It was a terribly slow night with only a few regulars (who get in free anyway) clacking pool balls and nursing drafts. I knew the doorman wasn’t skimming because there was nothing from which to skim. It was just a bad night and the take reflected that. When he approached me, he assumed an aggressive posture and geared himself to throw a punch. Steve intervened and shoved him hard to the ground.

A year later, I had another altercation. This time I was a fledgling band manager; on the other side of the fence like a defense lawyer turned District Attorney. I was sitting at a table with six friends who I invited to see my band. The club’s booking agent was angry because the band was starting late. She walked up to the table and grabbed me by the neck from behind.

"Don’t you fucking let this happen again," she shouted, with her fingers still wrapped around the base of my neck. "This is your band and YOU are responsible!" I was humiliated. I considered throwing an elbow into her gut but I knew nothing good could come of that.

Sure there is an inherent rivalry between clubs and bands. One wouldn’t normally expect artists and capitalists to cuddle. But sometimes the situations get intense.

Bob Speth is the owner of Downtown’s 4th and B. He was also the progenitor of the expired Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa, the penultimate music venue. I asked him what he thought of the relationship between the bands and the clubs.

"There is a feeling from the bands that they aren't getting just deserves . . . . " he told me during our interview. "Because [either] we don't book them, or when we do, we don't offer what they feel is just. . . . However, we base the payments to a band on how much they will sell. . . . I have yet to see in San Diego, any night club owners in brand new Mercedes."

"Wouldn’t you say that the musicians were struggling too? Maybe more?"

"They have a manager that gets a percentage, an agent that gets a percentage, then the money is split up by the members of the band, so . . . . no, a band member doesn’t make much money, unless they are super star status. . . . I would definitely tell my kid 'Don't be a musician.’ . . . . Your odds are really slim and you get beat up a lot. . . .

The bands are artists. Some aren't as good as others, but they are all artists. And just because the quality isn't there doesn't mean that the 'artists' temperaments aren’t there. They get so emotionally wrapped up in trying to make it. Then you add a lot of work and [performing] in front of a lot of people, [add] alcohol and possibly some drugs, and you end up with a formula for somebody to go completely crazy."

"Who have you seen go crazy?" I inquired.

"Country Dick of the Beat Farmers. He took his drums. . . . And threw [them] on the floor and smashed them all. . . .Then he threw a bag of mushrooms up on the bar and said, 'I gotta get off these,' and walked out. . ."

Johnny McDonald, is the effervescent principal of Onionhead Productions, a San Diego based entertainment booking agency. He is also the band manager of San Diego’s Soulcracker. He agrees with Speth that the artists have difficult egos to navigate.

"Bands are the artists; they are the ego trip. They believe that the world revolves around them. The club owners. . . . are the ones who bought the club, the liquor license. They are the ones that pay for the electric, the insurance; fill it with liquor, hire security, and have cute waitresses with big tits. . . . But my attitude is, 'look, you got a great bar and big titted waitresses but ultimately it's just a room until you put entertainment on the stage.

It's called 'asses in seats' in the film business and that's what our business is about. When you have 250 screaming people in there, they are not screaming over the nice security guys; they are not screaming over the big titted waitresses [this is debatable], or the electricity. They are screaming over the band!"

McDonald told me about an incident at the Harley Davidson Cafe in Las Vegas.

"We fought with the club owner because he had a problem with the volume level. We weren't even on stage. It was the opening band. He yelled at the sound man to turn them down. Matt Johnson [Soulcracker’s ex-sax player] said 'Homey, why are you in a fit of rage. . . . ?

Five bouncers came up the stairs and grabbed Matt Johnson's beer and his hair. I pushed the bouncer and took the beer back. . . . I had four bouncers trying to throw me over a railing but I made it clear that his nuts were vulnerable, juxtaposed with my knee."

"Do the clubs often complain about the artistic process? Like the volume or set lists?" I questioned.

"Soulcracker has a very clear point in their contract: ‘Soulcracker shall, at all times, have supervision and control over the services rendered and expressly reserves the right to control the manner, means, and details of the performance of services to fulfill the entertainment requirements.’ That basically says, 'We're Soulcracker. We don't play Skynyrd covers and we don't turn the volume down."

Alice Stinnett is the talent buyer for Brick by Brick. Brick By Brick is one of the rare clubs in town that will book national acts. That’s because it’s much more difficult, and the risk is higher, than booking locals.

The local bands that play there on weeknights usually strive for weekend shows. For obvious reasons: more people, more money. Or they strive for the Holy Grail of struggling local bands: the opening slot for an established national act.

"Bands don't feel they have to promote their shows anymore," Stinnett exclaimed, anxious to tell this side of the story. "Then they complain because they don't get a weekend. But if they can't prove themselves during the week, they shouldn’t be given a national show.

