Former MINISTRY/NIN Member MARTIN ATKINS To Release Book On Touring

Former MINISTRY/NINE INCH NAILS member Martin Atkins has just completed his book on touring.

According to a press release, "Tour:Smart" is "the first real book on touring." Atkins has been a member of KILLING JOKE, PUBLIC IMAGE LTD., MINISTRY, NINE INCH NAILS, PIGFACE and has run his own label Invisible Records for almost 19 years. Atkins gives a refreshing look at the state of touring and the music industry.

The book contains:

* A stunning array of luminaries and lunatics from the real world of touring. Hundreds of years of experience, triumphs, and catastrophes crammed into 500 pages.

* With input from Henry Rollins, Steve Albini, managers, crew, journalists, venues, publicists, musicians, merchandisers, accountants, immigration attorneys, bus companies, agents, sponsors, political campaigners, radio personalities, sex advisors, and The Suicide Girls.

* On topics ranging from sex, groupies, drugs, Excel, guest lists, how to be a better opening band, transportation, contracts, ego & charisma, budgets, sponsorships, sounding better, street teams, art vs. business, settlements, international touring, mistakes to avoid, Murphy's law, case studies, China, marketing, staging revenue streams, package tours, essential strategies for success, good advice from bad people and war stories from the front line.

Commented Atkins: "It was the chapter on riders from a Billboard bestseller on touring that pushed me over the edge and made me decide to put this book together. The author cited a band requesting M&Ms – 'but no brown M&M's' — as an example of rock 'n' roll excess and silliness on a rider!! He completely missed the purpose of this particular request. It is genius! — a litmus test for a busy tour manager who has 200 things to check on each hour. Any one of them can derail a performance, a mood, or a legitimate need. So, rather than waiting for the day to unfold, the tour manager could walk into the dressing room, glance at the bowl of m&m's, and if he saw brown M&M's, he would know that the clown organizing the show hadn't read the rider. Time for a meeting before something lands on someone's head or 'I thought it said 200 watt power amp! You really need 20,000 watts?!' Watch 'Spinal Tap' (again) — that Stonehenge shit is REAL!

"You should fail because your band is shit or because you don't have the balls. You shouldn't fail because of a lack of some basic advice and a bit of planning.

"'Tour:Smart' is part basic knowledge, part math, part poetry, part alchemy, and part understanding of each and everyone of the limitations placed upon you by terrain, bank account, head and heart, and a willingness to choose to ignore those that stand in your way. In pulling all of this apart over the last 30 years, I reached a delightful conclusion: it's still only the people who are prepared to risk everything that will be rewarded immeasurably. I tried very hard to forget the fact that it is intended to be a textbook (and quite possibly shredded an institutional market for the book) by talking about things not traditionally spoken about in a learning environment. But Jesus Christ, each of the astronauts had to have asked fairly early on – 'Where on earth do we take a shit?' It's got to be in a NASA textbook somewhere!"

For more information and a complete contributors list, visit the "Tour:Smart"MySpace page.