Author Topic: Funny Stories From Gigging (Read 197 times)

olieoliver · « **on:** November 14, 2007, 07:53:33 AM »

I was looking through some of my dad?s old stuff and found an old court receipt of his and thought everyone here would appreciate the story behind it.
Back in the 60?s my parents were playing at a club Called Pats Bar in Dallas. Their bass player, Kenny, was married to the owner of the club, Pat, who was a full blooded Passamaquoddy Native American.
Well one Friday night while they were playing at Pat?s Kenny and my Dad got a little drunk at which point Pat decided to cut them off. Well this made Kenny totally angry and he gets in to a huge argument with Pat at which point he throws a beer bottle at Pat fortunately missing her but unfortunately hitting shelve of booze behind the bar.
Well Pat throws them out of the bar and tells them to pack up and leave at. While Kenny and my dad are loading their gear into the van Pat?s family, about 20 of them according to my mom, come storming around the corner with the intent to beat the crap out of Kenny and my dad. My dad, who always carried a gun, pulls out his pistol and fires off a few rounds in the air which disperses Pat?s family, all Passamaquoddy Native Americans.
The police come at take my dad and Kenny to jail for public-intox and discharging a firearm in the city limits. Back then they still had night court in Dallas so they brought my dad before the judge and my dad argues he had a good reason for discharging the gun. When the judge ask my dad what the ?good reason? was, my father responds with?..?we were attacked by Indians your honor?.

TRUE STORY

Olie

crgaston · « **Reply #1 on:** November 14, 2007, 10:31:10 AM »

Olie, that is freakin' hilarious.

I about fell out.

seanhinkle · « **Reply #2 on:** November 14, 2007, 03:33:38 PM »

Hahahaha! Absolutely hilarious Olie!

After this thread gets rolling a bit I'll chime in with some of my adventures with my punk band Dad Im Gay...one can only imagine.

bigredbass · « **Reply #3 on:** November 14, 2007, 05:48:09 PM »

Nothing like gigging in Texas:

I was playing the kind of joint your momma warned you about in the EastTexas Piney Woods between Houston and Lufkin. Bar full of extras from 'Deliverance'.

Band leader owned the joint. Cajun, could fight pretty well and was his own bouncer 95% of the time. For the other 5%, he'd bring in his 120# pit bull: NOBODY back-talked this dog.

One Friday night, a guy about the size of an NFL tackle got a bit too rowdy, and he told the band leader to $*%*%* himself. WAY too much man, so he goes and gets the dog. The guy has no clue what's coming. He turns away from his girl to see this dog ON THE TABLE about 10 from his face, snarling and carrying on like the Tasmanian Devil in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Herbie told him he had 5 seconds to leave or become Kibbles and Bits: They guy leaps up, screams, and runs for the door, Herbie and the dog in hot pursuit.

He chased him across the parking lot and about a 1/4 mile down the road.

We're packing up about 2AM when this little old grandma comes across the empty dance floor to the lip of the stage. She asks him if it's all right for her to pick up her son's pickup truck, and she apologized for his carrying on.

The dog put such a fear in this dude he sent his GRANDMOTHER back after last call to get his truck!

I figure he went on to Catholic Seminary or joined the Foreign Legion . . . .

J o e y

811952 · « **Reply #4 on:** November 14, 2007, 06:37:10 PM »

My first ever real gig with a band for money was at a place called Arty's at 19th and Margaret in Terre Haute, Indiana. The band was Arizona, and the singer was a blind guy named Kevin Mattingly (great singer, and his brother plays/played fiddle for Garth Brooks, so they're a talented bunch). The gig went reasonably well, and after we got paid I started loading my equipment into the bed of my pickup truck. There had been some drama between a couple of drunks in the bar earlier that evening, and by this time they were shunted-off to the parking lot to sort it out man-to-man.

I'm standing in the back of my truck, arranging gear. So of course they both pull shiny big revolvers and chase each other around my truck while I'm laying as flat as I possibly can in the bed, trying to stifle the powerful beginnings of both a bowel movement and full bladder depletion for the better part of several minutes (I remember it as hours or days, so it must have been several minutes at least). I was ultimately successful in ignoring my bodily needs, but it was close. A bartender finally came out and told them to scatter before he had to call the cops. I ran inside and stayed there for a long, long time...

I recognize it could have been worse though: two of my brothers have witnessed murders from the stage, and a guy I often played music with had his brains blown out by a guy at a gig.

John

ajdover · « **Reply #5 on:** November 14, 2007, 08:02:28 PM »

A few years ago I was stationed in the Washington, DC area. I was playing with a local band (a great bunch of folks), and we frequently played at a place in Occoquan, VA called the Down Under. It was a local place, a kind of neighborhood bar located below a restaurant.

