Eric Solomon (Tiny Empires, ex-O Pioneers!!!)
SPB: What is the worst you were ever screwed by a venue?
Solomon: The worst time we ever had at a venue was on the second to last O Pioneers!!! tour with Hostage Calm. We were in Muncie, Indiana and I believe Hostage Calm had set up the show with someone who set up a really cool show for them on their previous tour. This wasn't a venue, but a pretty big college house. The show was in the basement, and was PACKED. There had to have been 150-200 people in this tiny basement. It was a little strange, as the show was more of a party with some live music, but regardless the two of us played, and I believe there were two locals that played too. We finished our sets and were hanging out and the house show turned into a full-on movie portrayal of a college party getting out of hand. The basement, where we had just played moments earlier, turned into a dank dark weed smoke filled room, [in] the upstairs there was two or three kegs and a ton of drunk men and ladies. We started feeling uncomfortable when several underage kids started wandering in. Several of the band members in O Pioneers!!! are in their late ‘30s, and were easily the oldest people there, so you could see how that would be a problem. One kid kept asking us if we had any drugs harder than weed. "I'm just really into acid," he kept saying. When it came time to leave, we finally found the person who threw the show and was running it. When asked if there was any gas money from the party, he just said, "Oh yeah, I just forgot to do it. Good show, though." So we started packing up, trying to drag everything through the weed den, and people just didn't' give a fuck. We were in their way, trying to move our stuff through the basement. After we packed up, two members of O Pioneers!!! went in to buy some weed for the road. They said the dealer had to have been 17, was dressed in an Addidas track suit, and had two ladies on each arm.
