06/02/2010

MILF at the World Bar, Friday Feb. 5

Well, from the band's perspective, I would rate this one just a notch above playing next door at Candy's Urine Soaked Apartment and being asked to stop after 3 songs because they were running out of time.
After we took all our gear to the very top floor, we were not made to feel welcome at all. One of the other bands were set up, playing around and parading and the sound guy, Scott, was fawning all over them. Our worksheet had been specific about the times we were to set up and that we would do a sound check but we were not given one. Scott was unhelpful, uninterested and, I'm so sorry to be so frank, unintelligent in the sound department. He text-messaged for half of our new song "I Can Hear There's a Peace in the Dark" while the vocals were turned completely off. In the end Adrian had to shout over some friend that Scott was greeting with a hug to get his attention to turn the vocals on.
We were made to start forty minutes late because the room "wasn't full enough" and so halfway through our set we were competing with the bass line and rhythms from the floor below that were vibrating heavily through our feet.
It was such an unwelcoming shocker of an experience that I am not as sorry as I should be that I accidentally played the other band's cymbals instead of ours (which drew from Scott a mid-gig remonstrance in Blake's ear - wasn't even paying enough attention to speak to the right band member.)
The real joy is to be with Telafonica and that Cherry was there and that Matt Wakeling came to see us play and help us get out of that dreadful place as fast as we could.
And we finally got to introduce Cherry to our midnight feast at La Ziko's and Matt came along too so there was definitely joy to be had.
We have had so many nice experiences at the World Bar, it's a shame to give it a bad review. Ellie said she saw the sound guy from downstairs at Mum while we were there - now there is a sound guy! Maybe Scott should go and learn from a professional. Or maybe not be a sound guy. Yeah, definitely not be a sound guy. He'd have more time for himself that way. It would be a win-win situation for everybody involved.

Set List

I Can't Make You Love Me
Smells like Rain
I Can Hear There's a Peace in the Dark
The Unravelling Man
Belafonte
Time to move the Nest

7 comments:

ajebec said...

i definitely think it was the hardest we've ever had to work to play in telafonica - from any incarnation of the band. early in the set there was no bottom end coming through at all - i asked the sound guy to give the laptop more bottom end. he did a bit and then said 'oh, that's sounding heaps better'! but there still wasn't lots. then, during the belafonte, the laptop was close to impossible to hear. then, part way through, this nice solid bottom end started pumping in and i figured he must have finally worked it out. so i listened intently to it and tried to keep in time with it. it was until the song finished, and the nice bottom end didn't, that i realised it was coming from downstairs and i had been trying to keep in time with the wrong music!

and the band that used up our entire soundcheck time, then unplugged all their stuff and carried it off stage. which means that by 2 and a half hours later, after two completely different types of music which were mixed totally differently, when they set back up, their soundcheck would have been useless, and we missed any chance of getting the soundcheck we were supposed to have. interpol derivative prima donnas.

Bec said...

sorry blake. do you think it was unfair?

my perspective is that my experience of the working world is a high standard of professionalism (at toongabbie i mean) and my experience of being a mother in society is that there is a high expectation of care and responsibility. last night was neither professional nor showing any form of courtesy or duty of care towards people who were providing a service for them, nor responsible - he didn 't do his job - didn't know the information that he should have, didn't have the experience and yet spoke as if he did, and didn't even sufficiently monitor his end of the performance.

it's a lot of work for amateur musicians to prepare for and turn up to these things with all their gear. courtesy and integrity should be a given towards them.

if he had been pretty new at sound and was asking questions instead of making statements and was genuinely interested in music and musicians I wouldn't have had such a bad opinion of him.

perhaps i should have written it when i wasn't tired. aje thinks it's fine, though. i think hypocrisy and inconsistency needs to be exposed though. maybe another band will read it and will be prepared or just avoid the place all together.

Marcella said...

Sound horrid, but surely the promotional poster should have been enough to warn you off?! ahaha! I never want to play for someone who uses scantily clad ladies as their way of getting people through the door to see Telefonica, talk about the wrong demographic, the punters would be so disappointed!

I think your tone is fine Bec, a dose of reality is always a good thing, I can just imagine him. I like to think if I was there I'd have been outrageous, but I suspect I wouldn't have been!

Mx

ajebec said...

the poster might have been useful as a warning had we received it more than 3 days before the gig!

it should be pointed out that our other experiences of mum have been the complete opposite of this (apart from preening girls). sound guys have been excellent etc etc - just seems this new upstairs venture is not particularly aimed at accommodating the actual musicians.

Blake said...

bec, i didn't think it was unfair. though i didn't anticipate that raw honesty, especially after hearing ellie's THREE, unmerited thank yous! i was applauding you.

i agree with you. it is really disappointing when you are shrugged aside after putting in and showing up for people.

the rest of the night was fun. and there were some nice parts in most of the songs, bar belafonte.

Eliza said...

Hmm, my thank yous apparently haven't gone down well. I agree with Bec's summation - apt as always - but I was still glad we had a crappy sound guy, as opposed to no sound guy at all. Besides, just because he treated us poorly doesn't mean it's a good idea to do the same to him - to his face, I mean. Dissing him on the blog is of course fine. :) Or perhaps I should just be less polite and more truthful: "Scott, you're a dill. Grow some real facial hair and thanks for nothing, punk."

ajebec said...

vidette, who books all the bands and does lots of the organisation for mum, sent me an e-mail today. it's a nicely balanced account from their end. she's given me permission to put it here for everyone to read...

Hey guys,

Someone pointed out your recent blog on milf and I wanted to drop you a line and say I'm sorry it was a bad show for you.

The GFC has effected a lot of venues around Sydney like the hopetoun shutting shop, or club 77 and kit & kaboodle which no longer have bands play because they've realised it's about a 10th of the cost to book a dj to play dance music and it will appeal to more people.

Even in tough financial times and with the extra expense we wanted to create another platform for young bands to play at MUM.
Which is why we started MILF. The set up is mostly for more simple bands than telefonica and the PA is basic because it's all that we can afford.
You're right when you say that we could get a better sound guy than Scott and that's because he's not a professional sound guy like chris is. We can't afford a professional sound guy to mix upstairs and as it is we don't pay Scott a proper wage. He's the guy who helps me book the bands for milf, run things on the night, runs the promo, mix the bands and if we add up the hours and compare them to what we pay him he probably gets less than $10 an hour. Please don't think of him as being appathetic towards his job because he's actually one of the most dilligent and dedicated workers on my staff and if anything he's got too much on his plate.
Anyway, we'll take the negative post and use it constructively as it's only the 5th week it's been running and we're still refining the way we do things for milf.

Hopefully your next world bar experience is a good one and if you have anything you'd like to discuss with me further please call me on my mobile below anytime.

Best,
Vidette
Meow Music