Adan

Interesting case study, and I applaud the OP showing some humility and letting us use his experience as a learning tool. As I said somewhere above, I think the crucial issue here was relationship to bandmates. If the OP made a mistake, it was undervaluing the importance of showing solidarity. By showing up later than everyone else and putting himself in a different class, he created bad feelings and I think the BL was acting appropriately to replace him. Maybe this band wasn't the right fit for the OP, but I fully agree with MOI that the best policy is to give your all for every performance because that's the reputation you want to have in the music community. If the band isn't working out, give them adequate notice, do what you can to help them meet their gig commitments, then say sayonara. not trying to sound holier than thou. I've been in a ton of bands as a bandmember, and made mistakes in all of them. I think a light rig is the way to go with these clusterf##k gigs. makes it easier on you but also makes it easier on everyone else. Setup and breakdown time delays everyone else, and the more time the sound pro has to spend on you the less they have for other people. But bringing your own monitor/amp means you won't have to worry about the provided monitoring, which for a gig like this is likely to be abysmal at best.

Keep seeing in the reports that "$700M over 10 years" is really more like $45M/y because of payment deferral, the details of which will eventually be known. That seems more reasonable, because how could Ohtani be worth twice as much as Mookie Betts. From a competitiveness standpoint, the question is always, what else could the team have done with this money? Spend it on other free agents, on player development, etc . . . putting so many eggs in one basket is a high risk strategy if that player gets injured or prematurely declines. The other part we don't see is how the Dodgers are leveraging the Ohtani signing into broadcasting deals, which is sort of an immediate financial payback that makes a signing like this into more of a solid business decision.

Respectfully, I think the premise of your argument is that playing this street festival has no intrinsic value but rather is a task the OP would rather avoid, and so your putting it in the category of things like going to the motor vehicle department to renew your car registration. If that is indeed how he thinks of it, then yeah, the next question is whether he's being adequately compensated. But maybe that's now how he thinks about it. We just don't know. i've played lots of gigs for little or no compensation where I thought it would just be a fun time. I haven't always been right in predicting that, but for the times I was right, those experiences were priceless. Also, on a completely different axis of consideration, let's not forget that the OP is not freelancing. He says he's a band member. If you're in a band then you have to go along with the agenda at least about 95% of the time or you'll be replaced.

As usual, Timwat finds the right philosophical center of the debate. You can advise someone on the practical or technical aspects of a gigging situation, but you can't decide for them whether the gig is worth their time and effort. To even have an opinion, we would need to know what the OP would be doing with his time if he doesn't play the gig, and how satisfying that alternative would be to him. To illustrate with a hypothetical, consider, for instance, that if the OP doesn't play the gig, he instead plays golf, pays $50 or whatever in green fees, and then another $50 in the club afterwards, plus gas to drive to the course, and maybe he needs new golf gloves so another $50 in the shop, so now he's out $150+ to spend a few hours walking and yakking with people he already knows, and at the end of the day was it more satisfying for him than playing a street festival? Only he can answer that.

I dunno, it depends. Love me a good street fest! Maybe the street festival is so good you'd want to be there anyway, in which case 50 bucks and getting to play a set is just adding to the total experience. If you get off stage glowing and tipsy women want to talk to you, are you really at that point thinking about the $50? Or maybe the festival isn't that good, or isn't your cup of tea, or you're married with children and tipsy women are of no practical import. For me, all of this would definitely color my attitude going into the gig.

That's not the worst idea. When there are 8 bands, sound checks don't mean much, and like I said above, you may not even get one. It's not really about the sound check, it's about how you want to get along with your bandmates.

I'll be blunt, I don't think you have a legitimate complaint. You've got an ultra light rig, so frankly I don't see the big deal with setting up and breaking down a couple times. It's not a big deal, and it will save you the anxiety of wondering if your gear is safe on stage. Keep in mind that everything you've been told about how things will go might be completely incorrect. Your BL doesn't really know whether they'll let you remain set up. That decision will be made by a (probably grouchy, underpaid, hungover) sound guy or stage manager in the spur of the moment. You may get no sound check at all. Or you may get one and then it sounds completely different on stage when you perform. Despite the advantages of traveling light, I would always want to bring my own amp or monitor to something like this, just to be 100% sure I can hear myself. My Vox VX50KB is 9 lbs and great for that sort of thing. For a gig like this I wouldn't measure success by the payout. If it's a good hang and a fun crowd, then that's a day well spent. I suspect you see it the same way. By the way, love the description of the band's repertoire . . . I'd kill to be back in a band like that.

Actually, yes, it is. Aesthetics gives us a language to talk about art and beauty, but it doesn't tell us that one thing is more artistic or beautiful than another thing. If someone who is a fan of modern architecture looks at that house as says it's ugly, there might follow from that a conversation within the parameters of modern architecture. that could be an interesting discussion. By contrast, if someone who doesn't like modern says this house ugly then, ok, that's fine, you probably wouldn't like any modern house. Either way, neither of us is right or wrong. Now, if you say that house doesn't look earthquake-resistant and I disagree, then there is something objective to discuss, and one of us might be wrong. Not sure who else you might be talking about, but as far as I'm concerned, you can express your opinion all you want, doesn't bother me in the least.

Appreciation of architecture is heavily subjective. I love modern/mid-century, and this house is a shining example of it. As for the taxes, that's how it works in California. The law known as Prop 13 keeps taxes down until there's a sale, at which points it steps up to purchase price. It creates a crazy disparity between old and new homeowners. We were paying massive taxes while we were the Bay Area, but we also had 2 kids in really great public schools, so were getting our money's worth.

