Lords vs Robbie Veale

This is an email/myspace posting from Chris Owens about his dealings with a Canadian promoter named Robbie Veale on Lords' 2008 Canadian tour.

Hi all, I wanted to make clear the exact events that transpired regarding our most recent Canadian tour in order to dispel rumors and to warn other bands from potentially making the same mistakes that we did. This is a pretty long story but I'll try to keep it as brief and to the point as possible.

- Robbie Veale, the proprietor of Hotrod Touring, booked our first Canadian tour in January of 07, it turned out pretty good...but in every city we heard at least one story from the promoter and/or the bands of something fucked up that Robbie had done in the past, and pretty much everyone said that they wouldn't recommend working with him again...but our tour had turned out considerably good and went without incident (other than him being slow with getting information to me and one contract discrepancy that was easily resolved with the promoter), so when he contacted me about doing another tour in 08 I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and go with it.

- He (supposedly) began working on this tour in November 07, some time in February 08 I asked him for a list of confirmations so I could start booking shows on the way up and back. Robbie told me to check the blog on his myspace page (www.myspace.com/seenproductions) which had a list of cities and dates with no venue information. Through a series of subsequent emails I repeatedly requested at very least the venue name and address for all of the confirmed shows that he had, but he would never send the information. In early March I finally got ahold of him on the phone and had to literally demand the information from him....he makes up a variety of convoluted excuses as to why he hasn't sent the information yet, and at one point makes a comment about how I didn't understand "how hard it is to book a tour"...I then tell him that I book all of the U.S. tours for Lords so I do in fact know "how hard it is to book a tour"...and that I know it shouldn't take more than a few minutes for him to attach a file containing all of the information he has on the shows so far and email it to me. On March 17th I receive the itinerary from Robbie, there were 7 days left blank in 20 days time...so I emailed him and ask him what the deal was for those days, and here is his response:

"anything tha'ts blank is a day off with the exception of the second date as punkradiocast. com takes up a whole day and usually into the early evening. also, the day betwen Sherbrooke and Montreal might be a good day to set up a lot of interviews and do a little sight-seeing???day off in montreal is nice and hopefully you'll get to meet New Romanace For Kids guy and hang with friends...."

The "punkradiocast" didn't happen and so far as I know never was going to happen...so 1/3rd of the tour simply wasn't booked. I have NEVER in my entire history of playing in touring bands have had 7 days off on a tour...there is no excuse for that, especially when you have had 5 months to book it. I tell Robbie that this is unacceptable and that these dates have to be filled or else we're going to cancel the tour, he doesn't respond for a few days, meanwhile I send out an email to every contact that I have in Canada explaining the situation and asking for help filling in the holes.

- Long part of the story short, other people start filling in some of the holes for us, Robbie finds out and starts obstructing progress in numerous ways. I have to get him on the phone again (for 70 cents a minute every time), he's upset that we're going outside of him for shows...he says "I was working on those dates...just because they weren't on the itinerary doesn't mean that I wasn't working on them"...I then have to remind him of the email I quoted above (which I would have to do numerous times in the coming weeks) where he explicitly stated "anything that's left blank is a day off...". he starts telling me that we cant play these shows because of "radius clauses" that some of the promoters he works with have (meanwhile he tells the Toronto promoter Dave O'Connor that if we confirm shows with other people then he doesn't get a cut). Ultimately I tell Robbie that since the tour is now less that 3 weeks away that we're going to play the shows that are confirmed first, no matter who books them...and that if a promoter has any problem with us playing shows in too close of a radius to their city for him to put them in contact with me so I can explain how Robbie fucked up and that we have to either fill these dates or cancel the tour.

