| My worst gig ever?...you betcha! (LONG READ)
Sign in to disble this ad
Worst…gig…ever!
Ok, so to give you some history…Several months ago I did a blues gig with a local Philly cat. It was at this little club called AJ’s in Levittown, PA. Great gig. Lot’s o’ people and the band played well.
Sometime during the course of the night, a guy named Hank come up and sat in with the band on keyboards.
This guy…Hank…seemed a bit off his meds, but then who am I to judge? Turns out, Hank can play! Real nice boogie-woogie/stride piano, right? After the set, Hank and I talk a short bit and I pass him a business card, saying “Hey, feel free to call on me.”
Are you with me so far?
The band goes back up, and blah, blah, blah, finishes out the night without incident.
A month or so later…I get a call from Hank. “Hey, you need to clear your schedule and we need to rehearse…I got gigs lined up!” Needless to say, whenever the questions of when are the gigs? And where are the gigs? And what do the gigs pay? came up, Hank was a little vague in his response. So I’d diplomatically tell Hank that I couldn’t clear my schedule, but perhaps he could book something a little further out in the future, that wouldn’t be subject to booking conflicts. To this, the response “Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back in a couple of hours.” Several weeks would pass…then another call, very similar to the first. Several more weeks, and I think you begin to see the pattern.
So it begins that Friday, June 9th, 2006 I received a call, mid-afternoon, from Hank.
“Hello?”
“Hey Lenny, it’s Hank. Are you working tonight?”
“Hey Hank. Tonight? I’m afraid so. Why what’s up?”
“I booked a gig and need a bassist.”
“Well, my gig is over at 8pm…What time does yours start?”
“9:30”
“Where?”
“Levittown, off 413.”
“I bet I could make it there in time.”
“Hey, I can cover you with my left hand until you get here…no problem.”
“OK, what’s the pay?”
“We’re guaranteed $100 per man plus the door after the guarantee.”
“Alright, I’m in…Thanks, Hank. I’ll see you tonight.”
It is 3pm.
My first gig that night was in Center City Philadelphia at a little French restaurant with a drum-less blues trio. At first, this might sound strange, but it works, trust me.
This gig went from 5-8 and went very well, thank you.
The only reason I need to mention this gig, is because during the course of this gig, Hank had called me three times in four hours. Twice to make sure I was still coming and the third, he couldn’t remember, but I suspect that I know…
I leave Center City with time to spare. I even stop at the Wawa and grab dinner.
It’s 9:15pm.
I still have 15 minutes to load in and setup. Plenty of time, as I am traveling light.
Let me take a moment and describe the bar.
First of all, the name of the club is not the same as the name that’s on the sign. I drove passed it twice.
OK, walk through the door and to your 9 o’clock is a pool table, your 11 o’clock is the bar, 12 o’clock is the stage area and some diner style booths. To your 1 o’clock and all along your right side is a wall.
In the middle of the stage, Hank is standing, staring at a pile of wires. It seems the guys he rented the PA system from didn’t give him all of the necessary cabling.
While I am taking this in, I start and finish setting up my gear.
It’s almost starting time and I see maybe 20 people sitting at the bar.
What I don’t see, is the guitar player or the drummer.
It is 9:30pm.
Well, starting time or no, we’re not doing much without the other two guys. So we wait.
“Hey Hank, where’s the drummer coming from? Maybe he got lost?”
“I don’t know…”
“Who is the drummer?”
“I don’t know…”
“What about the guitar player?”
“I don’t know…”
Now, those that know me, know that I am fairly easygoing. I am starting to tense up by now and am starting, also, at this point, to believe that maybe I made a bad decision in accepting this gig offer.
The guitarist shows up and begins loading in. He is in his forties, choppy 80’s hair style (nice highlights!), generally unhealthy looking, kind of like a slightly overweight Iggy Pop. Nice guy, I think.
His gear? A Marshall half-stack and Les Pauls…
Shortly after the guitarists arrival, the drummer (hallelujah!!) shows up.
It is 9:50pm.
As I sit on the sidelines and try to stay out of the way, I take note of some things.
The drummer has begun loading in. His kick drum is first. It is inside a large case. “Hmmm, this drummer sure likes Bonham…”, I think to myself.
No sooner did the thought occur, than I saw the huge Swan Song “angel” stenciled on the side of the case, with the words “Bonham’s Revenge” painted across the top.
Not too bad, in and of itself, but all of his cases and mammoth touring trunk had the same thing stenciled on it.
So my little Peavey Databass combo (450W into a 15” speaker) is going to try and fit in with a Marshall half-stack, a keyboard plugged directly into the PA, and a 6-piece John Bonham inspired drum kit, played by someone who really thinks Bonham rocked.
I should mention that the entire time that the drummer was setting up, the guitarist, was hosing down his guitar with Finger-Ease™. I imagine that makes a huge contribution while chunking away on rock’n’roll bar chords.
I should also mention that 4 beers were consumed by the late-comers during this setup period. Not that I am judging. I’m not. Really.
It is 10:20pm.
We finally start at 10:25pm. Almost an hour late. The bar still has about 20 people in it, and the owner is a little pissed off. On top of starting late, it seems that Hank had promised to bring in about 75 people.
