Conference mr1pst::music

    Sometimes people do some incredibly stupid things at gigs.  They don't
    even have to be drunk - they probably don't even have to be inherently
    stupid (although that helps).
    
    Those are my personal favorite stories.
    
    Last year, we were playing a club in Manchester.  It was a pretty slow
    night and there were LOTS of open tables.
    
    This somewhat older couple (at least into their 50's) walks in the
    door, looks around and despite the availability of tables, decides
    to sit down ** AT ** a table that one of our PA speakers is on.  They
    sit with their heads literally about two feet from the speaker!
    
    Sure enough, within about two minutes they are complaining that we're
    too loud.  A minute later, they put their fingers in their ears and are
    still shaking their heads giving the "too loud" signal (we're in the
    middle of a song of course otherwise we'd tell them what "the problem"
    is).
    
    Well the song ends and I'm about to go over and tell them but before I
    get a chance, the rest of the band kicks off the next tune.  They walk
    out of there.  I envision them talking to their friends at the
    shuffleboard court next day about how they went to see this rock band
    and how it was painfully loud.
    
    ARGH!!!!!!!
    
    And by the way, we are not a loud band.  We do quite a bit of soft
    music and we have a very modest PA.
    
    	db

    I was playing in a top 40 band with two female vocalists (Kathy and
    Cindy) at a club in West Brookfield, MA one weekend when a rather
    inebriated guy in a dirty flannel shirt, jeans and feed cap came up and
    started talking to Cindy during our break.  He proceeded to monopolize
    her the rest of the night although she seemed to be trying to politely
    get away from him.  
    
    The next night he didn't show and she was obviously relieved.  At the
    set break, the soundman comes up to her and tells her she has a phone
    call.  When she answers the phone, it's Mr. Feed Cap.  
    
    "Hi, remember me from last night?"
    
    "Yes."
    
    "I'm at home."
    
    "Uh-huh."
    
    "I'm in my living room."
    
    "Uh-huh."
    
    "I have no clothes on."
    
    "Ummm..."
    
    "Can you guess what I'm doing?"
    
    After hanging up, Cindy told the sound man to not take any more calls
    for her.
    
    							Brian

    db,
    
    I have a friend who's in a Top-40 band who's slogan is, "Never
    overestimate the intelligence of your audience". That couple is what
    you might term a "case in point".
    
    My favorite story involves a band member...
    
    We were playing at Sir Morgan's Cove and we were doing some song where
    I was singing and playing so I was sort of unaware what was happening
    around me. During the guitar solo, one of the guitar player's strings
    broke, so to get the string out of the way, he wrapped it a couple of
    times around one of his fingers and yanked. Hard.
    
    Well, thin guitar strings make excellent cutting edges. This one made
    it all the way to the bone on the side of his finger. But, he went
    right on playing, without saying a word. We kicked into another song
    and about halfway through that song, I looked down and saw all these
    red splatters on the stage. I figured it was someone in the audience
    and was looking around for the person with the nose bleed. The singer
    tapped me on the shoulder and made a thumb gesture toward the guitar
    player who looked like the "Black Night" who gaurded the forest passage
    in Monty Python's Holy Grail. He even went up to the microphone and said
    "It's only a flesh wound". The audience was just staring wide-eyed.
    We ended the set and one of the band members took him off to the
    hospital, where he ended up with something like a dozen stiches. He
    played again two days later.
    
    Brian

	An odd one happened to me recently.  I play in a blues/R&B band and
we were playing at a small, packed, and zoo-ey club.  There's always somebody 
wanting to sit in on harp (EVERYBODY plays harp, or thinks they can, yah?).
Anyway, this one guy is with a harp player who's sat in with us before and he 
asks if he can sit in on harp.  The guy we'd played with before assures us he's 
good. So ok. We ask the guy what key harp he has so we'll know what key to play 
in.and the guy says: "Any key."  Has this guy got a case full of harps with 
him?  I look at his buddy who just nods.  The place is jammed with howling 
drunks, it's about 95 degrees, and I can barely see through the cigarette smoke.
Obviously this is no place for artistic highbrow, so I tell the guy to c'mon up.

