p2pnet news | Music:- When Tonedeff won the Lolapalooza Last Band Standing contest in 2006, he was supposed to have received $10,000 worth of Gibson gear, plus a lot of other stuff.

Wow!

But not wow.

“I can’t think anymore,” says Tone on Tonedeff.

“As I sit here in my piece of shit ’studio’, with the dusty mixer that shorts out every other minute, working on this slow ass 1Ghz dell PC that doesn’t read CD-Rs and crashes my recording app every other take, which has a soundcard installed in it that refuses to accept MIDI, seated next to the tired ass prosumer keyboard whose sounds I’ve raped for the past 8 years, turntables I can’t scratch on and this Shure mic that has a dent in it – I think to myself: “GIBSON!!!!”

And not in a nice way.

Lollapalooza came through 100% on their end of the prize package for the Lolapalooza Last Band Standing but, “apparently the people over at Gibson don’t feel they need to cater to Hip Hop artists,” says the post.

Because Tonedeff says he’s been trying for a year-and-a-half to get Gibson to live up to their end of the agreement.

And he failed.

Under I Should Have Seen It Coming, he goes on >>>

The final round of the Last Band Standing competition involved me flying out to Chicago to compete in a live performance round against the other 4 finalists. (NOTE: This was all done out of pocket). I was extremely excited to win, finally feeling like SOMETHING was going the right way in my career (for once) and the prospect of revamping my embarrassingly amateur ’studio’ was a rush.

Immediately following the win, I was told that there was to be a photo shoot with a bunch of Gibson gear at Grant Park during the Lollapalooza festival the next morning. Apparently, it was part of their PR campaign and these shots were to be used for magazines, internet, etc. I was given a contact number for a Gibson rep to call in order to schedule a time to shoot. I called several times, left messages, etc. I never got so much as an email even. Lollapalooza came and went without a Gibson shoot. I guess I should have seen this whole fiasco coming.

Here’s the prize list:

• A spot on the lineup: an opening slot on a feature stage.
• Artist passes for the entire weekend with access to catering, the artist lounge, and everywhere else bands get to go!
• Rooms for the weekend at the House of Blues Hotel.
• Festival tickets for your friends to see you play.
• $10,000 worth of equipment from our friends at Gibson. (yes, believe it!)
  
• An interview and in-store performance at Virgin Megastore.
• Band promotion on the homepage of Lollapalooza.com and partner websites.
• Plus countless other Lolla goodies and schwag.

But no Gibson gear.

And you’d have to ask Don Pitts, entertainment liason for GibsonGuitar, why not, says Tonedeff, going on >>>

He’s the guy who apparently deals with artist sponsorships and the like. He was the man in charge of this particular situation and who, in my opinion, handled it in an unorganized and sloppy manner.

I would leave phone messages, emails, etc that would take weeks for him to respond to. Finally, I land him on the phone and tells me that he’s ‘inexperienced with how these types of contests run’, and he’s ‘not sure how to go about this’. This conversation would set the tone for the entire ordeal.

But then he makes a statement that bugs me. He tells me, “I mean, this is kind of weird, because you know, you DON’T play the guitar or drums.” This definitely rubbed me the wrong way, because I already felt as though he was being unnecessarily difficult to contact and somewhat curt on the phone. So, from that statement, I guess I could gather, that there are some reservations on the Gibson side as to whether they need to accommodate ‘a rapper’ with their gear.

“Whatever man, I just wanted what I won fair and square,” Declares Toinedeff.

Click here for chapter-and-verse on Tonedeff’s very long, and very painful, tale of his Dealings with Don of Gibson.

Meanwhile, “In all honesty, I held off on making this public because I was really trying to be a good sport about it,” Tone says, adding >>>

I didn’t wanna cast a shadow on my name for future Lollapalooza events, etc. I really did love the entire experience, top to bottom and I want to do it again. I didn’t want any of this to mar the whole thing for me. But I can’t hold my tongue anymore.

It’s been a few months since I even bothered to contact anyone. The last few times I contacted the Lollapalooza folks, they always seem surprised that I hadn’t received anything yet. I’ve realized that it’s basically useless to complain to them anymore, because it’s clear that they’re still dealing with Don Pitts. I’ve even tried calling him myself and no one answers. (Surprise!).

As of right now, I want the entire WORLD to know how horribly this entire situation was handled by Don Pitts @ Gibson. And after all my troubles dealing with his lack of direction and continual roadblocks, I don’t think it would be out of line to ask for $10k in compensation from Gibson. Think about it – I won $10k worth of gear fair and square, but since they refused to give it to me, shouldn’t I be entitled to the same value in cash? ESPECIALLY after the treatment I’ve gotten from their rep?

Clearly, they have no intention on doing that either. Which is why everyone’s still in the dark about it. Maybe they thought I’d just “go away”. WRONG. It shouldn’t matter if I rap, played a spoon or did acapella like Bobby McFerrin – They OWE me, PERIOD. I hope the everyone reads this and sees how they tried to weasel their way out of this, and how they tried to play me cause I’m a Hip Hop artist.

In Conclusion…

It’s been a year and a half and I just can’t make music in here anymore. I decided to bite the bullet and max out my credit cards getting an upgrade of gear to work on. Honestly, I don’t know how I’m gonna pay for any of this shit, but I couldn’t wait any longer for Gibson to come through with the prize that would have paid for it. God knows I’m not making that much off music. It’s really the only alternative I have at this point if I want to keep generating music.

I know what you’re thinking, but filing a lawsuit would be pointless, cause the lawyer would probably end up getting more out of the suit than I would. So, all I’m left with is this blog and a heap of debt. Hopefully, someday, I won’t have to ask for days off work to go on tour, or get what I’m actually owed in this life.

But I guess that’s all just wishful thinking, right?

Hollerate,
Tone.

Definitely stay tuned.

Slashdot it!

Also See:

Tonedeff – [RANT] Gibson Hates Hip Hop., January 22, 2008

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 8:12 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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