A Funkfather's gig story........

[DWBass]

Here's a synopsis:

I put ad on craigslist, woman answers ad saying she has a band and is so busy has to form a second band. Says gets tons of well paying gigs and even does the occasional distant gig. Hmmm....okay, sounds good! Thursday night I get a call from this woman and she leaves a frantic message saying she fired her bassist (from band #1) and needs me to fill in. Cool, no problem. She drops off a cd of 4 songs on Friday (gig is Saturday). Easy enough. I've crammed before. Saturday gig time comes (7:30pm start). Just me and the woman are there. 8:30 rolls around and almost all but the drummer are there. Ok we're running late but I'm rearing to go. 9:00 drummer arrives, we set up and are ready to play. But.......some dude is singing 2 tunes (before the regular lineup). I pickup the song progressions pretty fast. Ok, now we're ready to play. Woman calls out the first tune.........................uhhh....no one knows them but me! WTH!! No one knew not one of the 4 songs! She turns around and says 'just play something'! We jammed on about 3 or 4 'things' before the Po-po' shuts us down! We were pretty loud (it was an outdoor backyard gig)! It was rough but for me, it was the easiest $100 I ever made. We were done by 10:30pm. So basically and hour and a half's time spent jamming!

But I gotta tell you, the musicians were pretty good though. The 4 female vocalists need a lot of work, IMO.

[markjazzbassist]

hilarious. were the other musicians at least fun to groove and jam with?

[stealth51]

You got paid...mission accomplished

[DWBass]

Originally Posted by markjazzbassist

hilarious. were the other musicians at least fun to groove and jam with?

Oh yeah! The potential for a killer R&B/Funk band is enormous (if she can keep it together)! The area we live in is seriously lacking in a variety of bands and a really good band of this type could seriously inject some life into the area! I'm crossing my fingers!

[DWBass]

Originally Posted by stealth51

You got paid...mission accomplished

Absolutely!

[bmc]

That's a funny story. I once did a gig with a female singer I met some fair that was selling CD's of her own music. Her doctor husband bankrolled an expensive high quality recording with hired musicans. The CD sounded fantastic. The music had lots of different and sometimes intereresting chord changes. Anyhow, we started talking and I told her that I freelanced if she ever needed a bass player. She called me three days later and asked if I'd like to play with just her at a coffee house in Calgary. I agreed. We tried to hook up for a rehearsal but it got cancelled. Anyhow, she said to just learn the music on the cd, which I did.

The first set sounded fine as it was all off the CD. Set number two starts and she announces that it's all material from her upcoming CD. No sheet music. No tabs. No nothing. I stood there and watched her fretting hand to follow the chords and tried to interpret the rythmn she wanted and feel to the song. Judging by the contorted facial expressions I was getting from her, I must have "not nailed it".

What a friggin Yoko Ono experience, so I know how you felt.

[DWBass]

I was totally under the impression that the band already knew the songs!! And the singers were just kinda standing there which indicated to me they were not experienced at all. True entertainers know how to move through awkward moments. They should have improvised something and I could have followed. One girl did try to sing 'Betcha By Golly Wow' and I was trying to follow her but she was all over key wise and also stretched it out so there was no sense of time so I gave up. It was interesting. I was clearly the most experienced person playing. She had also just bought a P.A. (no monitors) and I had to set that up for her. No monitors? Outdoor gig? You know there were hearing issues. I could go on and on.

[BWB]

Originally Posted by stealth51

You got paid...mission accomplished

Word.