Karma of Rock

In an earlier posting about the Plumerai East Coast Tour (2005), I’d griped about the guitarist of the band I’d called “Creed Lite” (who actually sounded nothing like Creed, but whatever) — and how he’d taken most of the money from the show in DC. I made a couple of statements about the importance of karma, but I didn’t expound.

You see, as I’ve gotten older, God (or god — your choice) makes less and less sense to me. I don’t have any gripe with people who choose to follow/believe in/worship God, but for a variety of reasons I just can’t follow the idea. It blows my mind. It makes my head hurt. It’s like recursion. God is recursive.

My point? I’m somewhat superstitious and I’m a firm believer in karma. You see, every time in my life where I’ve done something good, I feel I’ve had the benefit of something good coming my way. Every time I’ve behaved badly, something equally bad happens to me. The karma model scales for me. Karma doesn’t mean that I’m a better or worse person than you; it just means that things happen for whatever reason. I go with karma.

When we played our last show of the tour in Boston (Allston, technically), we were slated to play with a band called Statue Park. They’d just driven down from Canada (Montreal?) to start their tour in Boston. Their set was predicated by samples or something that required the use of a computer. In other words, a computer generated sounds or such for their live performance. Unfortunately for them, their hard drive crashed and they didn’t have a backup. They had to cancel their show on the spot, and maybe even their entire tour. Definitely a bummer, regardless of how the techie in me was tempted to remind them to always bring backups along to a show. *ahem*

Regardless of the fact that they didn’t play, we split the door with Statue Park three ways. Actually, no, they got the largest of three portions, since they were the traveling band. This was Martin’s suggestion, if I recall. I think he insisted they take 1/3 of he door. Tours cost money, and if rocking is your only vocation, driving to a venue and making nothing doesn’t exactly offset your expenses of traveling from venue to venue. Nothing doesn’t even buy you a can of vienna sausages or a bar of Ivory soap, and it certainly doesn’t put gas in the tank!

But wait, you say, “Nate, you have a career. You’ve done okay for yourself. Why are you griping about $65?” The dollar value is not the point. Nor is the point that I have a career, which in large part funds my music hobby/job/habit. My point was two-fold:

1. No matter whether I have a career or not, touring costs money. I think we actually made $100 by the end of our tour. This meant I didn’t eat into my bank account too much.
2. If somebody is shafting you for cash, it doesn’t matter if it’s $1 or $1000. Shafting is shafting, no matter how small.

Let’s see how karma treats Plumerai.