For those that missed it!!
quote:
Some of you may have heard about the Limp Bizkit guitarist search.
Basically, the band has been "touring" the country visiting Guitar Center stores, holding auditions for a new guitarist to replace the one who left the band.
The deal is this. From 7:00 to 11:00 AM you can sign up for a slot to try out that day. The tryouts are from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. During this time,
they take you into a room to play your stuff. At the end of that time, you leave. They call three to ten people at 5:30 to come back to the place and play in front of Limp Bizkit. Out of those people, one is selected to return at 9:00 to jam with the band, and anyone who participated is invited to watch -- a free concert, basically.
So I arrive there, with a copy of our band's full CD in hand. I'm with a friend who wants to try out, so I go ahead and sign up too. We get there at 5:00 AM and we're 83rd and 84th in line. Not incredibly bad. Free Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee, so all isn't too bad.
10:00 rolls around. The line is moving slow, but that's to be expected. We finally get up around the corner of the building to the front of the line
at about noon. Current total time there: 7 hours.
Get to the table, and I notice there's a waiver you have to sign. No problem, standard stuff. Then I notice it's a three page contract. This
contract basically said that if you play, you must sign the contract. Okay. No big deal here either. So I keep reading it. An interesting note.
Anything you play can NOT be copyright, and can be used by Limp Bizkit in audio, video, or recorded form of any sort. Other big words which basically translated to the fact that if you play something, they are fully authorized to steal it and use it on a CD. The artist agrees to zero compensation and zero rights over the track, and will get their name in the liner notes "if
possible."
This didn't sit well, as me and the guy I was with were planning on playing something we wrote with Starfront. So we sign it and decide to make
something up. An annoyance at the very least, but we'd waited seven hours to get this far.
Then we got to stand in the parking lot for another two hours. We finally get inside at about 2:30, where it's another 30 minute wait for your turn. Current total time there: 10 hours.
So then we get the "rules". They are outlined for us straight out. No guitar solos. No playing cover songs. No playing copyrighted material. No playing Limp Bizkit songs. This effectively means that you're forced to play something that you made up, but don't have a copyright for. You may see where this is going. Entering the room, there's one guy. He's got a mute button under his foot. His job is to make sure you follow the rules. If you break any, you get muted and kicked out immediately. So I go in, and there's one amp for me to plug into, and the settings are turned to "mud". It sounded awful, and was
not pleasing to the ears. And it was loud enough that the awfulness didn't go away for some time. Then comes another fun part.
"You have 60 seconds to play. Starting now."
One ****ing minute?! I mean, ****ing... okay. So since the thing I'd been planning was two minutes and thirty seconds, I cut most of the parts out. Kept it under time (about 57 seconds), but it still sounded worse than a handful of ass due to that beautiful amplifier (hmm). And I leave the room and the line proceeds. We're told that the winners will be announced at 5:30. And that we are to remain in the front parking lot until that time.
No leaving. Period. This makes for unhappy people. We're talking 200+ people here, plus any wives / girlfriends / husbands / boyfriends / family / friends which accompanied them. But what can you do? We stay until 5:30. Total current time there: 12 hours, 30 minutes.
5:30 rolls around. People are getting ansi. The band management promised " free pizza". It came, and there were two boxes of pizza. Two large pizzas.
For about two hundred people at least. No cool points here either. Anyway, the clock keeps ticking, and it's 6:00 before we notice anything going on. Guitar Center management flags all their people and security to come inside
to discuss something. They go in there, and the guy in charge walks out with a megaphone. After getting everyone's attention, the guy on the megaphone speaks: "This competition has been called off effective immediately and will not
be rescheduled. The band will not be performing with nor for anyone. They will not be signing autographs. This is beyond our control, but please exit the area immediately." The guy then proceeds to enter back inside the huge glass doors, and two armed officers stand behind the door. They lock the building as the massive
amount of people head directly towards them. After reaching the building, people start going apeshit. Cops are called in basically a way to clear the crowd. After about an hour, most have gone home or been "taken" home by the police. The radio station is completely screwed, having brought their entire broadcast booths out to cover it. Everyone is very, very pissed. Me and
the other guy stayed awhile to figure out what was going on. It's now about 7:30 PM. FM99 is having a field day with it. They're referring to this as "**** Fred Durst Friday", taking calls in from people who went. But unless you've read this arefully, I don't think you understand what happened.
Limp Bizkit now has over 200 guitar parts, written by various artists around here, which are unowned and not copyrighted. Limp Bizkit now owns these riffs. Limp Bizkit just stole 200 pieces of material right out from under these guitarists' noses, myself included. If I'd played something off our CD, I would be ABSOLUTELY pissed. I *am* absolutely pissed. They have completely ripped off hundreds of people, and they're getting away with it because they can. They're on their way to Georgia, and the radio station
here has given out request line numbers for the stations down there for us to call and let them know what's happening over the course of this event, to warn them. But people aren't going to buy it. They're going to go and get their shit stolen too. Someone needs to beat the living hell out of him. He's an *******, and someone who doesn't deserve to be breathing the same air as a ****ing cockroach.
[ 02-13-2002, 23:37: Message edited by: Rosko ]
