It was the summer of 2008. Awake! Awake! had recorded an album in 2007, played shows, sold it to friends and things had fallen off. What now? Maybe we weren’t good enough, maybe we’d never have what it takes/lots of dreaming and not actually engaging the world. Then our bass player left (on good terms) soon after our 2nd guitarist left (again on good terms). No one wanted to say it, but it was becoming assumed that we might be over. Our drummer was gone for the summer on an internship too. In Sept our Singer decided to take a risk and spend $250 putting our album on Noisetrade.com(which wasn’t free at that time). We saw 150 downloads from all over the US in 3 days time. In 2 months we were up to 300 or so. We really felt some love and it was then we decided that our efforts were really worth it. It gave us the energy to record our 2nd album and get through reforming our band 2 more times.

Moral: Band are always breaking up, that means bands are always forming up. People, and future band mates will always flock to good songs.

Dear CD Baby / musicians, everyone

Actually this is the very first time I decided to share my experience this way but I just could not resist when I read the title. As reading this article, I immediately though about 2 horror scenes that happened to me. I am sure there are more, but these stick out.

First scary story – I had started my solo project and had a band of 3 musicians that time – me (vocal, keys), the bass player and the drummer. And the night of our show (we were supposed to perform at around 9 PM) we received a text message from our drummer at 6 PM to inform us that he was NOT going to perform. Reason? He just didn’t feel like it. Imagine that! That was a complete shock, a huge bummer BUT we did manage to play that night anyways. Fortunately, the bass player knew some percussionists so one of them was willing to literally “bail” us out of having to cancel the show. It was more acoustic, obviously, but it was a great show in the end! Just to make the story complete, this guy never even heard our music before so it was a total improvisation. Plus, on the next day, our drummer vanished into thin air with his drums and stuff and we’ve never heard of him since.

Second scary (an expensive) story – we just finished recording our brand new album, had the artwork and everything and it was my task to take the master to the press room in order to get 500 copies made. So, once I got a call back that this had been done, i jumped into my car and came back home with 500 brand new CDs. HOWEVER, I realized that I gave them a WRONG master CD!!!!!! I was so sure that was the one, but it got somehow re-formatted to mono and OH GOD!!! Terrible, terrible day. So yea, I got that fixed, but it caused me A LOT of tears and money, of course.

I really hope you’ll never encounter any of these situations! Happy Halloween!

so for the last 10 years i’ve had this funny, silly comedy-rap thing i’ve done with some friends called Tha Polar Bear Mc’s (aka The Killa Korpse Gangstaz)… we also had side projects off of the main group including D-Mize & Dee. Rockz, FA-COCK-TA and MC Randumb & Jewish Dave (all written and produced by me, and with me as one of the main rappers)…

so anyway about 6 or 7 years ago, we were actually pretty popular in Las Vegas and were doing a show or two a month around town, getting paid, having a great time. It was awesome. And then one day we got what seemed like it could be our big break… A local bar offered us $300 to perform on a Friday night and said that if it goes well they’d make it a weekly thing and give us $300 a week and a bar tab… Dream come true at that point right? So the show went PERFECT… We had a great crowd of about 80 or so people… It was awesome… Until about 30 minutes after our show ended when 2 groups of guys came in to get drinks. They weren’t there to see us and we didn’t know them, but something happened between the 2 groups of guys and the next thing we knew, we were witnessing the biggest bar brawl we’ve ever seen in real life. I’m not exaggerating when I say chairs and tables and bottles were being thrown through the air and things were breaking all around us. Eventually the police were called, those guys were all taken away, but the owners of the bar wouldn’t believe us that those guys weren’t part of “our crowd.” Our would be weekly gig was cancelled on the spot. Probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me (at least definitely in my career).

The good news is we still did another few years of random shows here and there, and still do a show every year or 2 for old times sake (we’re too old to full time do comedy-gangsta rap in silly costumes haha).

My first nightmare lasted 13 years. I got married. (Ahhhhhh!!!) But seriously, playing punk rock did not equate to being a respectable married man and father in my then-wife’s opinion, so my gear sat locked in a closet until the day we split up. It took a long while after that just to get back into the scene, having lost all my contacts over the years. I ended up rejuvenating my musical senses learning flamenco guitar while living in Spain a few years later.

