weird, lame entry #4
The Mothballs financial history is an interesting one. When we started out, we were like any other shitty band. But then, before even hearing us, Carlos’ garage-celebrity friends started talking about us to venues. Soon, we would receive way more money than we deserved from places like thee Parkside and the Rickshaw Stop. Every pay-out from one of these shows was an awesome surprise. With a “what-the-fuck” attitude, we put out a record with hundreds of dollars left to spend on burritos.
Pretty recently, however, our Vegas trip took a big chunk out of the Mothballs band fund. We’d already promised to go halvsies on a pink vinyl run of "...Come Out of the Closet" and the Dreamdate “The One I Need” single. So, I invested a substantial amount of money (well, substantial to me, anyway) into one of my bands for the first time. Since then, my attitude towards the bands’ earnings has changed.
On Friday’s show, I asked the bartender about getting paid. She said she’d already given the money to the first band to divide among everybody. Trying to act like that wasn’t the most idiotic thing I’d ever heard, I asked her to point out the guy. I tried explaining the situation to the member of the first band who had all the cash (his band sucked, by the way…if they had walked away with everything, I would never have forgiven myself). The guy was fucking wasted. Watching him slowly return to ask the bartender about it, pull out all the door money, and attempt to do the math required to split it three ways was so dreadfully irritating, I don’t even want to think of words to describe it. Then, I gave half of our earnings to the touring band, because we’re all generous like that. Sometimes it seems like you have to put so much effort, only to get paid peanuts. But I like peanuts.
Other times, of course, money falls into your lap. Last Saturday, Russell Quan was DJing at the Madrone Lounge and had asked us to play. Jason was out of town, so the Jackballs played (Elbert drummed, we did half Mothballs songs and half JLS). It was an interesting venue: it doesn’t have a terrific set-up for live bands, but it does have a huge, regular crowd of bored thirty-somethings who think nothing of a five dollar cover. I thought the show went really well. At the end of the night, the bands’ debt was already half-absolved. Despite my misgivings about receiving money from such mass apathy, it put me in a pretty good mood (which was ruined by the 2-hour trip home thanks the closure of all but one of the freeway entrances).
Pretty recently, however, our Vegas trip took a big chunk out of the Mothballs band fund. We’d already promised to go halvsies on a pink vinyl run of "...Come Out of the Closet" and the Dreamdate “The One I Need” single. So, I invested a substantial amount of money (well, substantial to me, anyway) into one of my bands for the first time. Since then, my attitude towards the bands’ earnings has changed.
On Friday’s show, I asked the bartender about getting paid. She said she’d already given the money to the first band to divide among everybody. Trying to act like that wasn’t the most idiotic thing I’d ever heard, I asked her to point out the guy. I tried explaining the situation to the member of the first band who had all the cash (his band sucked, by the way…if they had walked away with everything, I would never have forgiven myself). The guy was fucking wasted. Watching him slowly return to ask the bartender about it, pull out all the door money, and attempt to do the math required to split it three ways was so dreadfully irritating, I don’t even want to think of words to describe it. Then, I gave half of our earnings to the touring band, because we’re all generous like that. Sometimes it seems like you have to put so much effort, only to get paid peanuts. But I like peanuts.
Other times, of course, money falls into your lap. Last Saturday, Russell Quan was DJing at the Madrone Lounge and had asked us to play. Jason was out of town, so the Jackballs played (Elbert drummed, we did half Mothballs songs and half JLS). It was an interesting venue: it doesn’t have a terrific set-up for live bands, but it does have a huge, regular crowd of bored thirty-somethings who think nothing of a five dollar cover. I thought the show went really well. At the end of the night, the bands’ debt was already half-absolved. Despite my misgivings about receiving money from such mass apathy, it put me in a pretty good mood (which was ruined by the 2-hour trip home thanks the closure of all but one of the freeway entrances).