I need to open by saying that the Bug Jar in Rochester, NY is a kickass place. The staff there are awesome, Nick on sound, E.P. at the door, Bob behind the bar, Ian behind the bar, and the other bartenders whose names I didn't learn or forgot, very very nice folks. Easygoing, cool to work with, good people.
But, so, on to the kids who suck.
I'm wrapping up this tour we kicked off at the beginning of the month and goddamn, there's some idiots in Rochester. It's always hard when you're showing up to do someone else's job, and the one resident DJ was like, "Oh, yeah, we'll let you play some records along with us, that would be cool." They had two CD players (not CD decks, just rack component disc changers) and an iPod.
They let me play one song during their set (Blue Monday, the crowd went wild), then proceeded to be total neurotic dickheads the entire rest of the night. I came back to the booth half an hour later and was like, "Hey, you should let me mix a song here. Just one."
They said, "Dude, you gotta back off. You're totally stressing us out. We know our crowd, we know how to do this, and we don't trust you to play a song because we're afraid our crowd will go outside to smoke because they don't like you and then they'll never come back." I added that last part, but that was the message I was getting.
So I said, "If ever there was a crowd ready to hear something different, this is that crowd. Gimme a shot."
After a few more words I told them that their indie rock dance punk songs were bad music, and then the kid looked at me and said, "Well...Fuck you."
I said, "Yeah, cool, fuck you too. Now lemme rock!" and the little prick shoved me.
I didn't hit him. I don't really hit people. But if we had come to blows, at least it would have been about song selection and integrity. I probably wouldn't have hit him, but goddammit, someone needs to.
The kid who shoved me tried to make it all better later, and in the course of the discussion told me that he doesn't like or listen to the music that he plays, that he goes to wikipedia and looks up "dance punk," then downloads some mp3s. He also told me that even though he doesn't love it, he makes decent money, and the kids seem to like it, so he keeps doing it.
I told him he better learn to sneak some shit in there that those kids haven't heard, shit that he loves, or to get the fuck off the public address system. There's no reason to make it loud enough to damage people's hearing if you're in charge and you don't like what you're listening to.
Get a suit and a tie and a job job, kiddo, you're fucking it up for the rest of us, is where I left it. I was encouraging him to quit.
I'm such a jerk sometimes. But I stand by my position.
This party should die:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=8724545And this kid should get beat up:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=48047219Argh!
Love,
Jesse