My second nightmare actually ended up being a blessing and relates to where Nightmare 1 left off. I had a motorcycle accident one week before a big river cruise show — broke my right arm and my nose. The manager brought in a ringer to audition as a sub for me (I was still supposed to sing). During the audition, one of the other guys in the band decided to go off one too many times on the drummer (a friend of mine going back 25 years) for missing his cues. The drummer walked out of the audition, leading to his summary dismissal from the band by the manager (another friend going back 25 years — the three of us had played together years before). The manager also then told the band all of the gig money was going to the sub musician as his standard session fee. I complained about both summary decisions (all proceeds going to a guy who wasn’t even in the band, and kicking out our drummer and friend of 25 years), which led to my summary dismissal in turn. Somewhat ironically, the band member who complained about the drummer was also eventually kicked out — for complaining too much.

The silver lining is these events led me to go solo, and I now play Flamenco guitar exclusively. Quite happily, too!

I had big dreams very shortly after learning guitar, and I was living in Miami with almost no money trying to become a full time musician, but I really had no clue how to go about it. Then I saw there was a battle of the bands with industry people gonna be there in Memphis TN for $100 per artist, and being young and stupid I thought that this was the gig I should sign up for. Only like 15 hour drive away. Only 15 hours… I was insane I guess. So I initially was gonna go as a solo act until a few friends of mine from church of all places told me they would help. So I get random Brazilian singer guitar player and random 55 year old English drummer guy. We thought we had the weirdest mixed up band ever, so we practice for like a month together, (that’s enough time to impress the industry folk right? haha) then we head up there 15 freaken hours, blow a tire on the way, finally get there, so a couple terrible bands play and think we have a chance, then the first song I play guitar and the Brazilian guy just sang and it ended with this part leading into the second song where the Brazilian guy plays his electric guitar which is now completely out of tune and the transition sounds terrible. We make it through that song and the next one only to play our last song where he plays an acoustic on a song that sounds nothing like the others, not even close to the same style and guess what? That guitar is out of tune too.. We are way to smart to stop and tune at this point. And my dreams of my very first show being 15 hours from home and winning a battle of the bands and becoming famous falls apart. Can you believe it? I can. Don’t ever try that.

This was a while back now – thankfully!!!
I had a bunch of CDs run off for demos/presales, because of so many requests I’d arranged for around 50 to be shipped directly before seeing them. Due to a mix up at the printers, instead of the link on the cd going to my band website it was for an adult website.. arrghhh! Expect a few folks got more then they bargain for. LOL

I was headlining the infamous Club Bene in Sayreville, NJ. Shortly after high school graduation. Had a big hometown crowd.. Love was in the air. Played a 80′s style power ballad called “Stay”. The song featured a big accapella high note at the end.. I nailed the note.. My peacock feather were in full metal plume.. The sound engineer played with a sampled delay. I held the note too long and cracked just as the engineer hit the sample hold button. The result was something that sounded roughly akin to a goose dying slowly from a bad shot.. I could hear people wincing from the audience. Wanted to die.. Lesson in humility learned the hard way.. C’est la vie

My band booked a gig in a small club and also invited a young singer/guitar player to open up. He was about 18 and I think it was his first real gig. We set up our gear and I am a keyboard player so my Roland was up there and the lead singer had her acoustic on a stand along with the bass player. He started and things were going really well, he brought out a bunch of his family and friends and I thought he was sounding great. I was sitting in the first row and at the beginning of his third song I saw that he was struggling, and suddenly it hit me, almost literally, that he was going to be sick. Sure enough, all over my keys, the guitar, the bass the stage…and we were up next! We did go on, believe it or not, but it was not fun. Poor guy…never saw him again!

I was booked a gig in Indiana to which I was doing it as a solo with back up tracks. We normally play as a trio. Our music is hard rock/heavy metal (www.ChaseMusicOfficial.com) for a flavor. Getting ready to go on and the kid who put this thing on held it at a church building in this town and I was doing it as sort of a favor. He did all of the promotion/marketing for it. Obviously to no avail. I went out on stage to play the set and the room was full of white hair!! W….T…..F…….?!!!! Thankfully I was able to improvise a bit as to not shorten any elderly lives by inducing a cardiac failure. I wanted to kill that kid, however he already felt bad about it so I let him live. True story. One I will not easily forget………

I have a few horror stories for you that are more frightening than losing 13 band members (under good terms) in a 5 piece band over 5 years…

I played a really horrible outdoor show 3 years ago with a group where literally everything went wrong. First, our guitarist simultaniously broke all of his strings on a 7 string. This delayed the show but I was able to cover up the time with improvization. Once he got new strings on, he tuned to the wrong key and refused to admit this to any of the other band members. He even went so far as to yell at us for not playing any of the songs right. Less than three songs later a bad power supply fried an amp, which should have ended the show, but someone in the audience (another performing band) brough a spare and let us use it. As the sadness continued the bass-drum tore, another amp got fried, and the soddering in my bass melted, causing an internal wire to come loose. I played the rest of the show in a very strange un-moving position once I found a way to keep the wire connected without opening it up. Promptly after the show the band split up and agreed never to play together again. Comically enough we each went our seperate ways and found some degree of musical success.

