normally i wouldn't do this..
normally i wouldn't do this. i don't usually feel the need to call someone out on their behavior, but following the evening i had tonight, i thought i'd let everyone know how things are going on the road.
we played a show in parkersburg last tuesday, which officially started our tour with scenes from a movie. there was a lot of kids at the show, and we made a decent ammount of money to use towards gas to get to kansas to start the tour on friday, since we'd used the majority of the money made on the hit the lights tour, driving home from texas, and the rest toward our van payments / other debts. thursday morning, we left and drove to st. louis, stayed the night there, got up friday and drove to kansas. the show in kansas was a lot of fun. we had a lot of fun playing the show, and it was our first time playing kansas, so we met a lot of really cool people. unfortunatly, it wasn't financially as awesome. we both sold a lot of stuff, but not enough to make up for getting paid $18 of the door each, after having both driven 16 hours to play the show. saturday morning, we said goodbye to our new friend colin and his girlfriend, and hit the road for fort smith, arkansas. we thought the drive would take around 5 hours, it ended up being closer to 7. we got to the show a bit late, and when we got into town, all the power was off after a huge storm. sometime during this day, i called a place in dothan, alabama called the rewired cafe, inquiring about a show i saw listed on absolutepunk. the bands on the show were the prize fight (who just got off tour with our boys in the band valencia, and you should definitly check out if you get a chance) and a band called long shot hero, who i'd never heard of. the girl on the phone was super nice, and agreed to add us & scenes from a movie to the bill, saying that there were only three bands on it at that point. told us to get there around 7 or 8, and that we were set. back in arkansas, the show gets rescheduled for the next night. we goto our new friend heather's house, and have a fun evening. we leave and go up to the venue for the show the next evening, and when we get there, there are no locals on the show. we have never played arkansas, and scenes played there once, on a hardcore show. we wait around about 2 hours for people to show up, and no one does. so we say goodbye to the club owner and go back to heather's to hang out until 2am, when we were going to leave for our 12 hour drive to dothan, to play the show we got on a few days before. we leave for dothan, and get into town about 7pm, the drive having taken around 17 hours once stops were included. none of us have slept, and we all threw in $20 each of our personal money so that we could get to dothan for this show, meaning that the band is now broke, and most of us are either broke, or close to it.
we arrive at the show, and this is where it gets interesting. we meet heather, the girl who agreed to let us play, and she takes us outside to talk to us, saying that long shot hero (a band on the show from pennsylvania) were a "signed band" and did not want us or scenes to make everyone rush their sets or play shorter sets, and thus did not want us to play the show. she told us that they had thrown a fit to her mother, who is the owner, and that her mother had agreed, mostly so they would leave her alone. we got obviously upset, since we were broke, and had been confirmed for the show, and asked where the long shot hero guys were, so we could talk to them. when talking to them, we were given attitudes and a lack of courtesy that i hadn't seen in a while. after some fighting, they told us that they never said they didn't want us to play. we called heather from rewired over, who told us again that they had. after this, the longshot hero guys, as well as the bass player from the last, local band, who had also been protesting, and was apparantly the actual promoter of the show and said he hadn't known anything about it, suddenly became open to us & scenes sharing gear and each playing shorter sets. we appoligized to the long shot hero guys, since it looked like they might've just been caught up in the situation and weren't really at fault, and everyone was cool. us & scenes were each allotted four songs. heather from rewired gave us each $20, and told us she'd help us out with some more later that night. as i'm talking to heather outside the club before we played, she kept expressing how sorry she was to me, and how it really had been the lsh guys, and that she hoped we believed / understood that they were basically being immature about the situation, as was the bass player from the local band.
now. let me explain something to you.
being in a full time touring band, sadly isn't all the glitz & glamour that most live it up to be. our drives are long. many nights we play shows to somewhat or mostly empty rooms. we usually don't have a lot of money, and (since t&d has been a 4 piece band) we haven't ever actually come home from tour having MADE any money. we do this because we love it. we do this because we want to get our music out to anyone who would be interested in hearing it, because we live,die,sleep,eat,drink,and breathe it. if we can write, play, and record a song that impacts people in a positive way, like we feel our music does, is it wrong to want to share that with those who would be interested in hearing it? we don't think so, so we go away from our friends, family, pets, and girlfriends for 6-8 months a year of not having or making any money, just so that we can do what we love.
