Instant ***hole, just add microphone

Ripley · #1 12-29-2010, 12:36 AM

You know these guys (and girls) - the folks who see a hot mic and just. can. not. resist. the. UUUUURGE to walk up and say... something. Anything! arglebargle whoooo! mother#$%*er!!!

This is for Hannah and Melanie and Kayla and Leslie and Alicia! And Brody's BRO's, AMIRITE???? who are rockin' the %*@$ out of this %*&$#()T&% place TONIGHT!!!

Am I that old? I know I am - a little bit. I know that, back in the day, I probably ~~did the same thing~~ would have enjoyed a moment of free speech on a PA system while my friends were observing the goings-on and applauding my deeply philosophical and well thought out observations on the Human Condition.

But for the love of the baby HeyZeus... Are the kids these days just chunderstruck? (That's not a typo.) I don't know if it's Guitar Hero or Rock Star or "you're special, do whatever you want!", but the kids these days... And it's not just the kids! Everyone and their brother is just stone cold grabbing a mic and givin' props to their egos.

I'm guess I'm just asking... Can a brother get a break from the PA Zombies? "miiiiicsss... miiiiiicsss... "

Share your stories, if you've fought off a mic zombie.

bassist4dalord · #2 12-29-2010, 12:38 AM

My girlfriend is named Alicia. I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring her into this.

In all seriousness, I know what ya mean. I'm 19, and my college friends love to do this. It's like "really? you're a musician. I'm trying to look mature and professional, and you HAVE to be an idiot??" Ugh. Frustrating. That's why I LOVE when I get to play the part of soundman, and just mute the suckas.

Munjibunga · #3 12-29-2010, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ripley

You know these guys (and girls) - the folks who see a hot mic and just. can. not. resist. the. UUUUURGE to walk up and say... something. Anything! arglebargle whoooo! mother#$%*er!!!

This is for Hannah and Melanie and Kayla and Leslie and Alicia! And Brody's BRO's, AMIRITE???? who are rockin' the %*@$ out of this %*&$#()T&% place TONIGHT!!!

Am I that old? I know I am - a little bit. I know that, back in the day, I probably ~~did the same thing~~ would have enjoyed a moment of free speech on a PA system while my friends were observing the goings-on and applauding my deeply philosophical and well thought out observations on the Human Condition.

But for the love of the baby HeyZeus... Are the kids these days just chunderstruck? (That's not a typo.) I don't know if it's Guitar Hero or Rock Star or "you're special, do whatever you want!", but the kids these days... And it's not just the kids! Everyone and their brother is just stone cold grabbing a mic and givin' props to their egos.

I'm guess I'm just asking... Can a brother get a break from the PA Zombies? "miiiiicsss... miiiiiicsss... "

Share your stories, if you've fought off a mic zombie.

This is why god gave us the mixer's break switch.

gumtownbassman · #4 12-29-2010, 12:58 AM

One thing worse than that is after the stupid *&%(^$ has left the stage and disappeared into the crowd, you find that your mic has vanished off the stand.

EpiRipper · #5 12-29-2010, 01:09 AM

Absolutely hate it! Every gig, there is always one a55hole, who thinks that their dribbling crap into a mic will be entertaining. Or a poor, misguided drunk woman who thinks they should be on Idol... and sets the dogs howling for miles around.

thumpbass1 · #6 12-29-2010, 05:50 AM

Folks wanting to take a jaw on the microphone when a band is playing, has been a nuisance for many decades. It used to be as the OP stated, just folks wanting to do the shout-out to their friends, and other nonsense, with or without permission from the band.

My band doesn't see that so much anymore. Instead we've been getting more folks who think that wherever a band is playing a gig, it's perfectly okay to treat it as if it was a quasi karaoke/open mic forum for them. We've been getting pestered by the " Come on man! I wanna sing with you! I'm f##%$*@# awesome! " drunks more than ever. It's even more fun when it's the drunken boyfriend demanding that you let his equally smashed 'incredibly talented' girlfriend sing a couple tunes with the band. My favorite time is when one drunk came up to us during a sound check, and announced that since he lived nearby the club he was gonna go home and get his guitar and amp and sit in with us, and we better damn well know some Johnny Winter tunes if we knew what was good for us. Needless to say we didn't care for his approach to asking a band if he could sit in. Some things were said between us as a band and him, etc, etc, and being that it was a place that the local cops liked to party and hang out at at, to which he was apparently oblivious to, he was in over his head from the start. Good times, good times.

BuffaloBass · #7 12-29-2010, 06:07 AM

Naw, that why their band's bass player is 235 lbs and a former "professional" azz kicker. No one DARES come near the thing. I dont say anything; I just stand there.

ric stave · #8 12-29-2010, 06:10 AM

I love the ones who try to take the mic from our singer in the middle of a song, or go to the guitarist's side of the stage and turn his mic boom around so they can yell into it while we're playing. I've gotten pretty good at muting mic channels on the fly whilst playing....

jugglingfreak · #9 12-29-2010, 06:12 AM

Oddly enough, Rodney Anonymous of the Dead Milkmen mentioned a very similar thing in one of his "Bitchin' Camaro" intro diatribes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U30K-Dw18Jw

Skip to 2:00 if you want to get right to the pertinent part.

