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We've experienced our worst ever client since we opened business in 2012. This has had drastic effects on other events and relationships. It will have profound repercussions on Red & Black Music in terms of how the label operates as a business going forward. Summary Despite months of preparation between Rory, Claire, Zara and Mike, the day itself was characterised by zero communication between the venue/clients and the band/musicians, with several spontaneous changes being made to the schedule, and (without someone mediating) the band/musicians not being adequately briefed on these changes in advance but simply expected to respond instantaneously in the heat of the moment without instruction. Compare & Contrast Compare Adetola where a similar situation occurred. Contrast Yesterday (cited in Rory's referral to Nick J) where the on-the-day communication was mediated by the venue's event coordinator and the artist/client relationship was safeguarded. Rory cites how he has worked as a professional wedding musician now for 10 years and never experienced behaviour like this both during and after the event. At face value, there is nothing on paper / in the pre-event correspondence to suggest or indicate that the clients would behave in the way that they did, making it therefore impossible to flag up any possible recourses to prevent this from happening again. In hindsight, this abusive behaviour manifests itself in the client's cloak-and-dagger style of communication and seeming reliance on "Common Sense" e.g., "it was obvious on such a hot day that after 15 minutes everyone was clearly exhausted" and "I always thought that bands provide all their own equipment." Why did it all go so wrong on the day? We've put this down to bad luck. We got it bad with one client. Unfortunately, this means we've had to enforce red tape and take serious measures to prevent such occurrences from happening again. It's a shame one client - a small 1% minority - has had so many ramifications for all of our other clients - the 99% majority (see Rory's Reviews page). However, such is life. Repercussions:
It's interesting to note that while the original contract itself was made via the bride (Zara), the resolution and settlement of the final balance was made via the groom's father (Raymond). Raymond's indemnification request suggests that the client/s conceivably attempted to escape paying completely. It's plausible that Zara hadn't budgeted for the live music and had to be 'bailed out' by a family member. By extension, the apparent negligence of the musicians on the day combined with the abrupt mid-performance interruption could be interpreted as a deliberate, calculated ruse to sabotage the musicians. Perhaps to send them the message that they weren't needed for this event after all, and to use the musicians' demoted involvement as a grounds for non-payment. On the day, Claire noticed that there was another set of musicians booked for the wedding ceremony who were also performing "Siman Tov". Perhaps there was budget for only one set of musicians? Perhaps a member of the family had booked a separate set of musicians and not notified the bride and groom? Perhaps a 'double booking' was involved? Given the clients' veiled communication style, it's reasonable to foster suspicions. At least, it's enough to raise questions surrounding internal communications within the family. Even if these propositions aren't true, they are certainly possible - not necessarily for this case - but for future cases. Affected events and relationships... Contract for Latina Carnivale Contract for Latina Festivale Stacy Related Posts... Employment Agency vs. Employment Business Fees Update Zara D Live Agreements Read More... "Busy" "Common Sense" Adetola Artist Review BACS Payments Emails Jason @ Book Live Yesterday W Entertainment Booking - Song Requests 06/05/2018From: Production From: WM 
Show Advance - Rory & His Jazz Band - 06/05/2018 (External)From: Claire 
From: Production IMPORTANT - Final Details of Your BookingFrom: Claire Klezmer wedding setFrom: Rory Israeli MusicFrom: Rory Klezmer songs 6th MayFrom: Rory W Entertainment Booking - Song Requests 06/05/2018
From: AT Thank youFrom: Claire Contract for your booking on Sun 6 May 2018 through W EntertainmentAT CONFIRMATION RE: New Enquiry for Sun 6 May 2018 from W EntertainmentFrom: Claire Before On 31/05/2017, Rory & His Jazz Band were contracted via AT from W Entertainment to perform for the wedding of Zara & Mike on 6th May 2018. On 01/06/2017, AT advised that his client opted to add in a jazz singer who could accompany the band. Between 17/10/2017-20/10/2017, Rory discussed options directly with Zara. Between 27/11/2017-29/07/2017, Zara confirmed the booking of jazz singer Claire Benjamin to perform her song requests “To My Daughter” (Charles Aznavour) and “Call On Me” (Janis Joplin) plus a selection of Israeli dance music. On 22/02/2018, Rory contacted Zara to discuss her music requests for 06/05/2018. On 14/03/2018, Zara requested a selection of Israeli dance music, in addition to the 2 song requests. The band didn’t charge for this or any of the requests (see emails dated 28/11/2017 and 16/03/2018, despite the charges quoted on the email dated 20/09/2017). During the months between February – May, in the run-up to the event, Rory and Zara exchanged several emails regarding the planning of the music for the occasion. See the following email threads for correspondence between Zara and Rory:
Rory and Claire rehearsed 4 times:
Rory spent the following dates transcribing and arranging the material for the requests:
On 13/04/2018, Rory spent £10 on printing of the song requests (see attached receipt). On 22/05/2018, Rory spent £40 on a Klezmer clarinet lesson to prepare himself for the repertoire requirements of this particular event – see attached BACS payment and thread “Electronic Empires VIP Reception – RSVP”. On 04/05/2018, Rory spent £15 on printing of the song requests (see attached receipt). On 05/05/2018, Rory spent £190.14 on clarinet and saxophone accessories specially for the event – see attached receipt. This was purchased on clarinet professor’s advice – see previously mentioned email thread.
