Jon Stewart just mentioned (and riffed on) Dick Cheney's concert rider.
Concert riders are additions to contracts that specify hospitality items. When a band signs a contract with a venue to perform, the main contract issues are date, time, money. The rider specifies things that the venue (nightclub or stadium) provides to the band for their comfort and convenience, things like food, beverages, towels. Some bands are not really bands, like singers who tour and depend on local musicians to play backup. The rider specifies what songs they should know and what the makeup of the backup band should be.
Well, Dick Cheney has a concert rider, specifying the amenities that he expects during his downtime after a speaking date.
It's here. Read it and weep/laugh/donate to progressive candidates. It's all good.
I posted part of this as a comment in the Daily Show Open Thread, but I wanted to expand on my comment for those unfamiliar with the wonderful world of concert riders.
I spent twenty years in the music industry, so I'm no stranger to concert riders. One band I was in specified this:
- One half gallon of Jack Daniels Bourbon or better
- One case of domestic beer
- One case of imported beer
- Eight bottles of Ramalosa water
- Assorted soft drinks (Coke, Jolt, Sprite, 7-UP)
- A deli platter (no white bread, no processed meats, no orange cheese)
- Twenty clean towels
- A bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones removed
I'm kidding about the last item. But woe to the college kid who had to find Ramalosa water in a town in upstate New York when our band played his school.
One of our band's booking agents also ran a nightclub. She showed us some of the juicier concert riders. The rider for the Temptations ran to about forty pages. The skinny was that any of the cases of champagne that they didn't open would find their way on to the truck, to be sold at a later date.
The Temps had an extensive concert rider because they toured without a backing band. They'd depend on local musicians to play behind them. So there was a list of songs these musicians had to know. There was a list of food the Temptations wanted to eat, complete with recipes. And there was a long list of alcoholic drinks, more than a five-man singing group could drink in a 24-hour period. See above, about stuff getting loaded on the truck.
But I digress.
The only thing about the Cheney concert rider that surprises me are the obvious items that are missing:
- Tame quail nailed to carpet
- Loaded 28 gauge shotgun
- Bathtub filled with the blood of young virgins
- Shrine to Cthulhu set up in corner of room
- DVDs of German scat pr0n
- 55 gallon barrel of Saudi crude oil and siphon with IV tip
- Compatible organ donor on call 24/7
- Copy of Necronomicon bound in human flesh
- Sacrificial altar hewn from granite with channels for collecting blood
- Copy of Washington Times
I guess having Fox News on the TV is enough.
k.