Anyway, we're about midway through our third set. The band set up was in a very tight place, no more than 15-20 feet by about 10 feet or so. This necessitated my being located next to and behind our rhythm guitar player at times. We're playing a danceable tune, when our singer, myself, and the guitarist look at each other. Our singer had a particularly nasty look on her face - someone had apparently let loose a very nasty bodily odor via methane gas. She thought it was either me or the guitarist (her husband, by the way). We looked at each other, and I asked him mid-song if he'd busted @$$. He said no, so we both looked out on the dance floor, and there was an older gentleman in front of us, dancing away with some woman, with a $4!* eating grin on his face. We knew right away he was the culprit, that he was hardly embarrassed and/or ashamed, and that he was indeed proud of his, ahem, wind. We both laughed so hard we could hardly play. Our singer just looked away, disgusted, and kept on singing.

That one still has me laughing.

Alan

2400wattman · « **Reply #6 on:** November 14, 2007, 08:43:31 PM »

My stories are born in the gutter so I think decorum prevents their mentioning. Oh god I quoted Needermeyer....ooooo

811952 · « **Reply #7 on:** November 15, 2007, 06:05:15 AM »

I've got more than a couple of those as well..

Here's a tame one for ya though:

Same band, but named Skyline by this time. Singer keeps a spit cup for chew on one side of his mic stand, on the floor of the raised stage, and a beer on the other side. We're playing a fast all-skate and the dance floor is packed with drunk people. A nice lady decides to snag a free drink from the blind singer, grabs his full spit cup and downs it in one gulp. And keeps dancing. We could barely finish the song, we were laughing so hard.

John

dadabass2001 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 15, 2007, 06:06:52 AM »

So Drop and give me 20! And never forget your Pledge Pin!

Mike

I remember we liberated some frozen pizzas from Hideaway Acres (a bar) in Wisconsin one 4th of July weekend back in the 70s. They were stashed in the homemade case for our Peavey PA head and got forgotten for two weeks. Talk about a disgusting rehearsal in mid July!

keith_h · « **Reply #9 on:** November 15, 2007, 06:53:23 AM »

Had one where all night long a particular young lady was showing a lot of attention to our lead guitarist. The more she drank the more attention he received. Near the beginning of the third set I looked up to see our lead guitarist wincing in pain. I looked down to the front of the stage only to see our young lady reaching up and sizing up our guitarist. The rest of the band and myself could not stop laughing. It ended when the guitarist wife noticed what was going on and intervened.

Keith

tbrannon · « **Reply #10 on:** November 15, 2007, 07:16:20 AM »

John-

I've got some rough childhood memories that involve chew (they also include a hay barn, scorching summer heat and a rope swing....you can probably fill in the blanks). I read your story and my stomach did a giant flip flop.

To this day the smell of any chew almost makes me spew

rraymond · « **Reply #11 on:** November 15, 2007, 09:03:36 AM »

Guitarists get all the attention! Back in the mid-70's we were playing in this bar that we worked a lot, and there was this young thing paying lots of attention to one of our guitar guys. We were just coming back from break, so the juke box was still cranking out One of These Nights at near the volume of death. I could see the young lady hollering up to the guitar player when suddenly, one of the bar staff shut the juke box off mid-song. The place goes instantly quiet except for the sound of this woman, now noticably amplified by our PA, screaming to the guitar dude, ...AND I LOVE YOUR BALLS, TOO!

She must have been proud...

hydrargyrum · « **Reply #12 on:** November 15, 2007, 11:06:45 AM »

I too had one encounter with chewing tobacco when I was young, and can't bear the smell.

I haven't played out for a long time, but my best stories are too unsavory for this excellent forum, and my tame ones are nothing to compare with the ones previously relayed.

tbrannon · « **Reply #13 on:** November 15, 2007, 11:11:15 AM »

Kevin,

Glad to hear that you learned your lesson from only one chew/swallow/spew session. It took me quite a few more.....

I'm loving the stories- they're livening up an otherwise dull day at work.

paulman · « **Reply #14 on:** November 16, 2007, 06:07:52 AM »

I dont' really have any great stories like the ones above...here is the one that blew my mind.

I'm a member of a band that plays mostly all orginal music (gotta throw some covers in there right?). We'd been together for about a year and a half, and finally decided to book a gig in a small divey bar call The Big Dawg.

This place is about 30 miles from where we rehearse, and we only know the one person there who got us the gig.

So we start off and slowly start to let it rip. We are about 1/2 way through our first set and I snap out of my little world enough to look up at the audience to see what's going on.

Way in the back, this woman is standing on a chair, holding up her beer with that wooohooo look on her face, SINGING our original song that she's never heard before. I was stunned.

So in the years since then that has happened several time more. That's my story, and probobly more of a trip for the band more than anything else. Maybe ESP does happen...

Kevin! Good to see you're still around, I still play the Skylark a lot.

Mike! Too bad to hear about the pizzas, and the eventual rehearsal interruption! I just moved to Aurora, and plan on being at Dougs next week.

And please keep the stories coming! That one with the lady drinking the chew...augh!