We’re guessing that this e-mail we just received was from a member or friend of the Tommy Gunn Band in a response to our post on Monday, or to our assessment of why we won’t play a certain band’s songs. (ETA: I think it’s official that the message below is a result of the Skynyrd post – our sincere apologies to the Tommy Gunn Band) Here’s the unedited (literally) message, credited to a phony rocketmail.com address (Rocketmail doesn’t even exist anymore – it’s owned by and points to Yahoo now.)
dude serious?? you trashed Ronnies band and sound u sound like arrogant little kids. ??? if your the new local A game. F that. I come from the seasoned musicians of the area. your attitude spells disaster. the best songs i ever covered were the ones i thought SUCKED. grow up maybe 15 yrs from now we’ll see ya. OUT joke. get f’n real bro. LESS IS ALWAYS MORE guess you think cobaine was fuckn lennon too. pfff
Nice spelling. I wonder if this guy paints signs for Teabagger rallies?
Here’s our reply:
First of all, we’re not kids. We are seasoned musicians just like you and we got together and started formulating our band because we are sick of the same old, same old from cover bands. I’ve been playing professionally in the area since 1985, as has my drummer who I worked with for two years.
Our attitude is fine – There’s a reason why I turned down a lot of offers to join other bands after I departed my last group. It’s because I was sick of lying to the audience by playing “songs that sucked”. If you don’t like any of the songs in your set, then doesn’t that make you a professional liar?
The audience can tell when a band is playing with their heart and when they aren’t. Tommy Gunns didn’t play with their heart until they went into the covers of “Flagpole Sitta” and “Barracuda”. They didn’t seem to get anyone dancing Sunday night, and I was watching from under the tent across from the stage with the rest of The Countercoup because of the rain. Kartune had people dancing for most of their set, which we were pleased to see because Tommy Bruno is a hero and friend of ours. What does that tell you?
CJ Marsicano, the former bassist from Fallacy and Bigg Trouble and another local veteran musician, was there with his wife for Tommy Gunns’s and Kartune’s sets. He’s one of the veteran musicians I referred to in the post. He writes a music blog and he’s not hard to find online. Why don’t you seek him out and ask his opinion of the evening, and see if his opinion matches yours or mine?
As for John Lennon and Kurt Cobain, both of them were songwriting geniuses. I’m in my mid 40′s and clearly remember where I was when the news of their deaths broke and how I felt. Both times I cried. Given the tone of your letter, you probably cheered Cobain’s death. Lennon was Lennon and Cobain was Cobain. I miss them both.
Less is more… This is the only thing in your letter that I agree with. We’re a three-piece power trio that owes thanks to everyone from the Hendrix Experience and Cream to Rush and Vanilla Fudge to the Minutemen and Husker Du to Muse for being living and/or legendary testimony to that statement.
One last thing… Spell check and good grammar are your friends. Use them. You falsely accuse a bunch of veteran musicians who remember when every band in the area played with their heart and brought their A game of being kids, but your letter comes off like you’re some D-minus (at best) junior high school student who uses the epithet “gay” to describe anything/anyone he doesn’t like. Think before you hit that send button, friend.
I’ll be reposting your letter and my response on the band’s blog soon, as well as forwarding this to a few veteran musicians that agree with and support us, and who have inspired us in the past and present and remain our dear friends. If they respond, we’ll repost their comments as well.
Sincerely,
A member of The Countercoup.
We’ll see you in the audience from our vantage point onstage soon, “Joe Smith”. And you should really upgrade to gmail while you’re at it.
