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Why Van Halen had brown M&Ms contractually removed
- praeclarum 15y agoReminds me of the Alice Cooper scene from Wayne's World. I was raised to believe that these hedonistic punks knew only sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Learning that they were in fact professionals who intimately knew their craft (and, yeah, also liked to have fun) is a blessing of age.
- pyre 15y agoThere were plenty that were just hedonistic punks. The lesson is that you can't just apply a blanket label to people.
- dredmorbius 15y agoThe other lesson is that once you apply a blanket label to people, it cannot be removed under penalty of law.
- dredmorbius 15y agoI've similarly been fascinated by business professionals whom I thought intimately knew their craft, only to discover they were hedonistic punks who knew only sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
- shin_lao 15y agoYou'd be surprised how much big stars actually have an ascetic life dedicated to their craft... At some point it requires so much work that you need a lot of discipline to make it.
- shaggyfrog 15y agoRepeat from about two years ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743860 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743860 I suspect it's not the first time. It's a great story.
- oasisbob 15y agoThe current submission is also just a heavily plagiarized rehashing of that part of David Lee Roth's autobiography, as (properly) quoted by Snopes.
- robtoo 15y agoIt's not plagiarism if it's attributed. (edit: looks like the submission url was edited. I guess it wasn't snopes earlier.)
- cdcarter 15y agoNowadays, something like this can also be seen as somewhat insulting to a venue. We spend hours pouring over contract riders to make sure we meet the specifications, and many more hours pricing out the materials and labor necessary for an event. If the lead singer of the band is putting M&M clauses into riders, instead of the touring production manager dealing with the venue TD directly, there's already something wrong with the negotiations.
- nash 15y agoSure, but this isn't a story from these days. It's from a decade ago.
- radley 15y agoThree actually.
- blantonl 15y agoIt might be insulting to your venue, but other venues aren't as detailed as yours. And this process (or variation of) could still today provide an initial indicator that the venue is cutting corners and not following the details.
- cdcarter 15y agoAt the same time, you know that someone (the venue, the promoter, our the tour manager) is cutting corners when actual insightful communication isn't happening between all parties. Just as the tour will send a contract to the venue, the venue sends it's contract and technical specifications to the tour. The tone and types of communication with a venue or tour before they even get two cities away is just as good an indicator towards the likelihood of problems. Nothing, not even brown M&Ms can make it so all of a sudden we don't need to communicate through the proper channels and follow procedures.
- jfoutz 15y agoI get it, you're a professional. 30 years ago, you know when the IBM PC was introduced, the variation of quality of venues was likely higher. Big name, technical shows simply did not go to smaller venues, because they would fuck up. It's not intended to be an attack on you. It's not an attack on your profession. It highlights how a professional organization can raise the quality of everyone they interact with. Like it or not, wal-mart makes its suppliers better. Maybe it takes talking, cajoling or even dirty tricks, but the key idea is you can make your suppliers better. Don't be afraid to be very sneaky in your thinking to get what you need from your suppliers.
- CoffeeDregs 15y agoNOTE: to those who're reading the comments here instead of RTFA [because you're like I am...], you should RTFA. I first heard this story about 3 months ago and was blown away [because everyone knew that Van Halen were prima donas, right?!]. That Van Halen plays IROC-Z rock doesn't mean they aren't big time business people. There are certainly outliers, but big time business people are big time business people without regard to the business and that's a lesson most of us need. EDIT: I attended an alternative educational conference where the theme was "Taking Yourself Seriously". Naturally, I sat thinking "I write computer programs! I'm a serious man!". Learning about Van Halen's idiotic-but-wait-oh-my-god-that's-super-insightful contract drives home the point that I might not be taking myself seriously enough... There's always room to improve. EDIT: to those who're pointing out that this is a re-hash, this is an important re-hash. Yes, it was discussed two years ago, but it bears repeating. Even an atheist, such as myself, appreciates hearing the 10 Commandments reasonably frequently.
- xdissent 15y agoClassic rock & roll wisdom. Other notable groups have followed suit with similar seemingly insane/bratty demands for the same reasons. Iggy Pop often trails off mid-paragraph in his rider and starts telling some silly story rather than outlining his technical requirements, followed by a "ARE YOU READING THIS? REALLY?" to make sure they know they should be paying attention. Metallica should have done something similar in the early 90's! Ouch!
- pbreit 15y agoSeems like re-using the same stipulation wouldn't work longer term.
- rexreed 15y agoIt's not this specific stipulation that matters, but the arbitrary specificity of the particular requirement that clues you into whether or not they read the contract. You can change it from Brown M&Ms to something like 'a blue fur coat' or 'two pairs of wooden clogs' and it would have the same effect.
- mturmon 15y agoDown for me, but http://web.archive.org/web/20080305234616/http://jimcofer.com/personal/?p=621 http://web.archive.org/web/20080305234616/http://jimcofer.co... worked
- bfung 15y agoor google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fF_iKzPOgaQJ:jimcofer.com/personal/%3Fp%3D621+van+halen+site:jimcofer.com/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fF_iKzP...
