Tied For Last

Well, this kinda sucked.

We hadn't had a chance to practice for our upcoming Saturday (4/19) gig at Under Acme, so we were planning on doing that Tuesday night. Instead, we got a call from Rachel - the girl who books us at Kenny's - asking if we could do Tuesday as a favor to her, because she was short one band.

We told her yes, because we certainly owe her at least one favor. We said we'd do it, but that we couldn't really bring a crowd, because we had already been promoting hard for Saturday's show.

We get there to find that Kenny's had double-booked the entire night. Basically, one of their other promoters had gotten the Tuesday night for an industry showcase for funk bands. No one ever told Rachel, who usually promotes Tuesday nights, that she wasn't on this week.

So basically, there were eight bands for four spots. After some negotiating betwwen promoters, and after band after band loaded in (the place was PACKED with equipment, but there was NO audience), it was decided that each band could play for 20 minutes, and that we'd have to share equipment.

Now, I LIKE funk... A lot... But there's no way we were ever going to sound right playing on a funk band's equipment. Virtually all of our songs are distortion-heavy, and when John L plays bass, he often wanders onto the higher range - and that's the exact opposite of funk.

Plus, waiting around for two hours to get to play for twenty minutes just doesn't add up for me, so I was leaning toward bailing, because I didn't see how staying would be good for us at all.

John L felt the same - but even moreso. He definitely wanted to split. Geller had gone to get a bite to eat, so he was out of the picture for the moment.

Tom really wanted to play - especially because we wanted to try out a new song before Saturday's gig - but also because he didn't see the point in getting down there with all of our equipment and not playing.

Finally, we realized that it might be best to check with Rachel. Our take on it was that we didn't want to alienate her, because she also promotes at other clubs, and sh'e been pretty good to us. Also, we didn't want to alienate Kenny's. We weren't getting treated very well on this night, but that's because of a genuine unintentional screw-up whcih had nothing to do with us, and normally, they're very good to bands.

We asked Rachel if it would be easier/better for her and the club if we played, or if we left. She said all things being equal, it'd be easier if we didn't play.

So we split.