Hey, it has to happen, right? All those wonderful nights where people compliment your playing, tell you the band is great, and you get along well with your “employers” (eg club, bride & groom, company, etc) should be balanced out with jobs that make you appreciate those finer moments.

Equipment/Personnel Issues

Although I’ve never had a player NOT show up, I’ve had some come very close to being late. Our drummer got lost on the way to a wedding gig once. This was before the age of cell phones. The technique used by our singer was to remotely change her answering machine message on her home phone to directions to the gig. Then she found out she didn’t have enough time to record it all so she re-recorded it at a break neck speed before the beep went off, thinking that the band member would call her number (by pulling off the road and using a pay phone). Her efforts paid off, that’s exactly what the guy did, got back on the road and showed up 15 mnutes before we were to play.

In this day of cell phones and navigation devices, this is less likely to happen but people do forget their cell phones or they’re out of a charge.

With respect to equipment, I’ve never had a failure but I’ve heard many a story of their amp suddenly smoking. I’ve been lucky in that aspect – but as a guitarist you can have some backup. If you use an external foot board (with various effects) you can plug directly into the PA (provided there is a free channel) and get the amp fixed later. If the footboard dies, you can go off the amp straight and use the onboard effects (useful to get a modeling amp here…like Line6)

One thing that threw me with my Line6 amp until I figured it out – my power cord is a plug-in type on the amp end. I forget that and when I move the amp around it sometimes comes loose and then -ack! – I have no power! Nothing comes on! Lesson here: when you set up, double check all connections so there’s no surprises on stage.

Interesting Crowds

Here’s where the stories get a bit more….colorful.

Story #1: A long time ago we were playing on a slightly raised stage (about 2 steps) and I had my heavy Les Paul Custom on my shoulder when this guy comes over to me and motions me to come closer so he can talk to me. I bent over – and this guy grabs me by the neck and pulls me closer to him so I can hear his request. I’m nearly falling off the stage at this point (a thigh-high railing kept me on) but this apparently inebriated person didn’t notice. When I finally got away from him, I told our bassist (who called the tunes) and he ignored the request until the guy came over to me a second time. “Frank, call that tune and get this guy off my back!”, I growled and we finally played his tune.

it gets better…

Story #2: We were playing a private home on a large lot of land down in Morgan Hill, CA. I was filling in with this band and they had equpment and lights.

Well, these good ol’ boys were drinkng when we got there and while setting up, there were some hostile looks cast our way (not sure why other than their happy, elated state). It got dark and it got cold. The people throwing the party wouldn’t let us use their restroom to change clothes either.

So we got our stuff plugged in, used our lights after dark and played I guess 2 sets. That was our arrangement and then another band was coming on. They wanted to use our lights, we wanted to leave. Even though they were asking a favor, they gave us attitude: “Hey, man, can you dig playing without lights?” We got all the sound equipment loaded onto the trucks and waited until the last minute to pull the plug on the lights. By then, all the band members were on alert that we were taking off fast.

Sure enough, when the plug was pulled on the lights, there was some confusion at the party. People wanted to know what was going on. We jumped into our vehicles, and took off down the road. I don’t even know if we got paid for this gig.

Last Story…

I was in another band that was quite Top 40′ish and less rock (although when we did do rock tunes, that was my forte). We got a gig at Fort Ord near Monterey, CA (which was closed under the Clinton years).

I’ve played military bases before, but I don’t know what they were thinking when they booked us. This was not a coed crowd – it was all enlisted men, no one to dance with, so it was purely entertainment. And they didn’t want to dance (obviously) – they wanted to ROCK. And they weren’t shy about expressing themselves. In essence, we were boo’d off the stage and trying to make a go of eeking out a single set of our more rocker tunes. They wanted Van Halen and we were doing Men At Work. Lesson here: know who your audience is and what they want!

I believe our contract was honored and we got paid, but we couldn’t wait to get out of there!

Note that these are only a few “bad” stories while most nights are much less exciting – thankfully!!

This week I’m going to Utah with my girlfriend to attend the Sundance Film Festival. I hope to have a story or two when I get back!

Spencer

Hi folks -

It was a busy weekend around the Clark Ranch. I had family visiting me, I cleaned my fish tank (killing all fish accidentally in the process, RIP), and my band played 15 songs for a birthday party.

Our bassist, who works for a sound company, managed to snag the last JBL speaker out of the warehouse with a powered mixer. We had no monitors, but it was a back yard party and we couldn’t get too loud anyway.

This was our first time playing in front of an audience with our own equipment, and it was interesting to see how we lined up. For some reason I’m always on the left side of the stage, as I was in my last band. I don’t necessarily like it, but that’s where I end up.

We ran through our tunes and I think we played fairly well. We have some endings to work on, which is typical. Someone pulled my mic off the stand to test it, then when it was put back it was facing the wrong direction so during a song I had to stop playing and adjust it back while everybody laughed.

I decided to keep the momentum going by charting out three new songs to add at this Wednesday’s practice. I chart them with Google docs and then share them out to the band members. I added two Tom Petty songs and an oldie from Pat Benetar, Hit me with your Best Shot. I’m going to keep pushing the band for 3 new songs a week and there won’t be any excuses because we’ll have the charts.

I was also hoping to get some photos of the band playing. I know one person had a camera there but so far I haven’t seen any pics. Once I have one I’ll go ahead and post one here.

Keep strumming….

Spencer

Hi all -

My band, Brazen, went up on stage last Wednesday (6/11/08) and knocked out 3 tunes. We were nervous, and there were mistakes, I’m not sure if people noticed them or not, but we sure did.

Due to logistic problems, we hadn’t practiced in a week. That probably weakened us more than anything else. The crowd, however, was very enthusiastic which helped a lot. The next day our email thread had statements like “When can we play there again and what do we want to play??” so it was a good shot in the arm for the band.

A note to all you guitarists out there – if the band gets lost in a song, follow the bassist, right or wrong (unless he’s the only one off). I had to follow our guy in one song. It’s like merging traffic, right? You don’t want to lay blame or have “stage rage” right then and there – you compromise the song to keep the integrity of the band together and talk about the mistakes later, in a non-confrontational way.

The house band that plays there played before us and after us and boy, do their years of playing together show. Everybody on their mark, everybody comfortable and they were good!

We’re playing a private party at the end of the month, more practice in front of a small audience. They are family, so it will be different, but still more pressure than a practice. I might get a good hot dog out of it too

Rock on,

Spencer