I took a look inside your cigarette box.. All I found were popsicle sticks.
so as some of you know, i canceled my performance at the date shed at the very last minute. im sorry to those who i told too late and had paid already. i hope you enjoyed your night anyways. but i do feel i should explain what happened. im also tired of explaining such a long story to every person, so heres my two birds and one stone attempt.
if you follow me on twitter (twitter.com/cocohatesme) you would know that i have had the feeling that the booker, oh heck, lets give him an alias.. um... Sally. That sally had feeling of hate towards me.
so lets start from the beginning.
i get a random call from sally one day to play a show with one of the valleys biggest bands, Gram Rabbit. but through the whole conversation he finds ways to put me down by saying how there are so many other bands that he would rather have and how i may not fit the bill... yeah, i almost forgot who was asking who to play this show at this point.. but i dismissed any further thoughts. he doesnt know me or my work so much so why get mad.
through out the week, a little more of these little rude comments would pop out once in a while but again, i dismissed them. a week full of late night practices, stressing over finding a bassist and the day finally comes. were excited, pumped and proud of the work we did. its finally time for sound check and i arrive right on time.. sadly my band mates werent even on their way (doesnt this sound familiar). i finally meet this infamous sally and i was pretty excited.. he wasnt. he had quite the frown and told me to go all the way around and park in the back. no big deal.
i arrive in the unloading area and i find him meeting another band (as happy as can be) out where i met him.. but instead of sending them all the way around he opens up the gates and moves the fences.. everything just hits me then.
this guy has favorites. great.
all his actions and words, they finally make sense.
anyways, my band finally shows up and were ready for sound check. since the full band wasnt there on time for our sound check, they say theyll do the other two bands, then us.
sounds reasonable. its 7 pm and doors open at 9. completely possible to sound check 3 bands in that time.
in the mean time he and the sound guys heavily push the idea of me playing acoustic. i dont give.
he gives each band an hour for sound check.. a full hour.. thats longer than their set. and, longer than our 30 minute sound check.
i finally confront him about how theyre taking way to long to do these sound checks and why was our sound check so short and how theyre getting special treatment.
he tells me to "get real" and that these bands have a bigger reputation... thats all.
now im getting mad. i understand bands getting longer sets than others due to them headlining but i dont believe that some bands should get special treatment. thats not the music scene i want to be a part of.
after this, he just keeping pushing the fact that my bandmates were late and how its our fault and no one elses. i later found out that they didnt expect a full band from us. sally left out to the sound guys that i wasnt doing an acoustic set.
oh.. hold up. everything is coming together. they messed up with their schedule and didnt plan for a full band. so they keep pinning the fact we were late on us and make me go acoustic so they dont get called on for their mistakes.
i call them out on this.. and guess what. they pull out another excuse!
they had moved the house drum set, the drums we were going to use for the show all the way in the back..
what!
now i know they want me to go acoustic. i ask why they moved it if they knew we were using it (and they moved it after we showed up, mind you) and they reply with the same excuse.. we were late. bull shit. well, its true, but let me explain.
my 30 minute sound check was left unexplained until they found out we were planning to use their house drums and amps. they claimed they planned for a short check cause they knew we were using their stuff. again with bull shit. i did not inform them that until we got there. and they were asking the other bands when they got there what drums or amps they were using, so they were completely unplanned.
it was lie, after lie, after lie. and id ask the people working on the sound what sally had confirmed on how many full bands were playing that night and he had been telling them 2.. not 3. this was still at the time when he was giving us false hope.
it comes to 9 and he finally approaches me about how he cant have us full band cause we didnt do sound check and our only possible option for me to perform is to play acoustic (lame proposal). ive played shows when they sound check us while performing. any good sound guy can do it before the first song ends. i suggest that and then they bring up that the drums are stored away. wow. great time to bring up that our drums arent an option when you guys are such great planners. but lastly he tells me to "get real" (again?) and how it doesnt matter if i'll be acoustic cause i wouldnt draw a crowd anways.
........
we denied and walked away.
while leaving he was shouting things like
"we'll call you!"
"dont hate on the shed!"
im glad everything didnt go according to plan, cause even if they did, even if we showed up on time, and he liked us, i wouldnt be proud of working with such people.
he looked down on us and treated us disrespectfully.
thats no music scene to me.