	Anyway, we start up "I'm Ready", a VERY stinky blues, and this guy cups 
his harp to the mic and starts blowing like hell.  He was incredibly hot!  He 
has this very nasty, distorted kinda harp tone.  Great!  I always love it when 
some drunk sits in and turns out to be great. Now for the kicker.  As we end 
the tune I realize this guy has no harp!  He's just been howling harp sounds 
into the mic through cupped hands!  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't 
heard it myself!


/ml

     I'm surprised Alan Starr hasn't beat me to this.  Recently at one of
     our gigs at Mcminos' (aka Bobs Country Bunker) the boys in the band
     got a little more than we bargained for. During our last set, 3 rather
     drunken woman got up to dance and showed off more than just their dance
     steps, if you no what I mean. It was kind of late so the dance floor
     was packed and no one except the band and a couple of tables up front
     could see what was going on. These 3 woman seemed to enjoy exposing 
     and serveying their own, as well as each others, "Huge Tracks Of Land".  
     To which Alan turned towards the band and uttered a weak and feeble
     "oh my".
    -dave-

    re: .-1
    
    Ummm... Dave... can you tell me how I can get my band booked into that
    place?
    
    ;-)

    Back during our early days, we were playing a Chinese Restaurant in
    Nashua NH.  It was Saturday and the band members were starting to
    arrive at the gig, as I came walking in I got a high/5 from this rather
    large lady (big and tall) sitting in the front by the dancefloor.  She
    made a couple of loud remarks that the F___in band was there, I didn't
    pay her any mind but I did notice 2 large empty scorpion bowls on her
    table.   Once we started playing she got even louder, and more vulgar.
    The cop on duty came over asked her to sit down and that if she didn't
    watch her language, she would have to leave.  After about another 10
    minutes she was at it again, this time the cop was pissed came running 
    over told her "let go, your outta here', she grabbed a chair and threw
    it across the room, the cop grabbed her, and she body-slammed him, well
    we're still playing and watching the fight, and believe me she's
    definetly, getting the best of the cop, some of the kitchen help comes
    running out from the back to help, and they finally get her face down
    with her hands behind her back. About this time 3 more cops come in
    take one look at their fellow cop, who's shirt is ripped, glasses bent
    on his face, hair all messed up and breathing like he just ran a
    marathon, they started laughing so hard, we had to stop playing.  I
    felt bad for the cop, but she definetly had him by at least 150 lb's.
    
                                                           Howard
    
    
                                  

Sounds like an evening at the famous Kahala restaurant, maybe?

    No, it was actually the old Singapore Restaurant in front of the
    Pheasant Lane Mall, (now a parking lot I think...)
    
                                                Howard
    
    

	Around 1982 or so, we were playing a wedding at the Andover Country
club in Andover, Ma. Quite a good wedding, lots of dancin' and carrying on 
by the folks there. We were taking our 3rd break, just before our last set. 
We were hanging out in the hallway that lead to the rest rooms and bar. The
guitarist went into the mens room. He cam out in a couple of minutes looking
like the 'cat who just caught a mouse'. He told us that there was a guy and
a girl 'going at it' in one of the stalls. I went in next to check this 
situation out. I was standing near the door (farthest point from said stall)
and bending down, all I saw was a pair of woman's shoes and a pair of
guys shoes. I went back out. We were all standing there waiting to see who
the heck had the cookies to do this at this new couple's wedding reception...
we waited.....

	waited....  At this point the groom had stopped by to chew the rag
with us. We let him in om our little secret. He laughed and said that he'd
like to satisfy his curiosity too. Since noone had gone into the mens room
since we went in, we knew the next folks to come out were the ones.

	The door opened......here we were....4 musicians, the groom , and
some passersby...


	it was....



	....THE BRIDE AND THE BEST MAN......
    
    
    true story....
    
    They were divorced weeks later.
    
    		Frank

    First prize goes to Frank Rene!!!!

    I'll second that, keep'em coming though.
    
    Jim C.
    

    gee guys,
    
    	Thanks!

    
    
     We were doing a wedding gig for a guy who's name was something like
    Peter Gryzinkus and the time came to introduce the wedding party. 
    
