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Post by RickW on Jul 6, 2009 23:53:39 GMT -5
Looking at the pictures of the car fire made me think of mine....
I was 19, and playing bass in a band through our frozen north. We were in Prince Rupert, a port on the Pacific, in a very sleezy little hotel. Very good fights. Anyhow, after much wildness - we got fired, no reason. So, we left, found another hotel for a couple of nights, before proceeding on to the next town/gig.
A heavy downpour in Vancouver is light rain in Prince Rupert. It was raining, pounding down for the whole three days we were waiting to leave. As we drove out of town, we went past the hotel from which we had been fired. It was a smoking hole in the ground. When we got to our next stop, we found out the owner had been arrested for arson.
He had decided to burn the place to collect insurance money. Fired us, and told all the residents to get out so he could fumigate, (it needed it). At least he was kind enough to try and not mess anyone else up. Unfortunately, because it was raining so hard, he didn't think he could get it to burn. So the next band moved their stuff in, and the residents came back, before he set it on fire. No one hurt, but everything gone.
Interesting start to my first, and last, 'tour'.
Anyone else have some good stories? C'mon, you know you do....
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Post by Resolve on Jul 7, 2009 6:07:11 GMT -5
Wow that is quite a story!! Well as a newbie to this of course my "gig" experience is limited! ;D I told this story on some other forum right after it happened so some of you heard the tale. Last summer my drummer friend and I decided to branch off from our little quartet practice group to see if we could develop into a duo on our own. After several months of practice we had a dozen songs we could do. I was organizing our condo's lakeside potluck picnic for the end of August and decided that we could play our dozen songs as "entertainment" at that gathering (knowing from past parties that the bar is set pretty low for what is appreciated by this group as having entertainment value). My drummer's partner volunteered to gather a few of her friends for a practice audience in their rec room a few weeks prior to our "big gig". The partner is a really nice person but she has quite a colorful mix of friends/family. There were some very nice and polite people in attendence...but it only takes a few characters to make it memorable! Saturday Night Live could not have even conjured a personality such as I met in "Aunt Joyce". The drummer and I had gone for dinner while the group arrived and gathered in the rec room. When we came back there was a little old lady sitting at the end of the bar (2 feet from my mic) with a big ol red wig on her head. She had one of those dried apple faces with a cigarette hanging from her very red lips. The ash tray in front of her was already quite full. It was obvious she was already...altered. (This story is much more fun to tell if I can actually DO the visual and vocal imitation). The cigarette never left her lips as she spoke but she uttered increasingly demanding preferences for what she expected to hear. I was trying to sing while not coughing on the blue smoke. Apparently we didn't deliver because at one point mid song she stood up and announced that she was not going to stay and listen to "this slow sh-t" and that people want to hear music they like not just "this slow sh-t" we were offering. She then literally stumbled up the steps to HER CAR!! I launched a comment to the drummer about her driving and she just shrugged. At the end of the night, "John", who had been calling out "helpful suggestions" after every song, came up to us at the end and said, "Normally I am an a$$ but I gotta say you ladies ain't half bad...you're not REALLY good but you're not bad. Next time you gotta charge some money and not be giving it all away for free." Then, looking at me, suddenly poking his finger into my abdomen, said, "And you little lady, you need to gain a few pounds"!! Then he bent down to kiss me. Yah like THAT was going to happen!!  The drummer called the next day, mortified, asking if I was ever coming back. Obviously I did...but there will be no more rec room concerts at her place!!!! |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2009 9:15:15 GMT -5
She had one of those dried apple faces with a cigarette hanging from her very red lips. The ash tray in front of her was already quite full. You've written the first couple of lines to a very good song.... |
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Post by dradtke on Jul 7, 2009 9:25:16 GMT -5
Rick, nearly the same thing happened to a friend of mine. They were semi-regulars at a bar in northern Minnesota. After late Saturday night gigs, they would usually leave their stuff there over night and pack it up on Sunday morning. One night the owner insisted that they load out that night instead of waiting. They were pissed about it but they did it. Early in the morning the bar burned down.
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Post by RickW on Jul 7, 2009 9:30:57 GMT -5
I remember that story, Cyndy. What a hoot.