IT IS STANDARD PROCEDURE FOR PROMOTERS BOOKING SHOWS TO HAVE LOCAL BANDS HEADLINE THE SHOW. think about any local show you go to. who plays first: the band that has everyone at the show there to see them, or the band that drove 5 hours, and is playing your town for the first time? where we come from, we would never, ever, ever, ever, ever make, or allow a band that was from out of town and didn't have a draw in the area to play last. these bands need to play to people so that they can sell their cds & tshirts & find a place to sleep for the night. they need to play to people so that the next time they might bring some kids back to see them... and those kids might bring their friends.. and so on. it's just how it works. if that's not how it works around you, then your scene is fucked, and you should fix it. in the "diy" or "punk rock" or "indie" music community, it is a very common practice to take care of touring bands. wouldn't you want someone to do the same for you if you were out of your element and didn't know anyone? i know i would, and you know what? people do that for me / us in just about every city we goto. if any of them every came thru west virginia, i would do the same for them (and i have!)
as you can probally guess, the local band kids were complaining about having to play last. we were told that they "didn't need to be getting home at midnight" and that "everyone would be leaving by 9:30 because there's school the next day" (i should also point out that at about 9:15, kids were still rolling in. the show only started at 8pm. despite the complaints, the bass player played cool and told us that us & scenes could play before them. he said, and i quote "none of these kids will leave, because they're all here to see us anyway." so, after long shot hero played their set of refreshing and completly different ska, us & scenes set up to play. we backlined our guitar amps. squared & tony scenes were going to share a bass rig, and ryan was going to use jared scene's drum kit. scenes played their four songs, and despite the pa cutting out at the beginning of the last song, and them stopping to fix it, and then starting again, there was no fucking around. they got on & off the stage, and we were setting up our remaining gear before they were even 100% off the stage. as i was setting up, the bass player from the local band asked me how long we were playing, complaining that scenes had played "like 6 songs" (which they had not). i told him we were doing 4 songs and that we'd rush them and not talk much so it'd go faster. about 3 seconds before we started the first song, he came up and told us he was sorry, but that the people at the club had said we could only play one song, but he had talked them into two. we were irritated, but didn't say anything. we played our two songs, and got off the stage so the locals could set up. if we had been told they were short on time, it would've been super easy for us & scenes both to cut a song, or for us to play acoustic, or whatever. but it wasn't.
i'll be honest. i didn't watch the local band, and i'm not here to talk shit anyway. as i was standing outside smoking after we played, i asked heather (who again, does booking at rewired) why we'd been cut short, and she said that the local band had basically surrounded her mother until she agreed, and that it was prompted by them, and not by the venue. this irritated us further, obviously.
the local band played probally about 8 songs, and then apparantly one of their members left. the remaining members, along with some others from lsh then did improv funk stuff for probally another 20 minutes. the bass player, who was complaining about getting home before midnight, was still there in full force. i felt kind of bad, because a few kids had had to leave before the locals played, probally because of school or curfew, or whatever,but the majority of the crowd was still there. in all reality, they're a local band. it's pretty unlikely that any of the kids that had to leave, left thinking that they'd never be able to see the band again.
after they were done, and were tearing down their gear, me & derek approached the bass player kid, and let him know that we didn't really appreciate what he'd pulled. he again denyed it, etc etc. i don't really remember much of what he said. i was too irritated to care.
