My husband's bandmate can suck a bag of dicks!

The BBQ Pit
1

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Exposition: my husband is a former guitarist/vocalist that has since given up on music as a full time profession but is the front man for a local cover band. He figured it would be fun to gig a few times a month or so. The other members are his old friend/drummer and a few other guys we’re acquainted with. The band has consistently packed every dive they’ve played.

Dispensing with the other ticky-tack BS my husband (and me, by extension) has had to deal with (and which isn’t germane to the discussion at hand), today’s behavior just took the fucking cake. The “leader” - that is, the guy whose house is played in and the guy that books all the shows - really pulled some shit on my husband tonight.

So anyways, in December we booked a show which will be taking place tomorrow. Dipshit of course handles all the advertising and whatnot, not like there’s much to do since these aren’t paying gigs or anything. Frankly, husband is happy to be out singing without having to play guitar, write his own music, or do any of the administrative band crap that he did for so long. Tonight Dipshit says, “Here’s some tickets to sell, you have to pitch in $30 for the sound man but you can keep the rest of the money you make!” like this is some sort of great deal or something. Keep in mind the gig is tomorrow and this is the first we’ve heard of tix sales/soundman payment, plus Dipshit’s been the sole person advertising. In fact, he sold tix to my SiL, thereby decreasing the pool my husband can sell to. WTF!

This just reeks of pure bullshit. Something like 200 people have bought tickets from Dipshit already, which is money he keeps. I don’t even give a shit about the money, if it hadn’t been for the way my husband has been systematically beaten to the curb by this no-talent assclown. My husband drives 200/miles a day commuting to law school then gets yelled at to go to practice RIGHT NOW and to make decisions about gigs RIGHT NOW because some jizzbag of a nightclub owner needs to fit in gig planning between getting his asshole scrubbed and systematically eating the hearts of young Angeleno musicians.

AND my husband has loaned out his $1000 digital processor and a few hundred bucks in mics to this pile of shit.

So, Dipshit: I hope you choke to death on the cock of a club manager, and may the Pigs find your husk in some back alley in San Fernando! This will be the last of a long string of disrespect and ill-treatment.

2

My alarm bells went off right here.

3

Nah, he’s the only one that can be counted on, and really is the only reason my husband said “yes” to the whole thing in the first place.

4

As a drummer, I have to take exception to this. In every band I’ve played in, it was the bass player who was worthless and/or unreliable. Fucking bass players! Add another two strings to your instruments and maybe it’ll give you some self-esteem!

Sorry for the hijack, Queen Bruin. Your husband’s bandmate sounds like an ass. But then, the “leaders” usually are.

5

Hey, don’t rag on us bass players, we keep the drummer on the beat when the stupid prima donna guitar players screw up in the middle of a song.

I have kept that low E going for five minutes while the rest of the band gets its shit together. :smiley:

6

You people don’t know what you’re talking about. Everyone knows the smartest person in the band is the keyboard player.

How do you get a bass player off your front porch?
Pay him for the pizza.

Why do guitar players keep their guitar picks on the dashboard of their cars?
So they can park in the handicap slots.

What’s the difference between a lead singer and a terrorist?
Sometimes you can reason with a terrorist.

How do you know when the stage is level?
Drool comes out BOTH SIDES of the drummers mouth.

7

Soooo…do they record in Dubley.

8

What do you call a drummer who just broke up with his girlfriend?

Homeless.

In all seriousness, though, I never quite understood that. I would think that a drummer would be the least likely to be hurting for work, unless he’s just not good at it. You have to have a drummer.

Oh, and did your husband know this guy was a dick before he lent thousands of dollars worth of equipment to him? That’s another thing that aggravates me: the less reliable someone is, the better they are at wheedling.

9

Please tell me this his last gig.

10

You don’t have to have a drummer. I’ve been to lots of great concerts (non-classical and non-folk) where there wasn’t a drummer and I didn’t miss the drums at all. I’ve been to other concerts where there was a percussionist, which I prefer to drum sets.

Of course, rock and garage bands usually have drums, and they probably do have to have drummers.
I hope to hear soon that Queen Bruin’s husband gets his digital processor and mics back, then goes off to start a new band with the drummer.

11

What is the difference between a pizza and a guitarist?

The pizza can feed a family.

I got nothing.

Regards,
Shodan

12

Say WHAT? My brother plays a six string bass, thank you very much. And he always makes it to practice and gigs. One of his bands is missing a drummer, and apparently drummers who can get to practice and gigs all the time are scarce.

13

He’s in a band where he has to pay to play? That’s absurd.

This might explain why the band is not very successful. Advise the bandmate to blow on the bagpipes, not suck on them.

14

Heh, you win the thread! :slight_smile:

15

Anyway, musician jokes aside, the soundman ought to get a cut of the door, not money upfront. Barbacks get money upfront. Everyone else gets paid based on attendance, one way or another. It sound slike The Leader has been hoodwinked, and everyone else is now, too.

16

Something doesn’t add up here. If “the band has consistently packed every dive they’ve played.” then bar owners should be willing to pay the band, even if it’s a percentage of the cover. They should also be hunting the band down to play regularly.

To expect a member of a band to not only volunteer his time, but to sell x number of tickets to cover the sound man, is ridiculous.

17

I agree it sounds wrong. However, the management are in a win-win situation now. The band has taken on almost all of the risk, and the club owner (and no doubt the sound) will still share in the benefits. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it, but SoCal has a whole different scene. I do know that a soundman will accuse the band of damaging some equipment, say a microphone, and demand to be compensated out of the door.

18

It will be. We’re grabbing the mics when we pack up to go and grabbing the processor after the show, then driving off into the sunset.

Rilchiam, the only thing we knew about the guy was that he was a happy-go-lucky pothead and a bit of a buffoon. Shows me to judge things on the surface.

As for the tickets and who has been hoodwinked by who, consider this: each ticket is $7 and Dipshit has sold half the house (this is a pretty large establishment). After paying the sound guy (whom we know as well), that makes for a tidy $1370 profit that Dipshit keeps. Dipshit somehow thinks it’s OK to share the expenses but not the profit, the advertising resources, or even the details of gigs. Attempts to get flyers from him and post them at school have been met with stalling - and I’m not talking about putting flyers up at my old JC, I’m talking a big university.

At this point, they SHOULD be getting paid. One of the clubs - owned by the scummy guy I described upthread - has them play at least once a month. Just getting drink tickets out of them has been like pulling teeth. And this ain’t the Strip, this is Reseda. When we bring 100-150 people from 60 miles away to drink overpriced booze, the band should be getting a cut or at the very least a few rounds of whatever they want. The Roxy treated my husband’s band better than this, and they, being a big name, have the least reason to!

Of course my theory after all this BS is that Dipshit has been being paid all along. He got a nice ESP sponsorship too out of the blue that the rest of the band has been bent out of shape about.

19

After a lifetime of being plaged with musician friends, I must tell you that there is no such thing as “a last gig.”

Sorry.

20

No, but this is the last gig with that particular sack of assholes. Husband has decided we’ll go tonight and give the sound guys their $30 personally, do the show, then sayonara. They’re stuck looking for a new singer by next month, which actually shouldn’t be a problem - I bet the chick they fired for husband will be quickly rehired, much to the consternation of Drummer Girlfriend.