Dusty Daleo of the Speakeasy Jazz Cats Dustin Tovsen, Elderyn Tree Dusty Daleo does not pay money that he owes to musicians he hires. Do not donate to his gofundme. Nationwide
The short version:
Dusty Daleo, real name Dustin Tovsen, came down from Alaska to New Orleans to play jazz 6 years ago and has been on a mission to screw over as many musicians as possible in the process. He personally owes me over $200.
The TL;DR version:
Dusty regularly hires musicians, uses them for financial favors, and then refuses to pay them back for said favors. He claims that hiring me and other musicians for gigs counts as him paying us back. He doesn't seem to understand that if someone lends him money and then works for him also, he's obligated to pay them back both for the loan and then ALSO for the work they've done. He's done this to me and 5 other musicians that I know personally, each in a different state and one of whom is in a different country now.
Dusty also abondoned his famed Subaru at my friend's house (fiddle player) in New Mexico in February of 2016. It sat in her driveway broken down for a year and half- he did nothing about it- and Dusty actually called me up to have a hissy fit when she had it towed.
On top of it all, Dusty has a loooooooooong history of physically assaulting bandmates. He attacked me physically more than once. He gets into fist fights at shows. He has a warrant in another state for one such incident.
The thing is, Dusty isn't actually that great a musician, but he's a good bandleader and salesman, and he knows how to make money. So, he's able to surround himself with good musicians that don't have the salesman talent and need the money badly, which makes it all the more of a jerk move for him to be actively ripping off these musicians.
I wish he would use the money raised in his gofundme to pay back the various people he's screwed over but I seriously doubt that will happen. So, on that note, I advise all readers not to donate to this guy's page.