They want [us] to make their flyers, to build their fan base, and create their show for them. . . . And that's not the way it works. And if you see a band put all aspects of effort into it you keep that in the back of your head and you're like, 'you know, they really tried. What can [I] do to help them?"

"So when you tell them they are not going to get those elusive weekends, or national slots, how do they respond?" I asked.

"Well, I'm called a bitch every day," she snickered. "That means I'm doing my job. . . . A lot of bands think they are rock stars. I hear [local] bands talk about me all the time: 'Oh, she's such a bitch because she won't give me a Friday night there. . . .'

Nationally I'm like a god. I'm not meaning that cocky. . . . I'm treated so kindly by people on a national level. . . . Then you get local bands and you're bringing them into your home and, because they don't get what they want, they feel like they can disrespect it."

"Have you ever been called a bitch to your face?"

"Oh yeah," she quickly and proudly responded. "I don't tolerate that. No matter what level [of popularity they reach]. They won't be allowed in here."

What I heard repeatedly, from the club’s perspective, was that it was *they* who took the risk and never the band.

"It always points to the person sitting in the chair. . . .," Stinnett said, clearly frustrated. "They don't realize that I buy a Reader ad--that costs hundreds of dollars a week--to promote their show. So they could put out twenty dollars in flyers."

Of all the people I interviewed, Robbie Home was the most vocal. He was the most bitter, and the least concerned about whether he was going to burn any bridges. Instead, he fire bombed them.

"Some clubs make so much fucking money from one or two nights of the week," Home complained, "that it carries them through the month. So when they say they can't afford to give you any kind of guarantee. . . . It's a bunch of bullshit. Croce's is a perfect fucking example. Jesus Christ they’re selling twenty/thirty dollar plates [and] three dollar drinks, all night long.

If you're booked with Croce's," he continued, "they book you for three months. Then they say. . . . you can't play anywhere in the Gaslamp under that name, during [those three months]. I don't think it's fair. If they were paying me the big bucks sure, I'll be exclusive. But fifty dollars a man--they can kiss my ass!"

Then he lashed out at Buffalo Joe’s in the Gaslamp.

"Buffalo Joe’s says all they can have is country music," he asserted. "During the G.O.P. convention, they had me [and my various bands] booked for about $2500 worth of gigs. Then, two or three days before the first gig they canceled all of them. They said their license wouldn't allow our kind of music."

"What was your kind of music?"

" We were playing funk and blues and jazz," he answered.

"Isn’t that what they normally have there?" I inquired.

"I don't know what the problem was. They also would only let a certain amount of people on stage. If I were to back out on a club the night of, or the day before the gig, and I did that all over town, do you think I would get any gigs anywhere?"

I called Claudette Mannix, General Manager of Buffalo Joe’s, to have her respond to Robbie’s comments.

"The reason Planet Groove couldn’t play was because they had eight members," she defended. Planet Groove is one of the bands in which Robbie Home is a member. "Our license only allows six people on stage. I guess because, if the band is too big they make too much noise. And the Gaslamp was trying to keep down the volume. . . . I'm not making it up, and I do have a copy of it."

She also told me that the reason they couldn’t play funk, blues or jazz was because at the time their license had a ‘country music only’ clause.

"The ABC was very strict about issuing licenses. It said they could only play country music. When Buffalo Joe's first opened it was called Injun Joe’s. The original owner only intended to play country so he didn’t care."

"Why would the ABC care about what type of music you were playing?" I queried.

"I think at that time the Gaslamp was just starting to happen and they wanted to attract a certain type of crowd. Not that they didn’t want young people; they just didn’t want too much craziness. Probably because if you played the wrong type of music, like thrash metal, there would be problems. Hot Chicken Stew brought cowboy hats so they could get away with singing the blues."

Buffalo Joe’s no longer has these restrictions on its license.

"So what do the bands do that really get on your nerves?" I probed.

"They pit the clubs against each other," she responded. "They say 'This club in P.B. pays me this kind of money and I want the same money from you.' And I know for a fact that they are lying because I talked to the other club owners."

Eddie Elias, Croce’s manager of bars and marketing, also responded to Robbie Home’s comments.

"We’re not forcing anyone to do anything," he defended. "We’re telling [bands] our policy up front and then we book them for three months. . . .I don’t see how anyone can have a negative stance on it. One thing that I can tell you is that I pride myself on the way I treat musicians. . . . We give an award to the musician of the year, not just one but two. . . And that band receives 1000 dollars."

"Do you think it’s fair to restrict bands from playing elsewhere when they play Croce’s?" I asked.