During The day itself was characterised by a general lack of communication between the venue/clients and the band, with several changes being made to the schedule on the spur of the moment and the band/musicians not being adequately briefed throughout the day. Rory tried to contact the venue organiser (Chris R) on to discuss the arrival – see attached screenshot.
The ceremony, which was due to start at 15:15 (see attached schedule), started 10 minutes ahead of schedule at 15:05. Thus, the band were not able to sound check. After the ceremony, the band weren’t informed that the event was running behind and were performing to an empty room between 16:00 – 17:30 while the guests were having their photos taken. It’s not a nice feeling turning up to the event on time and being ignored, side-lined and totally left in the dark by the venue/clients regarding the fluctuating circumstances of the event. When the ceremony/photos overran and there were no guests in the Orangery, we weren’t sure what was expected of us. I spent a lot of time running around, politely asking questions to the guests, seeking assistance and guidance from both parties, and constantly coming up against a brick wall. None of the guests seemed to know what was going on. I shouldn’t have been bothering the guests or the groom on the day because it’s their special day and there should have been someone coordinating, but there wasn’t. It’s equally unsettling sensing that schedules are constantly changing around you, yet not being briefed on these changes and feeling inadequate/ill-equipped to know how to respond. At this point, Rory finally managed to establish who the venue organiser (Chris R) was and made contact. To his dismay, the venue organiser’s schedule that didn’t correlate with the schedule Rory was holding that had been agreed between himself and Zara. Chris’ schedule didn’t include the agreed 1st set that was due to take place between 16:00 – 17:30. The band were advised to stop playing at 17:00, and to start again at 17:30 for the Israeli Dancing portion. The band were cut off by the best man and the bride 5 minutes into the prepared Israeli dance portion that the band had prepared especially for the client. The way in which the best man and the bride came up to the band and cut us off mid-performance was so abrupt, it took everyone by surprise. Despite the circumstances, I responded in a calm, dignified manner because I understood that this was their wedding, and I was there working in a professional capacity, to provide a service. The band were not advised of when to start performing again. Still, afterwards, I received no information about when to start playing again (because I knew we had another set following the Israeli Dancing). No sign or cue to turn on the iPod music. No attempt from the event organisers to even make contact with me to provide me with any further instruction. From our side, it appeared that they didn’t want the band to play at all, or at least until their signal, which never arrived. There were other points during the day at which the band were unexpectedly prohibited from playing. The band received no advance notice on any of these occasions.
The band were not fed until 19:30, half an hour after agreed time. The speeches and prayers overran, meaning that the final set, due to happen at 21:00, was pushed back to 21:30. Rory was not informed of this by the clients or the venue organiser. Between 21:30 – 22:15, people were walking up to band, asking to change the songs on the spur of the moment from the requests arranged with Zara and Mike to something more upbeat. Fortunately, we were able to do this because we had plenty of prepared material left over from the 2nd set that hadn’t already been performed which we could incorporate into the 3rd set to accommodate these requests. Still, it wasn’t easy being put under pressure to respond instantaneously to the clients’ ever-changing requests and I’m surprised that they mentioned this when we succeeded to adapt accordingly. Rory was present for the final set. Rory was not present for the final song because the band had agreed to finish at 22:15 — 1 hour 15 minutes after originally contracted (21:00), see attached contract. The band was lenient enough to not charge for the extra time that they performed. The band was also lenient enough to not charge for the special request songs that were transcribed, arranged and rehearsed specially for the clients — at the extra time/expense to the musicians. After On 07/05/2018, Zara was invoiced for the fee of £[amount] due to artist as stipulated on the contract. On 08/05/2018 at 15:06, AT emailed to advise him of the client’s complaints – see email “W Entertainment Booking - Song Requests 06/05/2018” On 08/05/2018 at 16:07, Rory refuted the claims. On 08/05/2018 at 16:22, AT acknowledged the reply and asked Rory to let him know about the temperament issues they pointed out, throwing down the sax etc. On 08/05/2018 at 16:41, Rory speculated that the client may be referring to the point at which the bride told them to stop playing, and explained what happened, recalling no incidents of temperamental behaviour, nor throwing down of the saxophone. On 17/05/2018 at 13:53, AT passed on some additional feedback from the client. On 17/05/2018 at 15:17, Rory clarified what went on from his side. On 18/05/2018 at 12:38, Rory requested AT for Zara’s address and postcode. On 18/05/2018 at 14:36, AT explained that they are still mediating with the client regarding full payment. See email thread W Entertainment Booking - Song Requests 06/05/2018 for full correspondence regarding the points in this section. Concluding comments