Have you ever heard of Richard Cheese? He’s the guy who takes hard rock tunes like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Down With The Sickness” and turns them into cheesy lounge numbers. It’s his shtick, and he’s made a career out of it. Sort of like Weird Al with no creativity.

It’s like he adds a touch of class to dirty, grungy rock music.

Apparently Cheese proved how completely devoid of class he is at the recent New Media Expo in Vegas. To quote some attendees:

When Richard Cheese started his performance he started complaining about the Audio levels, and from what I heard later he had demanded from the organizer that all other prior performers audio levels be at a lower level then his.
Todd Cochrane, Geek News Central
[Video from the event can be found at this link, assuming Cheese hasn't sued him yet.]
[Too late... you'll have to find video on your own, it seems.]

Okay, I can understand wanting the best sound possible at a show. But I played that gig last year and, considering the crowd was apparently smaller this year in a room twice as large, I would’ve focused more on making a connection with the crowd than the levels.

And on that note, connect with the crowd he did:

Cheese began the assault on some of his biggest fans during the opening song..Cheese ripped a device from the hands of one of the concert’s main sponsors…before shutting the camera off and throwing it back. Several minutes later, Cheese spit water on another fan and his camera. The song closed with a lecture about how he hates people who like to capture fleeting moments with any sort of video device.

After the show concluded, Cheese assaulted one last guest who was talking into his own camcorder.
Matt Gunn, Average Samaritan

To me this is about as futile as walking into South Station in a tiger-striped speedo and yelling, “stop staring at me!”

So what’re the lessons here? Your fans have cameras (fans like Langley). Your fans are what matter. Sure, you want to sell a DVD later on, so do I. Your DVD will be a hell of a lot better quality than anything caught on a Palm Centro, and all those YouTube videos are going to be what sells that DVD in the long run.

And the number one lesson to take away from this? If your show is awesome, people might blog about it. If you’re a total prick, everyone WILL blog about it.

Notice: I usually like to leave my comments unmoderated, but blatant flame-baiting and “bring it on” escalation BS will be deleted immediately.