Yet again I have been let down by work, and yes again it’s the lack of communication issue, I knew there was a gig on tonight (by reading flyers and posters around the place) but I had no idea of whether I was required. I had to chase up the club manager to find out whether my services was required tonight. To be honest I wasn’t up for doing tonight anyway, I like my ears just like they are… WORKING… the headline act are so insanely loud onstage, typical Spinal Tap attitude, amps set to ’11’. But I do resent the fact that another engineer was brought in to do the whole night because he was asked to engineer the headline band. That’s not the way it works, if any band wants their own engineer, the band pay their engineer and the venue pays the house engineer to work the rest of the night and keep on a eye on the guest engineer. The Voodoo Lounge is the only venue that I know operating that policy. Every venue I have visited as a bands engineer I just engineered the band I was with and the house engineer did the rest! Tonight I don’t mind so much as I really didn’t want to work tonight, I’ve been feeling a little off-colour the last few days. But that isn’t the point as I have been passed over three nights in the past four weeks. If this is going to happen on a regular basis I need to look into alternative opportunities. I love working as an engineer but if I can’t make a living from it and save towards my goal of moving to America then I simply have no option but to take another job, whatever that may be. One thing is for sure, I am doing no more favours, I will be charging the same as every other engineer in Plymouth, £50 flat rate for upto 6 hours, then £10 per hour after that. I have to make up the lost income somehow, so my fee has to go up, it’s simply the only way for me to go!