Glam-rock shredder or dead terrorist?
There are some, like David King, director of client relations for Traffic Control Group — a company with offices in New York and London that specializes in obtaining work visas for traveling artists — who insist the troubles are overblown. “It really isn’t as bad as people think it is,” he says in a telephone interview, pointing out that the number of problem instances are statistically low. “You can’t generalize and say, ‘Here’s the reason that bands aren’t getting into the United States.’ There are all sorts of reasons. And each [band] would probably have a different reason.”
King is right in that there are myriad reasons why a band would have what gets reported in the press as “visa difficulties,” but the examination of said reasons neither sedates concerns nor tempers outrage.
Consider the case of the French group Fancy, which tried this past March to play with Justice on the MySpace Music Tour. Three of the members got their visas in February, but the guitarist’s visa was withheld because his name, Mohamed Yamani, is similar to that of Abu Mohamed Al Yamani, a reported al Qaeda envoy in Algeria. Never mind that one is a glam-rock shredder and the other an international terrorist, and more oddly, that the latter was killed in 2006. When the bells go off, Homeland Security has to get involved. Fancy’s problems were resolved in late March, but only after the band missed 18 of 20 scheduled US dates.
Equally absurd is the now-famous case of Rodrigo y Gabriella. The Mexican guitar duo tried to get visas in March 2007, but had similar problems when Rodrigo Sanchez found his name is shared by a criminal on a Mexican wanted list. There is, as of this writing, no mechanism at US consulates to prepare for the contingency that more than one person in Mexico may be named Rodrigo Sanchez, and the duo was forced to cancel eight sold-out shows, according to Spin magazine, to the lost-revenue cost of about $65,000.
Mistaken identity is just one of many problems. Scottish indie-pop group the View had to cancel a tour in April 2007 because frontman Kyle Falconer has a recent conviction for cocaine. If you have a criminal record of any kind, you are immediately and forever disqualified from the usual visa process and need a “waiver of inadmissibility,” a separate process adding up to more time, and more bureaucracy.
Or maybe you simply haven’t been around long enough, as was the case with British nu-rave group Klaxons, who in October 2006 had to cancel a tour because the “P1” visa classification — for non-immigrant entertainment workers — arbitrarily stipulates that bands must be together for one full year before coming to America. Such provisions fail bands that have enjoyed the kind of sudden success that the Internet can now easily create.
Canadian group You Say Party! We Say Die! encountered a tragicomedy of errors; first, a technicality involving their petitioner (the necessary American co-sponsor for the visa, in this case their booking agent, as foreigners are not allowed to petition for themselves) needed to be resolved, which eclipsed their proposed East Coast tour. Then, they filed the wrong version of a recently changed form and were in danger of missing their West Coast dates, as well. Not wanting to disappoint US fans or their new label, they tried to cross the border anyway (saying — falsely — that they were en route to a recording session in LA), got caught in a border inspection, and now bassist Stephen O’Shea (who was doing the talking) is banished from the country until 2011. They filed an appeal within a month, and to date haven’t heard anything more.
