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I am the A-hole, but how bad?

#41
I usually am ok with known to me players playing my gear (only my band mates however can play my Les Paul) but understand the flip side. One time during a break at our rehearsal space, a drummer of a different band came in to admire the drummers kit and give us a few compliments. He asked if he could sit in for a second to check them out and I said sure. He bashed on the old Slingerlands for a minute and I could tell my drummer was hot. Our singer (drummers long time friend) informed me no one played Chris's stuff. I apologized profusely and we moved on. Lesson learned.
*note that I used the word "bashed". I knew immediately I done goofed
 
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#43
Cousin Iggy said:
For me the crux of it was his use of the word 'let'. That was made it a problem. I was actually semi-ok with him playing it. I was only planning on talking to the BL afterwards and asking that is not happen again, water under the bridge, etc. That presumption of permission just seemed like a slap in the face.
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Totally agree.

Had a woman back into my parked car last week. No damage but her dismissive & cavalier attitude and failure to apologise was 100x worse than the original incident. I called her careless, to which she was very offended by and visibly irate.

You called a fool out on his foolishness, and he reacted foolishly. If not this incident, he'd spit the dummy over another incident down the track.
 
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#44
Cousin Iggy said:
sets his plate of BBQ on my amp,
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Am I the only one that thinks this is the bigger offense?

I do think it's rude for someone to just mess with someone else's somewhat valuable property (I'ts a bass, not a Stradivarious), but I also have an issue with people thinking my amp is a table. Food or beer spilled inside most amps is a recipe for potential disaster.

But yeah, you should have responded firmly, but nicely - the audience shouldn't ever be aware that there are "issues" between band members. If you yell, you're on my fecal roster immediately.
 
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#46
Ooba Tooba said:
I usually am ok with known to me players playing my gear (only my band mates however can play my Les Paul) but understand the flip side. One time during a break at our rehearsal space, a drummer of a different band came in to admire the drummers kit and give us a few compliments. He asked if he could sit in for a second to check them out and I said sure. He bashed on the old Slingerlands for a minute and I could tell my drummer was hot. Our singer (drummers long time friend) informed me no one played Chris's stuff. I apologized profusely and we moved on. Lesson learned.
*note that I used the word "bashed". I knew immediately I done goofed
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the lesson was hopefully that you can only give people permission to use your own stuff.

micguy said:
Am I the only one that thinks this is the bigger offense?

I do think it's rude for someone to just mess with someone else's somewhat valuable property (I'ts a bass, not a Stradivarious), but I also have an issue with people thinking my amp is a table. Food or beer spilled inside most amps is a recipe for potential disaster.
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you're not the only one.

i have several friends whose amps suffered issues or death from people putting drinks or sloppy food - think foods with sauces on the - and then they or someone else ran into the amps, pouring liquid or goo inside them. my buddy who had no money had his guitar head fried this way, and the guy who did it also had no money so couldn't pay to fix it. it really sucked!
 
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#47
You LS was out of line, I'd have not been happy either, but I'm kind of in the camp of @lfmn16: you shouldn't have watched it unfold and then release like you did.

I'm kind of similar to you in that I let things build up and then explode when the line is crossed, so I get your awkwardness at conflict resolution. But still, the way you did what you did was wrong - even if it was in private it was a bit harsh, but to do that on stage is way out of line.

I haven't been in that situation before (my bands (so far anyway) respect each other's gear, but I hope that I would have done something along the lines of approaching him as he put his plate on your rig and started sniffing around and got involved in the process. It would give me a chance to size up what's actually going on and either nix it or assist - hopefully in a non combative tone.

Your LS is a baby for walking over it and your bandmates are not being supportive, but you were out of line.
 
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#51
I hope it's not out of line to ask this, but how old is everyone involved? Is this a high school garage band playing at a high school kid's backyard bbq? Is this an adult gigging band playing a paid gig for a bbq party?

