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9.25 million dollar home and NO food or drink !!!


Dave Ferris

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For those of you who prejudge the wealthy as arrogant and callous:

 

Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, it is your preconceived disdain for them that permeates your interactions with them, and they are just playing off your hostility?

 

 

 

Have you ever considered that maybe there's some validity to the claim that affluence can make ordinary people act arrogant and callous? I just ran across this on my FB feed. It speaks to the heart of the issue.

 

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Ok, there's been a lot of stuff flying around. To my fault, I've responded to certain terminology without correcting it in the process.

 

 

There can be a lot of affluent a-holes....maybe most of them are a-holes, depending on your subjective measure of a-hole-ism.

 

People are people.

 

Ok, how you got rich matters

 

How you were raised matters

 

Probably, heredity matters

 

Where you live likely matters

 

Music appreciation likely matters

 

Consumption of peyote has to do SOMETHING!

 

Kids like kix

 

Are you starting to think about the complexity of what makes somebody who they are? Do you think how much money they have can trump everything else and magically turn them into an a-hole?

 

Confession: I need desperately to turn into a rich a-hole!

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Interesting thread. I wonder what Dave Ferris' other band-mates personal views/opinions of the gig are?

I've played gigs where I expressed negative opinions of a bar/club owner that rubbed me the wrong way. Yet, some of my band-mates didn't feel the same and other band-mates did.

Speaking for myself, "first impressions" can shape my opinion of someone and vice versa, to be succinct.

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I'd venture to guess this thread has far diverged from anything Dave or his band mates wished to discuss.

 

Dave had a rough gig, I believe that with all my heart. I believe everything he said, no reason not to.

 

The discussion since has been an important diversion.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Uh, J.Dan this thread has diverged into a "discussion" about the rich. However, I want to and did opine on what Dave dealt with. He did have a crappy experience, I have no reason not to believe him. However, with all due respect, If I want to post my opinion regarding Dave's post, please don't give me a "benign lecture" of what this thread should be about.
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Let's turn this thread back to the original point. The poor treatment of musicians on gigs. The client being rich I believe is secondary. It seems like the head caterer in charge was on some power trip.

 

I wonder if you ignored him what could he have done. Was it him or the homeowner who had that "docking 10% of your fee if you were late". I never heard of that before. For my gigs I get paid from the time I show up, this includes the time I need to setup.

 

Just my last gig I was told to come 1 hour early, no problem, that's another hour at my regular fee of $100/hour. They paid it. Didn't even play that first hour as guests weren't arriving until later.

 

I think musicians need to take control and not put up with crap from anyone. I get a written contract of what is expected beforehand and go to the gig with it. Any extras requested afterwards are charged my flat rate.

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[

 

Have you ever considered that maybe there's some validity to the claim that affluence can make ordinary people act arrogant and callous? I just ran across this on my FB feed. It speaks to the heart of the issue.

 

 

OK. I'll play.

 

I took the ten minutes to watch.

 

There are some very interesting experiments mentioned here. Without actually reading the REAL papers re: methodology, results, analysis, etc. I cannot and will not comment on the validity of results.

 

A few things deserve mention though:

 

1. It sure seemed like that masters or PhD student had something to prove.

2. Certain observations like eating with one's mouth full of pretzels is entirely subjective and prone to incredible bias, unless judged by a blinded observer. Again, I would have to look at the study design for that.

3. It's quite telling that the chief researcher stated that they have been published in some "pretty obscure journals". That speaks volumes.

4. As stated above by others, be very careful inferring causation from correlation. While the crosswalk study is indeed very interesting, perhaps there is a major confounding factor like cel phone use. Perhaps BMW drivers are more likely to be speaking on the cel while driving, thus not stopping at the crosswalk being a product of distracted driving rather than callousness.

 

And, most importantly,

 

5. There was no mention of keyboards anywhere.

 

As I feel I am veering into the realm of politics, I am going to stop my involvement in this direction of the thread and just lurk.

 

Nord Stage 2 Compact, Yamaha MODX8

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Interesting thread. I wonder what Dave Ferris' other band-mates personal views/opinions of the gig are?

