General Music Chat

Do tell...I love stories of the weird & bizarre...show me yours & I'll show you mine...heh heh heh

This isn't really mine, but it belongs to the band I'm playing with...They had a singer a few years back named Lee. So here they are, playing a gig, and (as they were a bluegrass band) played "Rocky Top". They get to the end of the song, and all of a sudden, Lee screams "TTTTEENNNNEEESSSSEEEEEEE!!!!" at the top of his lungs-like he was playing with Napalm Death or something...apparently the other guys just froze in total shock! I've been threatening to do the same thing to them for weeks! (They fired him on the spot).

Well there was this one time. I was wailin' "fat bottomed girls" Two luscious larger ladies got up with me. They got one in front and one in back. It was a neanderpaul sandwich! I just kept on singing and smiling!

Got none to tell, yet.

ditto what Sans said

I got soo freakin' wasted, I fell asleep....standing up... in the middle of a solo!

I was once playing a gig, and right before my eyes, standing at the end of the bar drinking a scotch or something, stood the great stage actor John Raitt! I often wonder if he thought we were half as good as his little girl, Bonnie. (probably not )

Another time, I was playing a backyard graduation party with my VERY Loud band The Needles, when the artist Sterling Strauser made charcoal renderings of us. He later completed a painting based on those sketches, an that painting was recently auctioned off for a couple of thousand bucks!
By the way, the party was busted for noise violation and the father of the graduate was fined. Another time The Needles played, the party got busted and the local fire department threatened to squirt us with a hose! Virtually EVERTIME the Needles played outside, we brought out the law.
Once we played with another band (a nice little country combo) and the cops responded to a noise complaint a little bit late, so by the time they arrived, The other band was playing, and THEY were cited!

The Needles rocked! (I miss those guys)
Howlin'

I was doing an outdoor gig, playing solo sitting on a chair, and the mosquitos started biting. The Hostess w/the mostess came up behind me, and was spraying me w/ bug spray - right in the middle of a song.
Later, they found a screen house, and, again, right in the middle of another song, they walked it up and over me (saying "keep playing, keep playing") to keep the bugs out.
It gets better; about an hour later (still playing solo) it started getting windy. . .
Let me interupt the story a second to ask you - have you ever been driving on the highway, and had cars pass you on both sides at the same time? It's like you're all of a sudden driving backwards, right?
Well, I'm playing in this screenhouse on this little stage, and a gust of wind hits it, picks it straight up a foot, and blows it back at me about 3 feet before it drops down against my toes!
I was engrossed in a complicated finger-picking songs at the time, when it happened , and I'm thinking 'Jesus! WHATTHEHELLWASTHAT?!!"
It was like the whole world lurched at me, or I was falling forward or something . . .
. . . what a trip that show was.

Hey Gang,
GREAT Stories thus far!!!..Yeah , We had a posting similar to this one a while back.Dang 19 yrs of road work,lots of bizarre stuff.. ..I guess one that freaked me the worst was while using a metal drum throne , we were playin "Heard it thru the Grapevine"So Im on the FT and Im bouncin up and down on the 1/4 note..THEN , next thing I know , Im in the floor with my cymbal stands, SD, just about the whole kit in disarray???..The stool was sitting on an AC cord and pinched it while bouncin ,The band didnt know what the heck had happened ?..They thought Id finally went nuts.(pretty squirrely in them days.. ).The music stopped ...DUH.. .Yeah , It got deathly quiet and Gary (lead singer) said what in the hell is wrong with you ..GET UP!! Heck, I was so disoriented, shaking. twitching etc , I couldnt play the rest of the nite..

Being sick on the road with no replacement can get interesting..3 undesireable bodily functions in one set.. Still had to "KEEP PLAYING"..
Guess which 3?

John

We were playing at the Main Street Exchange in Rockaway, New Jersey MANY years ago. The stage was right next to the front door. We had played there a number of times before. It was pretty much a classic rock cover bar, we were the only blues band that played there (at the time one of the few blues bands anywhere in New Jersey). Anyway I had never seen an African American person in the bar, mainly bikers and businessmen (surprisingly peaceful mix). One night this African American guy walks in dressed in business attire, maybe a traveling salesman or something. He looked a little like Louis Armstrong. He comes trudging in real slow looking extremely tired. Takes about ten steps and stops right in front of me, turns around and stares at us, his eyes getting huge, and backs up slowly toward the bar. He has this look of astounding amazement on his face. He's still staring at us with this amazed look, orders a drink with his back to the bartender, continuing to stare at us. We're playing a lot of Muddy Waters. Then he gets this great big smile on his face. He continues to stare at us and has a number of drinks, never turns to talk to anybody at the bar. Then he slowly walks out staring at us in disbelief with this huge smile plastered on his face. I guess he couldn't believe that four young white guys could play the blues. Never saw the guy again but will always remember him out of the numerous people who have heard bands I"ve been in. Later...

nice one bob

In over 30 years playing onstage yeah it gets weird sometimes...lessee...

July 4th or Jambalaya Festival, I can't remember which, mid 80's outside Baton Rouge, band called Bootlegg playing a bar mid day on a stage set up outside. Middle of the second set, I think, it starts raining. No problem, stage is covered with big sheets of clear plastic. then it starts to puddle in between the frame sections, I notice it's me & the drummer suddenly, look around between vocal lines and discover bass player and 2nd guitar (both lead players) using whatever they can find to push up int he middle of the frames to try and make the water go away. Must have been 30 gallons or more in each section. We shut down, they told me to grab the acoustic and do something...so I kept playing and a friend joined me on a few acoustic tunes while everyone else tried to drain the water so it didn't dump all over all our equipment...

