By Logan Langlois
MURFREESBORO, TN — Not many 13-year-olds spend most, if not all, of their free time booking small concerts around their town for local bands they’re not even in. But as long as he’s been a teenager that’s exactly what Joseph Glisson has been doing. Now having just recently celebrated his 18th birthday, Glisson is one of the go-to-guys when it comes to booking concerts across Murfreesboro. His main stomping grounds are in alternative music spaces such as punk or metal, though he’s recently made a splash in the seemingly unrelated spaces of EDM and rap.
After breaking through into the scenes which he felt closest to, such as hard rock, punk and metal, Glisson has recently been making more of a special effort to incorporate different genres together in the same concert line-up after growing bored of years of booking more predictable shows. This is something he says he’s been able to do effectively provided he pays special care in ensuring the energy between bands carries throughout the night.
“I love hardcore but a lot but some of them, in the nicest way possible, and this also carries from me band too, sometimes it gets a little redundant,” said Glisson. “Not all the time. But if I can have the opportunity to slip in something that maybe people haven’t seen, or aren’t privy to, I think that’s more like a mission accomplished for me.”
Now a five-year veteran in local booking and promotion, as well as a deeply ingrained member of the Murfreesboro alt-scene, the process for booking shows has largely shifted from Glisson tracking down bands to many of his favorite artists contacting him. Glisson says he has his friends in the scene to thank for where he is now. Including an owner and operator of Murfreesboro’s arguably most popular punk venue, CXR’s Ethan Rose, who showed him how to put together the kind of flyers that punk, hardcore, and metal fans respond to. He is also thankful for his first opportunities to book shows that were given to him by the now-closed Murfreesboro business venue Media Rerun.
When asked about what’s happening in the Murfreesboro alt scene now, Glisson says that everything’s changed since 2020. He recounted watching alternative music in general, especially punk and metal, explode among audiences the same age as himself and even younger, most of whom were exposed to alternative culture through TikTok. He also went into detail that, for the first time since he’s been on the scene, people show up regularly for weekday concerts in very surprising numbers. Glisson said that he’s happy to see more people at the shows and that he can now pay out bands with larger earnings. Though, he’s also said that with the scene exploding there’s also been a few who creep in looking for ways to take advantage of the confusion which naturally comes with larger crowds.
Glisson then pointed out that we are approaching three years since the first wave of young people in the scene, and they’re all now approaching the age at which they’ll be able to rent properties. This, in his opinion, will hopefully lead to further house venues being established and fuel further growth and sustainability within the scene.
If interested in following Glisson’s bookings, he’s available on Instagram under @bucket_city_punx and @mufreesboro_diyshows.