     As our lead singer introduced the bride and groom, he got a bit 
    tongue tied and introduced the groom as Penis Gryzinkus. He corrected
    himself immediately, but the groom just glared at him with a "I'll 
    kill you" look.  Later on, they apparently decided it was pretty funny
    and the groom mentioned that all of his buddies had been calling him 
    Penis all day.  
    
    Lv
    

    re: .-1
    
    Reminds me of something slightly off the topic.
    
    There's a guy my team has played in 3 volleyball finals who spells
    his first name "Denis" (most people spell it as "Dennis").
    
    This guy is a real...  well, let's just say he's widely disliked.
    
    I like to tell people that his name is mispelled.
    
    	"Oh, you mean it's missing an 'n'"
    
    	"No, the 'd' should be a 'p'"
    
    ;-)

    True Story...
    
    I few years back the band was asked to play for a group at the
    Gardner Elks. We booked the job through an agency.  When we were
    setting up we noticed that it was for an organization that caters
    to deaf people.  It didn't seem to matter to us, "whatever it takes"
    
    The band started playing and quite a few people started dancing.
    We couldn't have been playing for 3 minutes when all the instruments
    went dead.  The building is so old, we blew a fuse. It didn't seem to
    matter to the dancers, they just kept right on going to the beat of
    the drums.  I was told after that deaf people dance to the vibration of
    the drums and bass.   
    
    Believe or not!
    
    Rick L.
                                             

    I definitely believe that - when a deaf friend of mine got married,
    lots (perhaps "most") of the people there were deaf and were dancing
    FIENDS (every single tune) and were also GOOD dancers.  I was thinking
    "geez wish I coulda booked my band into this gig."
    
    But your story reminds me of another one:  My first GB gig.
    
    I was in a Top-40 band and we got called to play a "wedding".  We
    explained to the client that we were a Top-40 band, not a wedding
    band and they said "Oh yes, that's what we want Top-40 music"
    so we took the job.
    
    Well, turns out it wasn't a normal wedding: it was a "renewal of
    vows" type wedding.  The couple had been married for like 35 years!!!
    You can imagine what the average age at this affair was.
    
    They thought "Top-40" was "big band" stuff (The Dorsey Bros., Benny
    Goodman, etc.)!!!!
    
    So there we were: armed to the teeth with Michael Jackson, Madonna,
    Z.Z. Top tunes and the average age of the crowd was probably over
    50!!!!
    
    So I basically took out my "Fake Book" (which I had the good sense to
    keep with my stuff) and the evening was basically me reading out of
    the book, with the band trying to follow along.
    
    And of course, people were coming up and saying stuff like "you boys
    are great" which taught me that you have to take such comments with a
    grain of salt and not let it go to your head.  We've had those kinda
    "Man what are you doing here" comments after some pathetically "off"
    nights.
    
    One other thing: someone requested a polka.  It had been years since
    I heard one and the drummer needed to remind me what they basically
    were.   So I we basically started off on one chord (again, the band
    following me) and I thought "sooner or later I'm going to have to
    move to another chord" but I didn't know any polkas so what does any
    rock and roller do when he's been on the I chord for awhile, move to
    the IV and V chords of course.
    
    Thus was the birth of my first polka composition which I've entitled
    the "I-IV-V polka".  ;-)
    
    (Don't worry if you don't get that joke.)
    
    	db - Polka til you drop

    
    What is it about weddings that the wedding goers get such a bum
    deal? ;-) ;-) ;-)
    
    The closest thing to the last couple I have is this:
    
    I was not in the band, but drove to the gig with one of the band
    members.  It was a wedding reception in Northfield, VT.
    
    After about 3 sets, the drummer, being incredibly ill, simply 
    could not continue playing and went home.  Another guy who had
    come along for the ride decided to sit in...but had never played
    drums a day in his life!  It sounded awful and as the set prog-
    ressed (regressed?) I cringed and clenched my teeth a little more.
    I kept saying "I can do better".  I'd only played a few times 
    myself, but *anything* had to be better.  Finally, I got my 
    courage up and went up and tapped on his shoulder. "Mind if I 
    play."  He was ecstatic, "please do!"
    
