So I cancelled. Now the SS-GB has turned around and says that it is
going to sue me for One Million Pounds if I don't turn up and play.
Can they really do that? Could they win?
I am a jazz musician. An oxymoron, I know, but probably not the last
in this allegorical hypotheticalisation.
Two years ago I was offered and accepted a New Years Eve '25 gig at
the world-famous Free Trades Hall in Boltwich. Great! I thought and
put it in my diary and looked forward to it.
Completely unexpectedly - to anybody who hadn't been paying attention
- at the Boltwich 2024 elections the Satanist party completely swept
the board and Sam Satanist became the leader of the council.
It didn't stop there. Sam Satanist put his people in all the key
political and non-political places in the city. One might have thought
the Free Trades Hall, with its long and venerable history of
presenting a wide and tolerant range of arts and entertainment would
have been immune from these changes but it wasn't long before the Free
Trades Hall management team were ousted and replaced by SS loyalists
with Sam Satanist imposing himself as Chairman of the reconstituted
board and taking control of the artist bookings. The final straw for
me was when the new board unanimously agreed to change the name of the
Free Trades Hall and within hours the new title was plastered across
the front: The Sam Satanist Greater Boltwich Hall - or SS-GB for
short.
This is not the gig I agreed to play. What would have been a fun and
friendly end-of-year gig with fans and families has been politicised
and I would be playing to a house packed with SS loyalists with the implication that I am an SS supporter.
So I cancelled. Now the SS-GB has turned around and says that it is
going to sue me for One Million Pounds if I don't turn up and play.
Can they really do that? Could they win?
Advice please. And simply saying that I should never have gotten into
jazz in the first place would not be regarded as entirely helpful.
Thanks,
Nick
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.
How many other gigs do you get per year?
It might be different if your were a folk singer ('cause you'd have the teaching salary to keep the wolf from the door).
On 31/12/2025 13:27, JNugent wrote:
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.
How many other gigs do you get per year?
It might be different if your were a folk singer ('cause you'd have the
teaching salary to keep the wolf from the door).
Quite so. I used to play regularly in dances in the Labour hall for
Labour party 'do's despite the fact that I was a Conservative at the time.
On 31/12/2025 13:27, JNugent wrote:
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.Quite so. I used to play regularly in dances in the Labour hall for
How many other gigs do you get per year?
It might be different if your were a folk singer ('cause you'd have the
teaching salary to keep the wolf from the door).
Labour party 'do's despite the fact that I was a Conservative at the time.
On 2025-12-31, Nick Odell <nickodell49@yahoo.ca> wrote:
So I cancelled. Now the SS-GB has turned around and says that it is
going to sue me for One Million Pounds if I don't turn up and play.
Can they really do that? Could they win?
It would depend on the exact wording of the contract. Although mostly
I think it would depend on the opinion of the judge who heard the case.
If they were an SS supporter then you'd be screwed unless you had some
very clear get-out clause. If they weren't then it could go either way.
I think your best bet would be to argue that the contract required you
to perform at the Free Trades Hall, and as that venue no longer existed
it was either frustrated or the hall owners were in breach rather than
you.
On 2025-12-31, Les. Hayward <les@nospam.invalid> wrote:
On 31/12/2025 13:27, JNugent wrote:
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.
How many other gigs do you get per year?
It might be different if your were a folk singer ('cause you'd have the
teaching salary to keep the wolf from the door).
Quite so. I used to play regularly in dances in the Labour hall for
Labour party 'do's despite the fact that I was a Conservative at the time.
Labour/Conservatives (especially <2015 Conservatives) is one thing, but
most people would probably draw a line *somewhere*, be it the Anarchist Federation, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Workers Party, Reform, Britain First, the British National Party, the National Front,
the British Union of Fascists, or wherever.
On 31/12/2025 11:59 am, Nick Odell wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.
On Wed, 31 Dec 2025 13:27:11 +0000, JNugent wrote:
On 31/12/2025 11:59 am, Nick Odell wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.
I dunno. The Nazis were rather down on jazz.
Advice please. And simply saying that I should never have gotten into
jazz in the first place would not be regarded as entirely helpful.
On Wed, 31 Dec 2025 13:27:11 +0000, JNugent wrote:
On 31/12/2025 11:59 am, Nick Odell wrote:
[quoted text muted]
A genuine jazz musician would badly WANT to play the gig.
I dunno. The Nazis were rather down on jazz.
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