OK, first number, boogie woogie in “G”. Hit it.
Surprisingly, I can’t hear the guitarist. Not surprisingly, I can hear the drummer…and the keyboards…lest we forget.
The number goes so-so. It seems the drummer, whom you’ll note, I am not naming, is not too familiar with a 12-bar progression. That’s OK. There are a lot of rock (read: Zeppelin) tunes that I don’t know, either.
So every 12-bars, there is a bit of a train wreck. It doesn’t fly of the tracks totally, so I’m hopeful.
By the end of the set, I am questioning my ethics.
The set was borderline horrible. Even if it was a “jam-night”, it would have been called “borderline horrible”.
There was little to no structure.
When one song became boring, Hank would start playing another tune. No communication involved.
Frequently, Hank would yell drunkenly into his microphone. Whether he was drunk I don’t know.
It’s 11:15pm.
The second set begins with the “coda” of Layla. Piano solo starts it. It doesn’t sound bad. From this we go into “Thank You” by Led Zep. Just as it gets interesting, Hank pulls the plug, and calls a boogie number or two.
I’m in this for the payoff now.
After the boogie woogie, Hank stands up, says “You guys do something.” And walks away. Keep in mind. Hank is the leader.
What you have now is three guys who have never played together and don’t know what each other’s material is. Sweet.
We do Moby Dick (Led Zep), of course.
We get to the 10 minute drum solo, which he pulls off, I have to add, and I go sit down. When he’s done, we finish the tune and look blankly at each. What now?
The guitarist seems to think “Whole Lotta Love” is a good idea. Ugh.
You see, Robert Plant can sing. That’s part of what made Led Zep so great.
The second set is over. Hank is nowhere to be found.
I walk outside and call a friend to vent on him. I am keeping my cool, throughout this mess, but this isn’t something I want to do again anytime soon.
As I hang up, a man, whom I’ve seen in the bar throughout the night, comes up to me. Now this guy clearly doesn’t belong in this particular bar. This is what I can only describe as a blue-collar bar and this guy was dressed extremely business casual.
He walks over to me and says, “Hey, Hank’s not doing well.”
“What do you mean? Where is he?”
“He’s throwing up blood, and I am calling for an ambulance.”
“WHAT?!”
So I try to find Hank and get some idea of the game plan.
“You guys finish the night. You only have one more set to do.” This is what he says to me.
The guitarist, at this point, hunts me down and I give him a quick summary of recent transpirings.
While we’re talking, I hear the barmaid tell “business-casual” that she’ll just pay the guys and “they can tear down early”.
Since every nugget of this evening’s events has been screwy, I step up and take care of the payroll.
She goes behind the bar to the cash register and proceeds to count the cash. Keep in mind. I was promised $100 plus my share of the door, should we meet the guarantee. So I am expecting her to hand me $400 for the band.
She hands me $126.
“Well, you guys started late and you’re quitting early, so can’t pay you more than that.”
Ouch.
The ambulance has arrived. Hank is in the ambulance, but not before leaving massive amounts of foamy blood in the parking lot. They take him away.
Unreal.
So I brought the cash to the other two guys. Told them what’s happening and started to divvy up the $126.
The logical thing to do here is split the money three ways. This $126 would have been $150, but it seems that they drank a lot of beer and it was not covered as part of our compensation.
The logical thing to do now, would me for me to take $50, since I hadn’t been drinking. I took $50, crammed it in my pocket and started packing up, leaving Bonzo and Iggy to deal with the remaining $76. You see what I just did? I, the guy who hadn’t been drinking, just took money away from the guys who had been drinking. That’s smart, huh?
As expected…BAM! The drummer exploded!
“You M*****f*****s! I’ll kill you all! You don’t know who the f*** you’re dealing with!”
Words were said, chests were puffed. In the end, thankfully, it wasn’t me on the end of the anger.
The entire time this is happening a rented PA system is sitting idle on the stage. The guy who set it up, has just been carted off in the amb’lance.
Enter “business casual”. He politely begs me to help him pack up the PA and load it into his car.
Because I’m a nice guy, I help pack it up, but that’s it, baby. I want out of this club fast.
Rewind the story a bit and walk to back door of the bar and you would have seen the drummer, in his anger, letting his wheels do his talking for him and back his van into the dumpster.
This was an interesting choice for him. I am not sure I agree with the choice as his cargo doors are obliterated…
They are hanging wide open, folks.
The onslaught begins:
“First, that son of a bitch stole from me, and now he kicks me in the balls! If he ain’t dead already, I’ll kill the m*****f*****!”
Ugh.
For those keeping score, I never found out what happened to Hank. I called the local hospitals and found nada. Bonzo, I’ve learned does, in fact play for a Led Zep tribute band, and I understand, they rock. Iggy,…I don’t know what happened to Iggy. He’s probably pawned his guitar and is delivering pizzas in the suburbs.
NOTE: Because I’m a nice guy…names were changed. Mmm-hmm. Shore ‘nuff. Told ya.
__________________
Lenny
http://www.lennyonbass.com
|
you made 50 bucks lol
