It was David Lee Roth who ruined personal-appearance contracts for all time with his Brown M&M’s Clause in the ’80s. The story sounds apocryphal but it’s true: Any promoter hiring Van Halen for a concert was required to supply M&M’s in the band’s dressing room but “ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES.”
In later years Roth would claim that this was not an example of spoiled rock star entitlement but a way to make sure that concert promoters read the entire contract and took care of other, more important provisions. I was actually buying this — promoters can be forgetful and dense at all levels of the business — until the Smoking Gun website tracked down the famous M&M’s rider so that we could read the rest of it. In order to “present to your customers the finest in contemporary entertainment,” Van Halen also needed two dozen English muffins, but not just any English muffins — they had to be Thomas brand English muffins — plus two cases of beer delivered precisely at 6 p.m., two more cases (one Budweiser and one Heineken) delivered to the stage manager at 7 p.m., different food menus for even and odd days, and, just to keep you on your toes in the implements department, “all forks must have four prongs.” Backstage the band also needed one case of Budweiser, four cases of Schlitz Malt Liquor (really?), one half case of Tab (perhaps even more shocking than the malt liquor), three fifths of Jack Daniels Black Label, two fifths of Stolichnaya, one pint of Southern Comfort, two bottles of Blue Nun white wine (whoever that was should lose his rock-star cred forever), three packs of Marlboros (these riders are for one day — is that guy dead yet?), and — the mind boggles — “one large tube of KY Jelly.”
The rider ran to eleven pages and is, in fact, ridiculously demanding. (“Any caterer not providing adequate condiments, utensils or ice will be subject to a $100.00 fine.”)
Joe Bob Briggs, “Travel by Luxury Donkey Cart”, Taki’s Magazine, 2019-10-10.
December 9, 2019
QotD: The Brown M&M’s clause
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