Chris Tamplin likes wearing wigs, as you can see in the photo above. He also runs and books Durham’s Motorco. After months of blood, sweat and swearing, the rock club opened last fall to much fanfare and Tamplin decamped from his perch behind the bar at Raleigh’s Tir Na Nog, where he ran the uber-popular Local Beer Local Band series, to Bull City.
Here’s what Tamplin had to say about the new club:
Why open your own venue and, why Durham?
Well, it was time for me to move on and do my own thing. I had pretty much done everything I could do with Local Band and an opportunity arose for me to take the next step and I took it.
What has been one of the most memorable moments you’ve had at a local show, either one you attended or one you booked?
There really are so many it is hard to really name name one but things like Valient Thorr doing Funkadelic during the first Raleigh Undercover always stands out. My birthday show a couple years back with Red Collar, The Loners, and Goner that we turned into an Obama rally and voter registration drive was memorable as well. In all honesty though there were a lot of great moments.
What have been the challenges in running a new venue so far?
The challenges in opening a new place are things like trying to fill the calendar everyday where at Tir Na Nog I had Thursdays and the occasional weekend events. Then there is the whole thing of getting national agents to work with you. Being well known in the local scene doesn’t always mean a lot to out of town agents so you have to really work to get them to believe in you.
What’s your fantasy billing? If you could book any three bands–or any three bills–what would they be?
Any three bands? That might be too small a bill for me. I really don’t know. I probably won’t sound too hip but Wilco, Billy Bragg, and Red Collar to have local but could fill that with bands like Megafaun, Love Language, Lost In The Trees, Hammer No More The Fingers, etc, etc. There really are so many great ones out there I could do this all day and come up with totally different line ups.
