W.U.M.F
November 18th, 2008 @ 21:02
Posted by: John
Kim’s dad Leo sent these three links with reports on the aftermath of the festival. Being a guy who supports music, specially something interesting like this in his hometown, he prepaid for some tickets. He knows as most of you know, supporting music is a risk – it’s just not going to be good every time. You stick your neck out, that’s how you support music. BUT in the case of the W.U.M.F. the main promoter was not honest. He was sticking other people’s necks out.
Austin American Statesman
San Marcos Record
The San Marcos University Star
Here is some copy condensed and paraphrased from the San Marcos University Star. I’m putting it here because the after party at Rileys got mentioned.
The World United Music Festival was canceled Saturday. The festival had low attendance compared to the estimated 100,000 people given on the festival Web site. (Only) 200 tickets had been sold. In comparison, Austin City Limits has about 60,000 festival attendees, according to Rolling Stone.
some of the 150 bands traveled from as far as Ireland to play the festival.“There were a lot of good people involved,” O’Donnell said. “Every festival has to work out the kinks its first year. No one showed up to South By Southwest the first year either.”
A few bands scheduled to play on Sunday showed up at Riley’s Tavern instead and enjoyed an Open-Mic Night.
Vendors also lost money because of the cancellation.“This is like a bad dream that I wish never came true,” said Ryon Weber, a pizza stand vendor. According to the festival website, thewumf.com, ticketholders who wish for a refund can contact Jerry Payne at 559-645-5015 or jerry@theusef.org.
O’Donnell said she hopes the festival will recover and reach its potential in the future. “I have to have faith it was for real,” O’Donnell said.
November 19th, 2008 12:18
it’s so funny all the people who read here but call me on my cell phone to make their comments. I got a bunch after people read Leo’s links. You people should just make a comment. It’s open to anybody. On the pie chart of the hundreds of readers who would be interested in what you have to say, my piece isn’t any bigger than anybody else’s.
Anyway, the oddness of the last line in the University newspaper was pointed out to me and the gist of their perspective caught me by surprise. It was this line:
“I have to have faith that it was for real”.
And this was the comment about it: Was this a cult? I mean, what’s up with “faith that it was for real”? How do you say that about this event? It’s over and it plainly wasn’t for real.”
I thought that was cutting. But true. Apply some logic to the statement. Real like in reality or real like in she wants to believe that even the dream itself was real? Somebody needs to be debriefed. Now I think that came from someone who showed up at Rileys and was very nice. Of course all the workers weren’t bad people, but as Fletcher would say, just drinkin’ the punch. I guess it says pretty plainly that she didn’t and still doesn’t want to look at the facts, she just fed off and wants to continue to feed off faith in somebody’s grandiose plan. Sounds exactly like the stuff the gatekeeper kid in front of the festival was saying to Jimmie and I in the hour after it imploded. Isn’t that cult thinking? That’s almost a dictionary entry for cult thinking. The guy builds a 500 acre city, he attracts believers from around the world. He stirs in this emotional, logic camouflage about wounded vets, he arranges for a military jet fly over, tanks… that was the stuff that first beeped Jimmie’s radar. She asked “What the hell is that, who goes to a folk festival to see a Blackhawk helicopter land? WTF?”. Jimmie’s reaction to that was a funny moment. Isn’t it a funny world?
I guess some wonder why we’re stewing about this thing. Me and all of you are happy to do little events but do them right and we care about building community and goodwill in the Central Texas music world. Why would we appreciate people coming in here and laying a turd? It’s not a huge bad deal, it’ll be forgotten… but it doesn’t help. And they just HAD to bring 50 radio people and promoters from across the country to witness it and go back home with the story about us knucklyheads down here. Thanks a bunch, dude. The guy robbed the bank and invited the police. The radio people and the hundreds of disappointed performers will forget him for sure but they won’t forget they lost a bunch of money coming to San Marcos for a big old bunch of nothing.
When you do an event you have to be an honest, logical and responsible steward of the image of everybody and everything involved. You have to stay out of the dream state and clearly focused on getting it done in the real world. When it’s done the opposite way so flagrantly it’s irritating.
November 19th, 2008 15:51
It sure sounded odd when you mentioned it on the blog like a week out but I hadn’t heard about it anywhere else . . .
