Environmental Studies.

[dalkowski]

Played one gig at Boston's Rat in the early 90's — gross but not on a historic scale. Plus it was The Rat, man.

 

[luciens]

Nope... Joe's Generic is long, long gone. I never played there, but spent a good chunk of my first couple of years in grad school hanging out there on weeknights.

Headhunters on Red River in Austin was possibly one of the nastiest dives I ever played at - tiny stage, filthy, terrible sound, always a great time. They did a "Bar Rescue" episode there, and their portrayal wasn't too far off. Unfortunately the show ruined the place, and the location is still shut down.

Ah, too bad. It was an Austin icon for sure. Headhunters I don't recall ever having a gig at; that may have been after my time (90's). My bands were never good enough to play the upscale places like Liberty Lunch or Continental Club. But Joe's Generic almost always let us in for some reason....

L

 

[luciens]

jesus dude try a new hobby maybe?

I did - I quit gigging about 15 years ago. Unless you played C&W, gigging in Austin in the 90's would have crushed even the hardiest, most resilient soul. Many of them who tried still live on the drag to this day.....

Course, I don't know what the scene is like in Austin now. It definitely had its good points, especially if you played in a TX blues band. And you almost didn't need a day job if you had a good C&W band.

Unfortunately, I'm too deef from that gigging period now to return to it, but I'm going to start working on recording instead. And maybe, if I can get to a non-sucking playing level, try to do studio playing.

But my gigging days are behind me.

L

 

[Pizza1988]

The metal band I used to play drums in (shh!) used to frequent a spot in Trenton NJ that would have metal shows on Sunday afternoons. You would walk in to an average smoked out run down out dated sticky floor broken bathroom with no door having fryer grease smelling bar filled with degenerates that could barely stay on their bar stool at 1pm and try to fight us "young-ins" for being at "their" bar. Then you'd walk back into the band room where the shows were held and that's where things got nasty..

They surprisingly had some decent acts there though. I've played there with Texas in July, The Color Morale, Affiance, and Ice 9 Kills. Haggard location but always a good time.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I used to play a gig on Sunday nights at a classic dive bar.
The young guitar player comes out of the bathroom shocked as he stepped in a pile of stool someone left on the floor.

One other I have to share, we come back inside after a break, and there's drunk guy sleeping with his head on our drummers kick pillow. A couple good kicks and he came back to life. LOL

Plenty of other very memorable stories from that place.
CB

 

[micguy]

I have played my share of less than sanitary dives, but I don't think I can come up with a story in that realm that can compete.

However, I have played a place where the load in was pretty much a death trap. A 3 story staircase, with no landings - just 30 feet of continuous vertical climbing steps, and....it had carpet that had long ago come loose from the stair treads, but hadn't been removed. Pretty much every step, you were thinking about sliding and breaking your neck in the fall. Load in was very scary, load out was at 5 AM, and at that hour, none of us were in any condition to do that. Somehow we survived. We didn't go back.

 

[Steve Dallman]

We used to play in a biker bar once a month in the early 80's. The white tiles in the ceiling were all different colors of smoke infused yellow and brown.

I always joke that they would need a building permit to wash the floor.

 

[lfmn16]

Rick Wakeman told a story of his early days gigging in one particular West London pub that I also played in during the same period. The floor of the gents was always running in water overflowing the urinals.
The bands drummer played barefoot and Rick hid his shoes one night.
The poor guy went barefoot to the toilet during the break.
What passed for carpet throughout the pub was suspiciously sticky.

I played at a place called The Varsity Grill in College Park, MD in the 70's. I remember more than once the floor being covered in water/urine/unknown so they put down a picket fence to walk on. That place was disgusting.

 

[Killing Floor]

Anybody else play the Clermont in Atlanta back before they renovated the motel? Picture a David Lynch movie set come to life, but with a bunch of naked geriatric needle junkies "dancing". It was the best and worst of humanity.