Enough is enough.

I've decided to go through and put everyone's real name back in. The reason for this is that I don't want anyone else to go through the stress and disappointment that I've gone through for the last two months.

The band is called Dragonfly Red. They're a mediocre band from Chicago filled with a bunch of very nice, but extremely naive and trusting guys. The manager in question is Erica Johnson Welch. She runs a "management" company called Cherry Music Management.

We were slated to leave on the 23rd, as stated in my last post. Then, two days before we were supposed to leave, I got this email:

"DFR Crew members,

This email is to inform you that Dragonfly Red has elected to sign with a different record label.

We feel it is in our best interest, especially after the recent actions of an ex-crew member, and other crew members over the past week. These actions have caused us irreparable damage to our expectations of a rewarding contract period with the current label and we feel the change is desirable.

Under our new contract, we are allowed to retain the current crew, in toto, to tour with Dragonfly Red. And, according to your existing contracts:

(c) Let it be known that in the event that Dragonfly Red should dissemble or lose their contract, I have a right to reassign you to an active band or terminate this contract without warning.

If you wish to remain with the band, or if you choose to terminate your contract with the band, please contact Maria Maslanka via email.

The new contract still allows for a two-week tech-up period; details will follow shortly. The tech-up has already been approved by the new label.

We know this is difficult, but the recording industry can be fickle, and the subsequent actions of a few have certainly not made this process any easier.

We are very excited by our new opportunity and look forward to a successful tour. Thank you.

Erica Welch-Johnson, Manager

At that point, I sent Maria a two word email: I quit.

The crew member who she was referring to was one of the drivers, who is named Jeff and lives in Florida. He called me up in a tizzy one day because he had just been fired for "asking too many questions." Later I heard from Joe that Jeff had told Erica that he was going to fly up here and break her legs. I thought that was pretty hilarious. At this point, I'm getting quite a bit of entertainment out of keeping up with the rest of the crew members who haven't quit and finding out what's going on. I've gotten a lot of their more recent emails forwarded to me, including this gem explaining why Maria is a qualified band manager:


DFR Crew,

I know there has been some conjecture as to Maria Maslanka's qualifications to be working on this project.

Maria has more than 20 years of experience planning and executing special events of all sorts from parties to large charity events. She's worked in venues such as symphony halls seating more than 6,000 and large outdoor venues such as Grant Park.

She has been responsible for hiring and managing crews from 50 to 1,000 over multi-day events and encompassing more than 50 sub-groups from transportation to food service to production. She's had many years of experience working with top executives of large corporations such as IBM, Wachovia and Quest as well as teamsters and union workers at venues such as McCormick Place and other venues across the U.S.

She's also worked as a regional manager traveling around the country working with corporate entities on budgets, promotions, marketing and fundraising. She's got years of experience working on budget projection and management as well as marketing and production of promo pieces ranging from printed materials to t-shirts and other give-away items. Additionally, she's worked in production on several television commercial shoots as a free-lance production assistant.

In addition to all of that, Maria recently decided to try her had at being a pastry chef - a very challenging program at one of the top culinary schools in the Midwest, Kendall College. After a brief stint working for Roy's Chicago, she was given the opportunity to work with Dragonfly Red and once again get back into the field she loves - event management.

I laughed so hard when I read the pastry chef part. Ok Erica, you convinced me!


Oh yeah, Chris (shitbag #2) got a call from Erica saying they'll definitely need him on the crew now, since they had to fire Jake (shitbag #1). Jake hasn't heard ANYTHING about this. More clusterfuckery. She said they had to fire him because of what he posted on www.roadie.net. Maria had tried to recruit more crew members, but Jake, this girl named Jamie (a FOH engineer who none of us even had any idea was involved), and I quickly responded telling everyone to run away as fast as they can from this job. Maria has since deleted that post, but it was pretty great how fast everyone shot her down. Jamie got fired because when she got her contract she asked them to revise it (because it was a joke). They told her it was non-negotiable and they would no longer be needing her services.


The thing that baffles me is that Tony and the rest of the band SWEAR by Maria and Erica and say that they couldn't do any better without her. During our long conversation, Tony told me "I guess the way I thought things were done isn't how it is anymore."

