Local band rudeness?

[poopyalligator]

There are no really big local bands here in Albuquerque. Except for brokencyde, and they suck ass.

 

[SirMyghin]

I am not involved in the scene here, metal or otherwise, but I do like to kick back and jam. The folks I have run into seem more than cool about that, so no issues on my end. There are dicks and there are nice people, unfortunately music being as broad as it is encompasses them all.

 

[Hemi-Powered Drone]

In the Ft. Lauderdale scene most bands are friendly, especially towards other musicians. There seems to be a shared sense of wanting each other to make it big, so everyone's friendly. There are a few pompous douchebags, but it's mostly cool. The only douchebag I understand, though, is this thirteen year old kid that, though he is pretty good, is playing in an adult band, one of the members appears to be a pedophile so that may have something to do with him getting in, and getting endorsed by a local custom drum maker. He is more over the top with his dickiness(is that a word?) than other people.

 

[vampiregenocide]

Generally I find the more popular the scene, the more intense the douchebaggery. But then you also have metal hipsters, which are rare but immensely annoying. Luckily most of the musicians I've met, fanours and 'local' have been nice enough. Hell I was bricking it meeting Fear Factory as they're my heroes, but they were really humble.

 

[Blind Theory]

I can't say I get that here. There are some fairly popular bands around here too. Like the guys from Allegaeon (signed to Metal Blade) are pretty cool and will talk to whoever. There is one guy from another local band I just started talking to on Facebook and when I saw his band live he came up and we chatted like we where old friends or something after his set. I guess it just depends where you live and what your scene is like.

 

[5656130]

Only scene where i live is that hardcore shit. So this means that most of the kids want to dance and mosh and stuff but when they cant they get pissed off and try to fight someone. A venue stopped having shows because of this bullshit. Then theres the idiots that come to the hardcore shows just to start shit and they start fights i remember going to a show and a girl got knocked out.

As far as the bands and the fans most of the ones ive talked to (which isnt very many hardcore bands) They were all real nice except for the one guy that said he'd talk effects with me after he got done loading up and then ignored me the rest of the night >.>

 

[Guitarmiester]

Glad I strayed from the metal scene when I did. Finding a singer was such an annoying process, the drummer spent more time burning through 2 packs of cigs barely within a 2 hour time frame, and the other guitarist insisted on chugging away at random slayer riffs any chance he got. That was an interesting band that never came to be.

I guess it really depends on the band. I've played with and met some cool people at gigs and then there's the occasional too cool for school kind of people. Just ignore them, they won't get too far anyway.

 

[ellengtrgrl]

Like most of the other posters, most of the time, when I was still in band scene, I didn't run into this problem (bands helped each other out, and tried to catch each other's shows, to provide some local support), but there were a few "paragons of humanity" out there, that really stick out in my mind.

1. The hack guitarist from a not to be named blues rock band. My band (in spite of playing far heavier music than his, classic/blues rock band), was nice enough, to give his band a break, and let them do an opening set for us (it basically was their first gig). I tell you, within 3 months, that idiot thought he was IT for guitar, and wouldn't even give me the time of day (it didn't help that people were telling him he played guitar on songs in such a "rad way" - sorry, that's not rad, he just plain couldn't play them any other way!). For Mr. Crappy Blues-Rock Guitarist, a THUMBS down!!

2. A summer festival gig, on the main stage, with a Led Zeppelin tribute band - we were the opening act. In spite of the fact that they were basically done setting up, the tribute band screwed around on stage for another hour or hour and a half! Why? Lessee, the little primma donna twit of a singer threw a hissy fit at the festival promoters, because they didn't provide him with Malibu Rum (the festival liquor license didn't allow the promoters to have booze on the grounds), so first he threatened not to perform, and then he walked around on stage just about forever doing "sound checks" with his wireless mic, that consisted of him saying "ah fuck, ah fuck." As if this wasn't enough, the guitarist (this guy who literally weighed about 400 pounds, and as a result put all of his pedals on a stand off to his side, so he could hit them with his hand, and not stomp them into scrap with his foot), spent almost a half hour screwing around with a theremin. C'mon! How many times do you need to wave your hand in front of the theremin antenna to make it go "whoosh!?" He was totally oblivious to the time, and just kept on screwing around with his effects. I used to respect the guy (he was pretty decent player). Not after this exhibition of behavior. As a result of the singer's and guitarist's antics, we literally had 5 minutes to get our gear on stage. We had NO soundcheck. I got shocked in the mouth, when I stepped up to the mic to sing (due to my amp, and the PA being at different ground states - I normally check for this with a volt meter before shows, but I'd had no time to do so). After the gig, and before the tribute act went on, the tribute band's drummer chatted with us. He was a nice guy, and said he liked our playing. He also said that the rest of the guys in his band were a bunch of assholes. So for the guys in Black Dog (minus the drummer), a MEGA thumbs down!!

3. The jerk in the cover band who played after us at another festival. His band was just a top 40s cover band. He was an OK singer, and an OK guitarist. But, there was no call for saying, "OK boys and girls, get off the stage, the pros are here!" That's just plain arrogant (and it's not as though he was some world class musician in a prog-metal band).


Those incidents are the ones I really remember. Normally behavior like that wasn't the case.