All of these the things that happened on the day point towards an overall lack of communication. It wouldn’t have been an issue had the clients stuck to the arranged plan but they didn’t. What was a contracted engagement turned into something else entirely, and the band wasn’t informed. But there was a simple unwritten/unspoken expectation, to stay for longer, to go beyond the call of duty, for no extra return. I’m dismayed at the way that the client has responded; refusing to pay, let alone provide a testimonial. It hints that the client hasn’t budgeted properly for the band during the booking process and is trying to justify not paying for a service. The clients were fully aware of the cost beforehand before booking. It’s comparable to a customer going to a restaurant, ordering a meal and refusing to pay for the meal because they didn’t like the taste. It amounts to a band of musicians doing a load of work for free. Correction, not even for free, — at a loss. Because I, personally, knowing that the client was aware we’re not a specialist Jewish band, spent over £200 out of my own pocket on professional development for this event: £40 on a clarinet lesson with a specialist in the field, £100 on a new mouthpiece, £30 on a new ligature, not to mention all of the printing that was involved. Claire, who comes from a part-Jewish background, also spent her own money on a Jewish singing lesson, to refine her training in preparation for this event. Those were only the financial costs, not mentioning the 4 evenings of unpaid rehearsal and hours of unpaid transcribing/arranging done between February-May, apportioning large chunks of time out of album recording schedules to ensure that the event got the care and attention it needed. It’s an abusive way to treat musicians. At a deeper level, it indicates that the clients have no concept, no regard, for what goes on behind the scenes, what financial/temporal preparation and energy goes into producing music for engagements. The event took months of work to prepare for, and we did everything asked of us and more to ensure that the bride and groom got the entertainment that they deserved for their special day. I quickly realised that regardless of this preparation, the band/music was the lowest priority, and it’s for that reason I wasn’t comfortable playing an encore beyond the specially arranged finish time of 22:15. At the end of the day, the band has delivered a service — more than the service contracted. Whether or not the client liked the service is completely up to them, but the fact remains: the band stayed that extra time and went that extra mile to deliver a service, and that is what they got. None of the client’s statements have been substantiated via concrete evidence. Please find forwarded all correspondence (including all attempts to refute the claims set out by the client), and attached all documents relating to this event. Thus far, Rory has received no payment, having already paid the musicians on 07/05/2018 and 08/07/2018 – see attached payment documents. Best wishes, Rory W Entertainment Booking - Song Requests 06/05/2018From: AM Rory & His Jazz Band 06/05/2018 MU MemberFrom: Rory I feel sympathy for Rory's medical condition which must be quite debilitating given his occupation as a musician fronting a group. It may be that he might have thought twice before agreeing to entertain us that evening as performing at different venues under varying conditions must be very stressful - especially for someone like Rory. Yeah, we may want to be careful what we tell RK for the time being. He may 'transform' what we tell him into slightly different nuances. Keeping conversations on email helps everyone to track back properly. Note how RK takes Rory's medical admission and uses it as a weapon against him. In legal terms, this might have been interpreted as 'evidence' of Rory's perceived incapacity as a musician fronting a group. Or, at the very least, a statement challenging Rory's ability to carry out his job effectively. Should Rory have been so honest? In hindsight, perhaps not. Although Rory's intention might have been good-natured (possibly in hope of eliciting empathy in light of Zara's depression), it was misplaced. Unfortunately, it's not possible to trust everyone apart from your own family (as we have seen - see Jason @ Book Live). This response amounts to an abuse of trust. From: SJ We understand from this email that the client is now refusing to pay. We've tried offering a discount. We intend to phone AT and establish whether this is true or not. We can't afford to lose out on payment for this booking — it’ll destroy our career and we don't know if there will ever be any way of recovering from this loss. It’s a very odd message from the client indeed and also suggestive that they don’t intend to pay. Our main concern is our legal position on this given that their address/postcode details aren’t on the agency contract (nothing to suggest however that the agency won’t provide these details unless there is a GDPR restriction in place). Meanwhile, we’ve gone through all of our future Employment Agency events (5 in total: 2 via W, 3 via LMM) requested address/postcode code details and we'll be sending them MU L1 contracts and taking down payments — despite having had Employment Agency contracts. Even if it’s aggravating agents, at least we won’t be at risk in future. From: Rory The client is now questioning the internal fees. This is not the client’s concern. Our agreement with the musicians is a separate agreement that has nothing to do with the client. However, we can say that the £130 only accounts for the performance on the day, and does not