Category: Gigs

The only Yoko Ono fan in the world

Post author By admin
Post date December 28, 2004

You’re having a drink at the local establishment. Next thing you know you’ve been thrown out on the street because you happen to be the only Yoko Ono fan in the world. It happened.

My band was playing the best live music club in town with a pretty large crowd on hand. Our singer is quite good at “working” an audience with some comments and humor between tunes. One of the things he often says before we play a Beatles song is “why would anyone shoot John Lennon when they had a clear shot at Yoko Ono?” (a valid question I must say)

Upon his delivery of this question someone in the audience yells out “F**K YOU.” Our singer, not to be outdone yells “F**K YOU TOO.” This goes back and forth and our singer says “Jesus Christ, we have the only Yoko Ono fan in the world in our audience…I remember what it was like when I had my first beer too.”

Yoko Ono fan: “F**K YOU”
Singer: “Why are you messing with me? Do I go to your job and rock the slurpee machine?” (audience laughs).
Yoko Ono fan: “F**K YOU”
Singer: “Come up here buddy, let’s make up.”
Yoko Ono fan comes up to the stage…
Singer: “I had a guy like you last night only he had a human head!”
Yoko Ono fan takes a drunken swing at our singer and finds himself being tossed out of the bar by the bouncers.

That’s what you get for being the only Yoko Ono fan in the world.

The gig: Buddy from Fender, drunk chick

Post author By admin
Post date December 24, 2004

Tonights gig was at a new club for me. The other two guys in the band had played there before when I had a sub though.

The club was a pretty cool place and it was packed. I was happy to see an awesome crowd. One of the worst things to have to do as a musician is play in front of no crowd. Our poor bass player has been suffering from pneumonia and he did a great job.

An old pal of mine Jason dropped in to the show tonight from Scottsdale, AZ. Jason is the marketing manager for Fender Audio. Jason is also a crazy guy who had a really cool punk surf band a while back. I let him know about the happenings with this blog and the forum section and he said he would try to link from Fender’s site and he’d post some news in the forums! He also jumped up on stage and sang a song with us tonight (see pic).

There is a stereotype of rock & roll musicians that we always get hot chicks. That’s nice but sometimes there are some “other” types of chicks that are into the band as well. Tonight was a prime example.

There was this obnoxious chick who was drunk as hell. She had the hots for our bass player and stood in front of him almost all night. Finally her mullet ridden boyfriend came up and grabbed her and dragged her away from the stage. I managed (while still playing the drums) to snap this pic (below) right when he grabbed her around her head. They both bit the dust by the side of the stage and couldn’t get up for quite some time…

Boneheads Gigs Random

BMW Repair

BMW Repair, originally uploaded by mediaguru.

Killing time at the gig. Tonight it is a corporate christmas party. We had to have our gear setup by 6pm but we don’t play until 8:30 (if all their little “presentations” don’t go too long). These corporate gigs are almost all carbon copies of each other. On the breaks they had two CDs they wanted us to play: Kenny G’s Christmas and Mannheim Steamroller Christmas…..Pardon me while I puke.

About the only thing of interest at tonight’s gig is what I noticed about our singer’s car (see picture). I’m wondering if this was done by a certified BMW repair center?

Gear Gigs Random

The helpful cabbie

Post author By admin
Post date December 16, 2004

The story you are about to read is fiction. 😉

Some fans of my band had a problem with a jerk of a club owner one night. The club was a dive and was about ready to go out of business. These fans were so mad they wanted to get back and the owner for being such an ahole.

So they decided that they were going to “acquire” the club’s PA. The PA had a pair of high speakers with 15″ cones and horns. The subs were 18″. These were of a brand to be unnamed at this time but I understand they were from Lansing. There were also a few wedge monitors, cables and more.

Ok their plan is in place except for one problem: They are too drunk to drive. So they call a cab. When the cab arrives they inform the cabbie that they’re stealing the PA from this club. The cabbie then volunteers to help them because he too has been wronged by the ahole club owner. The cabbie even helps them load the speakers out of the club.

Only about 1/2 of the PA fits into the cab. So they actually load the first half, take it home and return for the other half!

Boneheads Gigs Musicians Rants

Smithereens=cokeheads

Post author By admin
Post date December 15, 2004

I’m on the “stories of bands I’ve done shows with” flow right now. So today’s victim is the Smithereens.

First off I must say I like the Smithereens music. It is just plain good rock and roll. I don’t want to ruin their secret, but you know all those Marshall guitar amps you see on the stage? They’re all empty. If you know anything about Marshalls you know they are loud as hell. One Marshall can cover a large stage/venue. The Smithereens have tons of Marshalls on the stage and the audience goes “wow look at all those marshalls.” But the cabinets are hollow with no speakers in them. It is all for show those damn cheaters. They are not the only ones that do this either…

My band has done several shows with the Smithereens. I’m guessing about 5. One time we did a show with them in Park City. Apparently the venue didn’t provide them with an “ample” PA system. While I was listening to their show I noticed a terrible distortion and crackling out of the mains. I went up to the soundman and asked him if he could hear the distortion. He said sure and explained that since the PA wasn’t as big as they wanted it, he was going to simply push it way beyond the limits and “blow the fucker.” Well ok then.

The next time we played with them was at a convention hall in Salt Lake. The shows went well. My band had to book out of the gig because we were playing another show at a club about 1 block away. When the Smithereens finished their gig they came over to our gig and the rest of the night was a fun jam fest.

After the gig at the club we all went to my bass player’s house to continue the party. We were all having a good time but the Smithereen dudes needed to have even more of a good time. They started asking everyone there if they had any “blow.” Apparently someone there actually did. (After all, all musicians are on drugs). The party continues until the Smithee’s ran out of their blow. Then they start asking everyone there to call their friends or drug dealers to get them more blow. This happened SEVERAL times.

After doing that much blow, our Smithereen buddies started to get obnoxious. They were starting to really bug the hell out of everyone there and scared most the people away (including me). My bass player told me that the Smithee’s were the last ones to leave, when he “kicked their miserable asses out of his house” at 5:30am.