    I played the last song and the gig was over (typical timing for me).  
    All the while the same 12 or 15 people had been dancing and clapped 
    profusely after the last song.  I can't help thinking how horrible 
    it all sounded, how good natured they must've been (or drunk), etc....
    
    Six months later I joined the band as their rhythm guitarist. ;-)
    
    
    guy
    
    

    db,
    
    It turns out that your I-IV-V polka is pretty common. I-IV-V is not
    just a blues progression (the 7ths are what give it the "bluesy feel".
    
    My father, who used to be one of the top studio jazz musicians in NY,
    and is Irish/English not Polish, loves (for some inexplicable reason)
    polkas and also other variants of "oom-pah-pah Germanic music". So,
    I've had the "pleasure" of a fair dose of Polkas and you'd be surprised
    how many are I-IV-V progressions.
    
    Ditto for Irish music. My father sits in with an Irish duo quite
    frequently, and I've done it occasionally as well. There is no written
    music to fake from, I have to follow the guitar player's hands and
    trust my ear. I was amazed to find that I could comfortably play the
    Irish tunes (on bass) as well.
    
    So, I-IV-V seems to be a universal music vernacular... or at least a
    universal *western* music vernacular.
    
    Brian

    

  We were taking a break from rehersal in the alley behind a bar in a rough
  area of Denver when at the other end of the alley we spotted a
  drunk heading our way. He must have thought we were just waiting
  to jump him or something because, as he got near us, he stopped and
  made a great display of reaching into his pocket and removing...
  a tiny little pocket-knife, the kind they used to put in gum-machines.
  He opened the blade (about the size of a paper-clip), held it up in
  front of him, and glared at us through blood-shot eyes as he passed.
  We busted out laughing! 

                             ###

  At a place called Sam's Cowhide Corners up on Lookout Mountain
  (the one in Colorado) they had a big "clock-type" thing on the
  wall that could be seen from the stage. It had one indicator
  on it and, depending on how you played, the bartender
  would set the hand to "TOO LOUD" or "OK", etc.

                             ###

  At a place where we use to play in Greeley, CO. the open stage was
  on the 1st floor directly above the bar. Some joker threw
  a beer bottle at one of the guys in the group that played there
  the week prior to our gig. He hit him on the head and the guy fell
  right into the bar! I guess we were the first group in the area
  that got to play behind a chain-link fence.
                            
                             ### 

  Then there was the groupie that used to slip into our motel room,
  after we had settled in each night at a two-week-gig in Grand
  Junction. She'd pop a quarter in my Vibrato-Lux bed, and ...but, that's
  another story.


  What a blast it all was, waaaay-back-when.

    I don't know if this is funny - it's sorta like in the "it's incredible
    how stupid some people are at these bars".
    
    We're on break and I hear someone yell "Damnit, you made a bet!" and
    the next thing I know there's a guy on top of another guy on the floor
    fighting.
    
    Well the bouncers break it up pretty fast and I see that the two
    combatants are a fairly "healthy" young guy of about 22 years of age
    and an old guy who must be at least in his sixties.  The old guy,
    the welcher incidentally,  is a "regular" (I've seen him before) and
    pretty harmless looking so they throw the young guy out, but the
    bouncer observes that he's just standing in the street outside
    the door.
    
    The old guy is being held back solely by a fairly petite woman (she's
    the bar manager) who probably weighs about 114 lbs.  She's got him
    in a hold from the back and he's trying to escape and saying "Let me at
    him,..." but of course she has him completely over powered.  He's sorta
    throwing these slow motion punches at the air.  She eventually lets go
    of him, and I see that he can't even walk that well (he is drunk but
    the way he walks leads me to think it's because he has back problems,
    not the booze).
    
    So I have my eye on this old guy.  And about two minutes after they let
    him go, he sneaks over to the door and goes outside.
    
    Of course, two minutes later someone shouts "there's a fight outside"
    and sure enough, the young guy has the old guy down on the ground
    (if it was a sanctioned wrestling match it would have been a record
    for the world's fastest pin: .7 seconds).
    
