Well, maybe not everybody... but everybody at the City Limits Inn in Yorkton.
I'll start off by saying the title if this entry comes from one of the finest rock songs to ever come out of this nation, 'Rockstar' by Vancouver sleeeeeeze rockers Crystal Pistol. Ever since I've seen CP live, I've had a ping pong game in my head as to whether it is they, or Black Halos, that are my fave band ever from Van, either way, Crystal Pistol is VERY much worth checking out.
I wish they were the reason for this entry...
So let me tell you about my weekend.
Last Monday morning I get an e-mail from (my cover band project) Rhymes With Fun's drummer, saying we have a gig in Yorkton THIS weekend if we wanted it. Now usually, gigs are booked at least a couple months in advance, and scrambling to get a Friday off work and change any weekend plans isn't an appealing prospect, but the money was good and I've really enjoyed every minute I've ever spent in Yorkton, and we're still a very new band that needs all the stage time we can get so, I was all in.
It should be noted at this point that every other time I've played Yorkton, was at a club called Holly's... great crowds, staff, management... eeeeeeasily in my top fave three non-Regina rooms to play in all of western Canada.
This time, the booking was at a place called City Limits Inn. (A room I renamed City Limits Inn Tavern, so I could call it CLIT)
The whole rest of the week, I heard nothing but horror stories about this place from many people in Yorkton I know... some said "Yeah we'll come... I guess", some said in no way would they set foot in there.
I know now why that is, when you can tell who the classiest person in the place is by locating the person with the least amount of urine stains on their pants... yeah. (although, I DID learn that in some places, playing VLTs is a career)
We got this last minute show to help out another band who couldn't do the show. I've seen this other band @ The Drink a couple times before... and they are so MOR (middle of the road) that little yellow paint lines would be jealous listening to them, but they were MOR rock.
Rhymes With Fun's song list isn't entirely MOR, but we have enough of that material to draw on when we have to that I would've thought we'd be well accepted there.
Apparently, this band we replaced also does a LOT of country music.
The first words the bar night manager said to me: "Bands here play all country early in the night, go half country half classic rock in the middle, and by the end, you can play all rock if you want".
Um thanks... here's my (in my head) counter offer, "We'll play 'Cadillac Ranch' somewhere in our first set and refrain from playing Rage Against the Machine."
Now, this little "pep talk" from this staff guy already put my punk rock back up... but whatever... in my 10 years on the scene, there's not a lot I haven't seen and had to deal with, so I've gotten pretty good at brushing that off... oh, and we all managed to brush off the ridiculous set times/breaks the bar insists on, and even managed to adhere to the INSANE "No guests in the rooms after 11pm" rule. On top of it all, we kept the first couple of sets as MOR as possible, played a couple country songs we never really played before to show we were trying to accommodate everyone, all that stuff.
(although admittedly, I did have the crowd yelling "Fuck country" in unison by the forth set... but most joined in) :-)
The next morning at about 10 am I was out on the fire escape having my morning smoke (another rule I adhered to) and the manager comes up to get the guy in my band that booked the gig, called him down to his office. (for those of you who have never played in a band, no staff ever comes up to a band room at 10 am to say "Hey, nice job last nite boys!". :-)
So... the bar manager proceeds to tell our band spokesmen that we are a really good band, really good guys, but they want a country band, here's less than half the money promised, have a nice trip back to Regina. (we did by the way, we had vodka)
For the second time ever in my career, I was in a band that was fired. (the first time, back in 2000, it was REEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAALLY deserved... a story for another entry)
Now as much as I appreciate the "It's not you it's me" approach, (and the guy is right, for as new as we are, we a damn good band, one of the pluses of having four guys all with 10+ years experience, been rebooked for every gig we've played so far) I was still pretty steamed.
So, after enjoying a cigarette in my room while packing, I went down to help load out. (we singers don't usually like doing that, but this was an unusual situation) :-)
As much as I didn't want to give that bar another penny (this is the ONLY bar, and I've toured from Vancouver to southern Ontario, that didn't give the band staff prices on drinks), I put a couple bucks in the jukebox, which at the time was playing Keith Urban and Toby Keith (surprise!) so we could have some Skid Row and Bad Religion playing while we worked.
This all sounds negative, but friends, I write this to get to a positive ending... you see, "rock guys" might not like country as a rule, but we do tolerate it, and many of us even agree to cater to it a couple times a night, it IS Saskatchewan after all right.
Well, all a person should or can ask for in life is the same respect they show... I wasn't. WE weren't.
So... I Chris Real, do solemnly swear, to never, ever play another country song as long as I live, so help me Bowie, Amen.
I've always known country music fans don't generally tolerate things like Democrats, black people, readers, etc... but this is the first time I personally was actually discriminated against because of who I am and what I love. It sucks. I've been looked down on before... something about a guy in eye liner and nail polish still offends some people, it's beautiful, but I've never been literally discriminated against. So the other positive I can take from this is empathy.
My rock n' roll fires have been ignited now... like you wouldn't believe.
Fuck you I won't do what you tell me, fuck you I won't do what you tell me.
fin
Oh wait... one last thing, I realize I haven't done a "Monday FUNishment" since like the second week of this blog, it was meant to be a weekly thing, my apologies, life has been nuts the past couple weeks... a
As an act of contrition, next week's "Monday FUNishment" will be Chris Real getting in the ring with... himself. Should be a good read.
Rawk.
Chris F'n Real.
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