I don't want to belittle anyone in any way, but a little context would help get a clearer assessment of this situation. The fact that there is *anyone* on stage noodling on the instruments in between sets raises these questions.
 
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#52
The LS was wrong to play your bass without asking. It's understandable that you were angry. It's okay that you spoke up for yourself (but you may have over-reacted just a tad?). And then, the rest of the band over-reacted. I'll bet that your band mates cool down in the coming days and you'll be back together for the next gig.
 
#53
pcake said:
the lesson was hopefully that you can only give people permission to use your own stuff.
Well yes certainly. For a little context I would add that most of my band mates have been mates forever, and we were lucky that growing up in our neighborhood, it seemed everyone was a player of at least one instrument, and there were always impromptu jam sessions. It was an outlier that would refuse to let another player jam on an instrument. In cases of if the guy wasn't a player, sure that's understandable. Especially if it was expensive gear. If not though, then usually the rest of us would just kind of share a laugh about those guys. Different strokes
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#55
Cousin Iggy said:
So, we're at a gig (private bbq party), we're on break, I'm off to the side chatting with Mrs. Iggy and I look over to see our lead singer hanging out by my bass.

Uh oh, oh no, please don't...

Yep, he did it, sets his plate of BBQ on my amp, picks up my bass and started trying to figure out how to make it go boom. [He's allegedly a bass player elsewhere, so why he couldn't figure it out makes me a little curious, TBH]. The drummer betrays me (sorry rhythm-brothers) and helps him make it work and he's off to the races accompanying a guest guitarist who was playing during the break.

To be clear: He didn't ask, I didn't offer, he just jumped on it...

So I'm still sitting to the side with Mrs. Iggy, and we're saying "ok, this is a bit rude, but I can bit my tongue, sleep on it, talk to the BL in a few days and ask him to set some ground rules going forward." Got it? Yeah, I'm good, we can do this.

So I go collect my bass and start settling in for the next set. The lead singer turns back towards me, opens his mouth, and my brain explodes with "no, don't say it, don't use that word, we're almost in the clear, don't do it!"

Nope.

"Thanks for letting me use your bass" he says.

shag.

That's it, tongue is lose and 'Iggy the A-hole' is in the house. "I didn't let you do anything you rude MF-er, you just took.... " etc etc etc (way too many etcs)

I tried to remember that we were at a gig, that professionalism is important, and band fights on stage are always gonna be a poopie-show. Failed, all of it.

I went straight to a-hole mode, the only thing I did right was to keep my voice from getting loud enough for the guests to hear.

I'm not good at standing up for myself, so I don't do it often, which means I don't getting any practice at standing up for myself, which means I'll always be bad at standing up for myself... yada, yada, yada

So... LS quits the band, BL is mad, other band members all think I'm a huge a-hole, I feel like crap.

Scale of 1(kinda dumb)-10(really horrible) how bad am I?

For reference:
-I've only been doing this for 18 months, lots of pressure, very little experience (not an excuse, just a statement of my naivete.
-BL does agree that LS had no business touching my stuff.
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Wow, that is harsh, i give it a 9. I'm guessing this band has not been together for long, and you're playing a 1957 P bass?
 
#59
Joe Nerve said:
It's healthy to express ourselves, but what you did sounds more like abuse. A simple, "Dude, NO you didn't ask. Please don't ever do that again because I don't like it," probably would have sufficed.

I learned recently that our general level of anxiety has a lot to do with how much it takes to push us over the edge. If our cup is almost full from the start and someone drops something into that cup, we overflow and explode. The trick is to make sure our overall level of anxiety stays down. Drop that same thing into a cup that's only a quarter full and the reaction is much different. Deep breathing, eating and living right, talking to the right people, exercise, etc.

If it were me, I'd make amends somehow... not to try to get him to change his mind, but just to make sure my side of the street stayed clean.
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I read this kind of advice in a book once....
 
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