Another major conflict erupts over the possibility of doing a 2nd, later Hamilton show. The idea was to do a later show, and not announce it until the night of the original show as not to affect the draw of the first show. Robbie and Dave O'Connor have a couple of shouting matches on the phone over this topic as well as other dates that Dave had started to fill for us. Robbie then, without telling me, books a second Toronto show two days BEFORE the original Toronto show in a club across the street from the original venue...and tells Dave that he did this to "teach him a lesson". I find out about this show only when I receive a perturbed email from Mark Pesci, who was working with Dave to book the original Toronto show and Sneaky Dee's, wondering why we were playing a $5 show for a door deal two days before the previously advertised $10 show with a $300 guarantee. I tell Mark that we won't play that show, and that I didn't know anything about it, but that Robbie fucked up our tour and we're trying to fill a lot of dates last minute....I then have to get Robbie on the phone again, and tell him not to use our tour as a means to settle some beef he has with a promoter...he denies saying anything to Dave about "teaching him a lesson" and says that he was just trying to fill the holes like I told him to. I tell him that I think he's full of shit, and that anyone who has ever booked or played a show or tour should know that jeopardizing a show with a guarantee that has been advertised for months with an impromptu door deal show across the street is not only a terrible idea, but is in no way similar to what had been discussed regarding a second, later Hamilton show.

Moving on ...

- Robbie didn't file the paperwork for our work permits on time. We have to have an LMO validation number, it's the day that we're crossing the border and I'm on the phone with Robbie all morning...he keeps telling me, oh I'll have it in 15 minutes...then and hour later,"call me back in 20 minutes". Several hours go by and if we wait any longer then we're going to be late for the first show in London. We drive to the border, get sent to immigration, and I explain to them that our paper work is (supposedly) being processed and we're just waiting for the validation number. They check on the computer and don't find any record of anything being filed for us. After a couple of hours and dozens of phone calls they end up giving us a 1 day visa to go play Call the Office in London, but tell us that we have to leave the country the next day and come back in whenever our paperwork is processed, otherwise if they send an immigration agent out to any of our shows and they find us with out proper documentation that we will be immediately expelled then banned from Canada. At one point when I was on the phone with Robbie he asks me "Whats the security like there...cant you just get in the van and drive off since you're already in Windsor?"

...We're at the border of Canadas only natural enemy, what the fuck do you think security is like you dumb motherfucker...

The problem was that the LMO validation request that Robbie filed theday before was supposed to be filed at least 2 weeks in advance. So we play London, then have to drive to Niagara Falls and come back in to the Immigration office where we were able to get the paperwork pushed through and had to pay $450 for our work permits. We also find out inthe immigration office at Niagara Falls that if Robbie had got the proper information from the venues that we wouldn't have had to pay anything at all (as he later did for Cloak Dagger after I bitched him out about it).

- We get to Peterborough, where Robbie lives. At the show (which he booked*) I confront him about all of the problems we've had regarding the tour, and I tell him that I'm going to deduct from his payment my phone bill for all of the calls I had to make because of things he fucked up and the money we had to spend in gas to drive out of the country and come back in because he didn't file our immigration paperwork on time. He tries to get shitty with me at one point and I get in his face and tell him that I'm going to knock all the teeth out of his head. He backed of and talked some bullshit about how violence doesn't solve anything and I'm being an American bully.

Anyway...

It calms down a little and I don't hit him, but I remain firm on what we will deduct from his payment. He's not happy about it, he says that he will "eat the phone bill" but asks me to wait until the end of the tour to see how the rest of the shows go before I make my final decision on the gas money, I say ok...and that's the end of it. There is a clear and unambiguous understanding that he will not be paid in full at the end of the tour, and that the amount which we will deduct from his payment will be determined after I receive my phone bill and decide whether or not to include gas.

• Let me also note that about 12 people paid at the show he put on...which actually isn't that bad considering that 10 people paid to see the CURSED show he put on a week before and CURSED are one of the biggest drawing punk bands in Canada. It was explained to me by one of the locals that a lot of people in Peterborough boycott Robbie's shows because of his long colorful history of being a piece of fucking shit.

- We end up having 5 days off on the tour, which is a record high for LORDS: One of the days off was the early Toronto show which we didn't play for obvious reasons, the next day was a Monday that was somewhat legit, two of the shows were last minute and fell apart because Robbie didn't do the job he had 5 months to do (he also never contacted me to tell me these shows weren't happening). In Sackville NB it turns out that there really was no show....Robbie emails me the morning we're leaving Halifax for Sackville and tells me to call the club for some last minute details....I call the place (another addition to the phone bill) and the lady at the club explains to me that Robbie told her we (the band on tour from Kentucky) were supposed to be in charge of promotion...but she hadn't seen any fliers and that there were no other bands and no PA...but if we wanted we could come and play to no one.

