Peter Goode, the former booking agent and curator at Lo-Fi Social Club, speaks out about the sketchy Lo-Fi!Below is part of the bulletin:
I know this a lot to read but many people have been wronged and this needs to be said. Please repost.
Attention all bands, performers, bartenders, soundboard engineers, Djs, and patrons of Lo-Fi Social Club. I implore all of you to boycott Lo-Fi Social Club. I have kept quiet about this for far too long and feel that it is important for all to know the story of my involvement with the club.
I am the former booking agent and curator at Lo-Fi Social Club. After pouring my heart and soul into that club (even scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees with gasoline to get the putty off from the floor after it was installed, for no money whatsoever), I have been completely let down for the last time by Neil Freebairn, the proprietor of the club. I was put in charge of booking at some point in December. I did the best job I could with what little resources that were available to me. Neil told me he didn’t want to bother with the booking anymore and this would be an easy way for me to make some money while the record store was being built (I was to be manager as I will explain shortly). I was the only person doing any booking at that club save a show or two that Neil promoted heavily because his former band was playing, booking around 100 bands and I was working for peanuts, and these are peanuts that were never paid to me.
Prior to my working at Lo-Fi Social Club full time, and after having organized the most successful night at the club when the club was at the former location in Brooklyn, The Pain of Being Dead art show, he promised me a position as curator at the new location at 1825 N.Charles. He never paid to ship back artwork to artists that were in this show and I still have several art pieces from that show that rightfully belong in the hands of the artists that spent their money and time to send the artwork to the club for the show. He told me he would pay for this and never did. This show was on April 13th of 2007. In addition to his promise to give me the position of curator, he promised me a position as record store manager when the new location opened. Regretfully, I gave my 2 weeks notice at my then current job. Needless to say, the record store never opened, though he continually promised me that it would over many months. He offered me 24k a year plus health benefits to manage the record store and curate the art shows there. This never happened. He promised for months that he would stock the store and that he was dealing with Morphius to stock the store. I spent countless hours writing up an inventory for which I was never paid. I also began construction of the record store in my backyard with a fellow Lo-Fi staff member because Neil said that if we wanted it to happen, we needed to show initiative. Well, we showed the initiative and spent the majority of my time trying to make that aspect happen and I wound up in the poorhouse for it.
Opening night was a disaster as you may all well know. I had stressed to Neil the need to count heads at the door as I knew the club would be packed that night and we would have eyes on us. He decided that “it wasn’t important” and decided to stop counting heads. It actually was very important, as several bands including Durden, Squaaks (and I believe this was supposed to be their cd release party), and Thrushes did not get to play as the police rightfully shut down the show considering it was a fire trap with that many bodies inside and outside of the club. Neil saw this disastrous night as a minor setback, but this left a sour taste in many peoples mouths, including mine, and rightfully so. This was an omen of worse things to come.
Link to the rest of the bulletin
damn straight!!!
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