Hamtramck Music Fest In Flux? Unanswered Questions, The Worm Turns In Swamptown. Preview Part 4

 From the National Affairs Desk- 

With apologies to Letters N-R it looks like my band by band, letter by letter preview for the Hamtramck Music Festival is on hiatus for the second part in a row. Plans change, and I anticipate a lot of plans changing in the upcoming days. Fuck it, not a prediction but a spoiler there will be plans changing in the next few days. The plans they are a changin'. Tuesday evening I was cooking 4 steaks, all for myself of course after a long day of writing and looking up explicit photographs of wrestling babes when I started to receive a few messages across the Mojo Wire. Ye gods, it looked like Smalls is implementing a new policy starting August 6th where all patrons AND PERFORMERS must show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test result, this in addition to masking up. Here is the post directly from their Facebook:

Hot damn if that photo looks straight out of a post from Jesse Shepherd Bates' Woodward Avenue Brewery. Well except for the fact that there's a black guy is in it. Other than that totally the WAB. For myself, the decision and post from Smalls was a bombshell, a bombshell I pondered in one of my previous previews. Something along the lines of "What if a venue opts for vaccine requirements? Will others follow suit? How will this be communicated by the Hamtramck Music Festival?"  These are all very juicy questions so I hopped over to the HMF Facebook to see what their statement was and if other venues followed suit. Here is the last post from them:

That's strange. Not a single mention of the new requirement at probably the single biggest (in terms of name value) venue participating in the Fest. Also "when you are not at HMF" be sure to do this and then post an event that is taking place a day before the HMF. Very odd. Surely their website would have the updated venue information for all the people WHO HAVE ALREADY PURCHASED WRISTBANDS TO THE LARGEST LOCAL MUSIC FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY.... Nothing. Although they finally updated the website with the schedule. So there's that at least. Oh, and there's this...

Seriously, 6:30am??!! HMF after hours? Is that 6:30am Sunday morning or Monday morning? Or is it they can't even get the correct times right for the bands playing and the venues participating on their own fucking website. I guess we can throw the whole "safety of the hundreds of people attending" out the window with these wizards running things. But that is just petty nitpicking. Back to Smalls' announcement. Let me get this out of the way right now. Regardless of how you feel about policies like these and whether they stomp on rights or protect the patrons I will say this: personally I tend to side with the whole less is better when it comes to restrictions, but not in a psychotic way. There are psychos on both sides. Look at the early responses:

So whether you agree or disagree with what Smalls decided I think we all should appreciate that they took a stand and put their beliefs before profits because in situations like these it usually costs a venue money when they propose polarizing policies like these. So, even though I am still banned and not welcome there I will not let personal bias affect this post. This town needs the best local scene journalist around, and its been a while, but its safe to say I'm back. Why? Well for the next part let me increase the font size for the waterheads.

One of the first things that came to mind was whether this was a mutual coordination between Smalls and the HMF. Was the HMF asking that venues adopt this policy for the safety of those attending or was it an independent decision? If that was the case why did the HMF refuse to post or comment on the decision from their largest (name value) venue on the Fest choosing to do this? Now, will other venues follow suit? Will some venues take the opposite approach and promote no vaccination proof required? Do some venues even know they are hosting the Fest this weekend? These are a lot of questions. By the time I typed all what you have read right now I have received multiple messages, some from complete strangers I have never heard of, saying they will no longer be going to the Fest. I have yet to ask if it was because of this policy or if they feared for their safety due to the seemingly complete clusterfuck of organization displayed. There are even rumblings of bands cancelling/pulling out. Hey, if they need a replacement call me. As for the other questions up there,  I can confirm and go on the record and say that the Hamtramck Music Festival committee in fact KNEW that multiple venues attached to the festival were considering adopting similar policies yet made no effort to communicate to the public of this possibility. I cannot go on the record regarding the specific Smalls situation because I am banned from Smalls. Feel free to contact the Festival itself at hamtramckmusicfest@gmail.com to ask if they knew of the Smalls decision in advance and purposely buried it for fear of affecting the festival's turnout. I believe they have my e-mail blocked so if any committee members wish to contact me you have my e-mail and I will gladly update this post with an official, unedited, statement. But I am confident in the accuracy of what I have posted, especially whether they knew in advance. These last few sentences are the meat of this post; the big scoop. They knew.

Now some of you may be saying "Who cares?" and that is fine. I just thought that some people would like consistent updates on what venues would be more suitable for their preferences. Some of you may be saying "This guy again, blowing things out of proportion," and that is fine as well. I may be. Based on previous posts you can infer that I find the pandemic highly overrated and just something to talk about and use while we wait for the 2022 midterms. That being said, week by week, more and more people I know and consider friends have caught it and it wasn't fun. Two of my uncles friends of friends have passed away this year alone. I do take precautions. but I also make jokes. Its getting late and I'm rambling. Anyway, in a local scene that has been devoid of anything interesting, noteworthy, and water cooler material for a year this is pretty substantial. Will this make you want to go to the fest more. Or less? Will you want to know what venues have the same policy? It kind of is in their best interests to communicate this. So any venues out there. Update your pages. Let your patrons know. Paint a Scarlet C on your door or leave it blank. Either way, lets have a fun safe weekend. I really want to cover it, but I honestly fear for my safety. From what? Well, are we on the record or off?

From the Iceman Commeth,

Bryan Metro