- I NEVER received a correct itinerary from Robbie, I had to look up the majority of show times myself on the Internet, some of the dates and venues on the itinerary Robbie sent me were even wrong and I only knew this because of emails I received directly from the promoters.

There were also numerous guarantee discrepancies between the information that Robbie sent me and what the promoters had agreed to...all of which were fuck ups on Robbie's part, all of which required more phone calls to resolve and all of which resulted in a lower payment than what we were told we would receive. We also NEVER received signed contracts from any of the promoters, in large part because most of them said Robbie didn't send them the contracts until a day or two before the show.

- The Kitchener show has to get honorable mention...even though this train wreck was actually the fault of Matt Lewis, Robbie's unwitting assistant. Matt apparently thought that it was a good idea to call the venue and reserve the date, call some local bands and ask them to play...but not have any actual promoter, no set door price, no idea of set times for the bands and no guidelines as to how the door money will be split.

When we first get to the club there is this 1000 piece "Neil Pert"drum kit set up with some ridiculous home made rack and no bottom heads on any of the 58 toms...and as we're loading in we're approached by some dude in a fishing hat who looks like Les Claypools grandfather and he explains to us that that's his kit and his cover band normally "jams" there every Monday night and that no one told him about our show. So he makes a call to the bar owner who decides that they can play until 10 then our show can start...at first I think that the band will either actually be awesome or at least hilarious...as it turned out I was wrong on both accounts and they just sucked dick totally and sounded like nervous 14 year olds playing lounge versions of every shitty classic rock song that can only be enjoyed by wet-granny-pantied overweight party moms, middle aged divorced men and other such fans of the "Bob and Tom Show".

Then the other bands show up and pure chaos ensues...no one knows whats going on, no one can get Matt Lewis on the phone...there is a heated encounter revolving around who will take the door money and what order the bands will play in. Everything is seemingly resolved and diffused, the show goes as good as could be expected under the circumstances until the end of the night when the drummer for one of the local bands "Gran Casino" tries to make off with almost all of the cash.

His logic is that their band that had the biggest draw so they should get the most money...at first I try to use reason and explain to him that this show was booked for LORDS because we are on tour...and that they are the local support...so the majority of the money should go to us...as would happen if they were on tour and I booked a show for them in Louisville. Unfortunately, as is often the case with Christians, low income republicans and emo girly-boys, logic and reason did not prevail and this dude decides to be a dick about it.

He spouts off some nonsense about how his band usually "pays-to-play" when they're out of town...and that we should be grateful for the show in the first place. I propose an all out band brawl as a means to settle this dispute but they decline and some of the other band members pay us and Our Father money out of their pockets while apologizing for the behaviour of their little bitch-ass drummer boy.

Had it not been such a small amount of money in dispute, I would have laid little drummer boy out (like I would Robbie Veale two nights later) just to make a point....the point that some rich kid Canadian emo twerps shouldn't fuck around with broke, tired, hungry and overstressed Kentucky boys who've been lifting 3000 lbs of stupid amps in and out of clubs every night for the last month....

...and as the unifying theme of this whole story goes, none of these problems would have occurred if the booking agent had done his job.

- The next night, Robbie sends his assistant Matt Lewis (the mastermind of the Kitchener show) all the way from St. Catharines to Guelph to collect money from me, despite the agreement that we had reached in Peterborough regarding the phone bill deduction and possibly fuel cost deductions.

Matt isn't cut from the same "worthless piece of shit" cloth that Robbie is...it seems like his heart is in the right place but he's just kind of stupid...which he would have to be in order to associate himself so closely to Robbie Veale. He introduced himself to me and gave me the invoice that Robbie had given him...not that I was surprised but the numbers on the invoice were still wrong from what we had actually been paid.