I've played gigs where I expressed negative opinions of a bar/club owner that rubbed me the wrong way. Yet, some of my band-mates didn't feel the same and other band-mates did.

Speaking for myself, "first impressions" can shape my opinion of someone and vice versa, to be succinct.

 

There's a lot of truth in Moj's comments. One of the rooms that my horn band played a string of dates at completely ticked our drummer off on our first night in. He simply refused to play there any more. We had to bring in a sub so that we could play out the remainder of our dates at the joint. While it wasn't a favorite room for any of us ... none of us had the reaction to the room that our drummer did.

 

The SpaceNorman :freak:
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Yes, suddenly coming into a lot of money CAN indeed turn you into an asshole. History is rife with examples.

But rather than pick on individuals, just read the paper. The easiest target is pro athletes. Basically, an ignorant person with no money generally is.harmless, if not actually okay; theyre usually not in a position to cause others great harm. But an ignorant person suddenly flush makes a lot of bad decisions, some of them harmful: you cant take a thug off the streets and put him in a college football uniform because hes big and brute, then give him a pro contract worth xx millions per year, and be all surprised that hes running a dogfight ring, or executing people over drug deals or squabbles. If a human being cant act with dignity and common sense with no money, you cant expect them to miraculously pull it together when theyre now in a position to have and do anything they want.

 

To bring this back to music, you guys all know that Motown used to put its stars in charm school as part of a regimen. There was a reason for that.

 

That said, there seems to be a strong correlation between sociopathy, and success in the upper echelons of business/politics/banking. Granted, many of those sociopathic tendencies were likely laying dormant when that CEO was just a burger flipper at McDonalds. Whether those tendencies made them successful, or whether success gave them carte blanche (in their minds) to flaunt those tendencies is unclear, but there is no doubt there is a measurable increase in the flexing of the asshole muscle once money and power are attained.

Dont believe me? Well, Im not The Smartest Man In The Room, but Im smart enough to see the wires.

 

Evidence: On the campaign trail, one shall we say swaddled individual was telling potential college graduates that the best way to get ahead in life is start your own business.with a loan from your parents. Now, this makes him an asshole, not a malicious one, but his reality is much different than mine, and in his reality, this probably seems like a perfectly plausible idea coming up in a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars family- but in the reality that most of us reside in, thats a non-starter. That separate reality is also what shapes this idiots thinking, especially because hes exempt from the ramifications of his thinking. To him, buying a company Im sorry, getting paid by a company to bring them solvency and then raping and pillaging that companys assets (including their employees retirement funds), thereby rendering them literally valueless, and basically destroying someone elses hard work and many peoples lives, is a successful strategy (because he got paid), when in the reality we live in, its clearly NOT a successful strategy, literally. Meanwhile, this hapless genteel dumbshit moves up the food chain, now utilizing those same strategies to govern. And this is a benign scenario.

 

Yeah, rich people: Theyre just like us. (Thank you Star magazine.)

 

Hitting "Play" does NOT constitute live performance. -Me.
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Let's turn this thread back to the original point. The poor treatment of musicians on gigs. The client being rich I believe is secondary. It seems like the head caterer in charge was on some power trip.

 

 

Power trip along with lousy management style. As I said many posts back, I let the wedding/ event planner or caterer know that the musicians do not answer to them. They usually back off right away.

 

Had a reception years ago like Dave Ferris described, the event planner was just a nasty person on all accounts. She rode the contractor's ass all nite and he took it. Finally, we were playing and she said "play something faster, it sounds like a funeral". I lost it, stood up and said:

 

"Sweetheart, the bride picked these exact songs and this exact order. (I was lying of course :)). But we'll do as you say. When I see the bride, I will apologize and tell her that the event planner thought her taste in music was really shitty. In fact, where is the bride? I'll go tell her right now".

 

Problem solved. :evil: The chick turned white, said "I didn't know, sorry" and stayed on the other end of the room for the rest of the gig.

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That is awesome. People like that party planner just like to hear themselves talk.

