Quitting A Gig

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 1:05 am

Have any of you guys ever quit in the middle of a session? What were the circumstances? Were the parties involved surprised? Did you burn any bridges? Was it the type of situation where the artist was fucked by your bailing? Do you regret doing it? Are you glad you did it? Was everyone else glad you did it? Do tell...

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

joel hamilton · Post by **joel hamilton** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:45 am

I never have done it.

I have, however, finished the tracking then HIGHLY suggested that they take it to [name someone that is NOT ME] to mix....

joelpatterson · Post by **joelpatterson** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:46 am

No. Short of training weapons on me, hard to imagine someone every pushing me over that edge, I am just too patient, with a fucking vengeance.

Although there was the time... this guy had given me $1,000 for his grandiose solo project, and this was back when $1,000 was worth something, like I could pay my phone bills for the next year, I could not believe my good fortune...

and by the time we'd run through $600, I had HAD IT. Sent back the remaining $400, sent him his tapes and wished him GOOD LUCK.

I actually wished he'd plunge off the cliff on his way down the road and spare anyone else the agony I'd gone through. Altruistic impulse.

Reuben · Post by **Reuben** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:58 am

I've also done the thing Joel H describes. "Man, you know who would be great to have mix this..?"

Otherwise no.

[/quote]

kayagum · Post by **kayagum** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 1:41 pm

I've never quit mid-gig, but I have sworn never to work with someone (and in a couple of cases, whole theater companies) ever again. And actually stuck with it.

It's pretty easy actually, when you'd rather clean out the grease traps on a McDonald's grill. Which I did as my first paid gig.

The funny thing is, when you say "no" to a problem client, better clients show up to take their place.

nickp · Post by **nickp** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 2:14 pm

I quit a Front of house mixing/ tour managing job after 4 days and it was the best decision I ever made! Surprisingly few repurcussions considering this was/ is a pretty well know band. Sometimes burning bridges is good.

surf's up · Post by **surf's up** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:43 pm

joelpatterson wrote:No. Short of training weapons on me, hard to imagine someone every pushing me over that edge, I am just too patient, with a fucking vengeance.

Although there was the time... this guy had given me $1,000 for his grandiose solo project, and this was back when $1,000 was worth something, like I could pay my phone bills for the next year, I could not believe my good fortune...

and by the time we'd run through $600, I had HAD IT. Sent back the remaining $400, sent him his tapes and wished him GOOD LUCK.

I actually wished he'd plunge off the cliff on his way down the road and spare anyone else the agony I'd gone through. Altruistic impulse.

That must've been a pretty painful project to work on. Care to share what specifically he did that drove you to that point?

DavidM · Post by **DavidM** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:34 pm

Yeah, once when I was in college.
We had a guest producer come in who has done some
pretty big deal stuff in hip hop. And I was asked to
engineer for him. I was pretty pumped going into the session.

Long story short. After he yelled at me for something that was his fault
for the 10th time, I told him and the rest of the students there
I had to study and walked out.

Classmates who were there came to me afterwards and told me I did
the right thing. I never regretted it either.

DavidM.

joelpatterson · Post by **joelpatterson** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:12 pm

drewkon wrote:
That must've been a pretty painful project to work on. Care to share what specifically he did that drove you to that point?

Stop me if I start weeping uncontrollably... well, it was a combination of everything he did. Once I got over the initial shock of seeing ten Ben Franklins sitting there on the desk...

Turned out he was a "type" that maybe many of you have run across, a completely deluded and worthlessly untalented blowhard, but with a huge family fortune to draw on, and he was going to run this fantasy of being a singer/songwriter into the fucking ground and take everyone with him. I shoulda known when he dropped all these names and collaborating with Madonna and his vast experiences with other bands, and yet here he is, entirely alone, and, not to belittle myself or anything, in MY studio?

So he had a guitar, and when we got set up, he could play chords, but it was a shock when he counted off and started in on--and this is just my free-form interpretation of the kind of "songs" he had been working on...

"Yeah, well, I'm typing in a post on the message board,
drewkon asked me about this total bozo,
he had a pocket full of fifties and holes in his head,
holes in his head, his songs were kind of drifty..."