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Post by aquaduct on Jul 7, 2009 9:49:50 GMT -5
My wife had one of those "fired just hours before the venue burned down" gigs. Pretty wierd.
I've always been very fortunate to be around very talented folks that let me participate in interesting things musically.
Tops that I can remember:
Playing Carnegie Hall with a college jazz band.
Wife's band openning for the Kinks in Grand Rapids.
Doing a live recording of Commissioned in a big church at 7 mile and Livernois in Detroit (one of only 4 white folks in the crowd of 300-400 delightful black folks in Sunday finest).
Doing some wiring work at Aretha Franklin's studio in Detroit.
Accompanying my guitar teacher to studio gigs and the pit orchestra for the professional production of Cats.
Working recording sessions with Mitch Ryder, Earl Klugh, Alexander Zonjic, Bob James, Johnny "B" Bedanjek, and lesser known session cats that were none-the-less mind blowing.
Travelling the east coast with my wife for a summer doing a variety of Celtic festivals.
Of course, that's always offset with the constant downside of professional music that makes me pretty ambivalent to the whole thing- getting fired, alcohol and drug abuse, starving, critics, etc.
But it certainly can be memorable.
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Post by Shannon on Jul 7, 2009 10:51:39 GMT -5
My story doesn't compare to some of the above, but it was funny.
I and a few other fellows had a little bluegrass-type band and we played a lot of bluegrass gospel stuff. We were asked to play a couple of tunes in my church one Sunday morning, and we gladly obliged. We were well-received -- mostly. After the applause died down for our first number, old Miss Emma (who was ancient, and whose late husband had built the church building) piped up quite crossly from the back of the sanctuary, "Well, they're playing that honky-tonk music in the church again!"
We took it as a compliment.
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Post by j on Jul 7, 2009 11:38:58 GMT -5
I had a few interesting encounters so far in my career.
The top two are without a doubt the following.
Stockman's inn in Buffalo, NY. Stopping for a beer and "meet-the-locals" on my way from the airport, accompanied by our own Gypsy Picker. Had my guitar strapped on my back. Needless to say the local fauna was pretty...colorful.
This guy approaches me after a bit - short, stocky dude, his face red with alcohol: I'm ready for the worst.
"You play that geee-tar there?"
"Huh, yes sir, I certainly do"
"Uhm...you know any John Denver?"
"Errr...sadly, I'm afraid I don't"
"Well, god-dayum. My name's Idaho Bob. Ya know why they %#$^ sheep instead of pigs in Idaho?"
I didn't.
"Because a pig will squeal on ya! But a sheep, when a judge asks it 'did he %#$^ you?', it only goes 'baaaaaah! naaaaah!'"
Fortunately Scott came to the rescue soon after.
Another time I was doing some low-fi touring in Northern Germany - to make it international, the agent booked this gig on a tiny Danish island in the middle of the Flensburg fjord. We take a tiny boat there, and proceed to the "venue"- a pub/restaurant of sort, annexed to the sheep farm that made the most of the island. Apparently it was a popular eco-tourism destination for local families, so there was a decent crowd. Unfortunately, there wasn't a stage.
I'm sitting there, happily banging away on the guitar when I hear a commotion: the local shepherd dog kind of lost it and drew a bunch of sheep inside the place. I'm actually set up pretty close to the front door so I get to see everything from a vantage point. The audience obviously had a kick at the little farm-life scene, as it erupts in laughter, while I try to keep on playing. Suddenly, the barmaid comes to the rescue, shooing the sheep (and shepherd) away with a few decisive cries. One stubborn animal is left behind - it's scared and freezes on the spot. The barmaid tries to push it out the door and as a response the sheep takes the most torrential piss I've ever witnessed on the floor (remember, there wasn't a stage...)
The rest of the show went by rather uneventfully by comparison.