No Tony, it still is. You're just getting screwed.

...

Now I'm pissed. The tour got pushed back AGAIN. Now we're supposedly leaving on the 23rd from Humbolt Park at 7:15. They finally gave us a date, time and place of where we're leaving from, but that doesn't make me feel any better. Shitbag #2 says that he's done with this crap and is looking for jobs back in Nebraska. He's going to wait and see if they ever actually do call him up (which he doubts) and then he's going to tell them to go to hell. Frankly, I don't blame him. He's been out of work too long to sit around waiting for something to happen. This whole ordeal has been very unprofessional and extremely frustrating. I've been picking up shifts here and there at the record shop I worked at, but even with that, though, I'm flat broke. I've got plenty of job opportunities here in Chicago, but I want this to pan out so bad it hurts. 

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.

Clusterfuck #1

I really need to update this. We haven't left yet. The tour has been pushed back three times so far, much to the crew (and I assume band's) chagrin. Some things have been bearing heavy on my mind lately. Another friend of mine from Nebraska recently got hired on as a driver, and within the last week, he found some disparaging things on the internet about the manager who's running the band. Apparently a couple other bands who worked with her feel like they were screwed pretty hard, and the contract she came to them with from "Columbia" was a phony. She also apparently took $540 from them saying she was going to get their songs copyrighted, but when they checked up on it she had never done it. After a little nagging, I finally got a copy of my contract faxed to my parents, who immediately took it to a lawyer. He told us that it was a pretty crappy contract, and that the language was very ambiguous. He has a hard time telling who specifically is hiring me because in the beginning of the contract it says she is, but she signed it as "manager". It all just seems kind of fishy to me. ANOTHER thing that's been stressing me out is that I haven't been paid yet, when in my contract it says I was supposed to be on payroll as of May 2nd. We're going to be paid on debit/cash cards (since we're supposedly going to be on the road so much). I don't know if this is a common thing, but it's what I've been told. I guess my card was sent out yesterday, and she swears that we will all be paid by the 15th, which is our newest leaving date. The only reason I haven't told her to go fuck herself and got my old jobs back is because she hasn't given me any reason to think that she's scamming me. The only money I've been asked for was the $50 I paid for a background check, and it seems like she's going through a lot of effort for what would be very little pay-off. If I don't get paid on the 15th, though, it's going to be a different story.


p.s.- Apparently Emilio (?) got fired for some reason right after the May 2nd show.

Day 1

Over the course of the next year, I'm going to be journalling about my experience as a rookie guitar tech/roadie for a major label band (both the band and label's names will been changed). So, to give you a little background:

I'm 20 years old, and originally from Nebraska. About a year ago, I dropped out of music school in Lincoln and moved to Chicago, where I've been living for the last 9 months. In the mornings I work for an investor company at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a runner on the trading floors. On nights and weekends, I work at a record shop/venue in the far south loop (Reggie's). About a month ago, a buddy of mine from Nebraska got a job as a roadie/electronics/sound guy for the aforementioned band. They mentioned to him that they were going to need another guitar tech, so he got them in touch with me. I applied, my background check cleared, and here I am.
Last night we had a gig and video shoot at the Goose Island brewpub in Wrigleyville. I don't know why they wanted to shoot their video there. They might as well shoot at Applebee's. The room sucks. We had to move a bunch of tables out of the way, the sound wasn't great, their soundboard was cheap and they didn't have enough mic stands for us to mic the guitars. Oh well. Not my band.

It was the first time I got to meet everyone that I'll be working with for the next year. We all met around 6:00 for dinner and a meet-and-greet. Everyone seems fairly solid to me. It's still pretty early to tell, though. This is my first time on the road. I've been playing guitar since I was 6, but this is the first real full-time music job that I've ever gotten (other than the record shop, I guess). A lot of the other crew members are first-timers, too, which makes me feel a little better. Here's a run-down of our crew. (I can't remember some of their real names, unfortunately).

