So, I popped into Mona’s after a couple hours of work tonight to enjoy a pre-bedtime, delicious Guinness and I ended up sitting next to a bit of a character. Dwayne, is a roadie. From what I can tell has been a stagehand for a very, very long time. He used to work for the Stones, the Allman Brothers, and a plethora of other fabulous bands. He’s also lived in Alphabet City in the East Village since 1968 or so. Which, if you know anything about the East Village is a feat in itself. It used to be really, really “bad news bears” here.

The conversation started with a general discussion about the music industry as a whole. Which, for all intents and purposes, is not in a good place. Dwayne, like the rest of the world, blames the internet for the lack of gigs. Apparently in the mid 90’s he was building massive stages for 5 major shows in the New York City area per summer on average. Now a days, he is lucky to get one or two a year.

He seems to think one of the big problems is that Hip Hop cannot draw fans to big shows. We went through a list of bands that can actually sell out stadiums. There are not many… Phish, Dave Matthews Band, and on rare occurrences the Stones will fire it up for a summer. We both suspect Lady Gaga sells some serious tickets. Roger Waters is on tour with the Wall this summer and doing some damage (I saw them at Madison Square Garden- amazing show).

In the end, Dwayne thinks it is a combination of the record labels lack of funds and the New Kids on the Block  that has destroyed the concert biz. He experienced what he described as “shear terror” at some NKOTB shows in the late 80’s. I wish I had picture of Dwayne. He is a cross between Ted Nugent and the lead singer of Spinal Tap. He may or may not be terrifying if he was to have three or four more drinks. Unfortunately for me, I had to be on my way after two frothy beverages due to an early meeting manana.

Although I believe myself to be an early adopter most of the time, this has not been the case with tumblr. . So now in addition to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and my personal blog… Ladies an Gentleman, I introduce, my tumblr account… And that is all I have to say about that!