The manager at Tully's (where we've been playing nearly every Saturday night, for two years, for free) called and asked us not to come back, citing "customer complaints" about not being able to study while we're there.
Sounds like a pretty lame excuse to me, though. We weren't bogarting any "study" tables. "... not enough table space"?!? Isn't that an architectural/furnishing problem, and doesn't it imply that the place is full, and isn't that a good thing? I suppose we were deleting the use of two chairs, but they weren't "study chairs", since they didn't have any writing area anyway.
I guess I could buy the argument that we were too noisy to do group study around. But how many study groups come down there on Saturday nights, anyway? And do students that showed up and were chased away by the awful racket then return in the daytime, ask for the manager, and complain? Hard to imagine...
But, whatever -- whether it's a bogus excuse or a real one, we're out of a job. I wonder if, after a week or three, he were to get several complaints from people who had shown up hoping to hear some music, and were disappointed, whether he might reconsider. Of course, that would require the Music Fans to have the same determination as the study-fiend Philistines -- they'd have to show up on Sunday morning expressing their disappointment to Dave in person, since it's unlikely that any "Hey, where's the band?" complaints would be accurately and diligently relayed by the Saturday night staff.
But, frankly, as much as Tully's is (was) the highlight of my whole week, this just makes me angry.
I guess we'll get an occasional gig at Del Lago, and we could (and should) get back in touch with Jill at Moxie and see if she wants us to do a Friday (paid, and attended) night over there once in a while. And we can send another CD in to Diedrich, possibly with material recorded on Saturday -- though they seem a long shot to me now. (I did listen to a tiny bit of Saturday's file, and it sounded really "boomy" -- possibly not usable at all).
Or maybe I'll just have some Saturdays at home with the family for a while.