Erica Welch-Johnson (band manager 1): She seems like a really sweet lady. Her husband will be going on tour with us too, but I'm not sure what his official title is yet. Don't know how I feel about that guy. On one of our smoke breaks, he told me that she's been diagnosed with terminal spinal cancer and that this tour is her last big hurrah before she dies. He told me this right after lamenting that the cute bartender had given him her number and he couldn't do anything because Karen was there, so he'd just save the number for now. Nice, huh?
Maria Maslanka (band manager 2): Also seems very nice, if not a little uptight. She's the one who interviewed me.
Joe (crew manager): I'm looking forward to working with this guy. He's been doing big tours for almost 30 years (thank God), and I think I am really going to learn a ton from him over the next year. He likes to talk. I like to listen.
"Josh-Hartnet-lookin'-motherfucker" a.k.a- Bryan (sound guy 1): To get an idea of what this dude looks like, picture Josh Harnet with a pony tail nearly to his ass and a Dimebag Darrell-style goatee. He seems like he knows what he's doing, but he also seems like he's got something to prove. He likes to throw in opposing opinions where they're not necessary. Might be a bit of a drama queen, we'll see.
Emilio (sound guy 2): I can't remember exactly he said he was from (Sevilla, I think?), but so far I like the dude. He seems like a friendly, unassuming guy with quite a bit of experience and knowledge. He said his father was a playwright, and that he'd been doing production for theater and bands for about 23 years.
Jake Lampe (sound guy 3): This is my buddy from Nebraska who got me the job. He's going to be the one who the other sound guys boss around, and he's going to be learning to run the lights, too.
Firewater Jonny (guitar tech 1): That's me. I'm a joke.
J.D. King (guitar tech 2): Really cool guy. 33 years old, works in a music shop in a smaller town in middle Illinois teaching drums. Like me, he's never been on a tour, but has been playing for quite awhile and giving lessons.
Mark (bass tech): Didn't really talk to this guy that much, but he seems pretty cool. He has a pony tail nearly to his ass, and he likes Pearl Jam. But he was really nice and laid-back, so I guess I can't hold that against him.
Terry (Drum Tech): This guy is a middle aged black dude, and he moves kinda slow. It took him forever to set up the drums, and I think he got a talking-to after the show. I hope he can pick up the pace, everyone else had their stuff ready to go and sound checked at least 10 minutes before he did. He got the job because he's friends with the drummer, and he seems like a nice guy, but if he can't keep up with everyone else we're definitely going to run into problems on the road.

There is another couple who are just there to help whoever needs help, I think. I didn't talk to them very much. The band all seem like very level-headed, kind guys. They were definitely the best band that played last night. A guy who posts on one of the online forums I post on said they sound a little like In Living Colour, which is an alright description of their sound, I think. I personally wouldn't listen to their music just rolling around in my car, but they're all pretty good musicians and I don't think I'll have any problem working with them.

The other bands that played were pretty hard for me to listen to. The first band wasn't THAT bad, but their drummer did the same fill over and over and over, which is an unforgivable sin in my book. The second "band" was just a guy doing an acoustic set because his band bailed on him. And while I have to give him a little credit for getting up on stage by himself with little preparation, it was pretty brutal to listen to. He sang in this really weird nasally, deep voice, and his guitar was WAY out of tune. When I mentioned to him that he was out of tune, he just said "Oh, no, man, that's just how I tune." So I just let him have it his way and went back to smoke a cigarette and get the rest of the guitar equipment ready. The last band was even worse. They were truly god-awful. Their lead singer sang in that "Eddie Vedder/Scott Stapp wannabe" voice, but really deep. I wanted to stab him.

Shitbag was in fine form. Since everything we eat or drink is going to be covered by the label (or so we've been told), he got really loaded and talked everyone's ear off. He was so excited he was practically giddy. He tried to get me to drink with him many times during the night.

"What are you, straight edge now?!" He kept asking.

I didn't drink, though, and I'm really glad I didn't. Other than being underage and new at this job, I drove Mary and the guitar player whose equipment I'll be taking care of home after the show.


Overall, I'm cautiously optimistic about the next year. Admittedly, I'm very green and EASILY the youngest person in the crew, but I think that once we gel as a group and everyone figures out exactly what their role is it'll go fairly smoothly. I guess I'll see what happens once we get on the road. We leave for New York May 24th, so stay tuned.