Wall of WTF?

Updated 04:52 p.m., April 11, 2006

by Cindy Chaffin of Life Outside The Bubble

If you've been following my ad nauseum hype over the Wall of Sound Festival, then you probably assumed that I either owned stock in the event, or had a band or 2 performing. The fact is, while I didn't personally have a band or 2 performing, nor were there any stock options, I was excited to have the opportunity to record so many superb bands all in a 2-day period. I will admit though that every time Lance sent out an updated email with more and more and more bands being added to the event, my head began to pound softly...and grew to a gargantuan pounding as the band list kept getting longer and an extra day was added.

This brings me to my first (of many) complaint. For the love of Gawd Lance, book less bands! Allow us time in-between sets to...oh...I dunno...hit the powder room or grab some fresh air or have a few minutes of quiet to allow a conversation without missing out on a performance.

I can only share with you my story/experience at Wall of Sound Festival. I wasn't necessarily there as a fan. Rather I was there to get as much audio, video, photos, interviews and anything else I could manage for you good folks to enjoy here at TexasGigs.com. Perhaps my experience would have been much...um...better...had I been just a paying fan.

My day started on Saturday at about 8:30 am when I loaded up the TexasGigs.com SUV with a couple of hundred lbs. worth of equipment and headed towards Fort Worth. I live waaaaaay the heck out in (ugh) North Dallas, so Fort Worth is a haul for moi'.

I arrived at the Ridglea Theater around 10:30ish, and staked my claim on a little piece of Ridglea real estate that I had hoped to command throughout the festival. This TexasGigs.com "area" was by far the best set-up I've had to date. "To date" meaning of all the gazillions of webcasts I've done over the past few years, it was a perfect area for my set-up. This spot was complete with a power source, a place to elevate my mic above the heads of the revelers, seating, and there was a way to block off drunkin' accidental spills on my equipment...or so I thought.

Once my gear was unloaded, I went to move my car and inquired as to the best place to park. The "staff member" whom I asked, replied with, "the lot behind the building...dumbass..." Strike one.

After setting up, I pulled out the TexasGigs swag (stickers and cards) and carefully placed stacks of stickers throughout the Ridglea. A stack by each cash register. A couple of stacks on the table in the lobby. Stacks in the ladies rooms. 2 or 3 stickers on every table. The rest I placed on the official TexasGigs.com table that sat a mere 4 feet from where I webcasted. I spent my time monitoring sound for the 2 stages downstairs, and dashing back and forth upstairs to record those performances. At one point, I returned to find the same aforementioned "staff member" dumping literally 100's of TexasGigs.com stickers into the garbage. He then returned to the TexasGigs.com table and began gathering up more stickers and cards, which is where I stopped and asked him exactly what he thought he was doing. His response, "Ms. Wesley don't allow no stickers. People stick 'em on things." Hmmm...hence the name "stickers" Einstein. Okay, I have no problem following the rules of the venues, but nobody bothered to hip me to this particular rule. Futhermore, since I was there working to promote the venue and the event, I think just TELLING ME to pick up the stickers would have sufficed. Dumping a couple of hundred bucks worth of stickers into the garbage was ridiculous. Strike two.

I've supported and promoted shows for Lance Yocom and Spune Productions with little more than the asking for years. Now with the merger between TexasGigs and Pegasus News; Spune/Wall of Sound received even more support and attention with click through ads, banners, constant promotions with stories, blog posts, MySpace posts, etc. This site is seeing more traffic than (I imagine) they are getting over at The Observer and the FW Weekly combined. So I was irked even further when Lance informed me and Kate Mackley that he had "purchased a case of Budweiser for us to share" and after having a grand total of 4 between us and Kate's assistant, we were told there were no more. I'm not a beer drinker, so perhaps a "case" now only contains 4 beers, but I think not. The point is, this "case of beer" was the only compensation we each personally received...and it wasn't even a full case. In addition, the guest list I had confirmed with Lance (volunteers to assist me with recording, interviews, video, etc.) never made it to the front door person therefore 2 people made a 90-minute roundtrip for nothing - they were turned away. Strike 3.

