This Week in Douchebaggery:

Wow. The obnoxious behavior of certain drunks never ceases to both amuse and sadden me.

1. Friday night ETB was playing BD Riley's.

At one point while our merch person Beth was walking the crowd with email signup sheet and CDs, 2 guys went up to the merch table (set up by my side of the small corner stage) and were looking at our stuff but also playing with our little Gumby figurine. We have several weird knicknacks on our table, sort of like merch mascots. Gumby was given to us by a friend in Boston while on tour last summer and has been with us ever since.

So in between songs one of the guys, an Englishman, starts asking me questions.

Him: "Do you like Oasis?"

Me (perplexed): "Uh, do I look like I like Oasis?"

Him: "Well, I guess not, heh! What DO you like?"

Me: "Led Zeppelin"

Him (slightly offended): "Oh, well, uh, I'm from England and..."

Anyway. After this exchange I see his friend plonk his finished pint glass on top of our CDs, grab Gumby and walk out the door.

Since I was using my wireless unit, I went out the door after him. But had already lost him in the crowd, 6th Street was blocked off and I hadn't bothered to remember what his shirt looked like. Went back inside and asked Englishman, "HEY! Where'd your friend go?!?" He replied, "Uh, that wasn't my friend."

Well shit.

And it wasn't so much losing Gumby in such a manner, tho Lord knows we've had some good times partying with him, but just the overall level of disrespect.

Say you are in your office at work. Now picture a drunk comes in while you are on a business call, puts his pint glass down on your folders, grabs your stapler and walks out.



2. ETB Monday residency at Friends.

Being this was a Monday and National Holiday turnout was good. Set going well, fun show.

While we are playing, I see a drunk guy stagger in. He stands and looks into our tip bucket, then weaves to the bar for a beer. Then he comes and plops himself down on the stairs on the front of the stage.

Now sitting there isn't the problem. It's the reason you are sitting there: posing for a pic, cool. having a blast and taking a seat there to really feel the music, cool. plopping your ass down because the stairs are as good as any bar stool and not even realizing a band is playing, not so much.

We all looked at eack other mid song, shrugged, and shook our heads. We go into a walkaround, and guy eventually gets up. At one point I make my way back onto stage and Rob gets my attention: "Hey, Loranda (our merch person that night) just stopped that guy from messing with the tip bucket." Well shit.

I hop offstage and ask Loranda about it (mid-song). She said he grabbed a dollar out but dropped it when she stopped him. Then he made his way to the back of the bar. So I told the door guys about it and gave a description of him, asked them to please escort him out.

But skinny drunk guy saved them the trouble, soon as I told the doorstaff the scoop he reappeared outside, and came up to me as I stood playing bass on the sidewalk.

As I went to remove the cigarette out of my mouth so I could tell him how I truly felt about him, he attempted to grab it from my mouth. I slapped his hand away and looked him dead in the drunken eye:

"Get the fuck out of here. If you ever try to steal from us again we will beat the shit out of you."

He stood blinking stupidly when the 2 doorstaff put a hand on each of his shoulders and told him to get on his bike and ride.

I mean literally. His bike was against the building by the door. One of the door guys had to pound on the seat with his fist to get it back to the right angle. Then skinny drunk guy went pedaling off into the night.



So yeah. Shit like this makes it necessary to watch a few episodes of Cosmos to restore some of my lost faith in human potential.

Vay-Cay-Shun

Wow, I took a vacation from this blog. Much going on and been going on. Right now listening to my track "Brief Ties To Space" as I posted the link on Twitter and checked it to make sure it worked. ETB played Triple Crown in San Marcos last night, not a huge crowd but the people there dug it. Trying to remember if I last played there with Velvet Brick in 05/06, or if the Ryan Bales Band had ever played there. Looked for Southern Gun Culture stickers but didn't find any, SGC played there many times in early 00's. Cool place, good to be back. Just came back from several days on the coast seeing family and relaxing. Much needed vacation and awesome visit. Played my first gig with Shandon Sahm in about 2 years at Varsity Bar on Cinco de Mayo. He forgot his stage clothes and did the gig in silver space boots, sunglasses and his underwear. It was awesome. Also the Pearl Agency was overwhelmed by ETB's booking needs and we will not be working together. Looking into other avenues to go forward with summer tour plans. Residency ETB gigs have been hit and miss. Weird time of year. Also did a bass session with stoner rock band Dead Oak with J Yeunger from White Zombie engineering. That was fucking awesome, and J is a really great guy as are the Dead Oak cats. Huge White Zombie fan back in the day, was worried I might geek out a little but he's as humble and easy going as any other of my musician friends. Tonight ETB plays Headhunter's patio. We'll be playing probably a mix of stripped-down and full bore, depending on the crowd. The stripped down has been going over VERY well, might be a cool change for a louder music venue like HH. Sunday we play our good friend Seace's birthday par-tay at the Dirty Dog. That should be fun. Hope to see the eclipse before we go on.