 11/12 Ameland, the Netherlands - Island Creative Quarantaine (house show) 11/13 Zutphen, the Netherlands - La Bicyclette 11/18 Montreal, QC - Cabaret Du Mile-End
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 14:09:33Hi this is Alex from BEACH HOUSE! This story is completely annoying. I have no idea who was involved with booking snailhouse into those shows, but it wasnt us. The reason snailhouse was removed from the show was that we had already chosen other support. This was a mix up amongst the bookers and club people in Europe.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 14:17:38Also, exclaim, way to publish trashy rumors about nothing!
Sorry that Snailhouse had to leave the show, you can rest assured it had nothing to do with the name.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 14:22:28Beachhouse, you need to be more like CRASS.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 14:41:52Could've used a question mark in the headline on this one.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 15:12:06how is this ridiculous story still up. this site is so worthless
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 15:12:31Why the question mark? Snailhouse dude said they were specifically dropped because of their name. But whether Beach House caused that or some lame promoter, that's definitely up for debate.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 15:37:14Question mark because the story doesn't have comment from Beach House or the promoter. Also, the fact that Snailhouse offered to change its name for those shows and still got rejected leads one to believe that the name thing was perhaps only part of the story.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 16:21:59this hilarious story is possibly the only thing remotely interesting about either of these bands.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 16:35:09Wait, I just remembered something: twitter.com/beachhouse2010/status/13765559813
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 18:24:22Maybe what Beach House says is true - the show simply got double-booked, it happens. So why wouldn't the promoter or agent tell Snailhouse that? Even if that wasn't the case, isn't that the go-to excuse, the "it's not you, it's me" of the band booking world? The whole name thing is so odd, so specific, it seems crazy that some European agent or booker just made that up, and then blamed Beach House for it. That's what stinks here - the "lie" (according to Beach House) or truth (according to Snailhouse) doesn't seem like something a promoter would randomly make up. It seems way too specific to not have some ring of truth somewhere. Now of course Beach House are denying it all because it makes them look bad...
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 18:49:11notice the "apparently" and "purportedly" used in this article - exclaim isn't doing anything other than reporting the side of the story they got from snailhouse, and doesn't claim to be doing anything other than that either.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 19:00:10This is really trashy
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 19:10:00i know mike from snailhouse and he's not an idiot or a liar. hilarious story dudes, sorry snailhouse bros!
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-21 06:00:32think this name thing is too assinine to be true? let me remind you all about Manitoba and the reasons why Dan Snaith's now Caribou. stranger name games have happened no matter what the reasons behind the mix-up, it is shitty for any shoe-string budget artist to go all that way to find they are not playing.
i know Mike too, and yes, he has way too much integrity to try to spin falsehoods.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-21 10:04:46I don't think anyone is calling the Snailhouse dudes liars, I fully believe it's possible in the world of European show booking that when communicating something between three languages then back to them the message was very different than it started. I'd have been upset if I had head that is why I was being dropped from a show (true or not). I think the only fault was running straight to the press rather than find out the validity of it.
Knowing the Beach House peeps I'm 100% confident they never would have asked for a band to be booted from their show because of their name. Also having toured Europe multiple times I'm aware of the slew of miscommunications that happen when you have say a Dutch promoter who is booking you shows in 10 different countries with 10 different languages. Subleties and intent can get completely chewed up like a game of telephone.
I do however think that Exclaim jumping to run this "article" with out doing any follow up on the other side is exactly what's wrong with todays blog culture. Poor journalism from the get go.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-21 11:34:04Regardless of reasons why this happened, the band is now aware of it so why not make nice and add Snailhouse back on the bill? It's not like it's a massive inconvenience to let another touring band on stage to play a 30 minute set. The show is still 2 weeks away, arrangements could be made. Beach House would look like gentleman and Snailhouse get to play a show in front of more people than the crowd they would have at a show they were forced to book last minute.
Everybody wins.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-21 11:43:01TMZ'd
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-21 12:46:51that's a great idea. how's in touch with beach house?
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-21 12:54:33Well, this is all very unfortunate. But it's clear that somebody doesn't have all the facts. Cunjak clearly states there was a contract with his band, while the statement from Beach House says there was no such thing. So which is it?
Sounds to me like the promoter fucked up and then tried to cover his own ass by lying to Snailhouse. I'm inclined to believe Beach House when they say they wouldn't care about the name similarity, because who the hell would do that?
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-27 16:31:14These guys (snailhouse) wouldn't make up untruths about this, and they are also extremely organized and experienced in touring nationally and internationally. They wouldn't say they were confirmed if they weren't. They wouldn't have a contract if they were not actually booked. So Beach House's "understanding" that Snailhouse had not been booked is obviously false. Regardless of whether Beach House is just covering their ass (who would admit to being so pathetic and petty?) or it's their management who are the dicks, or a promoter fucked up and is blaming it on the Beach House camp...either way, Snailhouse got screwed.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-27 17:37:19I love that Alex from "Beach House" instantly went on the defensive instead of putting forth an apology for the mix up. No matter how "annoying" this mix up has been, Snailhouse deserved a little clarification. Now if you're immediate response to something like this is as follows: "Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 14:09:33Hi this is Alex from BEACH HOUSE! This story is completely annoying."...Sounds to me like you're a little guilty of being a dick. Being a Beach House fan, that's kind of disappointing. A simple "sorry for the mix up guys" would've made this go away pretty easily.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-29 03:12:50I know what needs to happen. Snailhouse and Beach House need to have a UFC fight together. naked. the winner gets to keep the name House as a part of their band.
CONCERT: Buck 65 - Venue, Vancouver BC May 18
Oct 20 2010
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Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2010-10-20 14:09:33Hi this is Alex from BEACH HOUSE! This story is completely annoying. I have no idea who was involved with booking snailhouse into those shows, but it wasnt us. The reason snailhouse was removed from the show was that we had already chosen other support. This was a mix up amongst the bookers and club people in Europe.
