about 4 years ago

I was in this band, and we had a teeny moment of almost fame. I wasn't just in the band, I was the founder, the singer, the main songwriter, the myspace maintainer, the tee-shirt printer, the person who talked to the press, the booking agent, etc. for the band. We were known for being a "mom band", I guess. There's this festival that we helped put on the map, and in turn, the founder treated us like crap. Probably because we were too "activist", and they just thought we ruined their wholesome "We're moms, and we can rock....too!" image. I thought it was best to walk away entirely and do what was right and true for our band, but my bass player at the time *said* she wanted to get all subversive and turn the west coast version of that festival into something that celebrated moms of color, queer moms and even teen moms. I still wasn't into it. But she went ahead and started down that path, or so it seemed.
I think she wanted to one-up the festival founder or something.
I was fine with having a different sort of thing, our own thing, or getting together with other activist people here and putting something together, but that bass player--she drove things till they were almost out of control.
She had done that with another project related to our band and other "mom bands". She wanted to make a compilation album to raise money for UNICEF, which was great in theory, but shitty in reality because none of the other "mom bands" tied to this festival were actually any good musically, and no-one had heard of any of these bands, and nobody had any ties to the industry, blah blah blah...but she went ahead with that and I think she lost about $500-$1000 doing so.
But, back to the festival. She wanted to have an inclusive show, and she wanted to hold it in E. Oakland. I thought she should contact this particular large church for outreach and maybe to use their space. But no, she decided to contact our local city council woman and talk it up, and that lady put the bass player in touch with the guy who runs a three-day, very large outdoor music festival in downtown Oakland, and the next thing I know, the bass player had me and this poor other mom from some other band and City dude and her in a meeting, like we're going to have some huge festival in the big plaza downtown. Huh? what about the teen moms? What about being subversive? And the dude put a not unreasonable, given the scope, pricetag of $10,000 on it. But bass player had written her own stupid contract with the festival, so that for every dollar we spent on the festival, we had to donate the same amount to a particular charity--which meant a $20,000 price tag, and she thought we could do this in....wait for it....2 months.
If I could raise $20,000 in two months, I sure as shit 1) wouldn't be raising it for a "mom band" festival and 2) wouldn't be working as a fucking housecleaner!
And it wasn't just the money, it was the contracts with the vendors, it was the sound system, it was booking the show, it was advertising, and even showing up and playing. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
So I blogged about it, here. And she read my blog, after one of her friends essentially tattled on me.
And this woman, who thought she was capable of creating a festival out of thin air, couldn't even talk to me about it. No, she waited until our next gig, which was advertised as a kid-friendly gig (and she showed up wearing, I shit you not, a see-through shirt. She had to put stickers over her nipples!) and, after our set, in the middle of this crowd of people, including her kids and other kids, she screamed at me about "publicly dissing" her. She went on and on, basically about how much I sucked, etc. etc. because of my blog.
And she quit the band.
And, because she had access to them (but not ownership, not by a long shot), she dismantled the band website, e-mail hosting site and cafepress site.
(As far as the band goes--I went back to playing bass. With my two remaining band members, we created a nine-song set in three weeks--and expanded to about 18 songs. We played 25 shows in 6 months, including the Dyke March to 50,000--mostly topless--lesbians, we even recorded a CD and got some of it played at Burning Man. There have been a couple other line-ups for that band, but it may be done now, I don't know.)
Really, I think that she was embarrassed and she blamed me for it. But, what if I had said nothing? What if I had let her go on? She really thought she could pull it off. Or she thought she could convince me to pull it off. What if we had signed contracts with the City of Oakland? With vendors or sound people or the charity or....? It would have been more than embarrassing. It would have been a big fucking lawsuit. I saved her ass. I saved my own ass, which is the one I really care about, of course.
I spent some time feeling bad, like maybe I should have talked to her rather than blogging first. Or maybe i should have toned it down a bit, my rant about the sitch. But no. The moment she took it public and local, we were more than even. And when she destroyed the multiple websites, she took it too far. Plus, she gets to enjoy not being sued amd not having to deal with those stupid mom music festival people (who we both just hated beyond words) anymore, so I really think she should thank me.
It's probably not going to happen. So I will have to write a song, maybe called "Ego Tit".