[atlantaprog] Re: Atlantis

Brain21 played one of those Sat. night shows at the Roxy.  It was the
last gig that we ever did for Mark Willis.  Mark Willis was one of the
worst things to happen to the Atlanta music scene.  In the late 90's he
brought "Pay to play" to new heights.  I think we ended up PAYING around
$400 (!!!!) to play his Saturday night gig at the Roxy.  For those shows
he offered a free video tape of your performance (we never picked ours
up - they called us and we said that we don't care - they said that we
were the first to ever say that and not pick their tape up.  I guess we
were also the first to see the quality of other bands' tapes before we
wasted gas and time to go down there).  We also got a "critique" of the
show by an unknown "industry professional" - I guess he once loaded in
an amp for a big band once or something.

The idiot gave us a 1 for (out of 4) for musicianship.  Now, I am not
being egotistic here (though it may sound like it), but technically we
were the most proficient band playing that night.  Our friends, who also
happened to play that same show that night said the same thing.  They
actually laughed when they saw our "review/critique".  How can you give
a band doing odd (and constantly changing) time signatures, with one
member a graduate of M.I in LA and the other a grad of AIM (OK, maybe
that does nto say too much) a F-ING 1 on technique, while 3 chord (barre
chords too) bands are getting 3s???  Mst of those bands wouldn't know
major from minor if I drew it out for them, yet we get the low score.

Mark Willis, unless he has changed significantly, is not someone that I
like dealing with (reminds me of a clich=E9 used car salesman).  We
applied to Atlantis once.  The ONLY reason that we applied was because
our old bass player ran into Mark Willis at some bar and was chatting
with him.  Markl told him that we should give them a pack for Atlantis,
and that since he was overseeing everything that we had a 99% chance of
getting in.  Of course (suckers that we were) we did not get in.

The first few years, the bands that made it into the conference fell
into 2 categories:

1) NON-local bands
2) Local bands that played Mark Willis's Pay to Play gigs on a regular
basis.

I think that somewhere around 80% - 95% of the LOCAL bands that applied
and made it the first year were all bands that had done at least a few
of Willis's pay to play gigs.

Gee, and here I thought that it MIGHT have had something to do with
talent...

Alex F/Brain21



> -----Original Message-----
> From: atlantaprog-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx=20

> Actually, one of the festival founders was Mark Willis (of New Sound=20
> Atlanta).  He was Stuck Mojo's manager and the guy who put=20
> together the=20
> Saturday Night Six Pack series at the Roxy in the mid 90s -=20
> that was a once=20
> a month show with 6 different local rock bands.  In fact,=20
> prog rockers Roots=20
> of Consciousness were one of the bands that played (that was=20
> before I was a=20
> member of the band).  So Atlantis seemed to grow out of Mark=20

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