heather & her mom (who runs the club) were nice enough to offer to let us stay at the venue for the night. they went out and bought us food, and basically went out of their way to make sure that we were happy, and that no one had any hard feelings about how the night had gone. we don't blame them for anything. i could give you my account of what probally happened, but it's just not really worth it. we'll come back to the rewired cafe, because they're good people, doing things for the right reasons. i had a good conversation with heather about music, and i was happy to see that she understood where we were coming from, and was right there with us.
so tonight, i'm bored on the internet and i came across the following on long shot hero's tour journal. i'm not going to tear it apart, or go into detail on what i think about the things they said. i have offered my recount of the night, and i don't care to debate it. i've posted what was written in their journal, because it disturbs and disgusts me every time i see things like this. PLEASE DO NOT SPAM THEIR SITE, JOURNAL, ETC WITH HATE POSTS. this does not involve the entire world. if you feel compelled to email chris of long shot hero and tell him how you feel, i wouldn't tell you not to. his address is on their website somewhere, i'm sure.
i apoligize for taking up your entire friend screen, but i dont know hwo to do lj cuts. =/
i'm not asking for your sympathy by telling you how we're broke. sometimes we are, sometimes we're not. it doesn't matter. we do this cause we love it. if we had to pay to do it, we'd still find a way to pull it off. we just love to do what we do. no amount, and no lack of money, drugs, girls, awesome haircuts, awesome belt buckles, or vintage tshirts changes that. if you're coming to a show on the scenes tour, or any of the touring this fall, and you want to pick up something at the show, it'd help a lot and we'd appreciate it, but don't go too far out of your way for us. we're doing what we love.
anyway, here's his journal entry.. let the drama begin.
i hate the music scene
great show in dothan, alabama tonight. thanks to everyone there, you guys were absolutely amazing.
but in all seriousness...
my band does not wear tight pants.
we do not have cool belt buckles, and we do not have trendy haircuts.
we do not have "poetic" dark lyrics.
we do not sing about the same played out shit that all bands are whining about nowadays.
we know this, and we pride ourselves on standing out.
this fucking music scene is turning into a show of who can wear the coolest "vintage" clothes, who can have the darker lyrics about killing themselves, and who can look the part rather than fill it and it makes my want to fucking puke.
a good local band in dothan today was pushed back and forced not to play to a crowd that was somewhat there to see them because two emotionally charged, cliche-core bands barged their way in and took the stage, claiming that the crowd was there to see the locals, so the locals should play last.
not only were their assumptions completley incorrect (as i would suspect from such mindless lemmings of today's music scene), they took the stage and had the same chords, music, and gimmick as millions of other bands around the country trying to make it big by carbon copying bands like tbs, senses fail, and whatever other stuff was "underground" 2 to 3 years ago. i don't even mind the bands that pioneered the screamo/emo genre, because when they were doing it they were truely doing something different, which i cannot say for these other bands.
yeah - so maybe i'm taking the "holier than thou" approach to dissecting the contents of the colostomy bag that our music scene has become. since most of these musicians claim to be the derivitive of the 70's punk scene (these fuckers wearing extra small clash t-shirts, who probably don't even own a fucking clash CD), and punk back then was about DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND RADICAL, i have no doubt that bands nowadays have lost all sight of any roots, and that our whole scene has become a laughing stock - a fucking fashion show.
and maybe i'm not ready to compete with the corporate industry shithole that the underground music scene has become.
and maybe believing in and playing a genre of music that i love is going to cost us success - and maybe it means we're not going to get a big record deal - fine, i can live with that.
you can take your music scene back, everyone. if you need me i'll be proud to say that i will do what i believe in no matter how much of the underdog it makes me and my friends. tell me again how much punk with horns or ska is played out and stupid, because nothing motivates me to do this more than ignorant assholes who claim these things.
this way every person that says they truely love our music, and every person that supports us knows that we reciprocate that love with all of our hearts, and we thank you with every fibre of our being.
have a good night, seeya in daytona beach tomorrow.
