I’ve shared and removed this music here before but here it is again with a little backstory. This gig is from Vancouver two nights after we were supposed to play Bend. I won’t take it down again-Full transparency-I don’t ultimately believe that I or any other small artist can turn recorded music into viable source of revenue so I’ll try to stop awkwardly flexing and do it in a way that is a little less vague if I do it at all. I would like for people to have to work for the work a bit, so I’ll just post things here and hope that you guys can respect that this is where I want certain music to live for now. I’ll still send links to things if you feel like you need them for some reason, but please don’t forget that the music is not yours to distribute. It belongs to the people who created it. Much of the music is created in my home-literally from my house to yours-I hope that you can understand my desire to deliver the work myself and feel some reciprocity in our exchanges.
A couple years ago the band booked a gig in Bend. We hit a snow storm on the way up from the bay and were running a couple hours late for load in. I was in contact with the promoter throughout the day and thought everything would be ok, but when we got there it wasn’t. We had done a gig with the same promoter in Reno a couple nights before and it was pretty rough. The backstage area in Reno wasn’t secure. From the stage during our show I could see people (not employees) doing blow on the table where our passports and wallets were in the center of the green room, which was separated from the audience and stage by a curtain. They also didn’t provide security for the curtain, but even more importantly they didn’t provide any water for us. Maybe it wasn’t on the rider-maybe somehow my fault to an extent- but I had to go to the grocery store up the road and get water for the band before soundcheck while the person in charge of hospitality scrolled their phone at the bar. Like many great lounge acts before us, we jam econo folks-we always have. We don’t ask for much and always expect even less. Our rider consists of 2 cases of water, assorted salty snacks, 6 cans of soda or red bull, and a 12 pack of whatever beer the guys like. That’s it. I use any surplus budget to give the band a per diem. I do 99 percent of the driving and also function as the bands tour manager. It used to be Steve and I together but now it’s just me. There was a few year period where we employed someone great to handle this for us in America. Miss you Sean! Miss you Mark! Wish the music would’ve connected meaningfully at radio and we got to cruise the bus into many more ice storms together- Thanks for dragging us out of bed to make the morning gigs at the stations anyway:) Even with dorky cool powerful management in place on Corsicana Lemonade we handled everything on tour except front of house duties. We have always had help to some extent in the UK. Our group has required a whole lot from every person that has ever been a part of it. I came across an old email recently where even Austin was weighing in with all of us on the merits of a very dumb very inconsequential t-shirt design.
Back to Bend-I won’t go into a ton of detail but the house sound guy treated us really poorly on arrival. They would not allow us to simply move the monitors on the stage. I’ve never experienced anything quite like this before. Just a hard no- a strong ‘because you are late and doors open in an hour you set up how I set you up’ kinda punishment vibe. I want so badly to describe the physical appearance of this person. I won’t but I want to tell you how he looked and carried himself SO DAMN BADLY!!! All I will say is that he had a rather large vape with a grip and a big mouth hole for sucking. If you have one of those-I’m sorry I think they look very dumb. Again Back to Bend-In addition to the immovable monitor situation we had to go through an unreasonably humiliating and nonsensical load in through the front door because of an inexplicable “issue” with the back door next to the stage. The opening band was also very vocally sketched out by the space and crew when we got there. They discovered a used towel with blood on it on the couch in our green room and also some nazi graffiti on the wall in there before we arrived. Again no water. After load in we spent ten or fifteen minutes inside the building before we started loading back out. I am nearly certain that before leaving, I called my agent and the promoter and asked if they could provide a new sound guy. I’m also pretty sure I asked if we could run audio for the gig ourselves. I had an auxiliary percussionist with me who is also a live sound man. I guess I could look at all the emails again-I know there was a phone call or two but most of this is documented in emails and texts. This isn’t journalism though-so there isn’t much of a point. If you wanna fact check me just hit any of the 9 guys that were on the road with me. I ultimately felt that I couldn’t ask the band to perform in that space with that person under those circumstances.
We bailed. I paid my guys and the opening band their fees out of my family savings account and that cancellation fully tanked the tour. Two weeks away from my wife and kids and my studio and not a whole lot to show for it. I drove home alone from Seattle after dropping the guys at the airport doubletree. It was all my call and I’m honestly not complaining. We had fun out there overall and I thought we sounded great. At the end of the tour the band leader from the opening group gave me a hug and thanked me for being generous. This guy is one of my heroes and I’ll never forget that. I don’t know if I’m generous. I try to be I guess. I know that I’m foolish but I try to do the thing that feels right. I’m certainly a person that makes frequent mistakes.
I have long known what abuse feels like and at my age I would prefer not to choose to endure any more of it. I wish it weren’t something that most of us have to face each day to an extent. If you had tickets to that gig I’m really sorry for cancelling. I just couldn’t take it and I couldn’t subject my guys to it. I also didn’t feel at the time like it would be helpful or professional to share our reasons for cancelling the Bend show online. We scrambled and tried to make another gig happen elsewhere that night but couldn’t. That’s why I spent a week mixing this record that I’m sharing here again today. It was supposed to be a kind of payback for cancelling. I’m sort of regretting working so hard on it as I’ve just listened to the mix straight from the board that night and it might actually sound better than my mix… So it goes.
Another thought: Green Room Graffiti
I just took my daughter for Ice Cream after school and on the way home for some reason I remembered the absolutely absurd and astonishingly enormous vein ridden phallus that has been drawn in thick sharpie onto the ceiling of the green room at the Ottobar in Baltimore since the first time I played there more than fifteen years ago. I thought “what if that is still there?”, then “what if I were a woman?” then “what if I were Jewish?” and then “what if I were anything other than me?”. Don’t get me wrong I too have loved a big cartoon cock at certain times in my life but at some point these questions MUST be asked then asked and then asked and then asked.
Another Another thought:
We Jam Econo is a phrase that you should know. Look it up. Watch the film. Read the book. Listen to the music. Be Moved.