Show Journal 2000-11-29
Fuck the Paris Theater. We’ve played at the Paris several times over the last few years and it always sucks. We’ve never gotten paid whether it’s 2 people or 200. Local shows sometimes cost $8 on a weeknight and we have never seen a dime. Water costs too much, the sound always sucks and the employees are usually assholes. Fuck the Paris Theater. Despite getting dicked around on a regular basis tonight’s show was the final straw. The Teen Idols are the biggest band to play at the Paris in a few months and there were no flyers, no ads, no promotion and they weren’t even listed on the huge marquee out front of the club. Fuck the Paris Theater. The sound usually sucks at the Paris but tonight it was particularly bad. It started bad and with 5 bands in all it progressively got worse throughout the evening. Squealing mics, shitty monitors, ringing drums, it all kinda sucked. By the time we played the soundguy asked us to turn up our amps because he didn’t have enough mics for 2 guitar amps. How weak is that? So the sound had gone from bad to worse and finally here comes the Teen Idols who I had been looking forward to seeing for several months. They have 3 singers so needless to say vocals are pretty important to them. During the first song 2 of the 3 vocal mics went out. They tried to swap the bad mics around and try another song. That song went ok except this time the “working” microphone stopped working. They made a few jokes about the situation, probably hoping that the soundguy would remove his head from his ass and try to help, but to no avail. They tried to stumble through another song and this time had absolutely no vocals what so ever and had to stop in mid song. Now there were zero working vocal mics. By this point the band was visibly pissed. They asked the sound guy for some more mics or cords and no shit the guy says “can you play with out them?” The band then brought up the rather obvious fact that a club with live music should probably have working microphones and extra cords. Now this is classic, the soundguy says “well you can play without them or you can not play at all.” Fuck the Paris Theater. Realizing there was no other option the band just put down their stuff at this point and gave up. I don’t blame them. Some people were kinda pissed since they did pay $8 and sit through 4 bands only to endure an abbreviated 10 minute set with no vocals. The bass player and singer for the Teen Idols started telling the people in the audience (which was only 30-40 people since there were no god damn flyers) to ask for their money back. As soon as the first person actually asked for their money back the Paris staff immediately went into asshole mode and started forcibly throwing people out. They yelled and screamed at everyone (including us) and they ended up calling the cops. I’m not exaggerating, 6 police cars showed up out front of the club and were ready to kick people out! Fuck the Paris Theater. People who paid for the show and wanted money back tried to explain the story to the police but it was a lost cause. What can they do? I was hoping they could at least serve up an NYPD broom stick reaming for Hugo who manages the Paris. So as it turns out no one go their money back and worse yet, none of the bands got paid. It was no surprise for us (since they haven’t paid us in 4 years) but the Gamits and the Teen Idols are on tour and had a signed contract! Conveniently the owner (and contract signer) was absent tonight. Fuck the Paris Theater. The Teen Idols and Gamits were pretty cool about the whole situation after the show, but as a third party I just have to say how much that sucks. The Paris is the worst club I’ve ever seen. It’s the only club I’ve seen which doesn’t promote, doesn’t advertise, doesn’t pay bands, doesn’t honor contracts, overcharges at the door, and just basically just doesn’t give a fuck about anything. The best observation of the evening was the bass player for Teen Idols mentioning that “they have overpriced water and ice cream for sale but no working microphones.” Fuck the Paris Theater. Oddly enough I feel embarrassed by the show. A handful of die hard Teen Idols fans showed up and paid $8 only to see a 4 botched songs with no vocals and then watch them get pissed at our hometown. It’s really frustrating to see a band you look up to get screwed like that. It sucks for the bands and it also sucks for the people who came to see a show on a Wednesday night and have to endure all that crap. To sum up I guess I just want to say Fuck the Paris Theater.
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