love, chris.
posted by Long Shot Hero at 7:52 PM 0 comments
we played a show in parkersburg last tuesday, which officially started our tour with scenes from a movie. there was a lot of kids at the show, and we made a decent ammount of money to use towards gas to get to kansas to start the tour on friday, since we'd used the majority of the money made on the hit the lights tour, driving home from texas, and the rest toward our van payments / other debts. thursday morning, we left and drove to st. louis, stayed the night there, got up friday and drove to kansas. the show in kansas was a lot of fun. we had a lot of fun playing the show, and it was our first time playing kansas, so we met a lot of really cool people. unfortunatly, it wasn't financially as awesome. we both sold a lot of stuff, but not enough to make up for getting paid $18 of the door each, after having both driven 16 hours to play the show. saturday morning, we said goodbye to our new friend colin and his girlfriend, and hit the road for fort smith, arkansas. we thought the drive would take around 5 hours, it ended up being closer to 7. we got to the show a bit late, and when we got into town, all the power was off after a huge storm. sometime during this day, i called a place in dothan, alabama called the rewired cafe, inquiring about a show i saw listed on absolutepunk. the bands on the show were the prize fight (who just got off tour with our boys in the band valencia, and you should definitly check out if you get a chance) and a band called long shot hero, who i'd never heard of. the girl on the phone was super nice, and agreed to add us & scenes from a movie to the bill, saying that there were only three bands on it at that point. told us to get there around 7 or 8, and that we were set. back in arkansas, the show gets rescheduled for the next night. we goto our new friend heather's house, and have a fun evening. we leave and go up to the venue for the show the next evening, and when we get there, there are no locals on the show. we have never played arkansas, and scenes played there once, on a hardcore show. we wait around about 2 hours for people to show up, and no one does. so we say goodbye to the club owner and go back to heather's to hang out until 2am, when we were going to leave for our 12 hour drive to dothan, to play the show we got on a few days before. we leave for dothan, and get into town about 7pm, the drive having taken around 17 hours once stops were included. none of us have slept, and we all threw in $20 each of our personal money so that we could get to dothan for this show, meaning that the band is now broke, and most of us are either broke, or close to it.
we arrive at the show, and this is where it gets interesting. we meet heather, the girl who agreed to let us play, and she takes us outside to talk to us, saying that long shot hero (a band on the show from pennsylvania) were a "signed band" and did not want us or scenes to make everyone rush their sets or play shorter sets, and thus did not want us to play the show. she told us that they had thrown a fit to her mother, who is the owner, and that her mother had agreed, mostly so they would leave her alone. we got obviously upset, since we were broke, and had been confirmed for the show, and asked where the long shot hero guys were, so we could talk to them. when talking to them, we were given attitudes and a lack of courtesy that i hadn't seen in a while. after some fighting, they told us that they never said they didn't want us to play. we called heather from rewired over, who told us again that they had. after this, the longshot hero guys, as well as the bass player from the last, local band, who had also been protesting, and was apparantly the actual promoter of the show and said he hadn't known anything about it, suddenly became open to us & scenes sharing gear and each playing shorter sets. we appoligized to the long shot hero guys, since it looked like they might've just been caught up in the situation and weren't really at fault, and everyone was cool. us & scenes were each allotted four songs. heather from rewired gave us each $20, and told us she'd help us out with some more later that night. as i'm talking to heather outside the club before we played, she kept expressing how sorry she was to me, and how it really had been the lsh guys, and that she hoped we believed / understood that they were basically being immature about the situation, as was the bass player from the local band.
now. let me explain something to you.
being in a full time touring band, sadly isn't all the glitz & glamour that most live it up to be. our drives are long. many nights we play shows to somewhat or mostly empty rooms. we usually don't have a lot of money, and (since t&d has been a 4 piece band) we haven't ever actually come home from tour having MADE any money. we do this because we love it. we do this because we want to get our music out to anyone who would be interested in hearing it, because we live,die,sleep,eat,drink,and breathe it. if we can write, play, and record a song that impacts people in a positive way, like we feel our music does, is it wrong to want to share that with those who would be interested in hearing it? we don't think so, so we go away from our friends, family, pets, and girlfriends for 6-8 months a year of not having or making any money, just so that we can do what we love.
