<sigh>
This is one of those things that I know shouldn’t bother me at all, but that really upsets me anyway.
Off and on I’ve been doing sound for a local band called the Art Theives. They’re kind of your basic 70s-80s cover band, though they’ve definately got some talent. Anyway, I did a multitrack recording for them twice – the first one, there were too many glitches for the recording to be useful, but I thought the second one came out pretty good and I sent them some mixes from it.
So, then I hear that they played a outdoor festival and they didn’t invite me – I’m assuming that either some member of the band didn’t like my style, or .. I don’t know what. But one of the guitarests assures me that’s not the case, they just didn’t want to impose.
I’ve planned a band practice for tonight (Friday) because MC’s been having trouble getting togeather. Yesterday I get a email from them announcing that they’re playing Wayne’s World again tonight. Then guitarist X calls me to ask if I can do sound.. however, he doesn’t want me to bring any of my equipment except my mixer, and he wants me to do it along with his friend. I’m okay with working as a team to do sound, so I suggest bringing two 450s as a compromise (their PA has 300W, divided into 150 for mains and 150 for monitors) and he agrees to that – then I mention recording, and he says that they don’t want to do that – apparently it’s putting a dent in their spontanaity to know that a record is being made. And I can understand that – I’ve felt that myself a time or two. But, nonetheless, I’m not going to skip my band practice so I can go mix five vocal channels. So now I have to figure out a way to politely extricate myself from this situation. Among other things, it’s now (what with the friend, and the no equipment, and whatnot) crystal clear to me that they don’t like my style (which involves lots of watts, and lots of hardware, and I understand that that’s not for everyone).
Then his cell phone dies as I’m explaining that I don’t think I want to do it if they don’t want a recording and they don’t want a PA capable of making the audiance feel the groove.
So now he probably thinks I’m a asshole.
I don’t know what I should have done differently. I think it’s reasonable for me to not cancel my band practice in order to go do sound for people who don’t really want me there doing it. I’m really sad that they don’t want me there doing it, and that they don’t want any more recordings. I’m wondering if, despite all they said about how great the recording sounded, they in fact thought it sounded like crap. It’s definately true that my mixes don’t sound like anyone else’s – I mix to my preference, unless the band is there to say what they want. The band wasn’t there, so I mixed it the way I liked it. But..
I’m just unhappy in general I guess.