Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Tour Riders [File this in: Rock 'n' Roll]
I love concert tour riders -- those sometimes lengthy contract terms that reveal all of a band's idiosyncratic backstage requests. The most famous rider term is, of course, Van Halen's requirement of no brown M&Ms. And we've blogged about the explanation for this peculiar request more than once: here and here.
WNYC's John Schaefer hosted an extended discussion of tour riders on Soundcheck. My favorite is Iggy Pop's request: "One monitor man who speaks English and is not afraid of death."
The Brooklyn band Parquet Courts asked for:
- 1 bottle of communion grade red wine
- 1 bottle of white wine that would impress your average non-wine-drinking American
- 1 bottle of lower-middle shelf whiskey – cheap but still implies rugged masculinity
- Mixers for aforementioned mid-level whiskey, of slightly higher quality than the whiskey
- A quantity of “herbal mood enhancer”
- 1 copy of newspaper with the most interesting headline/front page picture (comic section must feature Curtis)
You can listen to the show here:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2014/08/tour-riders-file-this-in-rock-n-roll.html