ozboy

Years ago, I did a gig with the spoons player that used to perform with Zappa. It was very left field. The band would just do this wild rave and then the spoons player would cut the band and recite some very outside poetry, dance around and bang the spoons. There were no charts. The bass player would just start a groove and it was 'all in'. Believe it or not, the crowd went off.

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jonbarnes

Darin Kelly?

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Whataguy!

Playing After The Lovin' at a funeral while looking directly at the guy in the casket. It was his favorite song, evidently.

Jimi Michiel

I just got back from a wedding job. The gig itself was fine, but I found myself in the middle of no-wheres-ville West Texas, dressed to the nines and driving my brand new Yaris, asking a local in a cowboy hat, no shirt, and a giant pickup truck where the nearest castle was... such is life as a desperate freelancer in Tejas...

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laurie

Gday
I once played in a band that backed Tiny Tim (anyone remember him) It was at the Sydney Opera house, for some reason best known to Tiny Tim he wanted a Brass Band! Thats what he got, the full on typically british style Brass band. He was a seriously strange fellow, and for us Brass banders it was a seriously odd gig.

Another Brass band gig involved us marching up and down Martin place(a busy pedestrian mall in Sydney) wearing Pyjamas. They were filming a dream sequence for a TV show. We got some rather odd looks when we were getting dressed for this one. I think we played Ünder the double eagle"

I played in a German style oompah band for a few years. Although nothing stands out, these gigs always ended up with alchohol charged punters doing a whole lot of stuff, some legal, some not so legal. One night we were ready to go back for another set and couldnt find the tenor horn player. He was discovered in the band bus, having sex with not one, but two of the girls from the crowd.
Brass bands can be such fun............................
Cheers
Laurie.

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MJ

Enough said

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kadleck

A funny decade? It's funny that I'm older?

Lost ... do tell.

MJ

Just a crazy decade IMHO.

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kadleck

Of course you know that I was only 5 yrs. old on that gig, right?

NickD

OK, I've been laying low on this to protect the guilty. Let's see...

I once played a gig where half the crowd was cross dressers. I didn't know this coming into the gig. That was a confusing evening.

I have worked with a horn player (let's be vague about what horn). This guy can barely play his instrument. He would hire the best musicians in town and put together screaming hot bands. The he would get out in front and play solos, often on bended knee with high drama. All through this showy posturing, some of the most hideous honks and kacks came and out of tune missed notes would spew out of his horn as to make your eyes water. His staggeringly awful playing was so contrasted by the fine band as to further intensify the surreal nature of all of this. What made it more bizarre was that he was serious, in spite of the whole thing sounding like an Andy Kaufman bit! The band would fire up and folks would be enjoying the music and this guy would open up and folks would stand there in shock, sort of like the Seinfeld episode about Elaine's bad dancing, but for real! At least we were getting paid.

On another gig, a wedding, mind you, the leader, after thanking the bride and groom singed off with, "remember ladies and gentlemen, don't smoke crack, **** it!" The drummer even did a rim shot. One of the other horn players and I were subbing on the gig. We almost dropped our horns. I thought the groomsmen would take the guy out in the parking lot and beat the daylights out of him.

Not too long ago I worked with a sax player, a sweet guy, but he played 1.25 steps sharp on everything and had no clue. He also would play 12 bar blues and would finish his solos at 15 to 19 bars, and then get mad if the next soloist waited till the end of the form. He wasn't being hip. He had no idea what it mean to play 12 bars!

I got called for one gig with a killer local big band. We were told it was a costume party and that we would be paid double to come in for make up. We all show up early and get made up with "cone-heads" as this was a popular SNL bit at the time. Again, the leader insisted it was a costume party. We get out on the band stand and the whole party was black tie! Only the band and waiters were coneheads! That was a long night and it was hard to play with those big stupid things on our heads.

Finally, a buddy of mine was on a gig that looked like a Fellini movie. The host had hired dwarfs and made them wear sombreros with guacamole dip cups on top of the sombreros. Guests were to dip the guacamole from the tops of the hats.

Ah, show biz!

Nick

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