November 19th, 2008 21:51
Glenn emailed me with this PR from Chase. Glenn is cool, he’s trying to soothe this thing over. He should get more credit for the Riley’s thing. It really was one of the most healing and successful things that happened that weekend. Here’s Glenn’s email:
This is one of the good guys. I don’t know if you got to meet him at Riley’s but he was there all night. This is an email I just received that was sent out to all the bands.
***********************************************************
Cc: chasesmind@yahoo.com
Subject: FYI
To All
Thanks again for everybody’s words. Even the bad ones.
I had a great time with everyone at Rileys bar on sunday night . Bo Porter
said “welcome to the wake”. It was a very healing experience.
The roadies and the rest of us staff have nicknamed the show Cancelfest.
The ugliness of Jerry’s actions will not tarnish the memories at the
festival, Rileys and the lobby at the Embassy Suites. Extra thanks to the
bands that brought the hotel to life. The staff were blown away. So was I.
For all money questions, please call Jerry Payne. He is the Executive
Producer and also the President of USEF.
I wish I was in a better position to help the situation but I’m just a guy
hired by the charity to help organize the festival and now waiting to get
paid for four months work.
I have not been able to reach Jerry at this point. He did issue a press
statement yesterday stating that he would be taking care of everybody
involved. I am hoping for the best. But preparing for the worst.
His Info:
Jerry Payne
President and CEO
United States Entertainment Force
36290 Verde Avenue
Madera, CA 93636
Direct: (559) 645-5015
Cell: (559) 433-7272
email: jerry@unitedstatesentertainmentforce.org
Website: http://www.unitedstatesentertainmentforce.org
I noticed that the WUMF website is down and I don’t know if or when they
might close this webmail down.
My personal email is chasesmind@yahoo.com
please feel free to call me anytime.
323.228.7008
The World United Music Festival
109 East Hopkins
San Marcos, TX 78666
office: 512.392.4997
contact: chase 323.228.7008
November 20th, 2008 10:52
On this subject I feel like if I say nothing I would be better off. . . So, I’ll just make it short and sweet and put it in that category of “That’s what happens when that’s what happens”
It is easier to talk about something that has gone bad after it has gone bad. I read the news in several different places and I think the press was fair. . . They just should have gotten more press before it started. . .and when I did locate the advertisement to compare notes the 150 bands sounded awful fishy. . . .but, somehow they must have sold the dream to themselves.
It was unlucky that it landed on the first freeze of the season and even though it was short the wind factor could have made up the difference. . . and if that didn’t do it the flying spectator equipment landing on your head did. . . .or at least gave a reasonable excuse to cut and run. I have heard of these things going on well in upstate New York with snow on the ground.. . .The biggie was there was no “name fan band” to celebrate. . . . . .If we all are going to be faithful followers. . . .we need someone to follow.
I was still going to go Sunday even though it was a little out of my budget. I wound up hanging out in the music room at my house and played 150 good old vinyl records. . .and had a great time although it had passed in my thoughts I might be missing another “Woodstock” and let’s see. . .where was that?
Stockdale?
November 20th, 2008 14:28
That’s a great point, Dad. If only they had arranged for as much press before the show as they fell into after it would have probably done o.k.
November 20th, 2008 18:34
I got a call from the Austin American Statesman this afternoon for a comment on the failure of the festival. They’re going to do a much more in depth investigative piece on it in the Sunday paper.
I think I’m going to send Leo the writer’s phone number. He could tell them from the point of view of someone who bought tickets and got ripped off. I think he would tell it very colorfully.
November 23rd, 2008 09:54
You don’t want your dog to be racooned and you don’t want you music to be wumfed.
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/life/stories/other/11/23/1123wumf.html
Nuf said.
November 23rd, 2008 11:13
He shied away from the Exposé he was talking about. The reason for doing that would have been to better explain to musicians what to look out for. I forwarded him some of the emails that Glenn got but decided not to call him after that because the likelihood of being misquoted is usually 100%. Glenn concurred. The info he needed was easy to find and it could come from people more closely involved.
Notice how he turned it all around be all about Austin? That’s a great example of the classic rivalry that has and always will piss the rest of us Texas musicians off. Austin’s ego is so enormanous they even demand to stand next to this bomb and get their picture taken.
And, he’s saying that Austin could do it even though the rest of Central Texas fell flat. Kind of putting the blame on the talent. That’s not the article that should have been written there Mikey!
I believe he did get “WUMFed” from Whippleworld’s sidebar. I repeated it to him in the one phone call we had where we were mostly laughing at all the silly parts of this thing.