Your most unusual gig

dr.ona · Post by **dr.ona** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:22 am

My old band was sponsered by Jagermeister and so we got to open up for The Bloodhoundgang since they were sponsered as well. This was in Portland and at the time the BHG had some controversal songs about women so there were TONS of protesters and television reporters at the show...Being an opening band we were "guilty be association" but hey..it was free press.
We got to party with the band and I've NEVER seen so much alcohol at a show..I shit you not they had a table about 30' long with nothing but booze..
Ahh..it was fun to be young

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:39 am

My brother's band (in which I play guitar) played the Chicago Auto Show two years in a row ('05 and '06), on the Chrysler stage, and they had Chrysler cars driving around the stage as we played. They told us "once you get on the stage, don't get off 'cause you'll get hit by a car."

Dubmaniac · Post by **Dubmaniac** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:57 am

When I first started this thread, I was thinking of recording or live sound situations, not playing in bands. But what the hell- there are probably a lot more good, bizarre stories from playing than just recording! So, in that spirit, I'm gonna have to share a few playing experiences of my own. Let's see... hmm...

Okay, sometime in the eighties when I was young and stupid, I played bass in a band that was opening for country swing legend Hank Thompson at an American Legion hall. He invited us up to do some songs with him. I had never heard any of his songs until that night, but I'm a fast learner, and country swing isn't that hard to play. I also happened to be taping that night. We rocked that place! They loved us! Okay, they loved Hank, but still... anyway, when it was over, I was all stoked to hear the tape, but I was also pretty tired. I went home, fell asleep, got up in the morning, went out to my car to get the tape... and some asshole had broken into it and stolen several mike stands... and the tape. I never even got to hear it! If you're the guy who stole my shit and you're reading this, I hope your dick falls off, you turd burglar.

I guess this falls more under the category of "stupid things I've done" than "weird gigs", but whatever. The lesson here, kids, is don't EVER leave your gear, or your tapes, or anything else you don't want stolen, in your car overnight! Live and learn... I'm sure I'll think of more stories, and I'll post 'em as they come back to me.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:24 am

an old band of mine seemed to always end up in weird gig situations...

1. we get offered good money to play an MIT frat. ok, sure. we get there and it turns out it's a DRY frat, which was fine with me but it didn't seem like it'd make for much of a party. wrong. first downbeat and the room filled with kids, all dancing like crazy. to a song in 7. we were used to playing indie rock shows where everyone just stood there, so this was pretty great.

2. we somehow get asked to play at some irish soccer teams 25 year reunion dinner. don't ask me. it's at a fancy hotel in cambridge, after we loaded in we stood around for hours feeling really conspicuous in our ratty slacker attire. once the dinner started we're scanning the crowd and asking each other 'what the hell are we going to actually PLAY?' cause we were pretty confident they weren't going to interested in our more adventurous material. in the end we just bullshitted a lot of standard funk riffs and escaped unscathed.

3. a friend asked us to play at some party at a swanky clothing store on newbury street. quite why we said yes escapes me, but whatever. so we're loading in and it was literally salesgirl saying 'oh yeah, you can just set up right here next to the spring shirt collection.' the bass player and i are laughing under our breath the whole time, saying 'this has to be the dumbest shit we've ever done'. our friend who booked the gig shows up, surveys the scene, feels really guilty, pulls out his wallet and gives us $100 just cause. nice guy! so we start to play and the crowd of Rich Girls and the Men Who Chase Them are not the least bit interested in our weirdo funky dub stylings, in fact we seem to making them a little uncomfortable. excellent. we proceeded to get weirder and weirder for an hour and a half and it actually was a really fun gig.

NewAndImprov · Post by **NewAndImprov** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:35 am

Can't think of any entertainingly wierd recording gigs. But the strangest live sound gig I ever did was the local county fair. I did the "2nd" stage, an endless progression of 6 year-old Tammy Wynette clones, geriatric kazoo bands, bad magicians, polynesian fire dances (who set the stage backdrop on fire, I fortunately had an extinguisher), and utterly non-ironic vaudeville performers. Was actually very fun. Also ran sound for the Rodeo at nights, that was HELL. I kept a journal of that week that my wife said I should publish.

Have played many strange gigs, but perhaps the strangest was the Grass Carp Festival. A lake on the Oregon Coast was in danger of dying from algae infestation, so they stocked the lake with grass carp, who ate the algae and saved the lake. So every year, they celebrate the rebirth of the lake with, what else, speedboat races! I was playing with a traditional African marimba band at the time, 12 players on 8 home-made diatonic marimbas and percussion. We played acoustically, and were pretty loud, but not loud enough to compete with speedboats. Imagine a swarm of chainsaws. Also, it took us a year and a half to get paid for the gig.

