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Battle of the Bands Stories

Discussion in 'Bass Humor & Gig Stories [BG]' started by 5intheface, Mar 15, 2005.


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  1. Mar 15, 2005 #1
    5intheface

    5intheface

    Dec 18, 2004
    My high School just had a battle of the Bands that my band played at that provides some good stories to share. Those things are always such crap "popularity" contests, which is what they are, but it's always those ****ty punk bands that every kid votes for that ends up winning. So it's basically conforming to being popular and defeating the purpose of them winning. That, and they all suck, but I'm sure everyone is already aware of the state of high school garage punk bands.

    Anyway, my band is me on Bass (of course, why else would I be here?) drums and guitar. I don't mean to sound like a braggart, but we're pretty f'n badass, easily most talented High school band 'round these parts. Our guitarist is amazing and shreds on Stevie Ray and Zappa tunes, and we have a very ecclectic sound, way beyond all these punk kids there to listen to three distorted power chords and screaming.

    But we're playing last, so we stand even less of a chance of winning because you can vote anytime during the show. But there was this band called the generix playing before us, and the show was running late and our drummer thought we would running low on time. They were babbeling about thier next joke song, and I called from our stage, "Stop playing" The looked over, confused and asked, "Is our time up? Are we done?"

    I call back, "You are now." And I flip on my amp and rip into Jaco's blackbird as the crowd starts applauding and going nuts (I don't know if they dug my playing, or just hated that band, either way its my proudest moment) Evan our guitarist stops me halfway through to tune and get a move-on, so we go into Psycho Killer by Talking Heads.

    I didn't really want to play it, but it went well, and Evan started modestly, sining and chunking the chords away, and the look on everyone's faces as he started to solo was priceless! They looked they **** thier pants....

    But then we played the song I had been anxiously waiting for that I get to slap this funky little line I made up, and that imressed everyone. Good thing they don't how easy it is....Afterwords I had kids calling me a "Bass God" How easily you impress non-musicians, huh?

    Fun night though, despite issues, but our set went Psycho Killer, Star Orgy of the Amazonian Queen (My song), Moby's Dick, VooDoo Chile.
     
  5. Mar 15, 2005 #2
    The Golden Boy

    The Golden Boy

    Jan 2, 2004
    footballscannotbekickediguess
    The idea behind a "battle of the bands" is to win, and you want to target the largest audience you can to be able to win. Therefore the purpose of a "battle of the bands" is to be the most popular so you can win.

    Generally speaking, high school kids these days have no idea who SRV was or the Talking Heads, or Frank Zappa, but they sure as hell know who Green Day or whoever is.

    Aside from that...

    Actions like that make you sound like a knob.

    A conceited knob I wouldn't want to play with.

    Cut me off and I'd think it was pretty funny when your amp got unplugged.

    By the way, who won?
     
  10. Mar 15, 2005 #3
    Selta

    Selta

    Feb 6, 2002
    Pacific Northwet
    Total fanboi of: Fractal Audio, AudiKinesis Cabs, Dingwall basses
    Way to stick it to those punkers! :rolleyes:
    Way to show yourselves like idiots! :rollno:
    If I'd been the soundman at that show, I'd turn your amps/monitors/PA off so fast you wouldn't know what hit ya. How would you have liked it had someone called you off stage?You can have all the chops in the world, but if you're an inconsiderate jerk at the same time about it, you're not one I'd listen to, vote for, or like.
    With that being said...
    I've a battle of the bands coming up soon (april 6th). Hopefully I'll have some sort of story to post afterwards. We're not going for the win (how can you "win" at music anyway? I never knew it was a competition...), we're just going to perform, have a great time, and represent ourselves as well as we can, and hopefully land some gigs from it.
    Hopefully you learn something from your... "expirence" there. And hopefully, it's not that you can go kicking people off stage.

    Ray
     
  14. Mar 16, 2005 #4
    MichaelScott

    MichaelScott

    Jul 27, 2004
    Moorpark CA
    +1 but hey, thanks for bragging- I always wished this site had more e-peen.
     
  18. Mar 16, 2005 #5
    haujobb

    haujobb

    Dec 16, 2004
    Wallaceburg
    My band plays several battle of the bands, two in particular are decided by a panel of judges and ussually result in the crowd booing when we get a ****ty place. One in particular is decided by whos fans can make the most noise, and we ussually place very well in that one (first or second).
     
  22. Mar 16, 2005 #6
    Stinkoman20xx

    Stinkoman20xx

    Oct 19, 2003
    I hate batttle of the bands. I dont mind showcases shows. The first battle of the bands I ever played one of the pickups poped out my 1992 warwick corvette our trumpet players valves froze and our drummers floor tom got stolen. Its basicly my bands mr.bungle sytyle agaisnt pop punk groups.
     
