I've told stories about this show before, i think, but mostly in the context of "we crashed at My Chemical Romance's practice space" and not in the context of the show itself. Although maybe i have? Anyway, here's my tour journal entry about playing a show in Passaic, NJ with Chicago singer-songwriter Michael McDermott. (yeah, us and McDermott on the same bill. Hilarity!)
The Loop Lounge is a cool little hole in the wall in Passaic where the DJs play incredible tunes, the bar is swank as hell, and the sound guy is a rocker named Jeff who wears a Marilyn Manson t-shirt. We get to the club and the only other people there are the opening dude and the other band's (Mike McDermott) MANAGER, this dude who claims Chicago is a great city to play (cuz that's where he's from) but says he constantly has a hard time in Milwaukee. Had i known at the time, i may have said "that's because Milwaukee hates singer-songwriter assholes with frosted hair and loud collars who think having their road manager harass the sound guy constantly makes them a professional, jackass." But i didn't know, so i didn't say.
But yeah. Our friend Mike from Pkids-list showed up and took us out to eat at a local diner while we mused about what the show was going to be like. Mike had gotten us on the show because he knows the owner fairly well and the owner had no idea who these other guys were on the calendar, so he had crossed them off and put us and two other bands on. Then Mike found out that the bands that were crossed out actually HAD to play because they were "big shit" or something, but we were still on. OK, whatever.
Soundguy Jeff gets the business from McDermott's road manager the entire time he's playing...coming over by him and saying shit like "you gotta back off the guitars a bit. OK, bring them up a bit. OK, back off again." Wow. Whenever he'd move away, Jeff, a friend of his, and i would lean into each other and just talk shit. "Hey, could you turn down the suck knob? The suck's a little high." "Hey, i'm just gonna tell you how to do your job, cool?" "Um, could you just play another band's CD over us while we play? That might be for the best." Jeff then informs me that they had a RIDER(!) that included free beer and pizza, a separate room for the band (which would have necessetated building an addition to the bar in this case!), and random other horseshit. Now, what you've gotta understand about this bar is that it's small-scale. You play, you get some drink tickets, you get a cut of the door if anyone comes. That's it. In the case of Mike McDermott, 12 people showed up to see his middle of the road singer-songwriter Not-even-good-enough-to-be-Paul-Westerberg's-shittier-solo-albums bullshit rock, and they were all ON HIS GUEST LIST.
Unreal.
We set up and two notes into our set the McDermott crew is out the door and have left the bar.
There was also a night when some Touch and Go band called The Standard played the same show we did in Bloomington, IN and pulled the "we will decide when we play" schtick, bumping us to the closing slot and giving themselves the money second-last-band slot. Fortunately everyone still stuck around. And dammit, it's good for them that they elected to play before us, because we blew 'em off the fuckin' stage that night. WORD.
One of 'em helped fix choppy's glasses, though, so they're ok.
Edit: Oh yeah, i HAVE
told this story before. Eh, whatever, it's a fun story.
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Marsupialized wrote:Thank you so much for the pounding, it came in handy.