Boogdish · Post by **Boogdish** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:35 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: 1. we get offered good money to play an MIT frat. ok, sure. we get there and it turns out it's a DRY frat, which was fine with me but it didn't seem like it'd make for much of a party. wrong. first downbeat and the room filled with kids, all dancing like crazy. to a song in 7. we were used to playing indie rock shows where everyone just stood there, so this was pretty great.

I played in a dorm at MIT a couple tours back. My cousin goes there and before the show she gave me no information, just park on the street and call her. When I get there at 5pm (when the meters got free) she has no plan for the show. We eat dinner, I go with her to do a quick shift at her job feeding genetically modified zebra fish, we come back, it's 9 pm, I'm starting to think that there will be no show.

As we walk back to her dorm she checks her mail, and kinda glances at this big room where they have pool tables and junk. She asks the mail guy if anythings going on there tonight. He shrugs. She tells me the show is there at 10:30pm tonight and to start unloading my gear. She goes upstairs to her computer and mass e-mails her entire building and the dorms across the lawn.

At 10:20 it's me and my gear in an empty room stressing myself out. At 10:29 about 25 kids show up all eagerly asking if it was starting soon. I start playing and they all went nuts, dancing, singing along to the songs with repetetive choruses. After the set I sold a bunch of CDs and shirts and kids asked me to autograph them. And then they all just kinda scampered off, no hanging out, no after party or anything, they all just went back to studying. It's my favorite show I've ever played on a college campus.

Roboburger · Post by **Roboburger** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:52 pm

japmn wrote:Were you with the band? I think you guys stayed at my house in Fayetteville Arkansas back in, around, 1998?

I was pretty much at every MoA? gig from mid-1995 on. My astroman name was The Brannock Device, and I was their FOH, merch, and tour manager-ish guy. Was that the place on the lake where we went swimming, or was that the place where Erich, Seth, & I were in the middle of a bet over who could go the longest without eating solid food? (BTW, Seth lasted less than 24 hours, I folded to Erich around hour 50- he had the advantage of not having to drive-he could sleep in the van while I was grinding my teeth from too much coffee and no food!) we played the place below the pizzeria that night, and the pepperoni was driving me batty.

While most cats' road stories are full of sex and drugs, man or astroman tour stories involve stupid stupid bets and silly goat-getting behavior. Have I ever posted about the time Birdstuff drank day-old piss for 100 bucks? that's sure to curdle your oatmeal. We don't know which astromans' piss it was, btw.

0xeneye · Post by **0xeneye** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 1:01 pm

I played a gig at a Federal prison in the Everglades on New Year's Day of 1995

I played a gig at a Women's prison (I am male) when I was 23. I thought I was cool till I saw these people, they were beyond cool.

mikeyc · Post by **mikeyc** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:00 pm

My weirdest recording sessions would probably be...

1. The time this band of former skinheads came to record at my studio. Nothing unusual about the session, except when one of the band members decided he wanted me to record him loading his handgun to lay into the recording. It made me a little nervous because this guy had previously served time on gun charges, but what the heck.

-or-

2. The time I showed up for a location recording at this guy's house-- which was really the upstairs apartment in a duplex. I knocked on the door- no answer. Then this guy runs up in a pair of running shorts (nothing else) and greets me. We go upstairs and the guy (still only in his running shorts) proceeds to have me record him playing classical guitar instrumentals in his kitchen, with overdubs of him reading bible passages in a near whisper. Then, he never paid me! Good times.

-or-

3. The hardcore punk band with 2 vocalists who could only do their tracks with the lights out, in the same room, while punching each other in the stomach. Nice guys. They still owe me money.

mingus2112 · Post by **mingus2112** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:27 pm

mikeyc wrote:
2. The time I showed up for a location recording at this guy's house-- which was really the upstairs apartment in a duplex. I knocked on the door- no answer. Then this guy runs up in a pair of running shorts (nothing else) and greets me. We go upstairs and the guy (still only in his running shorts) proceeds to have me record him playing classical guitar instrumentals in his kitchen, with overdubs of him reading bible passages in a near whisper. Then, he never paid me! Good times.

LOL
I recorded Psalms accompanied by harp music. The woman composed all the harp music herself and HIRED professional voiceover people to recite the Psalms. Unlike you, though, I got Paid. . .a LOT. I would have felt guilty if she wasn't so rich.

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:34 pm

Ever seen goths come out of tents?

