General Music Chat

Our lead singer was talking about a gig last night when his band got lucky and snagged the opening act set for Blue Oyster Cult. Turned out to be some rowdy biker event and the audience was about ready to stomp them into the ground while playing, shouting 'stop playing we want BOC' and throwing stuff ...

Back in my high school band, we played at the HS gym one time for a dance - now this was a small school, with a gym just a little bigger than the basketball court, with fold-out bleachers (about 8 rows) on one side.
The I-beams ran up at a slight angle along the walls, then connected to the ceiling I-beams, which ran at a slight angle up to the peak of the roof.
We're in the middle of Deep Purple's Space Truckin' when the bass player stops playing. I turn to look at him, thinking 'WTF?' and he points up to the ceiling. There, silhouetted in the light of the single follow-spot that lit the gym, is a figure hanging from the I-beam at the peak, like a gangly spider. This idiot had had too much to drink and gone hand-over-hand up the wall I-beam, onto the ceiling, then halfway across stopped.
We (the band) all stopped playing and someone shouted 'Get down from there!" Well he did, letting go and dropping the 25 feet to the floor, where he hit (on his feet) then down to his knees and collapsed flat on the floor.
The dance was quickly ended by the teachers/whoever was in charge (so we got paid $200 for 1-1/2 sets of music) as the ambulance came and took the kid away.
As we were packing up we were thinking that the guy probably killed himself, and we were going to adopt a new band slogan 'Beowulf Kills!' (yeah, bad taste - it was high school), our band name being Beowulf.
The guy lived but shattered both kneecaps, so we never used the slogan.
Whenever I hear Space Truckin' I always think of that night.

opeing up for HEART at Wayside Park Ft. Walton Beach /Santa Rosa Island Summer 1981 in a band I was in called Broken Toy..

opeing up for HEART at Wayside Park Ft. Walton Beach /Santa Rosa Island Summer 1981 in a band I was in called Broken Toy..

Why, did you guys suck?

A gunfight at the Stockmen's Lounge in Lockwood, MO.

They shut the owner and killed him over the price of draft
beer, and then shot a couple of his buddies. It was a bar,
and honky tonks can be rough places, but that's rough.
They told us to keep playing so we did, till the cops showed,
and they surrendered to thew cops. Lost a good job there.

no, but they were more commercially known and it was nervous, I should say, there were several bands backing up Heart, it was a Budweiser promo thing with banners on the beach and sh*t...just google Heart/Budweiser Fest/ 1981/ Ft. Walton as keywords and see what pops up if anything.. I was there playing though.. our band back then consisted of Bart Zuddell, from Detroit, Mich., Jamie Stephens from Rome, Ga., me and Sticks the drummer a cousin of Jamie's also from Rome, Ga. we rented a motel room in a then abandoned motel on Miracle Strip Pkwy. real near the bridge to Destin, Fl. and King Carmichael's was almost next door to us.. we or most of us were living on the base Eglin in 1981, we used to feed Sticks the only civilian out of the Canteen service at night his only meal of the day..LOL whatta time..

On the rough side, weve been on the scene of 5 shootings, one ended in death for a bouncer, this happened out side as we played.

One place we played it was just customary for fights to erupt on the dancefloor in front of us everytime we played there.

Ive taken down one guy with a pool stick and two others with beer bottles, and dont tell anyone but our band does pack and has had to prove it a couple of times, thankfully no shots were ever fired.

I learned to never get into the middle of a fight in a bar we are playing, one of my early bands the singer got into it with a guy in there and everyone in the whole place turned on him and us.

When we did fri-sat shows, I have seen two people fight tooth and nail on friday, then sitting with thier arms around each other on sat.

I learned to never hit on chicks in new bars I was playing in, I got a real good black eye over that once.

On the humorous side, in my junior high band we talked the school into hiring us for teen dance partys, they held these in the big gym, with the big stage, our little combo amps looked reall good on there LOL!

Anyway, we put together 4 smoke bombs and lit them as we played Firehouse (KISS), we didnt finish the song before they evacuated everyone, these smoke bombs filled the whole gym in like 5 minutes. So they call the fire dept, and when they went in here they came one by one with our smoke bombs and extinguished them. We were sitting on the bank behind the gym, when the teachers pointed to us and called us down, needless to say we never got to play in the gym again.

The funniest part was when they opened those huge vents and turned the big fans on and the smoke just came rolling out of the gym!

Makes for a great story whenever we have a class reunion, Remember when ZEUS tryed to burn down the gym? Yeah our name was ZEUS!

GOD OF THUNDER!!!!