IT IS STANDARD PROCEDURE FOR PROMOTERS BOOKING SHOWS TO HAVE LOCAL BANDS HEADLINE THE SHOW. think about any local show you go to. who plays first: the band that has everyone at the show there to see them, or the band that drove 5 hours, and is playing your town for the first time? where we come from, we would never, ever, ever, ever, ever make, or allow a band that was from out of town and didn't have a draw in the area to play last. these bands need to play to people so that they can sell their cds & tshirts & find a place to sleep for the night. they need to play to people so that the next time they might bring some kids back to see them... and those kids might bring their friends.. and so on. it's just how it works. if that's not how it works around you, then your scene is fucked, and you should fix it. in the "diy" or "punk rock" or "indie" music community, it is a very common practice to take care of touring bands. wouldn't you want someone to do the same for you if you were out of your element and didn't know anyone? i know i would, and you know what? people do that for me / us in just about every city we goto. if any of them every came thru west virginia, i would do the same for them (and i have!)
as you can probally guess, the local band kids were complaining about having to play last. we were told that they "didn't need to be getting home at midnight" and that "everyone would be leaving by 9:30 because there's school the next day" (i should also point out that at about 9:15, kids were still rolling in. the show only started at 8pm. despite the complaints, the bass player played cool and told us that us & scenes could play before them. he said, and i quote "none of these kids will leave, because they're all here to see us anyway." so, after long shot hero played their set of refreshing and completly different ska, us & scenes set up to play. we backlined our guitar amps. squared & tony scenes were going to share a bass rig, and ryan was going to use jared scene's drum kit. scenes played their four songs, and despite the pa cutting out at the beginning of the last song, and them stopping to fix it, and then starting again, there was no fucking around. they got on & off the stage, and we were setting up our remaining gear before they were even 100% off the stage. as i was setting up, the bass player from the local band asked me how long we were playing, complaining that scenes had played "like 6 songs" (which they had not). i told him we were doing 4 songs and that we'd rush them and not talk much so it'd go faster. about 3 seconds before we started the first song, he came up and told us he was sorry, but that the people at the club had said we could only play one song, but he had talked them into two. we were irritated, but didn't say anything. we played our two songs, and got off the stage so the locals could set up. if we had been told they were short on time, it would've been super easy for us & scenes both to cut a song, or for us to play acoustic, or whatever. but it wasn't.
i'll be honest. i didn't watch the local band, and i'm not here to talk shit anyway. as i was standing outside smoking after we played, i asked heather (who again, does booking at rewired) why we'd been cut short, and she said that the local band had basically surrounded her mother until she agreed, and that it was prompted by them, and not by the venue. this irritated us further, obviously.
the local band played probally about 8 songs, and then apparantly one of their members left. the remaining members, along with some others from lsh then did improv funk stuff for probally another 20 minutes. the bass player, who was complaining about getting home before midnight, was still there in full force. i felt kind of bad, because a few kids had had to leave before the locals played, probally because of school or curfew, or whatever,but the majority of the crowd was still there. in all reality, they're a local band. it's pretty unlikely that any of the kids that had to leave, left thinking that they'd never be able to see the band again.
after they were done, and were tearing down their gear, me & derek approached the bass player kid, and let him know that we didn't really appreciate what he'd pulled. he again denyed it, etc etc. i don't really remember much of what he said. i was too irritated to care.