Only at night in Asheville, NC.

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:18 pm

mikeyc wrote:My weirdest recording sessions would probably be...

1. The time this band of former skinheads came to record at my studio. Nothing unusual about the session, except when one of the band members decided he wanted me to record him loading his handgun to lay into the recording. It made me a little nervous because this guy had previously served time on gun charges, but what the heck.

-or-

2. The time I showed up for a location recording at this guy's house-- which was really the upstairs apartment in a duplex. I knocked on the door- no answer. Then this guy runs up in a pair of running shorts (nothing else) and greets me. We go upstairs and the guy (still only in his running shorts) proceeds to have me record him playing classical guitar instrumentals in his kitchen, with overdubs of him reading bible passages in a near whisper. Then, he never paid me! Good times.

-or-

3. The hardcore punk band with 2 vocalists who could only do their tracks with the lights out, in the same room, while punching each other in the stomach. Nice guys. They still owe me money.

holy fuck!! ahahahaha!!!

The last one kinda reminds me of a session I did a long time ago. I recorded this horrible nu metal band from southern Kentucky. The guys in the band were as nice as can be. The we got all the instrumentals down and we decided to do the vocals on another day. So he comes in to do the vocals and he does a song about an ex-girlfriend and the lyrics were horrid! He was doing a little rap-metal "Slut, you fuck' slut, open yo eyee!" then singing horribly off key during the cliche quite bridge "Do you think I alright, you fucking biiiitcha." Then the song builds up and he starts screaming and cry and yelling while his voice is cracking "It's fuckin' over with!" THEN the guitarist, for some odd reason wanted it sit right in front of the singers face while he tracked the song, started making fun of him! The singer looks over at the guitarist and gives him this really shitty look and say "I heard ya bitch". All this was caught on tape (or hard disk rather). Man, talk about awkward.

During the final mix of the song they wanted to keep the guitarist making fun and the singer saying "I heard ya bitch". Fuckin weird...

japmn · Post by **japmn** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 2:19 pm

Roboburger wrote:
japmn wrote:Were you with the band? I think you guys stayed at my house in Fayetteville Arkansas back in, around, 1998?
I was pretty much at every MoA? gig from mid-1995 on. My astroman name was The Brannock Device, and I was their FOH, merch, and tour manager-ish guy. Was that the place on the lake where we went swimming, or was that the place where Erich, Seth, & I were in the middle of a bet over who could go the longest without eating solid food? (BTW, Seth lasted less than 24 hours, I folded to Erich around hour 50- he had the advantage of not having to drive-he could sleep in the van while I was grinding my teeth from too much coffee and no food!) we played the place below the pizzeria that night, and the pepperoni was driving me batty.

While most cats' road stories are full of sex and drugs, man or astroman tour stories involve stupid stupid bets and silly goat-getting behavior. Have I ever posted about the time Birdstuff drank day-old piss for 100 bucks? that's sure to curdle your oatmeal. We don't know which astromans' piss it was, btw.

Not on the lake. All I know was when I came home the next day, every appliance in the house had a NASA style Astro sticker on it.

Cojonesonasteek · Post by **Cojonesonasteek** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:56 pm

An elderly retired gentleman was complaining of the neighborhood kids playing in his yard and disturbing him, so he asked for a recording of a monster/ogre that he could play on his boombox and hopefully scare the children away. After writing the most chilling bilingual lines I could read with a straight face, I ran my vocals through a Zoom 9030 effects box which had a primitive pitch shifter and lowered the pitch, adding reverb and a little echo. Then I added some Halloween sound effects from an old '60s LP. Sounded like Darth Vader with a bad hangover. I am sure the recording attracted more kids than it scared away.

stevedood · Post by **stevedood** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:34 pm

A coworker who just had a newborn baby told me they were having trouble getting the kid to sleep. They had read somewhere that "noise" would lull the kid to sleep and/or reduce background noise.

I made him a 30 minute track of white noise. He went home and came back the next day saying the white noise CD didn't work but they had been recently using their hair dryer on low and it was working quite well.

This time, I borrowed the exact same hair dryer, took it home and recorded it in stereo (M & S @ 2 meters) for 5 minutes and looped it a few times to get it to 30 minutes, "mastered it", etc. The next evening he tried it out and came into worked overjoyed, having had a good night's sleep himself as well.

Seeing as I didn't listen to it to closely the first time, I went back and listened to those high-def hairdryer recordings and a I swear, buried in that turbine whine, I could hear something kinda like crickets, monkeys, and jungle sounds. Pretty unusual to say the least and I got a free lunch out of it.

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