Another horror story for you, monitarily worse than the first..
My band produced 1000 copies of our self-titled CD, spent time and money on advertising, and legally liscenced the entire project for double the cost of producing the CD’s (it’s a VG cover CD). The CD is decent quality and the playing is solid. To date (6 months after its release) 3 physical copies have been sold online and no digital copies have been purchased. The moral? Play lots of gigs!

I had a major label deal. Was doing a show in my home town and an old enemy from high school showed up in the dressing room with a knife minutes before I was to go on. He said something like “Sam, it’s a shame you’ve had such a short life, but I’m going to kill you.” I was dumbstruck, too scared to actually be scared. I just kept running through my vocal exercises, looked him straight in the eye and smiled.

He put the knife away, wished me luck and left the room. Go figure.

During the show, with big lights hitting me in the eyes, I could hardly see the audience. But I heard the fight starting. This same guy was going berserk in the place, bashing heads and breaking glass. The cops came and dragged him out, fighting all the way.

Moral. Always do your vocal warm-ups.

My power pop trio showed up for a summer festival gig only to find that there was zero p.a. equipment provided. A real amateur had booked the festival and assumed that all bands travelled with their own sound. Luckily, we weren’t too far away from our bass player’s house. He ran home and got our rehearsal p.a.. It was totally inadequate for the job, but we ending up laughing at the ridiculousness of it all and had a great time.

Moral? Always CONFIRM that sound is being provided, no matter the venue.

A few years ago, there was a music convention in Las Vegas. At this convention were panels, discussion groups, demo critiques, seminars, blah, blah, music industry crap, etc. The best part was the music festival itself. It featured dozens and dozens of bands playing at multiple venues to showcase their music. Bands came from all over the US (most come from within a day’s drive from Vegas), a lot of them came from different parts of California. The shows were spread out over an extended weekend Thur-Sun type thing. Each band was allowed to play their one slot and that was it. So Friday evening at around 8:30pm, we (The Piper Downs) played our set at our designated venue (MGM Grand Hotel). No problems, everything was cool. We rocked out.

Fast forward to the next night; we were at another venue that was sponsoring the festival. A friend of ours was playing in the one of bands scheduled for that night. They play their set and everything was cool. Here’s where it gets interesting.

After our buddy’s set, the DJ kept announcing over the PA, “Stick around everybody, ‘No Bargain’ is up next!” After repeating this a few times, he says, “We need ‘No Bargain’ to come to the stage!” I look at our singer, Bobby and say, “I don’t think ‘No Bargain’ is here, whoever they are.” Hmm, we all shrug it off. The house music continues to play.

It was then I started crafting my plan. I say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we jumped up onstage and said we were ‘No Bargain’?!” We all had a great laugh fantasizing this scenario. But I realized that we could actually pull it off! Sure, there’s a chance that the real ‘No Bargain’ could show up in middle of our (their) show and totally kick our asses… but that’s what makes it fun! Ha ha. I figured what the hell, why not?

I looked Bobby dead in the eye and said, “Dude, I’ll go over there and tell that DJ that we’re No Bargain.” Bobby replies, “Yeah, right. I dare you!” I turn and start to walk when Bobby stops me, “Dude! Are you serious? What if we get caught?”
I counter, “So what? What can they do to us, kick us off the festival? We’ve already played our actual set yesterday!”
Bobby: “No, what if No Bargain shows up when we’re up there playing?”
Me: “So? They’ll probably think we’re the band playing before them. They won’t know the difference.”
Bobby: “But then after we get off stage and they try to go up, then what?”
Me: “We run like Hell.”
Bobby: “I don’t know, man.”
Me: “C’mon you freakin’ pansy! Jason, you’ll do it, right?”
Jason (our drummer at the time): “Uh yeah, if you go, I go.”
We all smile devilishly. I say, “We’re doing it!” As I walk over to the DJ booth I hear Bobby say, “Oh my god, he’s really going to do it…”

I walk over to the DJ booth. The house music is blaring. I make eye contact giving the DJ a look that I’ve got a question to ask. He leans over so I talk in his ear over the music. “Hey! Do you know what band is playing next?”
DJ: “Well, if they decide to show up, No Bargain.”
me: “No Bargain?”
DJ: “Yeah.”
me: “Oh, that’s us! We’re here!”
DJ: “Well, hurry up. We’re running late! Talk to Eric the stage manager over there.”
He points to a balding 40 year dude in a yellow polo shirt sporting a ponytail. I shuffle over to Eric and introduce myself.

me: “Hey, I hear that No Bargain is up next.”
Eric: “That’s right, is that you?”
me: “Yep.”
Eric: “How many people in the band?”
me: “There’s three; bass, drums and guitar. Two vocals.”

