Macaroni & Cheese

Ok....this conf area is majorly sucking with no posts so I'm just gonna blab on here.
One thing I'd love to see here is some stories of life on the road.... **** that went wrong... life experiences, advice...you name it. So with that in mind I'm just gonna narrate some of the **** I went through on the road with various bands....
no need to reply but if something strikes a chord, feel free to be one with the earth baby and contribute your own stuff.

Peace & Grooviness
schmange http://www.guitartricks.com

Tuesday, March 21, 2000
9:51:12 PM

ok, right off the top of me head
the first band I got stuck with was a country band "Bev Barker & Friends with Special Guests Makin Tracks". I was sent on the road to Kapascasing (sp?) and given one week to learn the whole nights show from the old guitar player. Considering most of the stuff was 3 chords it was pretty easy. I took over for the second week and soon discovered the wonders of groupies.
I also discovered how to lose weight real quick by eating nothing but Mac & Cheese.
The week went by and next stop was Sturgeon Falls. The first thing to greet me was my hotel room.... right by the railroad tracks, with a floor that tilted to the left and planks of 2 X 4's layed across the floor blocking the door. Once again discovered the joys of groupies...the waitress this time.
Next step was a private party... but we'll be back next bat time, next bat channel if anyones interested.
There's a whole bunch of experience and advice avail from guys like me who've been through the ringer. If there's anyone else that wants to relate road stories, I'd love to hear em so peace out and tippity type your head off.

Peace & Grooviness
schmange http://www.guitartricks.com

Tuesday, March 21, 2000
10:03:10 PM

One week? How many songs fit into one night? 7 to 10 songs a set? How many sets? Is that par? How quickly are we usually expected to learn songs?

Is there some kinda sliding scale or something, like "well, we'll give the sorry bastard a WHOLE DAY to learn this this 27 chord, 7/9 time sig, no-key/multi-key monster in an idiom he has never heard, and which he will have to transpose from bengali nose flute (and I'll never figure how they get chords out of one of those thangs!) but he only gets an hour to learn this three chord 4/4 rock verse chorus verse pablum..."

Anyway. How about some more stories?

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Sharp, Flat, I'm the one with the axe.

If there is a rhythm player, you can just noodle along with any song, you don't even have to learn the chords. Especially if you got a few stock funky riffs you can play. This has gotten me out of a lot of 'what chord are we on' situations.

Unless, you're getting paid, that is >
Then you ought to learn the actual song.

But come on, Uncle Schmange, tell us another story....

xx

[Edited by jbroder on 10-31-2000 at 05:10 PM]

ok kiddies...gather round the fire...little mary come sit on uncle Schmange's lap....mmm that's a good girl.
My first gig playing live with a rock band. In the dressing room I asked the roadie to get my guitar off stage so I could check the tuning. I check it & He takes it back later to hook it back up.
I go out on stage, the audience is applauding...we go into the first rocker song & I jump off the drum riser to hit my first power chord and SUPRISE!!... the stupid roadie had bypassed all my effects pedals and plugged me directly into the amp.
No distortion, no nothing....I sounded like Johnny Cash on Valium. So, I had to scramble around on the stage with my ass pointed at the crowd, trying to figure out how to hook it back up properly while the rest of the band gave me 'death' stares faking the rest of the song with no guitar.
(More stories later...star treks on).


x

[Edited by jbroder on 10-31-2000 at 05:11 PM]

> One week? How many songs fit into one night? 7 to 10 songs a set? How
> many sets? Is that par? How quickly are
> we usually expected to learn songs?

yeah, that's about right. I figure it was about 35 songs. They were real easy though cause it's just basic chords & you just follow the bass player & use common sense.
The first week I sat in the audience watching the other guitar player who was leaving and I'd take over a set, then 2 sets, then at the end of the week the guy decided to leave a week early so I listened to a tape during the day and played at night....5 nights a week and twice on Sa****ay. The only ones I remember now are Snowbird and White Line Fever...blech..

ok...TV's just another boring Klingon story so Mary...where are you...time to warm up Schmange's lap again.
hmm...this goes back to my first relatively big gig at Markham Community Centre...about 800 people. We're back stage and the audience is majorly booing the opening band. 2 guys in our band are backstage sucking on lemons cause they'd heard it gets rid of nervousness.
I'm downing Zombies so I feel pretty good but not quite with it.
Time for the first song....the band orders everybody out of the dressing room so we can have a final pep talk...."don't worry..there's nothing to be nervous about...just cause they're booing the first band off stage doesn't mean we're gonna suck or anything" (the keyboard player is turning kinda green)
We run out on stage...the prerecorded music starts as we grab our instruments... I put on my guitar acting real cool. I walk to the front of the stage, wave at the audience and launch into my first huge power chord...and BANG!!! the flashpod goes off right between my legs.... whoosh, smoke, fire, blinding heat .... I back off but it's too late. I smell my hair burning and for the rest of the show I've got a lovely huge black smudge covering my crotch and having to act like it was supposed to happen that way.
Try singing with your balls on fire sometime & you'll know what it felt like.

We were gigging at a block party in Queens NY many years ago (late 70's). We had played the second set for about an hour and needed a rest. The drummer, however, was full of energy and embarked on a looooong solo while the rest of the band took a bathroom/beer/joint break. The drummer finished up his solo after about 20 minutes, and said he would be ready for the 3rd set in five minutes. He sat back down at his kit, and about 20 seconds into the 1st song, he got a severe cramp in both legs, stopped playing, jumped up and tried to walk the cramps off. We never let him play a drum solo again !

hmm, my first live gig at the Embassy Hall in Barrie way back in 1977. About the only tunes we knew were Smoke On The Water, and Takin Care of Business.
I was so hyped up all day in class telling all my friends in school about it. That night it's getting to be about 5 minutes before we go on and one of the guys comes up to me and says 'Raymee is really drunk' I look over and our drummer has two guys helping carry him to the stage. We played half a song, he fell backwards off his stool right through the back curtain and passed out.
I was so embarrassed I skipped school for a whole week and watched All My Children. Then the Vice Principal called my parents, I got in major crap and never did find out if Kitty committed suicide because of Erica.

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[email]hootayah@email.com[/email]

This is a great topic, I love hearing about the gigging life. It's also very comforting to hear about some of the mishaps you guys have had, because in a couple months I have my first performance. It's a student concert run by my guitar teacher, and usually pulls about 250 people. I'll be playing Sweet Child O' Mine (with a female vocalist, so it will be a hybrid version of the original GNR song and Sheryl Crow's cover) and probably do some improvising over some Santana-style progressions. He says he wants to showcase my ability... I'm not sure about it!

> He says he wants to showcase my ability... I'm not sure about it!

heh...he wasn't touching you in any funny places when he said that was he?


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[email]hootayah@email.com[/email]

Heh... not that I remember