Just because a friend of mine is related to Elvis, doesn't mean he can sing or play guitar like him. Name dropping or knowing gear doesn't equal ability to play (I speak from experience! ) I'd ask the guy to get off my gear and go back to the corner where he came from. When you've been respectiful and still being insulted, enough is enough... Your gear, your stage, your time....

_________________
"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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Yea...I've done a couple of hell gigs in my time. The worse was a frat party in one of my earlier bands. We were actually playing in the basement of someone's house and apparently there was something seriously screwy with the house's electrical because we had 2 microphones short out, one of my guitars shorted out and 1 PA speaker actually started smoking and caught fire! But wait...there's more. The lead singer showed up with laryngitis! To make matters even worse still, my (now) wife was running sound and everyone was yellin' at her because no one could hear the singer...because he had no voice. -Then- if all of this wasn't bad enough, at the end of the gig I went to get my money...the drummer had told me that my wife and I we were both going to get $50 for the gig....when I went to get the money he said "oh...no...we were just doing this for free drinks!". Needless to say, the band broke up the next day.

There's certainly a couple of other "bad nights" but that one was by far the worse. That's one of the reasons now that I simply will NOT get on stage unless everything is ready to go and the band is tight and reasonably professional. I always try to make sure we do at least one good dress rehearsal the week of the gig and I go through -ALL- of the gear the night before to make sure everything is in working order (and I still try to have back ups or a "plan B" just in case something does fail). I will -NEVER- embarrass myself like that again...period.

Peace,
Jim

I hear ya, but the guy was probably 75 years old, had a fro the size of a watermellon that hung out over the sides of his old raggedly baseball cap. Wherever he had been or was at the time I was talking to him wasn't worth making an issue of it. He knew when I walked away that he dissed me and a few of the guys in the Blues Band that knew him apologized on his behalf, which was cool for them to even care. It wasn't that big a deal to me, but certainly one that stuck with me. I figured I had nothing to gain and he was gone in short order. I guess maybe I'm a little ol school where my Dad taught me to respect my elders,.... most of the time !

That's kind of like George Carlin who said that the 10 Commandments can really be broken all down to one main Commandment, and that was, Thou shall not Kill....most of the time.. Gotta love George Carlin..RIP.

I agree with being nice but there comes a time and place that it is a matter of respect...

I use to do a blues jam on Thursday nights were a lot of real good blues player would show up..For the most part everyone knew each other and there was mutual respect...

But every once in awhile there would be some player who thought he was hot..It was pretty easy to tell these guys much like your fellow ..It would start with a story..Then the cutting down of what you or others were playing..How great his gear was in comparison.

But then they would make the mistake of saying to me how they wanted me to play..It would normally go something like i want to play this song and then i want you to hold the rhythm so i can show my chops off...

Then it would always start off the same big dive bomb some finger tapping some shredding licks and sex faces..You know the ones were the eyes are half shut with the look of ecstasy on there face and the tongue hanging out of there heads ..So that was there turn..

Then a fellow named Doc would take up his old beat up 335 and make some comment along the lines of (Son there is no reason to abuse a guitar like that and your right hand doesn't need to be on the fret board to play the blues..Why don't you try it like this) and if the cocky player had any sense he was soon be humbled..

I seen this repeated time again in the course of the two years i ran that gig..But the thing is it always took me back to a time when i was a cocky youngster..Coming back to the St Louis /Chicago/Memphis after being in Los Angeles thinking i was real $@!& sure about my playing...

It's been 23 years now since i got my head cut with Billy Peak and Chuck Berry watching in a place called Blue Berry Hills on Delmar Blvd..St Louis Mo..But it was also that night that i learned to love the blues..











Th

the first gig i played
it was during a competition a few years ago
i thrust that they had a good amplifier
but the marshall mg100 was way too soft
i was playing " purple haze" and the amplification was way too weak
i could not get over it until today
i should have brought my own marshall vs30r

My old band played an outdoor gig at a spring festival sandwiched in between a children's storyteller who looked like Van Morrison (it was a woman), hated people and was really mad that a rock-n-roll band that were definitely NOT children's entertainers were playing. After we played our second-worst set ever, framed by inter-band squabbling, my mom coming to town to see us play (badly), the headliner, a CLOWN, known as a drama queen and a bit of a wacko when not in makeup, did her thing. She too, was hostile, had her own (really bad cover) band when not in clown mode. We almost broke up, but soldiered on for another eight years. Nowhere to go but up is the moral of that awful Saturday afternoon.

I played a local rock bar
and looking for a place to tune and warm up the owner said I could use the office.
I got up there and walked in on a drug deal involving my Bass palyer
and guns were pulled,
My bass player said I was cool don't shoot.
I left and went on with the show, my drummer mean while was snorting cocaine all nigyt and proceeded to $@!& up every song on the last set i got so pissed off I broke all my strings on all my guitars and quit on the spot.
I didn't play for a month.

Ouch, you didn't know about the drug use ahead of time????

_________________
"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

Here's an interesting one... I was putting together a band and was told by the bassist I just met through Criaglist that he can't travel out of state. I never asked why because we were just beginning. Keep in mind, we practice at a Church and he's a youth paster. Much to my surprise, my wife knew him through his daughter. When they were in high school, this guy was doing time in a federal pen. He was busted for robbing banks to pay for prositition while he was a youth minster at another church! Wow! Needless to say, I never practiced with him again. So much for using Craigslist. I never had a chance to gig with this guy because my wife freaked I was playing with a criminal!

_________________
"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

The drug use was a taboo subject BUT it escalated
I saw a lot with this bass palyer
Like a MAJOR coke deal involving a large car dealer in the mid west at our studio
( car dealer eventually got shut down for laundering money )
Bass palyer now is a meth addict lost wife kids house etc. all for that "great" high Drummer cleaned up got married retired music