THD - "evolution of our decay" album

[manny at garfieldartworks.com]

Of course, endurance doesn't all by itself prove worth. It's the track
record during the period
that does. And I don't think you know my track record at all.

Jeremy, name ONE BAND that I 'jerked around' (i.e. didn't pay them exactly
what was promised in a contract, or shortchanged them without careful
renegotation). Not some pussy band who didn't feel they didn't enough red
wine in their rider or something. I'm talking about a real complaint
involving money promised that wasn't delivered after being mutually agreed
on.

You're really good at making claims that never happened.
This is exactly what I talked about regarding making rumors.

You're pissed solely for the fact that your band - a LOCAL BAND - 
*underdrew* as an opener at one show you played for me - and that while I
paid the national act that headlined the show the guarantee that I
promised them (as contracted), I paid your band less than you thought you
'deserved', when in advance, there was NO SPECIFIC AGREEMENT between me
and your band
as to what your band what supposed to get that night. In other words, you
were paid that night
what a SMALL UNDERDRAWING LOCAL BAND was worth, and you're lucky you got
paid something at all with the underattendance that show had. Also you
might recall that the same headliner came back, and drew EVEN WORSE the
next time.

Your claim gets even more nonsensical when I bring up the fact that a
member of your band, when he played solo for me as an opener a couple
times, did in fact get paid decently because THERE WAS A CROWD AT THOSE
SHOWS. Maybe you should ask him about it.

Can you bring up anything to back up the broadly libelous claim you've
made below with regards to me? (And you did make it about me, so don't try
to backpedal on that).

If not, then retract it. I am not saying anything about you that I do not
know to be true, am I?
Then you should do the same.

