Guitar Players from Hell True Stories

[lousybassplayer]

I had to teach a guitar player how to play in a high school band. We were supposed to be a punk band, which to me meant a lot different things than this guy. This was before emo was cool, but he was as emo as emo gets. He couldn't play a power chord with any more than two fingers, and even though he had long thin flexy fingers I envied over my stubby little rat paws, he claimed he would cramp up during every song. I can't even describe what his left hand looked like. The worst part, he wrote all the songs. OR so he thought. Basically when it was said and done he'd be showing me root notes ( ie punk bass line) and I'd show him how to play it on a guitar, and I flat suck at guitar. This back asswards arrangement didn't last long. I quit and he kept all my songs. I'm sure he is doing well now.

 

[busmandan]

Wow - where to start?

1) Auditioned a guitarist in the early '80's. Guy shows up with a gorgeous Schecter strat (back when they were hand-made in the US) and a Mesa-Boogie Mk 1. I'm practically drooling in anticipation of the tones I'm expecting to hear. He starts playing, and it sounds like he's playing through a transistor radio - no bottom, no top, only a persistent mid buzz. We take a break, and I notice a homemade pedal of some kind in his signal chain. I asked what it was and was told, "Oh, I made it myself - it's a big part of my sound." I tried to get him to play without it and he wouldn't hear of it. Needless to say, he didn't get the gig. Afterward, I dubbed his pedal the Tonesucker, and from that point on when we came across a guitarist with lousy tone someone would pipe up, "Oh, it sounds like xxxxx sold someone his Tonesucker."

2) Ever played with a guitarist that you had to beg to TURN UP? I have. Dude was the most anal I've ever encountered about volume. He even wanted us to run the house mix to him in the monitor so he could "mix himself". Uh, no.

3) Auditioned a guy who showed up with one of those solid-state Fender "zodiac" heads and several cabinets. As if this tone abomination wasn't enough. he proceeded to plug one of those Gibson Sonix guitars into it (the ones made of compressed sawdust). Sounded like compressed sh!t.

-- Dan --

 

[nickcardin]

I went from a band where I was the youngest and least experienced and joined an existing band where I ended up being the oldest the most experienced. Don't get me wrong, the fellas could play great, but just didn't have any theory knowledge. One day the guitar player who did all the writing was going over a new tune he had written. Basically, he was hitting on the 4-and all the time, to which I made that exact observation out loud. He tells me, "No, no. It's the 1, just come in little early." Priceless

 

[strings42]

I don't know if this counts, I was more of a passerby than a participant ...

I subbed for a band of moonlighting forty-somethings (of which I am one). Most of them had played in bands at some point, except for the lead-guitarist, who predictably was the biggest know-it-all of the group. No matter, I'm pretty good at pretending I'm listening and he wasn't messing with me too much anyhow. The singer's dad has sung for bands going way back, so he shows up at gigs and runs sound for them for free when he can. Knows what he's doing.

Their bass-player left the band, mostly over conflict with the lead I think, so they asked me to join in his place. I agreed, but it was close to Christmas so it was going to take a couple of weeks to get our rehearsal schedules in sync. Two weeks rolls by and I email the lead-guitard to see when we're going to get together. He responds with some whack line like "the fact that you haven't heard the news just shows why I quit this band", or some such stuff.

I called up the other guitar player to get the scoop ... turns out Jimi-wannabe had been having issues with the volunteer sound guy over -- surprise, surprise -- not turning his solos up loud enough. (Trust me, the guy's solos weren't worth turning up). After the bass-player leaves, guitard-boy decides to call up the sound guy and essentially fire him, without bothering to consult the rest of the band over it. The sound guy politely replies that he'll see what the rest of the band thinks and blows him off. Needless to say, the lead-singer is hacked (it's his dad, remember), so he and the guitard have words (or emails) that eventually escalate into bright-boy insulting the lead-singer's whole family, including his wife. For real -- complete kindergarten stuff. It ended up that he quit, but there's no way he could have shown his ugly little face anywhere near them anyhow.

Oh, and as a parting shot, he called and canceled the gigs that they had on the calendar, including the ones he hadn't booked. Even took one of the gigs he "canceled" for us with a different band, but I heard he sucked with them too.

 

[Joel S.]

I don't know if this counts, I was more of a passerby than a participant ...

I subbed for a band of moonlighting forty-somethings (of which I am one). Most of them had played in bands at some point, except for the lead-guitarist, who predictably was the biggest know-it-all of the group. No matter, I'm pretty good at pretending I'm listening and he wasn't messing with me too much anyhow. The singer's dad has sung for bands going way back, so he shows up at gigs and runs sound for them for free when he can. Knows what he's doing.

Their bass-player left the band, mostly over conflict with the lead I think, so they asked me to join in his place. I agreed, but it was close to Christmas so it was going to take a couple of weeks to get our rehearsal schedules in sync. Two weeks rolls by and I email the lead-guitard to see when we're going to get together. He responds with some whack line like "the fact that you haven't heard the news just shows why I quit this band", or some such stuff.

I called up the other guitar player to get the scoop ... turns out Jimi-wannabe had been having issues with the volunteer sound guy over -- surprise, surprise -- not turning his solos up loud enough. (Trust me, the guy's solos weren't worth turning up). After the bass-player leaves, guitard-boy decides to call up the sound guy and essentially fire him, without bothering to consult the rest of the band over it. The sound guy politely replies that he'll see what the rest of the band thinks and blows him off. Needless to say, the lead-singer is hacked (it's his dad, remember), so he and the guitard have words (or emails) that eventually escalate into bright-boy insulting the lead-singer's whole family, including his wife. For real -- complete kindergarten stuff. It ended up that he quit, but there's no way he could have shown his ugly little face anywhere near them anyhow.

Oh, and as a parting shot, he called and canceled the gigs that they had on the calendar, including the ones he hadn't booked. Even took one of the gigs he "canceled" for us with a different band, but I heard he sucked with them too.

What an asswipe.

Maybe I'm from crazy musician land, but I could've sworn it was the instrumentalist's job to maintain volume, then add some juice when he needs to heard. Every band I've seen/played with, the guitarist will give his volume knob a twist, or volume pedal a kick during solos.