Here’s the sad part of the story. Yell (our bass player) wasn’t there. He opted to veg that night so it also makes the story funnier (for us) that Yell missed out. We like to pick on Yell (in an affectionate way). We all get our share of ribbing but this was going to be great!

Eric: “Alright, let’s go!”
me: “Okay, cool! Our guitars are in the van, we’ll be right back!”
Eric: “Well, hurry up! We’re running late.” That sounded familiar.

I scramble over to Bobby and Jason grouped around our pack of friends at the club.
Me: “We’re on! We’re on! We are playing as No Bargain!” I’m beaming with pride, “The stage manager says we gotta hurry up!”
Bobby: “Oh my god! What are we going to play? Yell isn’t here!”
Garner: “I know. Let’s just play Piper Downs tunes, I’ll play bass! Let’s just grab our gear and rock!”

The DJ cuts in, “Don’t nobody go nowhere! No Bargain is here! They’re up in 5 minutes!” Our pack of friends are howling with laughter which is concealed by the cranked house music blasting over the PA.

I look around to see if there is another group of guys that would look like they would be in a band called, No Bargain. No new faces, nobody carrying guitars, the coast is clear. We tear out into the parking lot to grab our guitars and drumsticks from the van. I grab Yell’s bass.

The cool thing about most music festivals is that a backline is provided for all the bands. This means that there are already guitar and bass amps, and drums set up on the stage. All a band does is walk up and plug in their guitars. And that’s just what we did. We walk up onstage, plug in, are introduced…

“All the way from Bakersfield, California… No Bargain!” and boom! We’re on! We tear through a set of Piper Downs tunes as a three-piece (me on bass, Bobby on Guitar, Jason on drums; both Bobby and I sing). After every song I was keeping a wary eye on the crowd looking for any musicians that might look pissed off.

In between songs, our friends in the crowd were screaming out, “No Bargain ROCKS!” and laughing. We were saying stuff on the mic like, “You know, it’s almost like we’re not even here!” and “When you get home, be sure to look up NoBargain.com!” and “We’d like to thank the Piper Downs for letting us borrow their guitars! They rule!”

At the end of the set, the manager of the club runs up to us. He thrusts his business card at me and says, “You guys kicked ass! You’re one of the best bands that ever played this place! You’re welcome back anytime you come through Vegas!” As our heads were spinning from all the commotion, our friends were screaming, “No Bargain! No Bargain! No Bargain!” Fans in the club (not privy to the joke) joined in, “No Bargain! No Bargain!” We went out onstage and played an encore!

Unbelievable! Later as things were winding down a reporter came up to Bobby and said he wanted to do a story on No Bargain for his local music magazine. Bobby gave him our phone number and we got the hell out of there. We were literally in tears from laughing so hard as we drove back to our hotel.

A few days later back in LA, we check out the No Bargain website. They are this 80′s metal, motorcycle, hair band (we’re more like a Jimmy Eat World type rockband). We noticed that their website hadn’t been updated in several months. They probably broke up which is most likely why they never bothered to show up for their gig… or did they? (cue dramatic horns… bom bom bom!)

A couple days later, the reporter from Vegas called Bobby to interview him. Bobby confessed the whole story to him and he loved it. I wonder if the reporter ever wrote it up? Hilarious.

A few years ago I was overjoyed that a record label was interested in my music. At the time Rodrigo Y Gabriella were getting a lot of exposure in the media and this particular label were on the lookout for a Spanish/acoustic type of act in a similar vein. The fact I had switched from playing “shred” metal music and jazz to learning flamenco guitar put me in a good position. So I did a few showcases for the label. Alas, I kept getting phone calls to say that the gigs were cancelled. I never got any travel expenses or payment. Last gig I did for them the PA didn’t arrive for two hours. The landlord was playing old records, just to keep people entertained – so we had Deep Purple: Made in Japan, the first few Black Sabbath and the RR era Ozzy records, etc. When the PA did finally show up, not only did I have 20 mins to get my train but I had the sudden realisation “I’m playing in a pub where no one cares about my music!” Plus, have you ever tried playing a gig AFTER Ritchie Blackmore, et al playing at their best? I mean if I’m up against classic albums, and on strange turf where no one cares, then I’m on the path to a massive FAIL if ever there was one. That was the end of my association with that label.

