Suntana's Blog Trek

Hah! What are y'all envisioning with that title? Perhaps me having some confrontation with a Police Officer? Nah! That would have been – Take This Ticket and Shhhhh… Whoa! Hey, look what time it is. It's time to get this Post started. The title is a take on that Country song, "Take This Job and Shove It."

This week's Post involves another one of my Musician Adventures with the 2nd Band in which I played. Surprise surprise, this adventure involves another shady, slimy, reptile, snake in the grass character, a Club Owner. With that kind of a description and introduction, what the heck … from here on, I'll just call him Snake. We had played a couple of Gigs at Snake's Club before. And we had 4 more Gigs booked up at that Club within that following month. With that bit of Info, it would seem to be logically indicative that Snake was very much familiar with what type of music we played AND very satisfied with the caliber of our music. You don't just go around giving a Band a Shit Load of Gigs if you don't know what they play and aren't satisfied with them, right?

We were then informed that Snake was opening another Club, the José José Club. Snake chose our Band to play at the Grand Opening of his 2nd Club. To clarify, it wasn't per se an opening of a totally NEW Club built from scratch. It was more of a reopening of a Club that already existed and had just been shut down for some time. Our Bass Player was the one who informed us that Snake wanted us to open up his 2nd Club. All the rest of us in the Band were like, "José José Club? WTF? Where's THAT at? We've never heard of it." Our Bass Player did know of it and knew where it was. Hmmm? Our Bass Player seemed to have the propensity and history for getting us entangled in questionable Gigs. Remember, he's the one who got us involved in that Battle of the Sham of which I wrote.

Yadi Yadi Yada … it was Grand Opening night and we were on our way to this José José Club to presumably Wow and enthrall a standing room only Grand Opening night crowd. It stood to reason that there had been heavy advertising (Not that we saw any such thing) and that there'd be some sort of marquee, maybe a big ole Spotlight and other assorted methods to grab the attention of the partying public. We could envision this Mini Las Vegas cornucopia of lights, action and excitement in front of this NEW Club by the main street. Eeeeeeeeeeerrrrr! Put on the brakes. There was to be no Mini Las Vegas by the main street. We found ourselves turning off … wayyy off and away from the main street onto some run of the mill, generic side residential street. And there was no marquee / sign remotely informing passersby that there was a Grand Opening of a New Club down that residential street. After a short drive deep into what seemed like Robin Hood's forest hideout, we finally came upon the mysterious José José Club. Yeah, there was some simplistic lit sign there that ho humly indicated "Grand Opening" and may or may not have had the name of our Band on it. There were maybe 2 or 3 cars there. Otherwise, there was ZERO fanfare, zilch indication that there was a Grand Opening of a new Club in progress. It was more like the ingredients were there for a Recipe for Disaster.

We proceeded to set up. Showtime at 9:00PM came around … and there was nary a partying, dancing soul around to be had. :::Chirp Chirp Chirp::: So, we had no choice, but to start playing anyway … to the Party Animal Crickets in the house. Eventually, throughout our 1st Set, different people WOULD show up. But, at any given time, it would just be between 1 to ohhh, say 4 Couples tops. They'd have a drink or two and dance 1 or 2, maybe 3 songs and then leave, no doubt to some other place with more of a party atmosphere. Somewhere during our 1st Set, Snake came over to us and informed us that we needed to play more Cumbias so that the people would stay and dance. We humored him some. However, we only had a limited number of Cumbias within our variety of different types of songs in our Tex-Mex / Tejano genre play list. There are Bands that specialize in playing ALL Cumbias the entire night. We … were NOT one of those Bands. Thus, there was no way we were going to be able to pacify Snake with Cumbias all night long.

During the intermission after our 1st Set, there was more discussion between Snake and our Bass Player regarding Snake's insistence, now bordering on demanding that we play more Cumbias.

We took the stage for our 2nd Set. Despite Snake's demands, we had no choice, but for the most part follow our play list. There was just no way for us to oblige with, cater to Snake's insistence for more Cumbias. That many just didn't exist in our repertoire. The atmosphere of the 2nd Set was same as the first … same amount of people on the dance floor … 2 to 8. Not surprisingly, midway through our 2nd Set, Snake came over and halted the Set and said he wanted to talk to our Bass Player. Another discussion went on. Our Bass Player came back to us and goes, "Okay, guys, that's it. Let's pack it up. We are OUT of here! Snake was accusing us of chasing away the people with our refusal to play more Cumbias. I told him that was BS."

That was so ridiculous! People? We were "chasing away the people?" You mean like ALL 2 to 8 of 'em? Oh my! What Party Destroyers we were. There used to be this TV Series back in the 90s, Party of Five. Well, I guess we were being accused of destroying a Party of Eight … tops. Well, put us in jail and throw away the key. That wasn't a party. If a Shark was the equivalent of a Party, this night's Ummm, crowd was a friggin' Minnow. Snake was refusing to see the real problem. He was refusing to admit that HE and his failure to plan and prepare properly for the Grand Opening was the culprit for the disastrous night. For Pete's Sake, as I mentioned before, the Club was located / hidden several blocks OFF the main street in like a residential area. There was no sign at the side of the main street remotely informing / directing the passing traffic that there was a New Club's Grand Opening several blocks off down that side street. If you didn't know of that Club's existence, there was ZERO chance of you running across it by accident. It was that simple. There was no advertising anywhere of which we knew. We were Musicians, not Magicians. Magicians might be able to pull rabbits out of hats, but we as Musicians were not able to pull a party out of an empty dance floor. We could have played Cumbias until we turned blue and that wouldn't have made Party Animals materialize out of thin air. We couldn't neutralize the fact that no one knew of that hidden Grand Opening. If Snake loved Cumbias so much and thought they were the universal solution to all the world's problems, he should have hired the Pied Piper to go toot away some Cumbias by the side of the main street so all the masses would follow him to the Club.

Anyway, I don't even remember if we even got paid for the 1½ Set that we play or whether we just went:
Take This Club and Shove It! Not surprisingly, Snake canceled the 4 Gigs we were booked for at his other Club.