Dealing With Your Entourage, lol

[mrboston]

Okay, those of you who go back far enough from over at JS, might recall that the rhythm section of my band live and work at a Summer Camp on Cape Cod. You might also recall that in a completely NON-band-related incident a weekend employee was busted with pot and fired, and the end result was our band was kicked off camp. So instead of calling it a day, we took it to the streets and played out several times in August, which was awesome.

Anyway we've patched things up with the camp, and now we have an agreement we can play on the weekends, we have a specific building on permanent reserve at no fee, which is great. Thing is now there's a "hook" on it, or a string attached. If we have MORE than 3 visitors to any jam session we have to notify the camp 24 hours in advance. After playing a few shows, we developed a small following of like a dozen people who just want to come and hang out, and pretty much drink and do other fun stuff while we jam, which is PRECISELY what the camp wants to avoid, understandably.

So I guess the question is, how do we pick each week who can come watch and who can't. We're getting into like band members' friends, wives, GF's, etc. now too.

MY idea was that once a month we tell the camp we're having more than 3 people. We charge like $3 at the door and donate the money to the camp. Let in like a dozen people or whatever. The other 3 weeks each month we don't let ANYONE in. Sound reasonable?

[Don't Fuck With Me]

I really think it would be unwise to do anything involving "extra" visitors at all. It is already plain to see that the camp folks are uptight about that stuff; why push their buttons at the risk of spoiling a good situation?

It would not be unreasonable to ask the camp to allow 4 instead of 3 guests though, since there's 4 guys in the band, each presumably with a wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend .

[shiggityshwa]

phingerboard said:

I really think it would be unwise to do anything involving "extra" visitors at all. It is already plain to see that the camp folks are uptight about that stuff; why push their buttons at the risk of spoiling a good situation?

It would not be unreasonable to ask the camp to allow 4 instead of 3 guests though, since there's 4 guys in the band, each presumably with a wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend .

Or both if it's the camp of kinky

[Don't Fuck With Me]

Yeah those Cambridge folks are open-minded like that.

[mrboston]

Thanks for the "help" guys, lol. I know what you're saying though. I think they picked the number 3 cause it's small and can't be construed as a party. Would they boot us if we had 6? No. 12? Probably not. 25? Yeah for sure.

Phingerboard I pretty much agree with you, no need to cause any undue trouble now that we have a nice warm place to play with two toilets, a fridge, and free electricity.

[mrboston]

Little update- band had a blowout fight last Saturday night. Well the bassist and drummer did anyway- me and the other guitarist (i.e. the civilized musicians) stepped outside for a doobie. A FEW times, lol. Anyway it's over this whole fanbase bullshit. I LOVE playing in front of people. I think it makes me play better, makes me push the envelope. We played FREE shows 4 weekends in a row in August, then had to take a few weeks off. We have 2 more shows THIS month, and just wanted to try out some new stuff, get some things ready for the stage you know? Anyway the majority of our "fans" couldn't be bothered to come to the actual shows we put on- but they all wanted to show up for our last practice, mind you AFTER they had already been drinking heavily for a few hours. So my bass player (these are mostly his friends and family) was all stressed out cause he's been telling these people they can't come to practice- and he doesn't want to exclude people. The drummer wanted to just work on some stuff- but there's a deeper issue of him having personal problems with this chick who wanted to come by. So they were screaming at each other most of the night. The 5 or so songs we DID play were some of the BEST jams we've ever had, but overall it pissed me off.

So from here on out we're going to have like half our practices be "open" meaning people can come if they want, and the rest "closed" meaning just for us. I think it's a compromise. It's just sad I had to remind these guys this is supposed to be a SOLUTION to stress, not a cause of it.

[shiggityshwa]

At least you have fans. My only fan is the one on my ceiling.

[mrboston]

shiggityshwa said:

At least you have fans. My only fan is the one on my ceiling.

NICE- that's a good line there, lol.

I know what you mean though- I'm grateful anyone even WANTS to watch. I don't mind 'em watching, but crashing our practice after the party they were at ran out of booze- that's not cool, that's disruptive. I mean we do occasionally have to WORK on songs. I mean I wouldn't show up at their job on Monday morning with my guitar and amp you know?

Ultimately this is a deeper issue between our bass player and drummer. Apparently they've worked out their differences, and we're just lookin' forward to playing this weekend.

The irony is the few songs we managed to squeek in there between shouting matches were fucking AWESOME. A little bit of tension brings a LOT out of your playing. Well mine anyway.

[Don't Fuck With Me]

Ceiling fans don't get drunk and ask you to play Travis Tritt shit.