KM@OTR.thoughts

It was our final OTR gig last night kids …here’s a little reflection.

I thought, when going into the whole ‘Sunday Night’ thing way back in June 08, that it would run about 3 months, we’d make a bit of money, and we’d more of less play to our usual expectations while bringing in some of our fans from our ‘Blues On Whyte Days’ when we did the same kinda show there many years ago. That’s what I thought. And did we pull that off? Kinda.

We had a problem from the start with the club not really being the same type of environment as Blues. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but for our fans it wasn’t the best thing. You see, OTR set up their entire Sunday show as an event apart from us …by that I mean it was tagged as either ‘Industry Nights’ or ‘Shocker Sundays’ and as such, they not only hoped to attract a crowd that would be comparable to a Friday or Saturday night (loud dance music all the time, including a DJ to get people out of their seats), but to build it as something apart from us …not really around us. My issue with getting people out of their seats is that that’s our job …or at least it should be. If we’re not playing, then people shouldn’t be dancing …especially on a Sunday night. That’s a strange way to look at things from a clubs’ perspective, but it was a formula that worked wonderfully at Blues. People came to socialize with each other …and when the band played, they danced. When the band was off, they would go back to their drinking/socializing routines. Canned music would be played in the background only, and there was no DJ required. Of course clubs have different ways doing business, and I’m no club owner …but from our experience, things might have gone better had OTR tried something like this. At least it was worth a shot in my opinion …and we may have kept more of our regular fans around – who did complain to us about these things.

Musically? …we were ‘good enough’. Lol, there were times when we were lacking of course, and times when we downright sucked, but the majority of nights were good enough. Some nights were great …but good enough is normally ‘great’ as far as public standards go, and from the comments we’ve heard over time, most people there thought the music was great. A lot of our material was a ‘miss’ with some of the mainstream crowds, but then some of it was a ‘hit’ also. Some of it grew on people …and some of it grew on people in a cancerous way. It wasn’t the greatest match though. Our music and the club’s vibe just didn’t sit right from the start. Our music and the type of ‘night’ the club was trying to build didn’t quite mesh.

Many would say however, that as a performer, you should cater your sound to the club you’re playing at …afterall, they are paying your bills. I agree with this for the most part. Unfortunately, we didn’t put in the effort to match our material better. We sucked at learning new material ….and I honestly can’t think of one song that Muskafa played at OTR that we hadn’t played somewhere before. That’s a shame. Throughout our entire 8 months we didn’t learn one new song! But at the same time, that’s a fair indication of our work ethic. We suck at organization and we suck at collectively coming together to agree on any direction. In our defense, the band only reformed shortly before we started our run, and things were never settled as to what we wanted for goals. We kinda walked into the gig, took it for what it was, thought we’d only do 3 months there, and hoped we could slide by with as little effort as possible …walking away with a few pats on the back.

We slacked off and hoped our ’show’ that we had honed in the past would be enough to float us along …and it did to some extent. And in that sense it was a good run …but in another sense it was a disappointing effort on our behalf. We had an opportunity and we blew it …and we could of done more to turn the mainstream crowd in our favor …we’ve done it before. Don’t get me wrong, there were lots of fun and exciting nights (including the last!) but overall the event was ours to lose …and when we show up at 9:55 and leave at 12:35 (it was a 10-12:30 show) I think that’s a strong indication of how much we cared. When we only rehearsed because we had to (work in a new drummer/horn player etc.) I think that work ethic carried over onstage. And when we neglect to take what we do seriously …honestly, why should we expect a club to behave any differently?