General Music Chat

in other equipment related weirdness....

playing a gig in a place known for it's questionable electrical wiring. we're on a stage that's about 20' across and a narrow 5' or 6' ft front to back ....so we're all straight across. i'm stage left, then drums, lead gtr, and then sid's over on the far end playing gtr. sid was the "rhythm gtrst" but sometimes he'd step out and play some really happening solos on his old battered thinline Tele through a black face FENDER Pro Reverb.

So, sid's tearing it up soloing on some song and i start smelling smoke. i'm looking around the place to find the source and finally i look over at the other side of the stage...flames are coming out of the back of Sid's amp! i'm yelling at him to get his attention (we're STINKING LOUD!) because for some reason the other guys are oblivious! he finally meets my eyes and i'm yelling "YOU'RE AMP IS ON FIRE!" and he looks back at me nodding his head with this "yep, i'm a badass" look, all proud because he thinks i'm complimenting his tone and playing!

the bartender figures out what's going on, jumps over the bar, grabs the fire extinguisher, and puts out the blaze. good thing there wasn't a fire axe handy.

i can still hear the whooooosh of the extinguisher....oh, man whatta show! what i wouldn't give to have a videotape of that!

@Bill Ras, please tell me you had some *bow chicka wow* goin on with the guitar!

From my 'weird times' file:

I was ready to play when I first got to Atlanta, and broke too. So I threw together some damn good players I’d rounded up including my brother Dan and a talented maniac named Mike Beaman on guitars. The Keyb player was an amiable but volatile (when drinking) genius named Jeff Stivers. We rehearsed a whole week and I was elected to the ‘get us a gig’ position.

I went to Underground Atlanta and got us a couple dates. When I got there I realized I'd forgotten the name we'd chosen for the band.
An embarrassing moment but I played it off and told the club owner, "We're called 'AfterBirth.' It’s a Buddhist thing..."
He replied, "Whatever..."

That was the gig where I blew out my left ear (midrange) sigh. The previous band had not moved their gear so I ended up playing through a Sun Coliseum amp which was loud as hell but for some reason I couldn't hear over the monitors so I kept putting my head closer to this gazillion gigawatt amp... The song was "Love Lies Bleeding" and yeah, we nailed it. I do miss my hearing some times.

But the boys got paid and since we had a few bucks left over after buying booze and other stuff, we also bought some food!

The singer was actually pretty talented but had only one goal – to get money to buy a breast enlargement procedure for his wife, who was a stripper. As soon as he reached that goal to our amazement he quit the band and returned to a life of indolence.

Talbot