Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
"Play something we can dance to"
- Thread starter PJSShearer
- Start date
Then you should hear the request as "Play something we can dance to."
A. If the dance floor is empty, "we" means everybody in the joint. You might be playing rock to a country crowd (or country to a funk crowd, funk to a polka crowd, and so on).
B. If the dance floor is full, "we" usually means just the couple making the vague request. (I get this sometimes on GB dates from seniors wanting oldies when the crowd wants rock, R&B, or funk.) "Please stay with us, as we've got lots of tunes with different flavors coming up in this set."
Donna Summer - She Works Hard for the Money
Sister Sledge - We Are Family
yeah, the good disco / funk gets the butts moving on the dance floor, no matter how many people put disco down.
Sister Sledge - We Are Family
yeah, the good disco / funk gets the butts moving on the dance floor, no matter how many people put disco down.
Or it can also be their way of saying, "play songs we know."
At which point the band that wants to be hired back will quit doing deep tracks from Dire Straits and Steely Dan (much as I love those bands), and kick out some Skynard or Stones or John Cougar or the like. Or newer stuff if the crowd is correspondingly younger. Painful as they may be to play, "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Mustang Sally" seem to go over with crowds regardless of their age, at least in my experience.
At which point the band that wants to be hired back will quit doing deep tracks from Dire Straits and Steely Dan (much as I love those bands), and kick out some Skynard or Stones or John Cougar or the like. Or newer stuff if the crowd is correspondingly younger. Painful as they may be to play, "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Mustang Sally" seem to go over with crowds regardless of their age, at least in my experience.
IME, it depends on the venue being played. These are classic rock and not exactly what most people call dance music. If I"m playing a local dive, then most will get up and dance. If I'm playing more upscale places then I've found they don't mesh to well, primarily because the crowds younger. A few people at best, get up and do what my friends and I call the "white trash drunken bar whore dance." Again, just IME, YMMV.
Learn "Oops, I Did it Again". It could actually be fun and the young'ns will shake their tushies....
If you're in a cover band - rule #1 is get the girls out of their seats and on the dancefloor. The guys will watch (some will follow) - and you'll get hired back.
This usually means playing songs we wouldn't normally have a "listening party" around
but that's the way it is.
If you look hard, even the heavy classic rockers have lots of tunes that chicks will dance to. Some ideas:
Anything by AC/DC
Zep - Misty Mountain Hop
Who - Squeeze Box / Eminence Front (gotta run a loop for full effect)
...you get the picture. Keep the chicks shakin' their butts 'cause the bar owners love it - and it looks so purdy!
cheers,
This usually means playing songs we wouldn't normally have a "listening party" around
but that's the way it is.If you look hard, even the heavy classic rockers have lots of tunes that chicks will dance to. Some ideas:
Anything by AC/DC
Zep - Misty Mountain Hop
Who - Squeeze Box / Eminence Front (gotta run a loop for full effect)
...you get the picture. Keep the chicks shakin' their butts 'cause the bar owners love it - and it looks so purdy!
cheers,
Crazy as it may sound, we actually pull out "Rocky Top" quite often (which is essentially a 2/4 polka with hillbilly lyrics), do the chorus in 3-part harmony and crowds eat it up.
I was playing a gig with a funk band a couple years ago when we got this request. The dance floor was full (more or less) and a couple of girls came up asking for something that they could dance too. When the singer pointed out that we were playing funk and it was all dance music, she replied that she couldn't dance to that. Pretty sure they just wanted some sort of 80's LA hair rock or a nuevo variant thereof. At which point the singer replied that if they are to white to dance to funk, then it isn't his farking (expletive replaced, but you get the idea) problem. He then promptly called out Use Me by Bill Withers which everyone else seemed to approve of.
Normally I disapprove of making fun of audience members so openly, but these girls were pulling the "I think I am hot so I can whine and get my way card" very loudly and rudely. The singer's response went over nicely with the remainder of the audience.
Normally I disapprove of making fun of audience members so openly, but these girls were pulling the "I think I am hot so I can whine and get my way card" very loudly and rudely. The singer's response went over nicely with the remainder of the audience.
Or they may have wanted a slow dance tune. They may have been there with boyfriends (or looking for boyfriends) and hot to "get stuck together" (as our singer sometimes puts it).
But in any event it sounds like you guys handled the situation right.
I usually interpret that question as a statement: "Notice me, I'm a jerk!"
But in spite of that, I would NEVER respond as this singer did:
And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the girl's father was the one who hired the band. Which he will never do again.
But in spite of that, I would NEVER respond as this singer did:
Very unprofessional.
And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the girl's father was the one who hired the band. Which he will never do again.
Police Truck or Let's lynch the landlord by the Dead Kennedys.
What can I say- I'm old-fashioned.
What can I say- I'm old-fashioned.
