Daniel Lehr // Blog

Hey Orlando! I want to give a shout out to the Orlando Weekly, a local entertainment rag here in O-berg.  My band, The Lotus Experiment opened for the international act Jesu at The Social in the heart of downtown.  This was HUGE for us as a struggling new band for two reasons: 1) We're a struggling new band and 2) We really like Jesu.  The crowd response was fantastic and really took us by surprise.  In fact, several people from that show have been coming to subsequent shows on a regular basis.  As I said, this was HUGE for us. So the local music columnist from the Orlando Weekly was at the show and didn't even mention that we were there.  I'm sorry, but shouldn't the local scene reporter's priority be LOCAL music?  When asked why we were omitted from the column on the Jesu show he said it was a matter of "not enough words available."  Whatever man.  If your column consisted of less litterary masturbation you might actually have the space to cover the local music in your local music column.  I'm really looking forward to the day when SOMEONE in this town starts caring about this town and not its proximity to Disney and Universal.

A good friend of mine who is a drummer in a fellow local band gave me some news that speaks directly to my first post. He informed me that a club here has decided not to host any local bands anymore, claiming we can all go f*** ourselves. Well I say to the Back Booth lounge “right back at ‘ya!” They claim they will only book national acts. Um, guess what? National acts were once local bands you jackasses. My band has never played there even though it is a part of the down-town circuit here. We’ve played shows at all the other clubs but not theirs. They were always total douches when we talked to them about playing there. So I say to any national acts that are approached by Back Booth to play in Orlando, please play The Social, or The AKA Lounge instead. They are both fantastic clubs in the heart of down town and they sincerely support local music. To those of you who like to party in down town Orlando, walk on by Back Booth when you’re down there. Don’t give these pricks one ounce of your patronage. To the folks at Back Booth I say that I can’t wait to party there when new owners have taken over because you went out of business and lost your asses. I’ll buy anyone a drink who joins me that day…

Greetings fellow musicians, This rant is with love and affection for the club owners and sound guys in Orlando. Not to say that there aren’t like what, two or three venues here that don’t totally suck but hey, it’s O-berg. I’m from South Florida, where we actually have culture. The only culture here is the active culture in yogurt and buttermilk. The worst dive club in South Florida is better than the best club here. WTF, over? I really feel for all the talented musicians here in the anus of Florida who are trying to make it in this town. There are some really great bands here who keep shoveling the same crap for these money grubbing club douches. Oh, and all of you on the city council who set the liquor license fee nearly as high as Manhattan, why couldn’t you have drown as a child like so many of the other backwards-ass redneck parents let their kids do. You’re raping your own people as bad as george w… To the local clubs: Get a clue. Bands aren’t supposed to fill your establishment, you are. If you can’t figure out how to do that, there are always ditches to be dug and roads to be paved. Do us all a favor. PLEASE! And to one club that will remain nameless, requiring bands to purchase $250.00 worth of tickets they have to sell (just to break even) to play at your crappy little shit-hole is the most dumb-ass redneck thing I’ve ever heard of. See “ditches and roads” above. I don’t care if I never play a club in Orlando again. I’d rather drive to Daytona, Titusville, Jacksonville, or Tampa to play in a real club then put up with the brain dead morons here. You should be required to pass a test: If I say to you “2+2” and you go “huh?” then you can't own a club. To the local sound guys: If one more sound guy tells me how great he is ‘cuz he ran sound for like Juice Newton or something, I’m going to throttle them with a drumstick. I’ve been running live sound and recording since the 70’s and I promise you I’ve forgotten more about craft then you’ll ever know. You can take your (nameless local school of rock) education and shove it up your ass. If you put the snare mic on the bottom of my snare one more time I’ll strangle you with a 15’ instrument cable. If you make my beautiful DW drums sound like cardboard boxes one more time I’ll, well, see “instrument cable” above. Oh and if you rush me on and off stage one more time I will dump bacon grease on you and let my cat devour you slowly. WTF? You rush me like we’re playing a real venue for like 40,000 people. There’s 10 people in the club and they’re all drunk and playing pool. So, as they say “build a bridge and get over yourself.” You’re nobody in a nobody town. Of course this does not include our friends from a now defunct club on Lee Road. You are all totally cool and this does not apply. Hey Orlando: You are my (not by choice) adopted city and you give the inbred redneck treatment I’ve come to expect from you and guess what, I’m moving to Seattle… Props to all my musician friends here, you deserve medals for putting up with this place. I hope you all get recording deals so you can move somewhere else… Music is the only thing that separates us from the rest of the organisms on this ball. Rock on!