I’ve been really crappy on my socials the last two months and the reason for that is two-fold. Firstly, I was having too much fun to think about socials and secondly, my actual money spinners were taking over.
Jon Delinger & The Chakalakerz
What have I been up to? Firstly, I’m now a full fledged member of the Chakalakerz and the band has a new album about to be dropped under Open Mic Productions. Our lead singer is on Open Mic and I’m really looking forward to the possibilities of touring in 2023 that we hope will result from the album release.
Jon is without a doubt the most talented singer I’ve ever worked with and not only is he a phenomenal singer but he is a really funny cat. Check out Jon’s bass playing below along with the running commentary from the peanut gallery (Tumz and me).
From the good news to the not so good news
Is it my duty to only make music and not get involved in the bs politics of the music scene? Self expression is the primary motivating factor but I refuse to shy away from controversy when it comes knocking and shining a big fat bright light on the underhanded players in the music industry is a torch that I’ll gladly don as well.
So, what’s the deal? I played a gig at Rumours Lounge on 26 November with metalcore band Flood the Mother. Our set was plagued by the incompetent sound engineer – being a lead singer and unable to hear yourself onstage will always end in disaster and we unfortunately had this issue to deal with. The super talented singer Urban Swart bravely tried to fight through it but we pretty much played an instrumental set after about three songs because he didn’t want to blow his voice out.
I don’t blame him and I’ve had the exact same issue at Rumours twice before back in 2012! Anyway, that’s not the issue I want to address.
The issue is this: Fred Otto avoided me like the plague from the time I arrived at his club and I made several attempts to talk to him. I always thought we were friends before this night and couldn’t quite figure out why he would keep disappearing when I walked up to him to chat. After about 2 hours of this I figured not to bother anymore. That still is not the issue.
My beef has to do with these guys’ dodgy business practices. I’ve seen it a few times in my 20 years in the music industry:
It is customary for the venue to collect an entrance fee at the door and either pay the full amount over to the bands or to take a cut (often 50%) and pay the difference to the original bands.
I take issue with the fact that Fred and his manager Dwayne paid none of the 10 bands a red cent for playing that night yet collected R100 off everyone that entered during the 8 to 10 hours of the day festival.
Its not about the money, hell it would have only paid for some of my drinks but would not cover all drinks and petrol by a long shot. So from a commercial point of view, everyone was 100% out of pocket.
Once I realised that this is what happened, I felt really bad for the young upcoming bands because its a dick move. Urban had spent a fortune to get this gig off the ground with petrol to rehearsals and travelling between provinces etc.
Its just robbing everyone to line your own pockets. Look to Roxy Rhythm Bar and Boston Rock Lounge to see what the future of your establishment will be if you keep this behaviour up. It will inevitably end in tears for the venue and the already floundering rock scene in Johannesburg will become even more underground when Rumours disappear but it will also be karma.
EmDm EP
Back to some good news. I am super close to completing my EP and was hoping to release in December. Unfortunately, I go from mixing and mastering to writing in between. I have one more song’s bass to fix up and then I should be good to go on the release.
I’m super stoked for this release and keenly share the cover art in the interim: