Since playing shows really isn’t a thing right now, for a variety of reasons all tied to the current Coronavirus pandemic, I figured I’d tell a few stories I could remember from my life as a gigging musician. Times when I learned something.
First one, early 1993. The band: Magic Garden. My first band playing bass. At the time, I was 100% focused on guitar. My brother Rob had bought a bass a little over a year earlier, and that was now “his” instrument. In fact, just to play the shows and not have Rob throw a fit, I paid him half of what I made at the gigs to use his bass and amp for the shows. It was a white Arbor P-Bass, and all we had in the family at the time to amplify it was a tiny Crate practice amp. I cringe thinking about walking into a show with that shitty-ass rig expecting to be heard. Anyway, first gig was at a bar that would later become like a second home in my more depressed, alcoholic days my last year in college. Maxie’s.
I barely knew the music, which was a mix of originals and covers. The leader of that band was this guy who was my first solid example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in music. This guy thought he was an AMAZING musician. He was mediocre at best. Even then, while I was still in heavy Dunning-Kruger mode myself, I could tell he was a big pile of “meh”. Anyway, we get in there and set up, and play some, and the owner of the bar brings us beers. Mind you, this is February of 1993. I’m 19 years old. Even though I was gawky and looked about 17, tops, he brought me beers, too. He asked if we were all of age, and I didn’t say anything but everyone else said yes. I didn’t expect to be served, but that Yuengling Lager was delicious. The gig went terrible – no one could hear me – which was good because I couldn’t hear myself, so I’m sure I was playing like shit. I wasn’t a bassist, really, at that point. Just a kid who WANTED to play bass. I think I played with a pick all night because I hadn’t developed my calluses yet. But I was so excited to have my first bar gig under my belt. Even if it was “just as a bassist”. I played a few more shows with the band and then quit (with plenty of notice) because they basically seemed more concerned with smoking weed than getting any better. I remember Mr. Dunning-Kruger was super pissed and then super weird to me after that, always throwing their new bassist’s talent in my face whenever he had a chance. What a prick. Shawn Gray – if you read this…fuck you, dude. You were an asshole to me for no good reason. (He’s never going to read this – there’s no chance he even remembers who I am…) But moving on. GIG NUMBER TWO…
Open mic night. Holly Springs, PA. 1994ish. Got up and did a couple of songs with my friend Mike (aka “Pizza Man”). I even did a solo rendition of Anthrax’s Dallabnikufesin (their goof on the hair metal power ballad). People really liked it and laughed really hard at the end of the song because it has a punchline ending. A few minutes later, Mike came up to me and told me his musician friend, who he had a ton of respect for, said, “Where’d you find this kid?” about me. Which was the first big vote of confidence I ever got for my singing. Prior to that, it had always been my friends kind of shitting on me for it when I tried to sing. Mind you, I’m sure it was terrible. I just really wanted to be able to do it. This was the first time someone seemed impressed. And it really gave me a boost. I still think about it now.
Neon Logic Band, 1998. Bass Guitar. Played a wedding that the band booked without talking to me, that I couldn’t get to until about 40 minutes after we were supposed to start because I had to work. Came in late. Sound was shit. Guys were sort of mad at me, but they knew it was going to happen. Wedding people were happy. First time I realized you could suck ass and still make people enjoy themselves.
Slaphappy, 1999. Bass Guitar and Vocals. Played a seafood restaurant called “Calico Jack’s” for Halloween. Got to sing lead on TWO songs (Surrender, I Alone) and harmonies on tons of others. It was EXCITING. People really loved the band. First show truly killing it in a cover band. Still makes me smile thinking about it. I think the lead singer dressed as a cow. Cut to about two months later (in early 2000), after playing a regular Thursday gig at this same venue, with varying levels of success, because it was a THURSDAY, the manager chose to fire us BEFORE we started our set. Up to that point, it was the most phoned-in show a band I was in I ever played. We just basically fucked around and played whatever we wanted. It was not good. But it taught me a lesson about professionalism.
Slaphappy, August 2001. Bass Guitar and Vocals. We’d been playing with a fill-in singer since April, and then had a run of about 15 weeks in a row of gigs, and we were all tired of everything. We were playing at the Jacksonville Landing, one of our biggest venues by size, and it was DEAD. What? A gig OUTSIDE in Florida in August doesn’t draw a huge crowd? Anyway…nothing was going right, and the lead guitarist lost his shit. Threw his guitar on the ground and walked off stage. We had a show the following evening that was very tense. We talked it out and set some good boundaries, and “found the fun” again. But it was really hard to get there being so burnt out. He still has that guitar, and though the body got a crack in it, it never split, and still sounds awesome. Any time I wanted a reminder of keeping my cool on stage, I’d pick up his guitar and look at the crack, and it helped immensely.
Jumping back, Slaphappy, May 2001. Hurricane Hattie’s. This was at the beginning of the run. Our fill-in (now one of my best friends) was messing things up left and right, and who could blame him? That was a lot of material to learn as a lead singer with very little time to prep. I kept making mad faces all gig, scowling and basically being an asshole every time he messed up even a little. I can’t remember who pointed how terrible it looked out to me, but damn, I felt like a complete asshole. I apologized to him, and plotted a new strategy for myself for dealing with on-stage mess-ups. I’d smile, and if I could, laugh at them. IT WORKED! To this day, if you see me smiling on stage, it’s possible either I fucked up, or one of my bandmates did. And I guess sometimes I’m truly enjoying myself. Okay, most of the time. Now I embrace the chaos, when in the past, it would drive me to the brink of fury. That was a good lesson to learn. And it took basically one person pointing out how much of a prick I was. This seems to be a trend.
Forward in time…band named after the method you use to dial out of a hotel, 2005-2006. Guitar and co-Lead Vocals. I joined this band after they didn’t pick me to replace an important member earlier that year (in January 2005). The previous version of the band was kind of its “classic” lineup – with the most talented players they’d ever have all together. I really wished I would have gotten picked for that opening, but at the time Slaphappy was still a thing, and that paired with the fact that the other guy seemed more appealing to women (he was single and had more of a rock image), and already kind of had a solo fanbase sealed my fate, even though it was clear to everyone in the band I had powerful musical chemistry with the other guitarist/singer and the bassist. They went with the image rather than the talent in a 2-1 vote. It would bite them later. By May, the two super-talented guys would quit the band for family and motivation reasons. They weren’t having fun anymore. They might have stuck around had I been there, but we’ll never know…
Slaphappy had died in February, and I was looking for something new, so I joined. Now, new guy from January (who had an earlier stint in the band but was fired for a variety of reasons) had it in his head that he was the lead singer now. I guess because of his five months of seniority? Of course, that wasn’t the deal with me joining – I joined on the condition that we were going to share lead vocals equally, and each sing the songs we sounded better singing. It was discussed clearly, and he agreed. Cut to September and October, and he keeps making suggestions that he sing something and I play lead on it, edging me out so he was singing more of the songs. And worse, trying to take songs that were more suited to my voice. By the time we got to November, I was pretty livid, but not only because of the not-singing-lead thing. When I’m playing, I only care about making whatever ensemble I’m in sound its best. And me singing on the songs I was singing was us at our best. Honestly, me singing even more might have been even better. We’ll get to that in a second.
So, I’m still angry about being pushed down, but I couldn’t find a way to confront him directly about it because I didn’t have the communication skills, so I was going through the drummer/bandleader to express my frustration. Apparently he was getting it from the other guy as well, and he finally basically told me to shut the fuck up and talk to the other guy because he was tired of it. We finally figured it out, but it was still kind of tense, because he wasn’t really doing a great job singing the stuff that was his. Unfortunately for the band, he was really sounding like shit at the shows, to the point that one of the managers at our “home” venue came up to the bandleader and said, “What the hell is wrong with that guy? He’s terrible.” Referring to the other singer. “You should have THAT guy sing.” Pointing to me. This confirmed my sense that we were headed in the wrong direction. We sputtered along through the new year into 2006, and then a few months in, the other guy quit rather abruptly. We tried one guy and had a promising rehearsal, but then we had a horrible show – he did a terrible job and didn’t know the material and sang very poorly. So we moved on. We decided to go with me as sole lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist and got a great lead guitarist who wasn’t really a singer, and we played a couple of good shows with that group, which would prove to be the last shows I played with them. I moved to Austin in May that year. I still kind of give the bandleader shit for not picking me instead of the drama queen when they had a chance. That would have been an amazing band.
Around the time all this drama was happening, I was starting a new band (Schizophonic) with the genius drummer from Slaphappy, the brilliant bassist that just quit the band I joined, and an awesome-but-green keyboardist. Things were going great until we started to pick songs, and it became very apparent to the bassist that we weren’t headed in a direction he wanted to head in. Add that to the lack of gigs booked for this band, because we were trying to truly be something different and pick songs we hadn’t heard other bands play, and he decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore. He felt marginalized. And I felt terrible, because he was right. I mean, I truly still don’t believe the songs he was picking were all that marketable, but giving him at least an equal share of the repertoire might have made us sound really unique and awesome and not really hurt us in the long run. We ended up finding another player who was only okay, and we sputtered through a gig or two and died in the rehearsal space at the keyboardist’s house months later, after the brilliant bassist had joined another band and then taken the drummer for that band. I ended up filling in with them a couple of times later, so it wasn’t any big drama, but it still hurts, especially knowing it was largely because I lacked empathy for what my friend wanted to do and how not picking his songs made him feel.
There are so many more stories to tell, but I think I’ll stop here.
Learning self-confidence, professionalism, patience, equanimity, balance, and empathy through these situations has helped me make my band experiences truly the best they can be, and me a much better bandmate.
Hopefully reading these might serve as cautionary tales for your experiences in bands or as a musician in general.
Have a wonderful week, and I apologize for this being published a day late. Life is weird. We were working on the final mix of Chandler and The Bings’ new single. It’s pretty awesome.
Black Lives Matter. Keep your respiratory droplets to yourself. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Keep your distance.
And peace be the journey.
TMS