heather & her mom (who runs the club) were nice enough to offer to let us stay at the venue for the night. they went out and bought us food, and basically went out of their way to make sure that we were happy, and that no one had any hard feelings about how the night had gone. we don't blame them for anything. i could give you my account of what probally happened, but it's just not really worth it. we'll come back to the rewired cafe, because they're good people, doing things for the right reasons. i had a good conversation with heather about music, and i was happy to see that she understood where we were coming from, and was right there with us.
so tonight, i'm bored on the internet and i came across the following on long shot hero's tour journal. i'm not going to tear it apart, or go into detail on what i think about the things they said. i have offered my recount of the night, and i don't care to debate it. i've posted what was written in their journal, because it disturbs and disgusts me every time i see things like this. PLEASE DO NOT SPAM THEIR SITE, JOURNAL, ETC WITH HATE POSTS. this does not involve the entire world. if you feel compelled to email chris of long shot hero and tell him how you feel, i wouldn't tell you not to. his address is on their website somewhere, i'm sure.
i apoligize for taking up your entire friend screen, but i dont know hwo to do lj cuts. =/
i'm not asking for your sympathy by telling you how we're broke. sometimes we are, sometimes we're not. it doesn't matter. we do this cause we love it. if we had to pay to do it, we'd still find a way to pull it off. we just love to do what we do. no amount, and no lack of money, drugs, girls, awesome haircuts, awesome belt buckles, or vintage tshirts changes that. if you're coming to a show on the scenes tour, or any of the touring this fall, and you want to pick up something at the show, it'd help a lot and we'd appreciate it, but don't go too far out of your way for us. we're doing what we love.
anyway, here's his journal entry.. let the drama begin.
i hate the music scene
great show in dothan, alabama tonight. thanks to everyone there, you guys were absolutely amazing.
but in all seriousness...
my band does not wear tight pants.
we do not have cool belt buckles, and we do not have trendy haircuts.
we do not have "poetic" dark lyrics.
we do not sing about the same played out shit that all bands are whining about nowadays.
we know this, and we pride ourselves on standing out.
this fucking music scene is turning into a show of who can wear the coolest "vintage" clothes, who can have the darker lyrics about killing themselves, and who can look the part rather than fill it and it makes my want to fucking puke.
a good local band in dothan today was pushed back and forced not to play to a crowd that was somewhat there to see them because two emotionally charged, cliche-core bands barged their way in and took the stage, claiming that the crowd was there to see the locals, so the locals should play last.
not only were their assumptions completley incorrect (as i would suspect from such mindless lemmings of today's music scene), they took the stage and had the same chords, music, and gimmick as millions of other bands around the country trying to make it big by carbon copying bands like tbs, senses fail, and whatever other stuff was "underground" 2 to 3 years ago. i don't even mind the bands that pioneered the screamo/emo genre, because when they were doing it they were truely doing something different, which i cannot say for these other bands.
yeah - so maybe i'm taking the "holier than thou" approach to dissecting the contents of the colostomy bag that our music scene has become. since most of these musicians claim to be the derivitive of the 70's punk scene (these fuckers wearing extra small clash t-shirts, who probably don't even own a fucking clash CD), and punk back then was about DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND RADICAL, i have no doubt that bands nowadays have lost all sight of any roots, and that our whole scene has become a laughing stock - a fucking fashion show.
and maybe i'm not ready to compete with the corporate industry shithole that the underground music scene has become.
and maybe believing in and playing a genre of music that i love is going to cost us success - and maybe it means we're not going to get a big record deal - fine, i can live with that.
you can take your music scene back, everyone. if you need me i'll be proud to say that i will do what i believe in no matter how much of the underdog it makes me and my friends. tell me again how much punk with horns or ska is played out and stupid, because nothing motivates me to do this more than ignorant assholes who claim these things.
this way every person that says they truely love our music, and every person that supports us knows that we reciprocate that love with all of our hearts, and we thank you with every fibre of our being.
have a good night, seeya in daytona beach tomorrow.
love, chris.
posted by Long Shot Hero at 7:52 PM 0 comments