  26. Mar 16, 2005 #7
    Broach_insound

    Broach_insound

    Jan 25, 2005
    New York
    This makes you sound really stuck up and and full of yourself :scowl:
     
  31. Mar 16, 2005 #8
    Stinsok

    Stinsok Supporting Member

    Dec 16, 2002
    Central Alabama
    I played in a crappy battle of the bands once (as a drummer.) Before it started, the woman who was running the thing came up to us and said ''the first band did not show up, you're on first. '' OK, no problem. The sound company was to supply a drumkit in order to speed things along. I look up on stage, and there is no drumkit. It is still in their rental truck. One of the crew says "Um, like dude, do you know how to set these up?" It's now showtime and the woman is furious because things are running behind. I am stuck trying to piece together mismatched cymbal stands, and find wing nuts, etc. while she is running around like a squirrel on crack. She keeps telling us to hurry, we are making the show run behind. We let her know that it is not our fault for this crap, and she should go away. We got the show started and did pretty well (considering.)
     
  35. Mar 16, 2005 #9
    5intheface

    5intheface

    Dec 18, 2004
    Oh no, anonymous internet message board posters think I'm stuck up.....somehow I'm not so hurt. This is a place to post gig stories, so I did. I was still on cloud nine when I wrote that up, I'm sure you feel pretty good about yourself when you play a good show for the nest few days.....I thought it was humorous; the ****ty joke band was cutting into our time, so we cut off thiers. The janitors loved us. If the Generix had started ****, we had the power of custodians on our side!

    By the way, I have no idea what the **** e-peen or a knob is if you're trying to piss me off. Try using english is you'd like to give me ****. The band that won was called the Lochness Avengers, and were better than I expected. They're a bunch of friends of mine and the most competant musicians in the group is only a tab junky and can't read music. They did alright though, and a huge crowd and were fun. They played That Toadies "I'm gonna die" song, some O.A.R. song I've never heard about a crazy game of poker, and Gin and Juice, the version by I think Phish (that was a fun song)
     
  39. Mar 16, 2005 #10
    5intheface

    5intheface

    Dec 18, 2004
    Forgot to mention, We originally were going to cover "Take the Power Back" by Rage Against the Machine, but our guitarist went with Psycho Killer since all the punk kids had left and they were who were going to play it for. Vote for the all-freshman girl punk band and leave, all the did.....
     
  43. Mar 16, 2005 #11
    PunkerTrav

    PunkerTrav

    Jul 18, 2001
    Canada & USA
    hahahahahahahaha
     
  47. Mar 16, 2005 #12
    Nadav

    Nadav

    Nov 13, 2004
    Atlanta, GA
    *shakes his head*

    :oops:
     
  51. Mar 16, 2005 #13
    MichaelScott

    MichaelScott

    Jul 27, 2004
    Moorpark CA
    This thread is almost nickthebassist awesome.
     
  55. Mar 16, 2005 #14
    Selta

    Selta

    Feb 6, 2002
    Pacific Northwet
    Total fanboi of: Fractal Audio, AudiKinesis Cabs, Dingwall basses
    Almost, yeah.

    Ray
     
  59. Mar 16, 2005 #15
    5intheface

    5intheface

    Dec 18, 2004
    Man, now I remember why I stopped going to message boards for so long.....You got me guys! Now I see how incredibly......"lame-O" I am.....isn't that the cool internet slang now? Or is that from Rocket Power? Well, there's not too much a ****ing differance with you dorks constantly trying to outwit each other and act bigger and cooler than people you completely don't know. I just thought it was a humorous story, but appartantly, I'm just a ****ing "noob" My bad, I'll leave you "cool cats" to yourselves.
     
  64. Mar 16, 2005 #16
    The Golden Boy

    The Golden Boy

    Jan 2, 2004
    footballscannotbekickediguess
  68. Mar 16, 2005 #17
    Nadav

    Nadav

    Nov 13, 2004
    Atlanta, GA
    Oh, the irony.
     
  72. Mar 16, 2005 #18
    PunkerTrav

    PunkerTrav

    Jul 18, 2001
    Canada & USA

    It's not lost on us "cool cats". :eyebrow:
     
  76. Mar 16, 2005 #19
    The Golden Boy

    The Golden Boy

    Jan 2, 2004
    footballscannotbekickediguess
    Regardless of the interweb or whatever, you act like a knob you get called a knob.

    I'll pretend to be nice and help you out with the "playing well with others" thing.

    1. Even if you don't like the other music, it's not cool to bash entire genres of music.

    2. Even if you think you're "eclectic" it doesn't make you better than anyone, and in situation like that, you're playing to the audience.

    3. Even if you think you rule, cutting off another band is not cool.

    Posting about being a conceited jerk and looking for approval isn't the best way to make friends.
     
  80. Mar 16, 2005 #20
    Arikash

    Arikash

    Feb 14, 2005
    Southern Minnesota
    Might I add, that with every post, you still seem to prove to everyone that you are an arrogant stuck up prick, just my thoughts.
     
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