I am a street musician
I play music for free or at most for hospitality.
Rewards are not what I seek.
Creating music is all that I need.
If I achieve peace in my mind I succeed.
I do not do it for greed.
I try teach those who will heed.
What I give to you it is from me.
With nothing hidden in between.
Just peace, love and harmony.
It was a very long week for some group members. Played a couple of nice sets and experienced some communication gaps. As it goes being human, sometimes life is too stressful and stress mixed with your own personal insecurities is a bad combination in a group situation.In reality it just takes one person with a bit of negativity to dissolve a perfectly enjoyable evening out with friends (though that was not the case this evening). However, still, Mr. B. gets the prize this week for the most illogical overreactions to minor scheduling alterations. In other words, his schedule ended up being so full this past week that by Friday he was searching for every minute he could save, after loosing like 240 minutes on Thursday as he claims. But we tried to explain to him that you do not own minutes, you experience them, so you can not loose them.
present:
Lost time is never found again
Thursday we played at Locus 010 here in Rotterdam, which was very fun though a lot of work. The combination of good dub, reggae d j’s and live music always makes for a good evening no matter what your mood is when you arrive.
The party continued into the early morning with the Togetha Brothers jamming out.
Saturday going to Leiden Brian was convinced that this evening would be his chance recover some of those minutes lost from the Locus gig. After seeing that we were playing even earlier in Leiden than expected Brian began planning his next four days to achieve optimal time effectiveness and get caught up with everything.
Little did he know that there was a sort festival setup on the podium and someone in the group had the choice upon arrival.
1. “play the drum set on the stage”
which is a bad choice because well,most people would agree different drum set sound different and play different.
2. “play your own drum set, but then the other band after you would have to play your kit as well”
which is a bad choice because sharing instruments often goes bad. (in our past experiences anyways)
Having to choose between two bad options they decide on number 2.
We should have known that this choice was comming because the promoter did enlighten a band member over the situation prior to the gig. But some of you may know this secret “Musicians are sometimes not very organized”.
They choose option 2 because everytime our drummer has used another stage kit it has walked across the podium constantly to the point where it is almost not playable. The choice was made and the information remained confidential (well I guess whoever was around understood knew it).
Normally, small missed communications are not an issue with this group. We are usually (99% guaranteed) very laid back, to the point of being scarey. However with Mr. B. in minute saving mode all pieces of missed information were to become a hydrogen bomb for his agenda.
So having a good time, we enjoyed our drinks and the sites and sounds.
Time to play. I think we were setting up quite quickly because we are in top stage hand form. Thursday we had the pleasure of setting up the drum set three times. Playing a quick set of about an half hour. The set felt like it was just getting started.
Everyone being happy with the set, we were lucky enough to get to play another song, I believe because we had more time left. In the excitment we must have played faster I guess?
So we begin to break down the stage and Mr. B. sees the drum set not moving quick enough off the stage. So he inquires “Why aren’t you breaking the kit down?” which receives the response “because the other group has to use it”. So at this point you can imagine a giant mushroom cloud forming over Mr. B’s aura. “No, If you want to have the kit in Rotterdam tomorrow it has to come now. Because I am the driver and i am saving minutes, and do you know how many minutes that will cost me?”. That’s right the old “I’m am the driver” veto blended with other jargen.
I don’t know about you, but if I saw a pale skeleton with a mushroom cloud over his head I would have had the same response as the other Ollie’s. “Okay we will pack up the kit”. The group members know that Brian can be a “dick” sometimes and that there is nothing one can do about it because it comes with the bass. However the promoters had yet to experience the side effects from minute gathering.
The promoter tried to negotiate the drum set. Stating the agreements he had with members in the group over the drum set. As Mr. B. listens to the reasoning he pulls out his own logic. On why they should just set up the “other” kit.
- I am the driver and I am leaving
- It was a miscommunication but i have to leave, i am saving minutes you know, just set up the other kit.
- If we weren’t wasting time talking about this, the drum set would already be set up.
- Setting up a drum set does not take that long.
- I don’t have any drink tickets left and i just played a show and i am thirsty.
Childish but realistic. Mr. B. was also not aware that fresh drink were brought to the back of the stage. The promoters had an agreement with someone over the plan for the evening and Brian had an agreement over the plan for the evening (at least what he thought was his agreement, come to leiden and play). Who’s plan is most important for future of civilization or even the evening. Earth is a very small part of the universe and people are a small part of earth. So probably either choice would not have affected the galaxy or the evening. And it didn’t but it did cause alot of panic back stage or should i say side stage.
Needless to say, a drum set was played and now we are back in Rotterdam waiting to go to Zwolle.
This is a reminder that what you don’t know can hurt you or even someone else!
People of the world share your information freely!
Sorry to anyone in Leiden who was offended by Mr. B. stressful reaction. And he reports that the minutes saved have come in very handy. Those minutes will probably be the thing that saves the evening in Zwolle.