Which is to say it sounded like he was making them up on the spot, except if someone were making up a song on the spot it would have had more sponteneity and truth and maybe every so often something would rhyme? It was one of these situations where you look around... this is a joke, right? Someone is going to burst out from behind the couch with a video-camera? But no, there was just silence, and he got to the "end" and asked me, what did I think?

Now, I've got too much tact to say what I think, so I just kind of nod, saying, well, we'll see what it's like when we get it further along, like the way you talk to a crazed lunatic on the street, calmly. So that brough out his belligerent side, he started to dare me to say what I thought.

He would do a few sessions in a week, and then disappear for weeks at a time, and then return with tales of how he'd gotten into such a pissing match with a traffic court judge he'd lost his driving license, but then he drove over to his chiropractor anyway, got arrested and spent some time in jail... I couldn't sort out what was real and what was not. The songs weren't getting any better. Well, there was ONE that had some potential, "I Walk Through Dresden With My Girl," kind of a travelogue of history's horrors and in each verse he's walking through a new tragic location with his girl, you get the picture. I tried to work with him to even out the awkward mis-syncopation that was marring the thing, but he just got worse and worse. And I started to see that my name on this ghastly thing, when it was done, would maybe not ruin me but would take a long time to live down.

And finally I couldn't put up with his obnoxious, cantakerous bullshit anymore. Stopped returning his calls and packaged the ADATs up real nice, track sheets, the whole worthless bundle and sent it return receipt requested.

And for a good long while I marvelled at it, the whole thing, the thousand dollars I never could have imagined, the sending it back I never could have imagined, the whole absurd affair.

alissa · Post by **alissa** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 8:18 pm

i did once. i actually stopped doing anymore after. i was really diplomatic about it. but i guess i just realized that it wasn't worth my time to finish. the guy would call every day saying he wanted to come over for a '30 minute tweakdown'. he wanted me to automate volume levels where literally there would be a 1 db difference from one word in the song to the next. just like jawdroppingly ridiculous. and besides that he would condescend to me the whole time like i was a stupid girl who didn't know anything. the straw that broke the camel's back was when i expressed an opinion about something and he told me to 'not interrupt him in the middle of a sentence' with the implication being that i should sit there and shutup because i was the girl.

situations like this. and having my apt broken into multiple times led me to conclude that being an engineer was a futile path. i was going to have to find a different way.

joelpatterson · Post by **joelpatterson** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 11:35 am

But you shouldn't let one guy's snotty attitude ruin it for everybody. The guy I was just talking about, he took one listen to the first playback, and said,

"I hate to be critical but your speakers sound like shit!"

Maybe he was right, I dunno... the oddballs and thieves sure make life difficult. But then that encourages you to be stronger and more outsmarting. Keep the faith.

alissa · Post by **alissa** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:23 am

i still have faith. i just think it's often wise to reincarnate into a situation that is more socially viable. and as i eluded to, it wasn't just one guy. it's just that at some point you have to acknowledge whether you'd like to spend all your energy doing what you love. or fighting against other people's preconceptions. i think when the balance starts to tip, it's time to move on.

joelpatterson · Post by **joelpatterson** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 6:50 pm

But there's also, inevitably, a tension between what other people expect and "allow" and what you yourself think is right and necessary.

Sometimes, when I'm in the Price Chopper (grocery store) at their deli, getting a slice of pizza so I can sit down and watch CNN in their little "imitation Starbucks" dining area, I'm thinking...

Everyone in here is fully invested in a sorta mildy fascistic way of life, ain't they? Playing by the rules, internalizing every represssive tendency, Jesus God if anyone knew what I thought of their pitiful nauseating and revolting "normalcy" they'd toss me right in the brick oven...

So I bury these reactions deep, just smile, make small talk. You're right that you've got to pick your battles and hide your spots, sometimes.

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 8:13 pm

joelpatterson wrote:Everyone in here is fully invested in a sorta mildy fascistic way of life, ain't they? Playing by the rules, internalizing every represssive tendency, Jesus God if anyone knew what I thought of their pitiful nauseating and revolting "normalcy" they'd toss me right in the brick oven...

haha! I like to watch people also.

alissa · Post by **alissa** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 11:37 pm

i play by the rules.
but i always look for loopholes.

and you know. there's the old adage about having serenity to accept the things you can not change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

i'm picking my battles. i'm taking karate. but i pulled a muscle the other day from kicking too hard. so i'm gonna hang tight for a bit til it stops hurting...

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