Rich Forman

Yamaha MOXF8, Korg Kronos 2-61, Roland Fantom X7, Ferrofish B4000+ organ module, Roland VR-09, EV ZLX12P, K&M Spider Pro stand,

Yamaha S80, Korg Trinity Plus

 

 

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Event planners... now that's a topic. Some ride you and others let you do your thing.

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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Yes, suddenly coming into a lot of money CAN indeed turn you into an asshole.

 

 

There's enough musicians today that are a walking example of that. Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Kayne West... the list goes one and one. Most are a train wreck once they get fame and money, especially when they are young.

 

Most of us here are at the opposite spectrum, being treated like the hired hand and seen as expendable due to the plethora of people who play for free or do an open mic and call themselves a pro.

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I saw the 10 minute video posted above from Berkeley . At first, my reaction was basically.. " yeah. see, I was right, those BMW folks suck... " BUT even though I still think the rich more or less suck ( I am still a work in progress regarding my bias against the rich and wealthy ) I definitely support the rich and their right to BE wealthy.

I have been, in my odd, illogical Tee fashion, "sensing" something afoot in the American culture that is intensifying class envy ( I suppose most cultures have this- but it rises and falls - think French revolution ) - I deeply dislike anything that suggests that those highly aggressive folks who drive BMW's etc, ought be paid the same as "the street sweeper".

I resent the rich, yet paradoxically will "fight" for their right to their wealth.

True, at some point ( we will all differ on at WHAT point ) a rich person can eventually cause irrevocable harm to the poor, and of course that leads to revolutions!

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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Not trying to win a popularity contest here, but... No one is going to like this one... but maybe the vast majority of us including Tee, are a little full of it.

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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A possible theory is that people when for some reason feel pushed in the corner, they might fall back on basic instincts that come from their back-ground, sociologically speaking I suppose "the old man's money" is a factor, just like family standards, and the the good ol' intellectual upper middle class from the city syndrome.

 

I suppose there are science where you can prove that certain groups of people in the society have more chance of becoming an engineer (like I had a good start in little over middle class, healthy, decent and government city upbringing), a doctor (I don't know haw that's the case now), a lawyer (maybe on average more an bourgeois background, but I don't know for sure), etc. I suppose intelligence and talent, and the early nurturing of that are good for musicians, but maybe given that talent, they need less of a scholarly attitude and education. Borders between all kinds of social groups stay decent when to an extend looking at the background of (in the example "rich") people being in the province, the country side, the suburbs or the major cities. Which isn't to say that decides on most things, but a bit of habit and character, probably.

 

I doubt in normal individual cases it is possible to form some sort of qualitative or quantitative value judgment just-like-that within reasonableness, but on average sociologists should find some relevant statistical data..

 

I am positively and unanimously clear for myself on the subject of certain New, Old and special groups of people paying a little more attention to messing with people, and individuals on the basis of these generalities, and don't have scruples about messing up the environment in more than a few interpretations.

 

T

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either this topic went from a few comments to 5 pages at lightspeed or the "new" feature didn't work. This is a preamble to apologize if someone already brought up this point, since I won't be reading every post - sorry.

 

Sure there are a-holes at every income spectrum but I also think people who treat musicians like sh*t might of been taken advantage of or their is word of mouth, that musicians will drink, eat, take excessive breaks, etcs so treat em as such. What we might of thought was funny at a gig, might of been the catalyst that has added to bad behavior.

AvantGrand N2 | ES520 | Gallien-Krueger MK & MP | https://soundcloud.com/pete36251

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Wow! Great thread. This one has it all.

 

In my experiences of being hired by someone with a lot of money, I have not had a bad experience I can recall. Many times I have felt that the people went above and beyond making the band feel comfortable.

 

It was like they were so overly concerned with our impression of them they were afraid. Don't get me wrong, the attention was great but I also thought this was kind of sad. To have to worry that much that you may leave just one person with a bad taste it will taint that person and it will spread like wildfire.

 

I think if I was rich I might be an ass. Too many people to please. From my experience, being nice and rich seems to take a lot of work and be very stressful.

 

Kudos to the rich people that pull it off.

