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May 25th, 2007
Our guest book was signed recently by Greg Stephens, web master for the Ashtabula Eagles, Aerie 1463 in response to our May 5th experience (see MAY 5th, 2007 below). Our guest book will allow you to type into it for a long time but only has room for about three lines. So I e-mailed Greg asking him to reply back to me at our e-mail address, findingmary@sbcglobal.net with the rest of his guest book entry. Greg responded as such;
Ron, thank you for your prompt reply to my post on your guest book. I was a bit surprised at how long the guest book let me type. To summarize what I wrote, I just first wanted to express our sincere apologies to your band and other guests for the problems you had when you performed at our club. I also wanted to say, as I'm sure you are aware, that many times one or two individuals can make an otherwise enjoyable event bad for everyone. But this is in no way indicative of our members as a whole. The vast majority of our members are wonderful, caring members who truly live up to our motto of "People helping people". It is our hope that this incident will not disuade you from returning to perform at our club and that there be no hard feelings between us. I'm sure that even those individuals that caused problems for you would indeed apologize themselves, particularly the entertainment booking person, herself. I know for a fact that she feels terrible about what happened. Please accept our apologies and consider returning to the Ashtabula Eagles 1463. Thanks again.
Greg Stephens,
Webmaster/F.O.E. 1463
We thank Greg and the Ashtabula Eagles 1463 for their concern. Let me go even further to say, no apologies necissary. For what it's worth, we've all (especially me) done things that weren't so smart looking back through sober eyes. As far as returning to Ashtabula Eagles 1463, I'm sure we have dates available to you if you'd like to give me a call or e-mail and we can work out any misunderstandings as far as hours go. We have never been the kind to burn bridges. Other than this isolated incident we've found private club engagements to be the funnest. The people love to dance, request songs and generally have a great time. On a personal level, I've played a few other Eagle clubs in Ohio and found them all to be basically that same fun loving crowd. And that's all we've ever wanted from any crowd, private or otherwise. In our history we've played a wide range of jobs with a wide range of hours (see COWBOY BLOG) and have been happy to accomadate. We'll look forward to adding some dates to our schedule page. If any of you have any comments you'd like to share, please don't hesitate to sign the guest book or e-mail findingmary@sbcglobal.net .
Thanks.
-The Cowboy |
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| I debated whether to even bother putting this page up after the complete and utter nonsense we had to endure towards the end of this show. But I felt it unfare to the majority of the people, WHO DIDN'T GIVE A CRAP THAT WE PLAYED THREE, ONE HOUR SETS WITH HALF HOUR BREAKS IN BETWEEN RATHER THAN THE APPARENTLY STANDARD FOUR, FORTY-FIVE MINUTE SETS WITH FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAKS IN BETWEEN! Yes, that is what all the yelling was about at the end of the night. In fact, I'm going to air a few other problems I have with what took place. First, to the guy who was bitching about why we have to say, "Check, Check" into the mike and tune our instruments. That's called getting levels, buddy. We want to sound good and not have you or one of your friends coming up after we start playing to say you can't hear the vocals because the guitars are to loud. Second, to the guy who answered, "forty minutes" when your other buddy asked you how long we had been on break. The real answer was twenty-three minutes. If you'd bothered to look at the clock on the wall when we stopped playing it read, "10:59", one minute shy of 11:00 and at the time of your unfounded remark the clock read "11:22". Third, to the guy who said, "You only get a fifteen minute break", I didn't book this job through you, so you don't know what arrangmnet had been made. If the person that hired me had a problem, all she had to do was come up and ask. We are without a doubt the easiest band in North East Ohio to get along with and you have to push pretty hard to get us to walk out. Any confusion could have been cleared up easily without all the yelling if someone would have just asked instead of posturing with us. Although, I will say this fellow came up and apologized after the show. Unlike the Jackass that yelled in my face, "This is bullshit!" "Get your asses back up there and play the God Damn music your getting paid to play!" This moron happens to be the boyfriend of the person who booked us. I will pull no punches with this a-hole as he should have been removed from the club for his language alone. This is the same genius that told us on our first trip to this club in November of last year that we should play Van Halen and some harder stuff and almost in the same breath said we needed to play the old time stuff for the old time members. This M-Fer is basically clueless and had he looked cross-eyed at Butch and I when his dumb, drunk ass was walking to his vehical that he really was far to drunk to drive, he would've got what the guy at the Wagon Wheel got when he wouldn't stop f-ing with our equipment. After he took his beat down from Butch, he then got escorted outside by The Wheel's security staff, who I doubt went any easier on him. We aren't a rowdy bunch and I don't mean to come off that way. But Butch and I have been through a lot together. I won't drag Ted into this as I know he's friends with most of the people who were there. In the past, we've had people tell us to our face they don't like us. It doesn't bother us. We know we're not everyone's cup of tea. Hell, we tell each other on a regular basis how much we think each other sucks. But when you question our work ethic without knowing the details of the booking and not knowing our reputation, you REALLY piss us off!! As far as were concerned we were being called thieves. Those few bitchers treated us as if we were reaching in their pockets and stealing from them. A real rip-off is thinking that a band playing forty-five minute sets and taking fifteen minute breaks is giving you your money's worth. It's very easy to make forty-five minutes only forty minutes and fifteen into twenty. And believe me, that's what happens. Watch the clock next time. We have never had a problem starting a set a little early and wouldn't have had a problem playing four sets with fifteen minute breaks. All you had to do was ask for it. Not act like we trying to get over on you. Those few obviously didn't like us and were looking for a reason to bring some shit on us. They couldn't even stop you pissing and moaning when your trustee asked us to stop playing for a minute so he could call the numbers for the drawings. Instead of finding out what was happening on stage you just started in with the bitching. The last point I want to make to those of you who had your problems with us. You don't know that we're not members of a local Aerie in our neck of the woods. Just because we didn't use a card to get in, doesn't mean we don't belong. If I didn't belong I wouldn't know this little mantra: "If I cannot speak well of a fellow Eagle, I will not speak ill of him". Tell the truth, I used to be. But because so many of my " fellow Eagles" couldn't treat a man with that little common courtesy, I decided to give it up. It's sad to see that nothing's changed. I feel bad for those members that actually hold temselves to that standard and believe in the ideal of being an Eagle for having to put up with the bad apples that just want to use this orginization as a cheap place to get drunk, flex their beer muscles and run their yappers. It's a shame that, for the most part, we had a good feeling about the majority of the people we met that night. Your president was more than hospitable. The ladies behind the bar were kind, prompt and courteous. And the trustee in charge did a splendid job of keeping the peace. (even though it shouldn't have been broken to begin with). I felt, by the looks of the dance floor and watching the crowd that we offered a good selection of songs to dance to as well as songs you can sit and sing along with also. I also noticed that no one was having a problem holding a conversation if needed, which means our volume was in line as well as having a crowd that stayed around, despite what a few people thought was long break. Just take a look at the pictures that were taken through the night by our camera lady who actually got hassled about wanting to take them or the pictures below those from our first show at EAGLES 1463 and you'll see that even the guys that bitched about us were having a good time. Well, unfortunately, I doubt you'll be seeing us at the EAGLES 1463 again. I was asked not to take it personally and to not hold a grudge. But to tell you the truth, browse this site and check out the pages from our other venues, or better yet, give them a call and ask them if they ever had a problem with us and you'll know why we don't feel it's worth the effort to return. As you'll see, I don't have any problems finding work for this band. If you enjoyed us on this night we'd just as soon have back, we hope to see you at one of those other places sometime soon. Thanks. |
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