    Now, I mean, how totally stupid can you possibly get.  Here this guy
    gets away with his money intact after welching on a bet.  He gets away
    with his life after being attacked by a person 1/4th his age and so
    much stronger than him that Dr. Ruth might have a better chance against
    Mike Tyson than this guy had, and what does he do?
    
    He goes out looking for "more".
    
    Y'know, you really get to see how pathetic life is for some people when
    you play in bar bands.

    
    
    >>>>>>Y'know, you really get to see how pathetic life is for some
    people  when  you play in bar bands.
    
    YEP!!!!! I dont think I could put up with the SLeazeballs now like I
    did 7 years ago.  I never did hang out in the club/lounge lizard
    scene (and still can't) The only time I go into a bar now 
    is to see freinds of mine play , or if I'm helping out.. other than
    that I cant stand it!!!
    
    			wendy o'
    
    

    
    There was a groupie that used to follow the band I was in years ago in
    Boston. She was rather cute, but we all suspected she had a
    non-terminal "social" disease (this was in the pre-herpes, pre-AIDS
    days). Our guitarist, Sandy, was rather smitten by her girlish charms
    and decided to take her up on an offer one night after playing the Rat.
    Unfortunately, he also, unknowingly, became smitten by the afore-mentioned
    social disease. The next night, Sandy picked up a "very attractive
    woman" at the gig. The next day or so he realized he had the clap and went
    to the doctors for the cure. A couple of weekends later, a very large and 
    very unhappy man approached Sandy during one of our breaks. After verifying
    his identity, he proceeded to beat Sandy senseless, punctuating each
    blow to the head with "YOU... GAVE ... MY ... WIFE ... THE ... CLAP"!!!
    This was the husband of the previously mentioned "very attractive
    woman". By the time we pulled this guy off Sandy, there were very few 
    features left on his face that were even vaguely recognizable.
    That night, the "groupie" felt so sorry for Sandy, that she accompanied
    him back to our practice studio and smote him once again with her 
    "social disease". Although Sandy was a fine guitarist, he was,
    obviously, on of the most stupid people I ever played with ...
    
    

    >>>>>>Y'know, you really get to see how pathetic life is for some
    people  when  you play in bar bands.
    
    I third that. I just don't have patience to put up with all the crap
    when you play either. HOWEVER....I found 90% of the wedding gigs
    acceptable. I can't remember anyone ever getting out of hand. And
    you usually got to eat and drink like a pig! Sure you gotta play
    smaltz, but after playing top 40, it was all the same anyway. Although
    at wedding if the song "had a good beat", you could play anything.
    
    Ok, here is my favorite story. I've told in one of the notes files
    before but for those who haven't heard it:
    
    We played the Moose Lodge :-) in Saginaw Michigan every weekend. And
    what they did was book a "entertainment" act up from detroit every
    Saturday night.These acts were usually vaudville people with reems of
    music and they played acordion, crap like that. Anyway, one Saturday
    night we show up and go to the manager ask about the act for the
    night. He tells us she is in the dressing room. Ok, so we go there
    (the bass player is like 18 years old) and meet the girl. She starts
    to tell us she is a stripper and starts taking her clothes off and
    proceeds to stand there naked asking us about what we played and could
    we do certain types of songs to coordinate with the light show.
    During this the bass player (who is turning red and sweating) turns
    to me and Wispers "What do i do?", so I reply "Please don't do
    anything."  Well, it was a great gig. The high point was when one
    of her pasties came off. 
    

>     >>>>>>Y'know, you really get to see how pathetic life is for some
>     people  when  you play in bar bands.
>     
>     I third that. I just don't have patience to put up with all the crap
>     when you play either.

	Oh, I dunno. One of the things I like about playing in bars is that
you get to see some pretty strange things and meet some pretty *unusual* people.
Sure, some of it is slime, but mostly I like playing in bars.  And unlike 
wedding gigs, bar gigs are rarely boring and the mother-of-the-bride never 
bitches about the band's choice of material ;-) .

	It'd sure be nice though if they'd pass a NO SMOKING law!

/ml