Okay,

Much has been made of the recent tragedy at Club Fred and my decision to cancel Ohmega Watts this past wednesday. I am not an evil enemy of any genre of music. I simply felt, as did the police department and a local judge, that it was to soon. I totally understand that Ohmega is a positive message artist, and when we feel enough time has past he is probably the only type of hip hop act we WILL work with.

 Many people have made statements to the effect that 'its not the music, its the crowd" Ok, I agree with that.. I can play hip hop all night long with no trouble as long as I dont let anyone in.But how do we screen the crowd? Dress code? cavity search? base admition on attitude at the door? If I could point to someone in line and say, he intends harm , and be 100% correct. we could do it.

Bottom line is simple, its my job to protect our customers and our staff, to do my very best to provide safe entertainment. If there is even a CHANCE that a particular act may draw a problem crowd, I wouldnt be doing my job if I risked it.

I didnt wake up Thursday morning and decide hip hop was a risk, we HAVE done hip hop shows.Our experience has been that you have a MUCH higher number of problems per show than with other music type.And each time, I was told "dont blame the music, it was just a few idiots" ok, find a way to make the idiots stay away and we will all be happy.

Thus ends the rant.

Mike