Musicological banter

[killsaly]

 
Too bad

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

Interesting read from Xiu Xiu's facebook page. Kind of weird he has to put that kind of prep time in to play his own songs acoustic. . .

I have some weird and gross news. After some debate, we decided to make this public so hopefully other bands don?t get cheated, ignored, then threatened.
Recently, I was asked to play a solo show in los angeles on june 11 by a promoter named
Jesse "Boredom" Torres who put on shows under Death By Boredom
https://www.facebook.com/deathbyboredumb/
i had not played a solo show in several years and told him that this would take a lot of work for me to rehearse and prepare.
because of the amount of work this would be i would need a decent fee. i asked for a guarantee of $1000. he agreed.
for this show i would need to practice 5 days a week, 3 hours a day for a month. that is 60 hours.
$1000 divided by 60 hours is $16.66 an hour. minimum wage on los angeles is $10.00 an hour.
not terrible, but certainly not amazing or excessive for the number of hours this would take.
after the show i ask Jesse to be paid.
he said i have $820 for you.
i told him to pay pal the rest right now please.
he said no.
i asked him to swear on his mothers grave to get it to me by the end of the week and that i would not have to chase him for it.
he agreed and said he of course would pay me the rest by the end of the week.
i did not hear from him so i called to check in. no answer. i text. no answer. i email. no answer.
i tried all these things 4 or 5 more times over the next couple of weeks. no answer. my attorney writes him a letter, still no reply.
he was clearly trying to sneak away and hope i would give up.
at this point it was not about the money (but i could use that remaining $180).
it was about being lied to, ignored and cheated. he could have just been honest and said, i don't have it, i am broke and i never will, i'm sorry.
but instead, he continued to ignore me completely.
angela from xiu xiu began asking around and found out that his not paying bands in a frequent behavior of his.
apparently he does this all the time.
so far this is just annoying and irritating. but nothing worse.
i decided to go to jesse's next show and talk to him in person. this was last friday night.
when i arrive at the show i tell him i'd like the rest of the money he owes me.
he starts shouting at me that we did not promote the show and that he does not have to pay me.
(we did promote the show on our sites like we do all our other shows, and also HE is the "promoter.")
he shouts he paid me $900 and that is enough. i said he was lying about the amount and then he shouted he paid us almost $900.
he said he did not pay the the other bands at all and i should be glad i got what i got. how this helps his case i am not sure?
then he shouted he spent $300 to promote the show. i asked where? then he shouted he paid $400 to promote the show. i asked where again and he shouted he spent $500 to promote the show.
things became even uglier.
he began to yell "FUCK YOU" to me over and over, shoved his middle finger an inch away from my face several times.
then ran up to me menacingly and threatened to hit me.
baffled that he is angry and wants to physically hurt me because he broke our agreement and tried to hide from his obligation, i told him as much. he replied again by yelling
"FUCK YOU JAMIE" and again got an inch from my face literally puffing his chest out with his fists balled.
the staff of non plus ultra, where the show was held, came up to calm the situation and kindly offered to pay me what i was owed. i thanked them for but declined as it was not their responsibility. to be clear, the people from non plus ultra had no idea that Jesse regularly did not pay bands up until now, and had nothing to do with this.
this not about the money but about being lied to, stolen from and in the end threatened physically.
if you are in a band, please consider not doing shows with death by boredom.
if you go to shows, please consider boycotting death by boredom.
if you run a show space please consider not doing business with death by boredom.

[killsaly]

That seems like a reasonable amount of preparation time.   He needed to adapt arrangements, practice, figure out instrumentation (the post said solo, I didn't see the word acoustic anywhere) and several other considerations.  If he composed something a certain way it is not like he is just going to pick up an acoustic guitar and magically make something awesome.  He said he rarely plays these kind of shows so it isn't like he was prepping this music for a full band.

[hutch]

KIllsally when is your wedding? isn't it this summer?

Well congratulations... I dont' know the bride but I'm sure you'll be very happy.

[killsaly]

I am going to refrain from talking about my personal life on here. 

[hutch]

I am going to refrain from talking about my personal life on here. 

damn...ok...well I dont' know what to say then since you won't share any details about your marriage so pick whichever one fits...:

1. Congrats man! SO happy for you! I hope you guys enjoy your eastern shore wedding....Where are you heading for the honeymoon? I must strongly advise against Mexico... the whole place is a shithole....spend the extra money and head to Polynesia... for a honeymoon you will remember and treasure...

or

2. damn man... what a bitch.. I can't believe she called it off.. you're better for it.. you're too young to marry man...play the field.. get some pussy.. don't marry the first woman that lets you get some action man.. that is a surefire recipe for an early divorce and nobody wants that... She did you a favor man...

[killsaly]

I have zero interest in sharing details of my personal life on here. 

[hutch]

so we agree... good..good

[killsaly]

You are the one who brought it up. 

I was trying to talk about Xiu Xiu. 

[sweetcell]

Kind of weird he has to put that kind of prep time in to play his own songs acoustic. . .

sounds entirely plausible.  could easily be longer depending on the type of solo show - voice + guitar only?  one-man laptop show?  remixes?  

another way of looking at it is that he needs to prepare 15+ songs in some new format.   could require re-recording parts to accompany him, editing existing tracks, spending time making the song work as a solo performance, etc.  4 hours per song doesn't seem that crazy.

[killsaly]

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/xiu-xiu/2016/non-plus-ultra-los-angeles-ca-23fe7c7f.html
11 songs with two being brand new/untitled and one a cover.

[Julian, Forum COGNOSCENTI]

Slowdive have a new record completed, slated for 2017 release

[grateful]

The Cyrkle game

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/their-goal-meet-the-beatles-on-tour-in-1966-their-solution-impersonate-the-opening-act/2016/08/14/f00593e8-5820-11e6-9767-f6c947fd0cb8_story.html

[grateful]

Zoom in, zoom out, click everywhere. Read and listen.

http://www.musicmap.info/#

[bob72]

Apparently John Lydon was hit with a bottle on stage at a show in Chile and finished the show all cut up