It came to my attention that Zach Steiner posted the following recently:
<<Vandermark's albums (particularly V5) tend to be a bit insipid, especially
in contrast to their live shows. Jeb Bishop just shines throughout, despite
having almost two 6 packs the night I saw them. [...] >>
While it is nice that Mr. Steiner enjoys my playing, the statement about my
alcohol consumption is completely untrue. I never have more than one drink
before the end of a gig -- generally I sip on one through two sets.
If "the night I saw them" was the Indianapolis gig, I had had several bowls
of excellent homemade borscht, but nothing like that amount of alcohol. If
I'd had that much to drink, I'd have been unable to put the trombone
together, let alone play anything on it.
Frankly, Mr. Steiner, the fact that you can so blithely make a completely
false statement like this annoys the shit out of me. The 'almost' qualifier
makes it sound as though you were following me around counting the number of
beers I'd had -- it would have to be ten or eleven to qualify as "almost two
six-packs," wouldn't it.
You could not possibly have witnessed this, because I didn't drink ten or
eleven beers, or even two. But you nonetheless feel justified in publishing
this misinformation as if it was something you had first-hand knowledge of.
People reading it will then gain the belief that I did this gig totally
shit-faced, which is something I would never do.
This was the last gig on a long tour and I was undoubtedly fatigued -- maybe
that's what you think was drunkenness. But if you don't know what you're
talking about -- as you clearly don't here -- then you should keep your
fucking mouth shut, rather than accusing me of being drunk on the job.
I have no interest in hearing an apology from you, by the way. Just trying
to set the record straight.
--Jeb Bishop
jebbishop3(a)earthlink.net