> When you're a small time independent music promoter, the
> accountability is light. The bands you ripped off three years ago are
> forgotten, and the new bands have no way to verify the legitimacy or
> dependability of the various promoters across the country except by
> hearsay, which fades with time. So a single person can get away with a
> whole lot of crap over the years, and keep playing the same scams, and
> keep promoting shows.
>
> Endurance in this field does not prove one's quality or worth. All it
> proves is that the promoter hasn't quit yet.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:26 PM, John <anhedonia77 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> I've been subscribed to this list for close to 10 years I'm guessing and
>> it
>> never seems to change. While I don't really listen to a lot of the music
>> people subscribed to the list listen to anymore, I still stay on it in
>> case
>> there is an actual decent conversation or there is news of a band
>> playing
>> Pittsburgh that I wouldn't mind seeing. Over the years I've noticed one
>> thing that is consistent on the list, Manny has been flamed many, many
>> times. It almost seems like some readers can't wait for him to respond
>> to a
>> message so they can bring up some shit that happened however many years
>> ago.
>> I don't know Manny on a personal level, only meeting him here or there
>> at a
>> show he is involved with. This discussion got me thinking about the
>> shows I
>> have gone to that Manny has been involved with and it made me realize
>> that I
>> have seen a ton of killer bands solely because he put the show together
>> or
>> brought the bands to Pittsburgh. I've been to a number of his shows that
>> should have pulled decent crowds but didn't because people in Pittsburgh
>> would rather sit at home and bitch that no good bands ever play here and
>> that the Pittsburgh music scene sucks rather than going out to shows. I
>> really think the guy deserves more credit than he is given based on the
>> work
>> he has done for the Pittsburgh music scene in the past 20+ years. Sure,
>> he
>> may have done some questionable things in the past, but who hasn't. I
>> just
>> can't seem to understand why people would want to attack a guy for a few
>> things he's done wrong, when he really has done a lot of good for music
>> in
>> Pittsburgh.
>>
>> John
>>
>> Jeremy wrote:
>>>
>>> You're right. It's completely unlike you to threaten anybody. That
>>> time when you pulled a knife on a kid at at show you had promoted was
>>> a total fluke too.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 7:49 PM,  <manny at garfieldartworks.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Ah, so they kicked you out and instructed new DJs to call the cops if
>>>>> anyone sees you near the station because you were just too good for
>>>>> them. Good story.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> They kicked me out because two people there (not the whole staff, or
>>>> even
>>>> remotely most of it)
>>>> were offended by aspects of my personality & action enough to collude,
>>>> cobble together some real and/or imagined peccadilloes, and then
>>>> convince
>>>> three other people to back them. If what I did for the station, as
>>>> well
>>>> as
>>>> for the scene at large, was really taken into account, they wouldn't
>>>> have
>>>> had a shot at doing so - most of the station staff was either on my
>>>> side
>>>> (I got 15 signatures from station staff within a couple days of my
>>>> banning) or didn't care one way or the other.
>>>>
>>>> Let's review a bit of what I was doing at the time I was banned, and
>>>> what
>>>> I was supposedly accused of:
>>>>
>>>> 1) I was both PSA director and concert calendar director. I had served
>>>> in
>>>> both of those volunteer positions for at least two years and
>>>> faithfully
>>>> executed my function week in and week out. I used the office to make
>>>> the
>>>> calendars and PSA cards etc. And in the course of using the office I
>>>> designed some show flyers on their computer and printed them out. Not
>>>> copies, just originals. A couple of sheets per week, in other words.
>>>> At
>>>> the time, others at the station were using the same computer to do
>>>> their
>>>> *homework*, generating dozens of sheets per week, and also to print up
>>>> other show flyers for their own shows. None of them were banned, of
>>>> course.
>>>>
>>>> 2) Also, it was accused that I was using the station to take calls
>>>> from
>>>> people. That was patently untrue. I had a home phone and I had a
>>>> message
>>>> machine there, so i was not using the station as an office. I made
>>>> calls
>>>> to venues and others during the course of making calendar listings.
>>>> Some
>>>> people from venues may have called the station while I wasn't there,
>>>> asking to speak to me. (In fact, one of the two people who concocted
>>>> the
>>>> ban plot claimed to have received a handful of calls asking for me, as
>>>> if
>>>> it was such a big deal just to tell someone 'he's not here'). But how
>>>> is
>>>> that different from anyone calling the station and asking for someone
>>>> who
>>>> works at the station, but doesn' t happen to be there at the time?
>>>> Remember, this was in an area before everyone had cellphones. Station
>>>> staffers used the phone all the time to call out from it.
>>>>
>>>> 3) I had provided the station with hundreds of hard-to-find
>>>> import/indie
>>>> experimental/industrial
>>>> albums and CD at rockbottom wholesale prices, for which the station
>>>> never
>>>> even had to spend a dime for out of their Student Senate budget.
>>>> Instead,
>>>> the station paid for them by trading in unwanted promos, which they
>>>> would
>>>> have taken to Paul's or Dave's anyway if they didn't trade them with
>>>> me
>>>> for cool albums. If you go to WRCT's library and look under
>>>> experimental,
>>>> you'll still find those releases there that I provided to the station.
>>>> The
>>>> music director, with whom i had no issues and who was not part of the
>>>> five
>>>> people who banned me, had an understanding with me which worked quite
>>>> well
>>>> as it enabled me to order records for myself from wholesalers while
>>>> also
>>>> supplying them to the station at wholesale rates. Nobody was being
>>>> hurt
>>>> (except the shitty bands whose CD were going to be traded away,
>>>> anyway)
>>>> and  everyone was being helped.
>>>>
>>>> Meanwhile, a simple misunderstanding about a single record (a
>>>> Rasputina
>>>> promo CD), which I thought was up for grabs, totally owned up to
>>>> taking
