Ask and you shall receive. Or maybe not, according to some concert organizers who are fed up with the outrageous dressing room demands made by today’s attention-hungry artists.

“It’s a game,” said Sarah Weiss, a production assistant at New York’s Irving Plaza. “I think a lot of the bands say, ‘Let’s see what we can get away with here.'”

Weiss recalled a recent experience with the ’80s hair band Ratt, whose contract specifically asked for “five beautiful women within a five-minute cab ride from the venue. Sorry, no substitutes.”

She also had to pull out the red pen on Guster, who requested “one adult-sized Imperial Starship Trooper costume, you choose.”

“I thought about trying to find one,” Weiss joked. “But we ended up crossing it off.”

Musicians with unusual requests have a long-standing history in the concert industry, according to promoters, but the issue was first brought to public attention in the mid-’80s, when rumors leaked out that Van Halen would not take the stage if their dressing room bowl of M & Ms had a single brown-colored candy (or green, depending on which promoter you talk to).

“I think there was a time when bands had a little more push than they do now,” said Chopper Brady, concert production manager at the House of Blues in New Orleans. “But there’s so much talent on the market now. Bands these days tend to be more realistic.”

Brady, who has been advancing club shows for 20 years, has seen just about everything on a rider, the section of a band’s contract that deals with the dressing room “necessities.”

“It always puzzles me when they ask for 24 condoms,” Brady said. “They probably got that many from the night before, which means they should have 23 left.”

Condoms are such a common request, Brady added, that the House of Blues keeps them in stock.

Along with prophylactics on the list of common rider requests are food, bottled water and alcohol.

Although most promoters agree that food requests are usually a simple heath food tray here, bowl of cereal there, requests can get rather odd. Mike, a promoter at the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go in Los Angeles, found this out at a recent Stuck Mojo show.

“They asked for peanut butter and tuna on their rider,” he explained. “When the day of the show came, we didn’t have the

tuna, and they threw a big fit about it because they wanted the peanut butter and tuna together.”

Reasons for outrageous rider requests range from just trying to get a good laugh to making sure the promoters are paying close attention to the often long and monotonous contracts.

“John Entwistle from The Who had a Rolex and a red Mercedes Benz [on his rider],” Irving Plaza’s Jeff Webster said. “His tour manager asked me when they got into town: ‘Did you get the car?’ He was laughing about it.”

Brady came across the same contract and called the manager to ask if a black car would be OK. “He just wanted to know I was paying attention,” Brady said.

Concert promoters combat greedy riders by simply crossing off items before signing the contract. However, bigger name acts will often fight back by threatening to cancel a performance.

Steve at New York City’s Tramps has gone as far as decorating a dressing room with flowers and carpet to keep Little Richard happy.

“But most people know better than to ask us,” he said. “They know we’re just gonna cross the shit off.”

Brady said he tries to avoid using the red pen on riders. “A lot of times we’ll call them and say ‘do you really need four bottles of Jack Daniels?’ If they do, we’ll get ’em.”

Even bands are beginning to recognize the issue.

When Irving Plaza booked the grunge outfit Creed, Weiss was pleasantly surprised by a note in the group’s rider. Below One Package of M & Ms, it read: “We do not ask that you take out all of the green M & Ms.” Or was it the brown ones?