I had thought Desmond only wrote the bridge but according to Wiki he wrote all of it. Probably in Brubeck’s bathroom.

Love that. $3M seems like a fair price in the Bay Area market but maybe it needs work. Lotta windows and they might be single-paned, which would mean high heating bills. Composed Take 5 in this house? That might be the realtor stretching the truth.

I haven't myself seen it in Vermont but there are a few guys here taking real B3's to every gig, rolling it themselves uphill both ways through the snow. So yeah, I can believe someone is gigging with it in the Green Mountain State.

I recently played a gig with a band I'd never played with before. Room capacity 125-150, and the crowd ended up being over 100. Showed up having no idea how amplification would work. "can I plug into the PA?" "Nope, it's only for vocals." Ok, so I look for a place to put my Motion Sound 408S. I balance it on a tiny ledge, the only space available as we are crammed into a corner. And because I have to wait for everyone else to set up first, I end up having only 5 minutes for my own setup. No problem, beautiful sound all night at only half volume, leslie effect sound glorious swirling into the room. Classic case of where a keyboard amp is the best tool. But more commonly, the Motion Sound only serves as my mixer/monitor and stage sound, running stereo line outs to FOH.

One of the great things about this forum is that, here, credibility actually matters, at least in relative sense compared to the internet writ large. I think this helps keep things within reasonable bounds and fosters some degree of self-correction. If there was a rant subforum, no one would go there. Imagine a bunch of creepy old men in raincoats exposing themselves to each other. No one would be satisifed.

Has pegs to spare, doesn't need any more.

To state the obvious, genre and instrumentation are different things that often overlap. A fiddle, dobro, banjo group is probably playing old time country, but nowhere is it written that they have to. In a similar way, when I think of "organ trio" I think soul jazz, pop tunes goosed up in the way that sort of comes naturally when played on the B3; Richard Groove Holmes playing Misty or Charles Earland I Love you More Today than Yesterday. A lot of stuff in this thread is super interesting, but it isn't that. But the thread is titled "Organ trios," so it's supposed to be about the featured instrument, not the genre. Speaking for myself, I love the Soul Jazz version of the organ trio. It's a timeless sound I'll listen to forever.

Allan, I'd say you are incredibly lucky. On the totally unscientific theory that we are all allotted a certain amount of luck in life and when it's gone it's gone, you may want to get on top of the blood pressure problem in any way necessary.

Historians will later refer to the period we're in now as the "AI Honeymoon, when people thought AI was amusing and harmless." Of course when I say "historians" I really mean AI.

There's nothing worse than manhandling a 40+ lb 88 keyboard up or down stairs. To avoid banging the keyboard on the stairs you need to keep it at least waist high, which is extremely awkward. Keeping in shape helps but let's face it, most keyboard players are not weightlifters. Reminds me of the corny old joke: a man goes to the doctor, curls his hand into an unnatural ball and say "doc, it hurts when I do this," and the doctor says "don't do that!"

Will Blades is (or was, when I last checked) San Francisco based organ player who has played with a lot of better known players but hasn't really bubbled up into his own version of fame, or what passes for fame in this genre. There's so few organ trios, we have to appreciate all of them.

I'm a little bit in this camp. I like the song just as I like everything Lennon every wrote. And it was inevitable that it would get the grand restoration treatment even if it's not one of his better compositions. But listening to the track kind of just makes me want to hear the Beatles playing together, because I feel that hearing the "Beatles" produced in this way sort of dilutes their gift to the world (or to my world). That feeling may be irrational, but it's my feeling. For similar reasons, but to a greater extent, the video didn't do anything for me. i spent countless hours watching and sometimes rewatching Get Back, thrilled to be able to see the most mundane interactions of the Lads. Seeing them digitally superimposed is entertaining for about 15 seconds. It's kind of like watching the latest Marvel epic, "The Marvels," which I was forced to do last night because of course my kids needed to see it. Just because you can digitally portray a human being hurtling through space and time in nothing but a spandex suit doesn't make it in slightest way credible.

That pic doesn't prove anything other than that they were in a room together doing something, possibly playing music, maybe sketching out ideas. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think there's vintage synths all over Tame Impala's albums. Why wouldn't you, if you were him? None of this is to take away from the anti-gas sentiment, which is a major aspirational goal for me.

As a baseball fan, I love this time of year. Everything is theoretical. Dollars and statistics rule, and everyone (me included) thinks they are as smart as the most well-paid baseball executive. Next year's winners and losers are largely determined over the next several weeks. Except, of course, to the extent they're not. The free agent market is pretty thin once you get past the first few block busters, but there could be massive trades as some well-resourced teams (Giants, Red SOX, and Mets come to mind) are looking to retool.

That's why we hear your chair squeaking. This is inspiring in more ways than one, thanks.

From the Be Grateful for Small Things Dept, I am glad I don't have to decide how much to offer Ohtani in a free agent contract. As a medical matter it's highly uncertain what kind of pitcher he can be a year from now when recovered from his second TJ surgery. The case histories of double-TJ recoveries doesn't give much reason to be optimistic. Even if he never pitches again, he's still worth a huge contract as potentially one of the best power hitters ever. But there are hundreds of millions at stake in whether he will again be the two-way player that fuels so much hype and marketability, which in turn translates into income for the employing team. There's only a few teams that can absorb that kind of risk, and so if, as reported, Ohtani is set on the west coast, it's either the Dodgers or Giants, and because the Dodgers have both more money and a better chance of being competitive, you have to think they will win.