Austin Sound

Photo by Richard Card

Something of a scandal has been developing the past two days between new local electronic act Vega (aka Alan Palomo, formerly of Denton band Ghosthustler) and Crystal Castles.

After a successful show together at La Zona Rosa this past Monday (pics via Ultra8201), controversy broke up a scheduled show last night at the Granada Theater in Dallas. According to GvsB, Vega were ousted as openers shortly before the show began, due partly to accusations from CC’s camp of guitar-pedal theft, a crime denied by Vega’s Palomo. Then after installing a last-minute opener (apparently a local Dallas DJ), CC found the sound system arrangements not to their liking, and cancelled the show last-minute at 10pm.

Today word came from CC (again via GvsB):

“a) Vegas (sic) were not kicked off for “petty bullshit”, if Vegas want to try to create an internet meme out of this that’s fine, whatever.

b) CC obviously did not want to leave 1000+ people hanging outside. The people at Granada pulled the plug on CC during CC’s soundcheck, claiming they feared CC would “blow the soundsystem.” The people at Granada tried to rent (at the last minute) proper speakers that would not “blow” for the show but it just couldn’t happen on short notice. At one point they thought they had found professional speakers but 2 hours later this fell through and the decision was made that the show could not happen. Also of note, a DJ had blown their speakers a few weeks ago and they did not want this to happen again. They said they couldn’t afford to repair the speakers again. It would be nice if you knew the truth and were fair to the band since this wasn’t their fault. The blame goes to whoever booked this band at this ill-equipped venue.

Vega stole an FX-Pedal from CC. If this is not a good reason to get kicked off a bill and (possibly) get blacklisted by a promoter I don’t know what is. Worst part is CC liked the guys and tried to convince us to forgive them.”

Mike Schoder of the Granada Theater released a press release this morning, neatly contradicting almost all Crystal Castle’s claims (via Indie-Verse):

“Let me start with a definition:

Pre-madonna:

Pre-madonnas cannot help the way they are because their parents spoiled them and they are still developing their personalities.

All a pre-madonna has to do is whine and their parents give them what they want.

Here’s how our day went at the Granada on Tue:

Vega (Alan from Ghosthustler) opened for CC in Austin Monday night.

At 5pm (3 hrs before doors) we received a call from CC that Vega could not be on the bill.

Vega had been approved by CC in advance for the bill.

Early on Tue CC hired a light tech from Austin that is also a DJ to replace Vega.

CC could have communicated with Vega early in the day before they left Austin.

Vega was at the Granada waiting to soundcheck.

CC would not enter the building until Vega was gone from the premise.

Alan was super cool. No pre-madonna.

We’ve never seen this request. The other co-promoter out of Austin has never seen this kind of request.

CC wining…

CC soundchecked at 6pm instead of at 4pm.

CC didn’t “like the sound of their kickdrum”.

CC insists that “more woofers be brought in”.

Rental places close at 6pm.

It is now 7pm.

Granada has 16 - 18″ sub-woofers and 12 - 15″ sub-woofers. Also 32 - 8″ midranges. Lots of firepower.

Sound check was great.

CC says they would rather cancel the show than possibly not have enough kick drum.

Granada begs that the show goes on.

Granada even offers to dismantle sub woofer stacks and place them in different places in the room.

Granada was willing to do anything to have the show go on.

CC waits until after 10pm to give final cancellation.

The show must go on. Life is all perception. One person sees the day as beautiful, another sees the day as crap.

Why would any band crap on their fans like this?

Insecurity is a cancer. Love yourself. Love your sound guy and the system at the club you are playing.

Play the show. Then listen to your fans. If you don’t like the sound at a club never go back to the club.

We’ve had every big band imaginable in every genre imaginable and had amazing shows.

Nobody has complained about our sound. This is totally out of left field.

The sound at Granada is amazing…and would have been if CC would have just got on stage and played.

Today Granada is refunding ticket cost and entire service charge to each patron.

No one cares for live music more than we do. We’ve put together an amazing room, staff and sound system.

We’ll see you soon fellow music fans.

Mike Schoder and all the Staff at Granada.”

Further comments in audio interviews with Vega’s Alan Palomo and manager Danny Carissami (again via Indie-Verse) deny any wrongdoing on Vega’s part, supporting most of the statements released by the Granada earlier today. Says Palomo, the only communication Vega heard from Crystal Castles about their last minute replacement in the bill was to have a friend’s band play. “We never got a chance to talk to their agent, we didn’t really get a hold of anybody,” he says, adding “C3 [local promoters behind ACL and Lollapalooza, among other events] was calling me, plenty of friends who already bought tickets were calling us. It’s just very shocking… I’m still mildy flabergasted by the situation.”

Crsytal Castles continue their US tour, while Vega head back to Austin to play the Beauty Bar on the 24th. A new EP from the group is due out soon, hopefully turning our attention back to real music.