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Post by billhammond on Jul 7, 2009 11:44:14 GMT -5
I had a few interesting encounters so far in my career. The top two are without a doubt the following. Stockman's inn in Buffalo, NY. Stopping for a beer and "meet-the-locals" on my way from the airport, accompanied by our own Gypsy Picker. Had my guitar strapped on my back. Needless to say the local fauna was pretty...colorful. This guy approaches me after a bit - short, stocky dude, his face red with alcohol: I'm ready for the worst. "You play that geee-tar there?" "Huh, yes sir, I certainly do" "Uhm...you know any John Denver?" "Errr...sadly, I'm afraid I don't" "Well, god-dayum. My name's Idaho Bob. Ya know why they %#$^ sheep instead of pigs in Idaho?" I didn't. "Because a pig will squeal on ya! But a sheep, when a judge asks it 'did he %#$^ you?', it only goes 'baaaaaah! naaaaah!'" Fortunately Scott came to the rescue soon after. Another time I was doing some low-fi touring in Northern Germany - to make it international, the agent booked this gig on a tiny Danish island in the middle of the Flensburg fjord. We take a tiny boat there, and proceed to the "venue"- a pub/restaurant of sort, annexed to the sheep farm that made the most of the island. Apparently it was a popular eco-tourism destination for local families, so there was a decent crowd. Unfortunately, there wasn't a stage. I'm sitting there, happily banging away on the guitar when I hear a commotion: the local shepherd dog kind of lost it and drew a bunch of sheep inside the place. I'm actually set up pretty close to the front door so I get to see everything from a vantage point. The audience obviously had a kick at the little farm-life scene, as it erupts in laughter, while I try to keep on playing. Suddenly, the barmaid comes to the rescue, shooing the sheep (and shepherd) away with a few decisive cries. One stubborn animal is left behind - it's scared and freezes on the spot. The barmaid tries to push it out the door and as a response the sheep takes the most torrential piss I've ever witnessed on the floor (remember, there wasn't a stage...) The rest of the show went by rather uneventfully by comparison. Wow, J, I am pretty sure I have never had to endure live sheep pissing at any of my gigs, but let me think about it a while .... |
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Post by j on Jul 7, 2009 11:46:01 GMT -5
The upsides are that afterwards you're prepared for pretty much anything, and that you'll always have a funny story to tell in between tunes.
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Post by t-bob on Jul 7, 2009 11:55:14 GMT -5
I had a gig with a jazz band at Vassar in 1967. We played on the 1st floor. On the 2nd floor was The Velvet Underground (Warhol in attendance) and on the top floor B B King Band. Oh, and did I mention it was at Vassar in the 60s?  |
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Post by RickW on Jul 7, 2009 13:47:06 GMT -5
Got to love that, J. Never had to play for incontinent farm animals before. The obnoxious redneck with the bad jokes - oh yeah.
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Post by Doug on Jul 7, 2009 14:44:37 GMT -5
Last summer we played a gig at a Nudist Resort.
You haven't lived till you've played naked to a naked crowd.
All kidding aside, after you get started you don't even notice. And it solves that "imagine the audience naked thing".
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Post by RickW on Jul 7, 2009 15:42:58 GMT -5
The thought of watching a naked 70 year old ex-marine play guitar.... *eek*
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2009 16:35:37 GMT -5
Last summer we played a gig at a Nudist Resort. You haven't lived till you've played naked to a naked crowd. All kidding aside, after you get started you don't even notice. And it solves that "imagine the audience naked thing". Maybe that's one of those gigs where you get over your jitters by imagining the audience clothed.... |
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jul 7, 2009 16:41:48 GMT -5
The thought of watching a naked 70 year old ex-marine play guitar.... *eek* Doug played a 2 hour set consisting entirely of "My Ding-a-Ling." |
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Post by knobtwister on Jul 7, 2009 21:10:39 GMT -5
Next time you're in town.
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Post by Resolve on Jul 8, 2009 6:45:48 GMT -5
You haven't lived till you've played naked to a naked crowd. All kidding aside..... Sorry Doug, it's really hard to put kidding aside reading that line. What in the world would ever possess a musician to do a gig like that? |
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Post by Doug on Jul 8, 2009 6:51:31 GMT -5
Better than playing behind the chicken wire, and I've done that.
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Post by Resolve on Jul 8, 2009 7:04:58 GMT -5
Whatever would possess a musician to play behind chicken wire for that matter???
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