GMB I remember playing Space Truckin, in fact the last time we practiced we kinda ran thru it, for kicks and giggles!

and Sticks lived in that motel room with no sewer or running water, but we did have electrical service.. bands rented out many units as well as a Greek Food place, Moe Jackson even doubled as an eatery and he had a band too, as well as ABANDON with Fred Short Dave Short(his brother) Randy Teal, and forgot the name of the kickass drummer, they double gigged many days in the tourist season playing in Pensacola and Ft.Walton. the same day.. if you want to play live music everybody needs to move to Ft. Walton Bch. area Santa Rosa Island is general .. Abandon had matchbooks with their name on it as advertising and can't find mine..musta lost it over time.. they were sh*t hot doing covers note for note..

I've only ever had one really scary thing happen. We were doing a reception (one of only two we ever did) and an elderly woman passed out. Everyone thought she stroked out or had a heart attack, but fortunately, the heat just got to her. The AC was broken in the venue.

The argument resulting from that was funny. The groom (DRUNK!) came up to us wanting a refund, not on the show, but on the venue! I don't know why, but he somehow managed to convince himself that the band owned the venue!!! It took the new bride ten minutes after the show to convince him we had nothing to do with the place, although, she wanted us to call the owners of the venue!

"For the seventh time, I don't know who owns this place! I think your Mom does, she's the one who booked us and she just told us when and where to show up!"

We played a joint in central FL where the management treated us like sh*t. The previous band left their gear for some reason so I had to hold my bass straight up like Bill Wyman - stuffed between an Organ and big amp with just about a foot between me and drums (on a small stage).

After the gig the manager decided to reneg on paying us. We had a rather forceful chick singer who told him, "Mike will kick your ass!" Oops. Out came another big guy with a German shephard on a leash. I was feeling like it might not go down well...

But then our drummer walked in. He was not very smart, not a good drummer, a fair singer but big and strong as an ox. He had a Kustom cabinet on his shoulder (three fifteens!) and looked over at me and said, "Mike - any problem?"

I asked the manager, "I don't know - is there a problem?" He paid us off and told us we'd never work there again. Too right. I was tempted to burn the damn place down.

Talbot

Well, not really that "scary" but I remember a pitcher of beer being dumped into a monitor, 20 minutes before the show at a biker gig, (which turned out to be very peaceful, as every biker gig I've played) and a guy sitting in one night, drunk, constantly trying to drown me out, took over the show basically, (Oh, and he invited himself to sit in, just rolled his amp in and told me he was sitting in) did his best to start a fight with me, didn't even try to share leads, at one point even playing lead on top of me after I had already started, then when we finally almost came to blows and he left, his girlfriend (drunk and on drugs) tried to steal my strat. My niece and my date stopped her, I never even knew about it I was concentrating on playing. I wasn't band leader so I couldn't simply throw him off stage to begin with, and the band leader was too wishy washy to do it, so we had to deal with it.

My niece and my date took my Strat from her then ran over to me during the song and told me what happened. She also tried to start a fight with my date, he tried hitting on her...it was not a fun night...my date wanted nothing to do with the guy, she was a complete non-drinker and he was sloshed. His girlfriend was wasted and really flaky to begin with, I found out later, and had a big problem with both drugs and alcohol. He has since been kicked out of every bar in the area and can't play anywhere, he's been kicked out of every band he's gotten into, and that's only when they haven't heard about him. Nobody will hire the guy any more, he always starts trouble or his girlfriend does, and they both just seem to never learn...a good friend fired him for staying wasted and showing up late or not at all...she starts fights with wives and girlfriends, he gets wasted onstage and starts fights, plays way too loud, and isn't nearly as good as he thinks he is...I'm pretty sure he has to haul his ego around in a dump truck...

I haven't seen either of them since that night but boy have I heard about them...

Getting a knife pulled on us after performing "Now They're Dead" by a cousin of the person we wrote "Now They're Dead" about.

Someone went to a garage in Missouri and saw Lynard playing that must have been SCARY because he sucks on guitar!

My other ride is your mom Mr Hankie

I fart to make you smell better

If you had another brain it would be lonely

By the way the zoo called the babboons want
their butts back, so you'll have to find a new face

Why don't you two take your pissin' contest elsewhere?

These stories make me happy I just sing in my house, but it also makes me worry about those of you that are performing. I hope you are all careful. Some of that is scary stuff!

Mr. Haley and Mr. Dylan, sometimes when you post, you teach others how to respond in an upsetting way. Your points about each other may be valid, but I'm not sure you are getting anywhere...believe me, I have an 11 and 4 year old and you are acting in a similar way, you two are pretty close to getting a time-out. Party on gentlemen....