account for the months of preparation that went into the performance beforehand. In truth, we were not aware of any comments from the guests about the music and we even had a couple of people who came up to the band on the night and were very complimentary. With all of this in mind, it seems that they are trying to play tricks on us, especially as we feel that the discount is very generous. How should we proceed? It seems to us he either doesn’t understand what goes into it or he's trying to invalidate the prior work that went into the event. The underlying issue is that we prepared these requests for the clients, but they asked us to do something differently on the day. They’re trying to use their non-consumption of the requests as a justification for not paying. Analogy: someone going into a restaurant, ordering a plate, eating 1/2 the plate and using that to justify only paying 1/2. It’s the same thing with what the groom mentioned about the band appearing ‘disorganised' between sets. The reality is that people kept coming up to us and asking us to change the prepared set list on the spur of the moment, which we did. With this in mind, might we make him aware of the correspondence between ourselves and Zara leading up to the day? We had hoped for a more positive response from Ray. What is positive in the situation is that he’s at leastresponding/communicating, which possibly signifies that they’re not intending to 'do a runner' … So far, the client has failed to substantiate any of their complaints. We've tried to help out by attempting at an explanation of their claims, but they’ve failed to acknowledge any of our explanations. Now, we've already offered them a discount as a gesture of good will. Apart from that, we’ve done everything as set out on the contract and the client has no further grounds to refuse payment. In pushing for further discount, Raymond (on behalf of Zara) attempts to invalidate any of the work done beforehand. We're a bit wary of this. The £180 discount is to address what may/may not have happened on the day itself. But no one’s so far complained about anything that was done beforehand. By digging, it seems that they're trying to erode all of our involvement in the event full stop — regardless of what might be on the contract. From: Rory It seems he doesn’t check his emails often or is busy. From: raymond Just got this cryptic message from Raymond. How to interpret and recommend best course of action? We would just go back and say "can I ask why you need my address" and then see what the response is like. We'll find out why, but we think (probably at this point) we're going to have to say "please correspond with the MU from here". Going on the title of the email we think he wants to send us a cheque. We're wary about cheques because we know that they bounce sometimes (it’s happened to us with a client before), and Raymond possibly knows this too. If we continue to get nowhere with this the MU will draft something from themselves. It all feels very dubious. Intermittent emailing on Rory's personal account, from different threads/subjects etc., first questioning both discounts, second asking for his address… Seems like he’s hoping to send us a cheque from a bogus account so it bounces, gets 'lost in the post' etc. Given our reservations, we'd feel more comfortable with a more ‘secure’ and official exchange of money to cover our backs, these people have come across as people to be very wary about. Just a thought, The business address is in Google Maps anyways and he could of course find it there. It’s probably of no consequence but just thought we’d mention. He’s possibly playing games. From: Rory Did he ever respond to our previous email about the address?
No he didn’t. We presume he found it off Google. We would like the Musicians Union to step in at this point just to say that they've been speaking to us about it to find out more information about why they're questioning the details from us. It's a bit strange that they haven't responded to our other email, and now they're asking us for Rory's full name, even though Rory's full name is given in the email address. From: SJ From: raymond This is the first the MU have heard from Mr K since their email so we're not sure why he has given a deadline. We're happy to provide these details but we're worried that:
Is there no way he can do a simple BACS payment? That would be a more secure and traceable means of payment and we'd be more protected. We can provide an invoice if necessary, and a receipt for when it comes through. We also have a PayPal account and can send the details for that if need be. Basically, we're happy to receive a cheque but we'd want to ensure that we're taking all the correct precautions in the unlikely case that they are truly dishonest. If there's anything that the MU could do or recommend for our case then that would be brilliant, as we've no expertise on where we are placed legally should this happen. From: SJ We'd still like to run by the MU any recommended recourses we can put in place to safeguard us against a similar situation happening in future. Read More: Employment Agency vs. Employment Business Rory Comments are closed.
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BlogRed & Black Music was set up in 2012 to stop musicians cancelling. PurposeAt Red & Black Music, we believe in accountability = learning from experience. This blog serves as a record of challenges we’ve faced and how we’ve worked to resolve them. By sharing this, we aim to demonstrate our commitment to professionalism, problem-solving, and continuous improvement. Archives
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