Our lead singer is not only a smokin' hot Puerto Rican, she is also an arm-bender in league with Tony Soprano. She has a way of making things happen whereas our manager/bass-player will hit a brick wall and never receive a call from the club we're trying to get booked at. So she and Nonzarelli (you guessed it) decided to hit a small club that was trying to get back in the live music business called Scruffy Murphy's. The manager decides to book us at 350 dollars flat - no cover - without even hearing the demo. Uh-oh. Her only request about the music was that we not be too 'metal'. Not a problem, as we mostly cover pop-rock like 10 Years, S.O.A.D., A.A.F., and a smattering of emo (sorry, Proto).
Nonzarelli calls me and gives me the "good" news. For the first time in our career, the band will play FIVE shows in one month. But he says I need to go down to the club as the P.A. has a loose connection. Being awesome, I head down with Mr. Arelli and begin to diagnose the problem with her P.A. My first finding was THEY HAD NO PA. 'Loose connection' my ass. The club only had a bullshit board, no amps, powered mains, and they were in the process of removing the drum riser and putting up a giant fucking christmas tree. Nonz asks me to deduce what we would need to make the show happen. At this point, my stomach is starting to get queasy. The same way it felt when I caught my ex at the Chickasaw when she was supposedly at work. Like something just wasn't right. I told him "We can buy this, this, this, and this - or we can just cancel". Now I don't blame Nonzarelli for not wanting to cancel. No band wants to develop a rep as gig-busters. So I get on the internet and draw up a list of the stuff we will need to make it happen. Arelli heads to Atlanta to procure the needed equipment, and I map out how we'll hook everything up.
The night of the show arrives. The first piece of bad news we got was we couldn't touch the fucking tree. Our drummer had to set up in a corner so the tree could stay center stage. This fucked up our entire normal arrangement. As band leader (Nonz is the financier/manager, Lucy does booking, I keep it all together) I convince our kickass drummer to relax, we'll deal with it, blah blah blah. Nonz arrives with the extra equipment, and it turns out he had to spend 260 godam dollars. For a $350 show. Oh well, we say - at least this will help our rep. I begin to hook the system up - and find out only ONE of the mains work, and their board won't power our monitors. So we have our sound-guy run back to the rehearsal spot and bring in OUR board.
So the system's together - we have monitors but only one main. By the time we get through with soundcheck, I've done more physical labor than I did at my day-job as a landscaper. And the next piece of bad news comes in - we're already too loud. WTF? We only have one main, and we soundchecked with "Bound For The Floor" by Local H. You're right, my fuckers. This ain't looking good. So we start playing. We open with "One Armed Scissor" by At The Drive In and "Time Is Running Out" by Muse. The crowd's diggin' it, and actually started demanding we play something harder. I complied with the "play some Slayer" chants by doing a few bars of "Raining Blood", but by no means did we really get heavy.
Over the next two hours, we were turned down five times - to the point we were no longer even coming out of the PA - and the crowd turned into a bunch of dickheads because we weren't hard enough. After the second set the manager decides to turn us off and only pay us 200 bucks. Turning off early didn't bother me, as I had already let Arelli know I was about ready to leave anyway. But getting stiffed to the point we actually lost money on the gig just PISSED ME THE FUCK OFF. All the headaches, labor, and bullshit we had to go through to make this happen, and that's how it ends. So I gathered the troops and said "Let's not make a big deal, it won't get us anywhere. Let's just set a record for tearing down a gig". And that's exactly what we did. We stopped playing at midnight, and we were at The Vault by 12:45 gettin to' up from the flo' up. That was the only good that came out of the evening - I am now addicted to Jaeger bombs.
Fuck Scruffy Murphy's. If you don't want loud music, DON'T HIRE A FUCKING ROCK BAND! Get your own goddam PA system. And if you're going to turn off the band because they're too 'metal' (yeah, Hawthorne Heights is metal), don't start playing "The Sickness" by Disturbed on the house radio as soon as the band stops! I know you're from Ireland, but I didn't realise you were fucking stupid, to boot. I feel like an ass for being nice to you. I just hope your staff had fun cleaning up all the crap we left, and moving your "PA" back. I wasn't about to move those fucking heavy ass speakers again. And next time, move the fucking tree BEFORE the band plays, not 2 days later.
"You're too metal" - 'C'mon c'mon get down with the sickness' - Fuckin' Scruffy Murphy's. If you're reading this and you work at Scruffy's, you better at least pay us the 60 bucks we LOST on your fucking place before sending me any hate mail or defamation lawsuits.
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