Lazylion · #10 12-29-2010, 06:13 AM

My country band has people sit in often. But we don't have floor monitors, we use IEMs. The guest doesn't get any earbuds! Pretty hard to not suck under those conditions. But people still want to, and the bandleader still lets them! Come on, man! You know they can't hear themselves!

Phalex · #11 12-29-2010, 06:20 AM

A few weeks back, I was singing one of the few songs that I sing lead on (Folsom Prison I believe), when my lead singer (Out in the audience with his wireless mic) hands his mic over to some drunken ****stick who begins to sing loudly and off key. He was coming out of my monitor (We kinda share) and the drunk off key singer was louder than I was. I just quit singing all together and let the guy butcher the tune all by himself.

Pissed me off for the rest of the gig.

jazzbo58 · #12 12-29-2010, 09:53 AM

I decided to record one of our shows as a quality check. We do this every now & then. Well it's just a two mic setup. During one of the songs this a$$hat grabs one of the mics and starts singing, thinking people could hear him. So sad! I casually walked over to him and yelled, he got the message and stopped. I'm amazed that idiots would even attempt this.

Cheers,
Jim

AuntieBeeb · #13 12-29-2010, 09:55 AM

I have quite literally thrown someone off the stage for lesser offences than this. I understand your pain.

PJSShearer · #14 12-29-2010, 10:03 AM

Last Saturday a guy staggered towards me and I just gave him the Palm (traffic cop stop) whilst shaking my head - I look like a Bank Manager refusing an overdraft and it worked!!.

If necessary we use the time honoured:

Off the stage please.

Off the stage please.

Please get off the stage.

If that fails then we stop playing and, off mike, yell in the "person"'s ear:

Get the **** off of the stage.

Richland123 · #15 12-29-2010, 10:04 AM

We played a bar out in the middle of nowhere a couple years. We played our first set to a few people and there was a guy there who was enjoying our music. We took a break and he came over and said how much he liked the band and he was extremely well spoken and polite and he was sober. We got back up for the next set and he very politely asked if he could say something to the audience. Well, he takes the mic and proceeds to recite the most racist speech imaginable. We did not know what to do or say and were quite appalled. He finished and thanked us for letting him use the mic. We dubbed him the "articulate racist". So, the moral of the story is that no matter how well dressed, well spoken, sober, polite, or educated somebody appears, you have to be very careful of who you let use your mic.

Ripley · #16 12-29-2010, 10:10 AM

My drummer runs karaoke for the local college kids and they are... a special breed, let's say. Rushing the stage so there are 12 people singing one person's song, not leaving when their song is done, grabbing mics, dropping mics on the floor, stealing people's singing slots. Oy!

One night, as two young ladies were waiting for us to fire it up, I actually had to have The Conversation with a few people (over the PA, because I was that pissed off.) "Seriously? You're gonna make me say this? Mother$*#%!!! Let the ladies sing their song. Get away from the stage and let them sing their song!"

And at gigs... damn, the "Can I say hi to my friends?" or "I know your guitarist, lemme say something on the mic!" and what have you.

"OMG, I did it! I said ****! on a microphone and people heard me say it!" -- "Dude, you said ****! on a microphone and we heard it! Whooooo!!"

I'm thinking about enforcing the Erudite Rule: "Do you know what erudite means? No? Then you can't use my mic." I know it's a losing battle, brothers and sisters, but someone has to put a stop to this menace.

JimiLL · #17 12-29-2010, 10:21 AM

"Play some Skinnard!!!!"

Audiophage · #18 12-29-2010, 10:23 AM

I was playing at a bar recently and apparently unknowingly gave a drunk guy the go ahead to start screaming into the mic. I guess I was giving a cue to our violin player or something who happened to be standing in line with said drunk relative to me. It was interestingly timed though as the drunk started screaming in a noisey and chaotic improvised section of a tune. It almost kind of fit. He's become a bit of an in-joke with us.

The open mic things are pretty popular around here and I guess that it must confuse the less intelligent and more inebriated types when the entertainment is not of that variety.

PJSShearer · #19 12-29-2010, 10:35 AM

Hey, I get paid to go onstage and make fool of myself - what's your excuse?.

Blacksack · #20 12-29-2010, 10:42 AM

i remember playing a jam night years ago with an old band i was in, anyway there was 3 mics onstage (1 main 2 backing)
our band only had one singer and sometimes a bit of backing from the guitarist if he was in the mood so i asked the soundguy if i could move one of the mic's, he told me he'd rather i not move them as they had a tendancy to feedback and that he would mute it before we went on
anyways were halfway through our set and launch into a cover of "zombie" by the cranberries we get one verse in before this coke'd up nuttcase jumps up onstage and snatches the mic off the stand infront of me, he then starts "freestyle" rapping over the top of the chorus while flailing his arms round like the real slim shady..... the soundguy had muted the wrong mic
security soon launched his sorry a$$ off stage much to the amuesment of the crowd i felt more embarassed for the nuttcase than my band it was a terrible attempt to rap.... idiot