 

[tacotiklah]

I gotta confess to having a swollen head at times and to not paying as much attention to our normal crowd like I normally do at a gig once. In my defense, that show was a clusterfuck and I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to sort things out. We were late to start because my drummer's hi hat stand was nowhere to be found, the promoter shut us down after 3 songs so that the house dj can play for the rest of the night after we busted our asses to come up with presale money for the event. (who the hell hires a club dj to play club music at a rock and metal 3 day festival? ) As for the hi hat stand, that was our bad. We thought it got stolen only to discover that it got left in the garage.

Normally Im good at double checking and triple checking that we have all the gear, but I failed that time. Thank god that our bros in Sever The Memory hooked us up with theirs. Even still I was blown away at the crowd's positive response to our set despite the behind the scenes chaos. Not a single head was turned away/distracted out of a crowd of like 50 people. The only boos heard were when we got shut down. (which in the end was our fault)

As for the swollen head thing, I will post "br00t4l" stuff on our facebook status after a good show (ie "We tore the heart from the stage and devoured it") This is meant purely as a dethklok-type joke, but I can see how a person would take it as vanity. So to the couple of you that have us liked/fan on facebook and reverbnation, I apologize if I come of as a dick. Im really just making a parody of the fact that we play death metal.

 

[jymellis]

i dont tolerate that shit, i WONT be ignored. or treated rudely.

 

[tacotiklah]

i dont tolerate that shit, i WONT be ignored. or treated rudely.

Oh man I completely agree with you there. What my situation was, was that I didnt even have a few minutes to myself. Normally if someone wants to talk to me or chill, im real good at making time to hang out. I dont smoke, but I will go out and goof off with people that do. Asthma be damned.
That show just kept me running around so much that i became bit tunnel visioned trying keep the show running. Id like to think we made it up to everybody because we all went back to the garage, got drunk (beer was on us) and finished the set for them.

 

[PyramidSmasher]

They all like eachother though. It's like "Hah! we're the coolest metal fans in cleveland! Fuck everyone else!"

 

[nothingleft09]

That's Cleveland for ya though... one big to the world. lol

 

[Demiurge]

I think that, for some musicians that play-out, they take for granted those who come out to see them- it comes down to the word used in many cases of patronizing a show: SUPPORT.

As is the case in other venues in life, when people receive support, some are gracious and willing to give back even if it's making time to chat. Others begin to look at that support as a form of entitlement. Pair the sense of entitlement with musician-arrogance, and that's where I believe the rude behavior comes from.

 

[Evil7]

Enjoy this tid bit of the retardedness of where im from.

 

[scottro202]

I make an effort to make friends with the other bands on the bill. Mostly because I like meeting people a lot, and it's always good to know more bands.

Ever since the girlfriend started coming to shows though, I've been a little bit distracted as of late By the way, for what it's worth, I met her when SHE was in a band. So making friends with other bands can be very beneficial

 

[Demonbrn]

In my experience, the guys that become douchebags are the ones that get a high following from a high concetrated circle of friends (where almost every show is mostly people they know, or linked to someone they know). I used to work with a guy that plays in a punk band here in the SF bay area called "Social Unrest" and he was extremely humble and down to earth (these guys have been around since the '80's mind you), I also met Phil Demmel through him and he was awesome.

One of the bands I listen to a lot (Trivium) has been known to be EXTREMELY cocky, almost to the point of annoyance. But they have appearently always been like that. I guess it just depends on the people in the band. I know of a few people that once they had the slightest hint of being signed on some sort of label they turn into prema donna's.

I also new this guy that played in 3 cover bands (Montly Crew, AC/DC, and another I can't recall) and he always acted like he was to good to discuss anything musical with me... he was a HUGE douche now that I think of it, cover bands are a good way to get practice, but getting cocky over playing other people's music is kind of self rightoues, lol.

 

[Murmel]

One of the bands I listen to a lot (Trivium) has been known to be EXTREMELY cocky, almost to the point of annoyance. But they have appearently always been like that. I guess it just depends on the people in the band. I know of a few people that once they had the slightest hint of being signed on some sort of label they turn into prema donna's.

What? This is news to me
Of everything I've heard, the guys in Trivium are really cool. And Matt seems to be the most down to earth guy, seems like a really nice guy

 

[Explorer]

Regardless of what others do, take this lesson from all these stories: Be the ones who make things go smoothly.

That means that everyone working at a venue is there to make sure the show goes off well, and that the patrons are pleased.

I remember one show where a group did a set-up which took forever. We did our soundcheck really quickly immediately after, but we knew exactly what we were after. Next group had some issues; I helped troubleshoot, had someone call the nearest store to see if we could get a replacement while we then tried a different power outlet. Guy was ready to drive over with my credit card when the different outlet worked.

Promoter and owner thanked me for being patient with the prima donna band, and for jumping in to help with the equipment problems. On top of that, word of mouth spread that we were a good group to have on a card... which no only helped us, but severely hurt the prima donnas who were part of the horror story.

Don't be the ones who drag down a show or venue. Don't be clique-ish or rumor-mongers. That's easy to do.

Be the ones who are known to be excellent, friendly, and professional. It will pay off.

 

[Demonbrn]

What? This is news to me
Of everything I've heard, the guys in Trivium are really cool. And Matt seems to be the most down to earth guy, seems like a really nice guy

I don't think they are serious when they are being cocky, but people take it as so.