Then I came across this post by Sam Machkovech on the Dallas Observer Blog. Here's a snippet:

"...I stepped outside on Saturday evening to catch some fresh air when a Ridglea Theater employee walked out with his cell phone and began recounting a strange story. [Collin] Herring was set to play on Sunday and wanted to see the Saturday night showcase, and when he arrived, he was told he had to pay $10 (musicians had to pay a discounted ticket price to attend on the day they weren’t playing). No other musicians had complained about the rule, the employee said,..."

Wait. The performing band members had to pay to see the other bands perform on other days? I'm going to assume that all the bands were paid for their performances, so they could have taken that $10 out of their payment? If not, Sam my friend, you are harping on the wrong guy.

There were various other things that went on throughout the night (like that same "staff member" demanding to search my equipment bag, and some drunken ass climbing over the TexasGigs.com merch table, losing his balance and dumping his beer all over my mixing board and finally getting lost for over an hour trying to find my way back to Dallas) that made my decision not to return on Sunday a no-brainer. This particularly sucked because there were so many bands I wanted to cover on Sunday. But I've reached my limit of doing these things out of the goodness of my heart, only to be treated like crap. The goodness of my heart doesn't put food on the table, and drunks spilling beer on my expensive equipment or "staff members" dumping merchandise in the trash tends to pull food off the table instead.

Ironically, I was treated the worst by a Ridglea owner and that jerk-off "staff member" dude. Everyone else at the Ridglea...and I mean every single employee was no less than wonderful. They were friendly, attentive and some actually went out of their way to be helpful. The funny thing is, this was only my second visit to the Ridglea Theater, the first being last year's pre-awards party for the FW Weekly Music Awards. I was so impressed with the staff back then that I took the time to send "Ms. Wesley" a note of thanks. Harumph.

Now for some positives...

The Ridglea Theater is gorgeous. It's such a perfect venue for live music, whether you want the full-band main stage experience downstairs, or the more intimate up-close-and-personal experience of the upstairs lounge. They still kept a lot of the old theater-style seating, which are those old comfy movie seats that you sink into and never want to leave. There are still slight levels to the main room which offers a good view of the stage(s) no matter where you find yourself sitting or standing.

Kate Mackley set up a photo area that rivaled many great photography studios. She spent the entire 2-days there tracking down bands to come to the photo area to get candid shots, as well as running from stage-to-stage to get live shots. Be sure and check out her photos here (they may not be up at this writing...there have got to be a few hundred for her to go through and upload).

The bands were all (for the most part) splendid. There were a few bands that I hadn't heard before Saturday that I really enjoyed like Amanda Leggett, Pink Nasty, The New Year, David Bazan and Zookeeper. In usual form, Midlake, Red Monroe, Alan, Current Leaves, The Angelus, Record Hop, Doug Burr and a host of others didn't disappoint.

My sound was iffy from time to time. I've finally realized that I just can't cover 3 stages and 44 bands by myself and end up with quality audio. That Microtrack continues to surprise me with amazing sound and it all fits in the palm of my hand. I lost a lot of performances due to a beer-soaked mixing board, or accidental erase before I got it off the Microtrack...

Below are links to audio:

Amanda Leggett

Current Leaves

Pink Nasty

Chao

Doug Burr w/Todd Pertll & Glenn Squibb

Alan

The Angelus

Black Angels

The Danes

Experimental Aircraft

David Bazan

My Education

Record Hop

Red Monroe

Snowdonnas

Southern Sea

Starflyer 59

Zookeeper

The New Year

There are more amazing photos posted at Phlezk's place and you must check 'em out....he reminded me (with his AWESOME photos). of the music I missed on Sunday like Octopus Project, The Czars, Baboon, Deadman...heck...TONS more..

To be fair, this was the first Spune show/festival in which I experienced so many negative things. But I walked away from this one with a much better understanding as to how I will (or will not) handle future events, at least as far as TexasGigs.com business dealings. As a fan, I'm sure you'll see me again in the crowd at a Spune showcase. As far as a return to the Ridglea Theater? I'm still too miffed to comment.

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