"If you got a band playing at your club on a Monday and they play down the street on Tuesday. . . . [that’s] gonna cut down on the demand for that band. . . . We have a good policy. We book you for three months. [We] advertise you in the Reader. [And we] put you in the music calendar which goes out to 10,000 people. . . . They also get to play for special Croce’s catering events. So we’re making a commitment to these bands. . . ."

"Do you know anything about bands pitting clubs against each other to raise their price?"

"It’s a common practice. . . . That’s why we remain true to our policy, so we don’t get extorted. We stick to the game plan and we look for musicians who have the same philosophy and want to work with us."

But sometimes the clubs employ underhanded tactics too. That’s according to many bands to whom I spoke and according to Mike Levine in his book "How to be a Working Musician." He explains where the clubs get the leverage: from inexperienced bands who will play cheaply.

"A culprit. . . . when it comes to the lowering of band wages," explains Levine, "are the groups that play their own material and whose primary motivation is to get signed to a record deal. There are bands in cities all over the country who pay for the "privilege" of playing. They may feel that it's in their best interest to do so, but their actions have caused many clubs that formerly paid bands to no longer do so."

Scotty Blinn, singer/guitarist for the Mississippi Mudsharks, corroborates Levine’s statements: "There are so many bands that came up playing blues that were Weekend Warriors. They would go into these clubs where we were making good cash and play for half as much. . . . What I told the owners of these clubs was, ‘You go ahead and do that but you get what you pay for. . . . You’ll get these [bands] wearing T-shirts and jeans and sneakers who just come off the street and play mediocre covers that every other blues band does in the world [Mustang Sally comes to mind]. . . ..

These bands are the Uncle Toms of the industry, snuggling with the enemy. Tom Essa, the Mudsharks drummer, doesn’t call them "Weekend Warriors." He calls them "bands who suck."

"The Belly Up runs it properly," asserted Essa. "They have one night set aside for bands who suck. It’s called "Neighborhood Watch," and you know going in there, that these aren’t professional bands. So the Belly Up is not killing their own bill by having shitty bands. . . . They’re pretty wise about it. If you look at their calendar, it’s pretty sick. They rarely have joke bands in th_

I’m sure, as Bob Speth and Johnny McDonald pointed out, there are plenty of egos twisting around in the music community. But I think of it as a quest for respect. Some of these musicians have been toiling for decades. The levels of respect and adulation they enjoy range from zero to idolatry.

"I have my entire life to play in this city," avowed Rick Andrade, formerly of the band Hot Chicken Stew and presently from The Rick Andrade Brotherhood. "They're gonna have to treat me nicely because I live here. This is my house. I’ll be playing at the same club and they may [go through] four different owners. [But] I'll be there a lot longer than the business will."

Many interviewees spoke of great relationships and good experiences too. Jaimie Vaille said that it’s been fine and couldn’t come up with one negative thing to say (I tried). The Casbah’s proprietor, Tim Mays said his relationships were excellent and his reputation seems to prove that. He’s like a players coach in that he sympathizes with the talent more than with the owners.

"As a rule (I think) a lot of club owners . . . .treat [bands] like shit," he exclaimed in our conversation. "A lot of clubs lose sight of the fact that without the bands they wouldn't even be in existence. They treat the bands like poor stepchildren and try to screw them over to maximize their money."

I couldn’t help but notice the debilitating misunderstanding between the two parties. The bands believe the club owners are making a fortune, and don’t kick down enough. The clubs feel that the bands don’t do any work. That they just come to the show, play the gig, and go home. Neither is true.

With all the backstabbing, undercutting, underpaying, and overcharging everybody is wary; so afraid of getting screwed that they perpetuate the cycle. I think everybody wants the same thing here--To get people out to the shows, have a good time, and make lots of money. Maybe it’s time, as Tom Essa said, "for a big meeting."

I’d be happy to arbitrate.

I think Scott Blinn [Mississippi Mudsharks] said it best with this ‘sort of’ Desiderata for the industry. . .

"Morals of the story: Love each other and help each other. . .

Club owners--these bands are your bread and butter. Be authoritative, but fair. Command respect. Show it and you shall receive it. [Hire] quality bands and watch the profit margin rise over a longer haul. Any shitty band can pull all their friends out for one or two gigs, but in the end you are just stuck with a shitty band and that drunk in the corner.

Consistency rules.

Bands--don't think you are any better than you are. (If you were, you'd be playing bigger and better places for a lot more money). These club owners have families and bills just like you. Be fair 'cause there's a lot more work for you if you are cooperative, humble, and reasonable. BUT DO NOT GET WALKED ON!

Shitty bands--quit taking work from the real musicians and stay home and torture your instruments in the garage. Undercutting can lead to bad Karma, if you know what I mean. "