Prophet 6, '38 Hammond BC, HR40, 2 Leslie 760's, Prophet 08 PE, RD700GX, Ensoniq E-Prime, SCI Pro-One, TX-7, CP80, Arturia VI's
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BTW 100K per year is not what I mean by rich.. The rich are ok.. ok! I am slowly getting over my bias. So many stories here, lend support to my rethinking ( refeeling ) this issue. Merry Merry

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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You take the gig, you accept what comes with it and you're gracious to the host even of the host is the biggest dickwad you've ever met. It's called being a professional. While we consider ourselves "artists", in the real world we are no different than the plumber that comes to fix the toilet.

I would like to set the records straight on this.

 

I agree that whatever gig you take, if you know in advance what to expect, there's no reason to demand more than that. If you're called to play wallpaper music, you *will* be treated like the man who puts the paper on the wall, indeed. In this sense, the venting from Dave and myself were more cries of frustration than anything else.

Now, about 'being' or 'feeling to be' an "artist", a distinction should be made. An artist is someone who at a certain point of his musical development, has realized that he could give his little contribute to an high-level degree of musicianship, and consequently, has put the required lifetime-long period of study, in-depth analysis, discovery, and refinement, to achieve his desired goals. When this total commitment includes, as it's the case in music, the development *and* maintenance of a highly specialized set of coordinated motions called instrumental technique, given the high standards expected from today's jazz musicians, you can bet that said individual has dedicated nearly his entire life to the development of these skills.

 

A "professonal", on the other hand, is someone who does his job with competence and knowledge, but without having put, necessarily, the efforts described above into becoming an artist.

 

Now, if an accomplished architect is out of work, and he's forced to do casual work in wealthy people's houses (like applying wallpaper, for example) in order to survive, there's no way that he will not be frustrated by that. He will feel that he belongs to other kinds of jobs, like designing houses, instead of being employed for something that requires only 5% of what he's capable of.

 

On the contrary, the man who has always done that kind of job (the professional) will not feel that frustration. He could very well think that he has a shitty job, but he has no alternatives at the moment.

The architect, on the contrary, will feel that he's wasting his time by not practicing the skills that he's developed in the course of a lifetime.

 

You already understood where I'm going: People like Dave Ferris "are" (let's say the dirty word) artists. They shouldn't be forced to glue paper on the wall to survive.

In these horrid times, every human activity has been quantified by the bean counters, and I myself am slowly losing interest in living in such a place.

By definition, art is something that's greater than the sum of its parts. I would even say that this is the most exact description of the term. We (all of us) have accepted to forget this simple truth, and we're paying the consequences right now. Yes, musicians should adapt to the needs of new eras - they always did in the course of history. But I feel there should be a limit to that, too.

Rich people's behaviour has little to do with all this. Rich people are just people; there are good and bad ones.

 

Carlo- I feel your pain man... I've been there so many times myself. Along with the thick skin that I developed a long time ago, I've become very good at wiping all the particulars (like from the other night) from my memory banks. Although the cumulative effect builds up and lasts forever. :(

 

I'm sorry you had to deal with all that AND then have to chase down the dough. Talking about adding insult to injury. :facepalm::(

 

Yes that's been a frequent experience of mine with one of the hipper hired help or a guest (with ears) at a party saying..."what is someone like you doing here"? I usually answer- trying to make some semblance of a living. Yeah you don't know if their compliments make you feel better or worse.

 

Hang in there Carlo. I know it's REALLY hard in these stupid, skewed times. You certainly, as well as all people I consider more artist types who have paid serious dues, deserve better.

I can only hold out hope that brighter days are somehow ahead for us "good guys".

 

When things are at their darkest...like in the last few years for me....I try and get deeper into the music. That, my wife, my running & cycling are the only things that get me through.

 

Thanks for the empathy, Dave. :thu:

 

 

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This thread deraped in a rich Vs poor one...So to bring it back: musicians were part of the king's entourage back in the day. J.S.Bach was considered not more than a talented servant for his masters glory. It's that bad since day one for musicians. But to be a little positive, i want to believe that, in comparision to the old days, musicians have gained some respect in our days. Merry Christmas to all!
Be grateful for what you've got - a Nord, a laptop and two hands
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