don’t look at her face, you’ll turn to stone

I had three jobs when I was twenty. Only two I got paid for, the other was just something I fell into. I was working in radio, DJ-ing and booking bands at a club and I was sort of a freelance photographer for various bands in town. Sometimes I’d get paid in film or drinks and I’d get my photos used on websites and I thought that was pretty cool.

Radio was obviously my day job. The club DJ thing came up unexpectedly at the start of the summer. A new all ages venue was opening up and they contacted me through the radio station about spinning there on Friday nights. I went in and met everyone and looked at the equpiment and started compiling the music I’d play. At the end of the night, the owner would hand me a chunk of cash and we’d all go party somewhere. For the first month or so, it was good times.

Everyone working there was between seventeen and twenty one. Two of the bouncers Seth and Kevin lived downtown a few blocks from the place in this brownstone building. We partied at their house quite a bit after hours. There were a couple of other girls that worked at the juice bar and me and my friend P who I had gotten a job there as well. We’d get beers and go back to Kevin’s and blast music and eat Taco Bell. Eventually I’d take P home and head on back to my place and crash.

The problem with an all ages club is you make money by charging cover. And you have to have people at the door willing to take money even from their friends. And people still will show up drunk and start fights anyway. Eventually we stopped doing as many DJ nights and started booking in bands and having me spin between sets and run the sound. This was great too because hey, I knew everyone already, let me get my rolodex and I’ll get you everyone that’s cool this summer.

My falling out with the owners had to do with this. Two things happened. First they stopped paying me as much because they weren’t making any money. I accepted that because it was in cash and basically served as my walking around money for the week while I was socking away my paychecks to buy a new car. Then the big debacle happened.

At the time there was this band in town that everyone thought was going to be the next big band to get signed. They were doing big gigs everywhere and sold out every shitty club they played in. That summer they were tapped to go play some festivals in Europe. For a month everyone waited for them to get back and regale us with stories of hairy women and muddy bathrooms. Their manager set up their official homecoming show three days after the plane landed and the town buzzed with it.

The owner of the club I was working at was pissed that the “rival” venue got this show. He tried to get through to their manager to set up one a day earlier or whatever but kept getting the stonewall. Finally one day he comes into me and tells me he did it. We were going to have this band on the day their plane landed two hours away.  I asked him how he did it, and he said not to worry about it, it was done, and handed everyone a stack of fliers and called the newspaper.

A few days later I get a phone call at work from a girl that was dating one of the guys in this band. Apparently they didn’t know jack shit about this show. It had never been booked. This girl knew I worked there and called me to see what was going on.

“Fuck.” I said

“Fuck is right. Look I know they’ll probably do it for you when I explain that you didn’t know how he did it. I’ll call you after I hear from D*** again.” She hangs up and I am furious. I call the club owner, who’s name I’ve long banned from my memory and ask him what the fuck.

“We needed to have this show.” He says

“You’ve really put me in a fucked up place man. If they’re pissed at me about it, we’re done.”

The day before the plane was to land the girlfriend called me back and said they’d do it, but I should probably round up an extra opener or so because they were coming straight from LAX. To play this show. For me. And they did. And it was epic. And we made a ton of money that night and so did the promoter of the original homecoming show that happened not even two days later. But I was still pissed that the club owner had put me in such a gross position.

My final night of working at this place happened about two weeks later. Someone had booked this seriously skanky butt metal band into the place and it was completely empty. I worked the sound, dealt with the assholes in the band being rude to me and my crew and even helped clean up after there was a minor fight in the juice bar. At the end of the night the owner walked up to hand me my “pay” for the evening and I remember counting it in front of him.

“Seven dollars? Are you fucking kidding me? Seven fucking dollars?”

“Well it’s a slow night.” he says

“Well you have a bank account. I’ve been here for like seven hours dealing with assholes. There are kids in third world shoe factories that get paid more than this.”

“Look it’s what we made. Come back in tomorrow night and I’ll try to get you some more money.”

But I didn’t go back in. I took my seven dollars, bought a pack of cigarettes and some Sonic and went home. I didn’t step foot back into that place until the last night it was open, which was only about four months later. That club was open for less than eight months and by the time they closed down, none of the original crew still worked there.  Someone bought it later on and last time I checked it was a gay bar.