Same band, Jambalaya Festival, played a biker get together. Somebody dumped a full half gallon pitcher of beer in one of the monitors about 30 minutes before show time. We dumped it quick, sound man and I were standing right beside it, hot and sunny and we gave it a few extra minutes, hooked it back up and played and it worked fine. The sound man, by the way, wanted it to sound like the album played loud, and he got it. He made us sound awesome...you could hear every little thing...I could snap my fingers into the mic during our loudest solo and you would hear it out front. I've seen big name bands that didn't sound as good...

Same band a different time in a local bar, mostly classic rock stuff by the way, one of the bikers from the Jamalaya fest and his girlfriend were there, the whole group of them were big fans, she got really drunk as usual. I'm not sure how she remained standing most of the time...I found out later the bass player had told her she could sing sometime that night, (knowing we did not allow sit ins, especially drunks) so I told her no several times, then in the middle of Turn the Page she jumped onstage, grabbed my mic in the middle of a line and tried to start singing. I had to grab it back, yelled "get off the stage" and kept going. I made sure I kept the mic way off to the side until she got down so yelling at her shouldn't have come through the PA. Later she started dancing right in front of us, flinging her arms out and twirling in circles, knocked my mic stand down in the middle of a song, the mic screen hit the floor. And this girl couldn't sing when she was sober, if she ever was...no way would I have let her onstage...still another gig, another biker party, she knocked down one of two Peavey column PA speakers, on top of two Harleys, almost knocked one over. The other bikers told her boyfriend it was time to get her outta there...

Then there was this time...

I cant remember


But this brings back good memories for some reaon


Wheres Ryan Stain?

Good tales, all. Thank you for the grins & giggles.

I was asked to do an open mic at this bar that I was a little apprehensive about. I'd never even been to the place, but had heard stories, ya know?

I went & talked to them & checked it out. Seemed like it might be good place to play, what with new owners trying to get better clientelle than the joint used to have & all.

The first night, I had a few musician friends lined up to come & play, & it went pretty well until about midnight. There were these two women in their 60's that started arguing, & next thing I knew, they were throwing roundhouse punches at each other & rolling on the floor. I was playing with a really good guitar player, & when they started up, I figured that someone would stop it, so I kept playing for a while. But no one stopped the fight. Evidently, it was so entertaining that it seemed better to let it go on?!?!

Well, I just had to stop & watch, too, & ol' Blanche & Dotty had some pretty good moves for a couple old chubby girls, & one helluva lot of energy, too! They had to have kept at it for a good 20 minutes, & at one point I had to catch my speaker when they shoved each other into the stand.

I don't think I ever laughed so hard in my life. When they were done, I wrapped up my gear, got my pay, & told the owner that they already had more entertainment there than I could provide. Never went back.

Not Really A GIG Deal BUTTTTT

A freind who I will call "mark" and his wife "bonnie" invite me over for a cook out recently. We decide to play some poker, there are 5 couples and then lonesome me. 6 guys playing poker, drinking you know the drill, so I go to the restroom. And a word of warning, if you invite me to a party put up all the toys. I go in mark and bonnies bathroom, and being a curious creature I look under the sink, and there is this juge black corkscrew looking thing lying on a towel. I pick it up and examine it, and find a switch on the end, I turn it on and this thing kinda corkscrews, then it hits me, its a huge and when I say huge I mean huge BLACK DILDO.

Now my buddy mark and I used to play ball in high school together and Im not homo or nothing but Ive seen marks goods and he is nowhere close to this thing or even me for that matter and thats not saying much.

So I go back to the card game, and you know how conversations go, eventually I kind of guide it to keeping women happy and what it takes. So I ask all the guys there, do you and your gals ever use any kind of extra devices. Of course all of them say, John your crazy Ive got all the goods to keep a woman happy, including mark. He says Ive got all my woman would ever need and more, So I bait him and say mark have you looked under your sink lately. He says what do you mean, I say have you looked under the sink lately? What do you mean? I say theres this huge dildo under there, mark are you sure your telling the truth.

Everyone cracks up cause Im always kidding around, and the game goes on. One of the guys goes to the restroom and comes back white as a ghost, he pulls me aside and says John Did you put that thing in there? I say where could I hide it, I brought a bottle of wine in a sack, but it wasnt big enough to hide that thing. We start laughing, mark says what so funny, and this other guy says the thing under your sink.

Eventually all the guys at the table have seen it and mark still doesnt believe us. Finally he goes to the restroom and comes out white as a ghost. John you SOB you put that in there, I say Mark I dont even know where to get something like that. Everyones laughing and feeling sorry for mark and his new toy.

When I leave bonnie says I hope you had a good time, and I ask her point blank, this is after a few drinks. Does Mark satisfy you sexually? She says oh yeah hes the man! Im dying inside to say something but I let it go and MARK is looking at me like he wants to kill me. I havent brought this up again with mark, but its was funny as hell at the time.

The morale to the story is dont leave anything under your sink that you dont want me to find if you invite me to a party!!!

Once again this thing was huge, like a mini Eiffel Tower or Leaning Tower of Piazza.

Why did I share this? I guess cause I came home alone and am bored.

Have a good one!!!!!