>>>> (even though no one knew who had taken it - you've got to ask, why
>>>> would
>>>> I
>>>> finger myself for no reason, if it wasn't an honest mistake?) and
>>>> returned, was brought up as the *only* *one* *clear* evidence of
>>>> supposed
>>>> 'theft', which simply never happened. No theft ever occurred - merely
>>>> transfer of unwanted albums in equal measure for desired albums. All
>>>> of
>>>> which the music director was OK with. No theft was ever proven. No
>>>> examples were given. It was just merely *accused*, without any proof
>>>> or
>>>> citations, and would never have stood up in any court other than a
>>>> kangaroo one.
>>>>
>>>> 4) I had tried to get the station to run concert announcement carts
>>>> (not
>>>> just for me but for concerts all around town) which would be the
>>>> impetus
>>>> for being able to give away many concert tickets to shows. In other
>>>> words,
>>>> I was trying to serve as the function of promotions director, a
>>>> position
>>>> which the station had not had for many years due to its total lack of
>>>> caring about connecting with the outside community. I was trying to
>>>> give
>>>> the station some real promotional weight and significance in the music
>>>> scene. At the time of being banned, I had recently been rebuffed from
>>>> using the production facilities at WRCT by one of the very two people
>>>> who
>>>> started this plan. That is no coincidence.
>>>>
>>>> 5) I had been accused of 'threatening' people. However the only
>>>> instance
>>>> that could be brought up
>>>> is that one of the two people who started the plot said that one time,
>>>> years before, i said something about wanting to 'snap their neck'. I
>>>> didn't deny doing it (it was so long ago that how could I possibly
>>>> remember a tossed off comment like that, and as far as I know I could
>>>> have
>>>> been quoting the Prong lyrics 'snap your fingers, snap your neck') but
>>>> I
>>>> asked the kangaroo assemblage if they could think of any other
>>>> instances
>>>> of supposed 'threats' and no one had anything to add except one
>>>> instance
>>>> of a wrestling altercation many years ago. Which just so happened to
>>>> be
>>>> with the friendly, on-my-side music director with whom I had the
>>>> understanding about the CDs. The music director no longer cared about
>>>> our
>>>> fight from long ago, but apparently to the other people who had
>>>> nothing
>>>> do
>>>> with it, it was an issue for them and therefore somehow another
>>>> example.
>>>> So, a vastly trumped up charge. Practically a lie.
>>>>
>>>> 6) Finally, I had been accused of missing the beginning of my show by
>>>> the
>>>> program director.
>>>> This was in fact the only true accusation. I had in fact been warned
>>>> about
>>>> it before, and that was
>>>> grounds for losing my show for the semester. Which I would have been
>>>> perfectly willing to accept
>>>> as due punishment. Losing my show for a semester, however, was
>>>> certainly
>>>> not grounds for
>>>> being banned from station, especially when I was serving other useful
>>>> functions. There were certainly other people who were on the station
>>>> staff
>>>> who did things (such as engineering etc)
>>>> who didn't have a show that semester.
>>>>
>>>> So that's pretty much it. I got accused of theft, threatening people,
>>>> printing flyers on their printer, and having people call me at the
>>>> station. All of that was either trumped up to make it look like a way
>>>> bigger deal than it was, or not even true at all. The only true
>>>> accusation
>>>> was that I had repeatedly been late to my show for most of that
>>>> semester.
>>>> And that's it.
>>>>
>>>> THAT is the 'story', as you like to call it.
>>>>
>>>> Also, regarding the dictum to new DJs and the cops -
>>>> That is a standard procedure they did for anyone they banned from the
>>>> station.
>>>> It applies to anyone they banned, and they banned other people as well
>>>> for
>>>> doing things a lot more odious than anything i had either actually
>>>> done
>>>> or
>>>> was falsely accused of.
>>>>
>>>> I didn't do anything to insinuate that I would come back to the
>>>> station
>>>> and doing anything untoward. I never said threats, I never typed
>>>> threats.
>>>> (In fact, the only thing I did do was circulate a petition amongst
>>>> WRCT
>>>> staff, off station grounds). Therefore, the haters were merely
>>>> following
>>>> procedure, plus hating me as they did, and their justification for
>>>> banning
>>>> me being so flimsy and unwarranted, they were simply so afraid that I
>>>> would cause trouble. Which I did not.
>>>>
>>>> 'New DJs', ten years later, would have no idea what I looked like, nor
>>>> would they possibly care to follow that dictum anyway, so that part of
>>>> it
>>>> is pretty useless at this point, and just a relic of that particular
>>>> incident and nothing more.
>>>>
>>>> If you recall correctly, I was a DJ on WRCT for 12 years before the
>>>> ban,
>>>> from 1986 on. Obviously I could have been banned any other time. I had
>>>> been doing promotions for the station in the past, and I had been
>>>> providing the hard-to-find records for many years previous. But I
>>>> wasn't
>>>> banned until 1998. So it didn't have to do with what I did over that
>>>> time,
>>>> so much as how this particular group of five people (and mostly the
>>>> two
>>>> who hatched the plot) perceived me as a hated threat
>>>> at that exact particular time.
>>>>
>>>> Conjecture: Had I not done a show that summer (1998) on the station,
>>>> or
>>>> quit my summer show saying I couldn't handle it, and returned, say,
>>>> two
>>>> years later, the people who hatched the plot would no longer have been
>>>> in
>>>> the positions they were, and I would probably still be happily
>>>> involved
>>>> at
>>>> WRCT in some respect, with people at the station who didn't hate me
>>>> having
>>>> my back. I present the following evidence: the year after I was
>>>> banned,
>>>> one of the two plotters became General Manager (hence, a power grab).
>>>> Then
>>>> the year after that, this person (and the other original plotter) left
>>>> the
>>>> station and never was heard from since.
>>>>
>>>> In retrospect, I do wish I had walked away at that particular time,
>>>> but
>>>> there was no way of knowing
>>>> that, because the banning dictum came upon me suddenly, without
>>>> warning
>>>> and without recourse.
>>>> So, that can only be hindsight.  I was there in the wrong place at the
>>>> wrong time, mixing it up
>>>> with the wrong people.
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>>>
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