- zeteo 15y agoThe counter-argument is, of course, that someone who knows they can't fulfill all contractual clauses will try to check off the easy ones only - including the risible demand that M&Ms be sorted. The argument in the article is simply invalid, because it can be used to justify everything - the more unreasonable, the better! Instead of such a ridiculous demand, they could have just picked a couple of random, but useful clauses from the contract (like the number of sockets) and checked those instead. Yes, it would have taken a couple of extra minutes, but certainly a huge concert is worth that.
- latch 15y agoYou might be being downvoted because: Even if you are right (that they might just implement the easy ones), you don't actually lose anything by adding the clause. At worse case, you're as bad off as if you didn't have it. Not exactly a "counter-argument" since you don't actually lose anything. As for why not just pick something else...It's hard to tell without the full list...how do you test that something can hold 600lbs? Even if there is something relatively easy, say, that sockets are X feet apart from each other...again, what's the harm in 1 additional quick check? (and if you say their reputation, I'd argue it might have helped their reputation as oppose to harm it)
- cookiecaper 15y agoYou waste the time and resources of the venue and cause some lackey to hate his job.
- JoachimSchipper 15y agoSaid lackey just got paid to eat a whole bunch of brown M&Ms.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- DavidAdams 15y ago
- quinndupont 15y agoBack in 2009 This American Life covered the issue with aplomb. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/386/fine-print http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/386/f...
- chocopuff 15y agoVan Halen is the greatest rock and roll band ever.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- donnaware 15y agomaybe we should have had van halen review the CDS contracts that nearly brought down the financial system.
- a1k0n 15y agoIggy Pop's concert rider appeared on the Smoking Gun several years ago, and it's a very amusing read -- they were clearly sick of venues screwing things up as well by not reading carefully. It's only 18 pages: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/lust-laughs http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/lust-laughs
- cromulent 15y agoThat was very good. Thank you. I ended up using this one as the paging on Smoking Gun was annoying: http://josgrain.com/StoogesRiders.pdf http://josgrain.com/StoogesRiders.pdf
- prawn 15y agoThere was a very detailed Metallica rider online that I read some time ago. Quite entertaining. Might be this one? http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage/hall-fame/metallica http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage/hall-fame/metallica
- smackfu 15y agoSo I have a question about these riders: some of them specify a lot of specific equipment like amps and mixers... does the venue really provide that? Do they rent it, or is the listing just like a minimum spec and the artist and venue negotiate to use what is already on site at the venue?
- _mayo 15y agoI'm not sure about national acts, but I know when my band would play venues we would bring our own amps and mic up to the mixing board if needed.
- mashmac2 15y agoThe short answer is no. The longer answer is it really depends on the band and the venue. (IMHO) Smaller independent bands especially like to put big speaker sets and amps on their riders, even ridiculous things like 2 line arrays for a 200-person concert in a small inclosed space. These days, once you get up to the Van Halen-sized concerts, you'll find a lot of professionalism. For smaller concerts (< 600 guests), you make it work with what's the venue can get and do the best you can, really. If it's a for-profit show, and the venue knows what they're doing, they'll rent some gear (especially amps). Usually the mixer and speakers in the venue are considered 'good enough' for budget reasons. Also, note that they brought 9 tractor-trailers... that would be a low number today, try doubling that for big tours these days.
- rcthompson 15y agoAccorting to TFA, the rider includes things such as the load-bearing capacity of the area where the stage will be set up. I imagine such requirements are rather non-negotiable.
- smackfu 15y agoAh, I was thinking of the Iggy Pop one linked in another comment: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/lust-laughs http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/lust-laughs It specifies things like 3X Marshall VBA Bass Amps.
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- ojilles 15y agoMakes me think of the trick we used a large website I used to work for: we'd have everybody and their mother copy our T&S because that was easier that writing it themselves. So we added a 2 very uncommon spelling mistakes into it on purpose. After that just a simple google Alert on those keywords would tell us immediately when someone copied our T&S. Adding something weird/uncommon can make something easily measurable (as showcased in both my example as the article).
- joezydeco 15y agoMap makers do it too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_streets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_streets
- pavel_lishin 15y agoAs well as dictionaries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquivalience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquivalience I wonder what other companies that make a living by selling data sets do this sort of thing?
- ojilles 15y agoThanks for that link. Unknowingly I did exactly the same thing (we invented a non-existant island in the geography of the site I was working on).
- dctoedt 15y agoIn its early days, Apple embedded a couple of no-op string variables, including the name of one of its programmers, in the code in the Apple II's ROM. Franklin Computing produced a clone. Apple didn't have to look hard to find its programmer's name in the cloned code. Apple successfully sued for copyright infringement. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Franklin_Computer_Corp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Frankli....
- micheljansen 15y agoAlways assumed they were just a bunch of divas for doing this, but now it makes sense :) When I was in charge of leading meetings as chairman of a study association, I used to do something similar. Every once in a while, the secretary and I would conspire to put some easter eggs in the list of decisions or action items, such as "Person X will bring a fresh, home-baked cake to the meeting on Y". If that person did not object during the meeting the minutes were accepted, it was a playful reminder to prepare for meetings, with a perk of free cake :D
- rglover 15y agoThis really made me want to put aside some time to read the David Lee Roth autobiography. I love learning little bits like this about people who are generally recognized as idiots in the public eye. Fantastic.