When I got the email about the tech-up getting pushed back again, I tried to call the manager of the band. She didn't pick up, and it said her voice mailbox was full. I assume the rest of the crew is just as pissed as I am. After that failed, I called the assistant manager of the band. She immediately tried to steer the conversation away from the obvious.
"Hey Mary, this is Jon."
"Hey! Did you get your pay card?" (you know why I called, quit trying to distract me)
"No. I haven't (I'm NOT happy about this). I just got your email. We're pushing this back AGAIN?!"
"That was the band's decision. I had nothing to do with that."
Why the hell would the band want to push this back any further?!
"Mary, I can't do this anymore."
"Well, we'd really hate to see you go, but if you have to quit, I need to know now so I can hire someone else."
"I'm not quitting just yet, but if anything like this happens again, I'm going to have to. I can't wait around any longer. I had to take out a damn loan just to pay my rent this month, and next months rent is coming up really fast."
"I know, I know. I've had to do that for the last 3 months myself."
Now that's just retarded.
Mary: "This is it. It's set in stone. We have to leave on Monday. We don't have a choice."
Thank God they don't have a choice.
From what I've gathered through hearsay and rumor from other crew members, the band will get dropped from the label if they don't start doing something immediately. Whatever. I'm still suspicious of these people. I had a 2 hour long conversation with the guitar player whose equipment I'm supposed to be taking care of, and I've come to the conclusion that this manager doesn't have a clue what the fuck she's doing. Apparently the band hasn't actually signed with the label yet, they've only signed a "letter of intent" or "Memo Deal" that basically says they won't work with any other labels. From what I hear (again, I'm a rookie, but I read a lot) this drastically reduces a band's negotiating powers. Apparently the guitar player had never heard that. This would explain why there hasn't been any press about this band yet, but it doesn't make me feel very good about my job security. Also, NONE of the band has a contact at the label, not even the assistant manager does, which I think is very, very strange. These guys are all very nice people, but they seem extremely naive and trusting, which is just plain dumb. I'm 20+ years younger than these guys, have had no real experience in the music industry, and even I can tell that something is off. Shitbag #1 finally talked to our crew manager about all this. We had been avoiding this up until now because we weren't sure how chummy he was with the band/managers, and we didn't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by looking like the assholes of the group. But after the conversation, I've realized that he's in the exact same boat as us. He hasn't been paid yet either, and he's getting suspicious as well. I guess he found the blogs the same way we did by googling the manager's name, and has told Karen that he needs her contact at the label, or something proving that she's legit. He said that if she can't get that to him by Wednesday, that he's going to get the whole crew together, and we're going to go to the district attorney of Indiana (where she's stationed) and have her thrown in jail. She's already breached our contracts. We probably won't get any money out of it, because I doubt she has much, but we can make sure this shit doesn't happen to some other poor saps.
I hope it doesn't come to that.
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