I explained to him that I wasn't paying him any money, that I had told Robbie how I would deal with the money after I got home and deducted the expenses we incurred because of all the things that Robbie fucked up....if there was anything left then I would send him a check for that...but looking at the invoice (which was for $301 and included GSTand PST for some reason...) I told him that I doubted those expenses would be covered and that we would probably end up sending him a bill.

I then gave Matt the rundown on all the things Robbie had fucked up with our tour as well as the Cloak Dagger and Behold the Arctopus tours...and told him about the low opinion of Robbie that had been expressed to us by every promoter and band we know whose dealt with him. He was pretty bummed and walked out with his head hung...add the sad charlie brown theme and it would have been a scene from Arrested Development.

...and here is where the story gets awesome...

- We get to Windsor for the last show in Canada, load in and backline, I'm in the bathroom taking a shit when Eric comes in and says "You'll never guess who is up stairs!" Somehow I did guess...and sure enough it was Robbie Veale.

Robbie was in the upstairs bar at Coach and Horse's. He told the promoter that he wanted to talk to me and me alone...I gathered up Eric and Jaha, and a the dudes from Our Father and Midwives and a couple of friends of ours from Detroit who had driven up for the show...knowing that what ever Robbie had to say it would be absurd and ridiculous and that Robbie had a history of attempting some underhanded shit that he would later deny so I wanted to make sure there was an audience to witness whatever happened.

We all file in upstairs, Robbie is sitting at the bar...I ask him what he wants, and he asks for everyone else to leave so he can just talk to me. I tell him that anything he has to say he can say in front of everyone...because I'm going to tell them what ever he says anyway, and they might as well hear it from his mouth so no one thinks I'm making anything up.

Robbie refuses to talk in public, he says that he hitch hiked all the way from Peterborough to Windsor just to talk to me, I tell him that I don't give a fuck, that he can say what he has to say in front of everyone or he can go ahead and hitch hike back. Robbie's dumb ass then says loudly in front of the bartender, bouncer and the 15 or so other people standing around watching:

"alright, you have two choices...either pay me my money or you're never getting across the border because you're not going to find the drugs I planted on your van.."

I immediately respond by punching him in the face, I nail him 2 or 3 times pretty good before the bouncer pulls me off.

I ask the bouncer if he heard what Robbie said to me, he says "yeah,but you have to take it outside". So we take it out side and I lay Robbie out on the sidewalk with one more solid hit.

Robbie gets up and starts blathering some shit about how he's a passivist and it's too bad that I have to use violence to solve all of my problems, I start choking him but my friends convince me to stop since we are now in public. Robbie says "it doesn't matter how much you beat me up, you're still not going to find those drugs..."

So we surround him so he can't run off and I call the cops. Robbie continues to run his mouth, saying that he's going to have me arrested for assault, I remind him that there are a dozen or so people standing around who are all going to say I didn't hit him if the cops ask...but are going to tell them how you admitted to planting drugs in our van.

The cops show up, we explain what happened...Robbie tells them that I hit him and shows them his mouth which is bleeding mildly...I deny it and the crowd outside backs me up.

The cops pull Robbie to the side and start searching that dumb motherfuckers backpack where they find a tiny bag of coke and a joint!

They cuff Robbie and put him against the wall...he turns around and asks us if we're happy now...we point at him and laugh and say yes.

The cops come back to me and ask me if I hit him again...I say no...but it's obvious that I did...one of them says "look, we don't care if you did, I would have too...just tell us the truth, did you hit him?". I said yes...they nod their heads, one of them says "good job", and that was the end of it.

By the standards of Canadian law Robbie didn't have enough drugs on him to get arrested, so they stomped out the little bit of coke on the sidewalk, took the joint and sent him hitch hiking home, telling him that if they saw him again anywhere in the area that night that they would arrest him.

They told us that the lot our van was parked in had security cameras in it, so if Robbie did plant anything on our van that it would be caught on film...and that if we got stopped at the border to give them the case file number from the Windsor Police department and they would straighten everything out. We ended up not being searched at the border at all, so now we're home and piece of shit Robbie definitely isn't getting a dime from us.

The end.

-Chris Owens. ps. I know Jason from Cloak Dagger is writing a piece about the shitRobbie fucked up on their tour so everyone should keep an eye out forthat...