I put together my second solo record and was really proud of it, so much so that I decided that THIS time I would go all in and hire a plugger and PR. So I did, and all in really is all in when you’re doing this sort of thing out of your day job paycheck. I had a successful radio campaign in that I reached a couple of hundred thousand people on college radio. Made jack squat difference for sales though!

The moral? I realised that I ended up spending almost $100 in promo for every $10 CD I sold this way. So I decided to start giving my record away, eg streaming for free and pay what you want. I got a TON of word of mouth sales, and someone even put together a fan video that went modestly viral. That didn’t go far in paying off the PR bills though, and I ended up working two jobs for the best part of a year just to get back to zero- needless to say that didn’t leave much time for playing.

This happened to a band-mate of mine when he was lead singer in a previous band. They were playing in an upstairs room in an old Odd Fellows Hall. Things were cooking and the rest of the band stopped (on cue) for the tremendous drum break. Silence. The band turned around and… THERE WAS NO DRUMMER! He had been laying down the beat until the split second before his break. They turned back around and the audience was looking stunned. In a couple of minutes the drummer, still clutching his sticks, comes in the BACK of the hall covered in horse manure.

This is what had happened:

When he raised his sticks for the drum break his stool broke and he did a back somersault through a door which had once lead to an outside stair, which had been gone for years. The door swung shut behind him as he fell 20 feet into the pile of manure. Luckily for him there was a stable on the first floor and the clean out window was right under the old fire escape door.

Spinal Tap hadn’t come out yet. Maybe that’s where the idea of spontaneous combustion drummers came from.

“Another Load From The Muthalode” was ready. It had been four years in recording, some of the songs went back to the 80′s…it was after the Minellium (sic) and planes hadn’t fallen out of the skies. I got our inlays and booklets and was stuffing the CD cases… We were on the freakin’ INTERNET
- yay! We’d done the festival in France (le weekend en paradis) and people knew who we were, some from way back.

We booked the local arts centre for 27th Sepetember 2001.

Two weeks before we launched, 9-11. Planes fell out of the skies.

Streets emptied, two men, no dog, came to the launch.

Moral, avoid interesting times.

Solo acoustic show, bar patio, first set, first song, weather getting cool, me getting into the song, high E string breaks. I didn’t want to stop playing to replace the string, didn’t have a back up guitar at the show. Luckily, the guitar didn’t go too far out of tune, finished the song, retuned without the high E and played for another hour to finish out the set. Between sets I wound a new string on and the rest of the night went great! I’m just happy that it wasn’t another string, I can get by without the E, but I still prefer to jam on a six string.

About five bands ago I was in a semi-successful band that played almost all original music. We joined up with a local booking agent who was very good at getting us gigs, but was a little immoral and a little dim. Things would happen like we’d get a gig for $350 but they’d pay us with a $500 dollar check. It turned out that our booking agent was taking more than the standard commission. We called her and politely told her to stop lying to us, then we paid her the agreed-upon commission. Things worked out all right for a while until one day she called to tell us she’d landed us a great concert in the big city. Tons of college students, full PA provided, etc. We were high fiving each other and then she asked, “Oh by the way, aren’t you guys friends with Fantastic Band That’s Super Popular Right Now? Can you give me their phone number?” You guessed it. Five minutes later we get a call from the bass player of FBTSPRN. She had tried to give them OUR GIG. We immediately called her back and politely told her to stop doing that. She never called us again.

We’d spent months planning a huge cd release party at a major venue – several hundred people coming out, dancers hired, the works. So far, only one problem: no cds. 2 hours before showtime, the fed-ex truck arrives – big sigh of relief, disaster averted! I call the bassist to tell him the good news, he says he just arrived at our studio to grab the gear when he discovered our new problem: the door was wide open and the place was empty. Problem was solved with a frantic trip to Guitar Center and a high-limit credit card but that was definitely one of the more stressful days I’ve ever had. Two important lessons: schedule your cd release party for several weeks after you expect the album to be delivered, never expect things to go smoothly! Secondly, always record your serial numbers – we were able to recover most of the major gear pieces because of this.

When I recorded my first album, the duplication company I used were totally useless. They were WAY later than they’d promised, resulting in me receiving my 1000 albums back only two weeks before its launch.

Even worse, when I listened to them, the tracks were in the wrong order and one of the tracks had a gap in it which I KNEW hadn’t been there when I sent it because I checked the whole album over about a million times.

In a panic, I rang the company who were doing the sleeves to ask if I could change the track listing (not ideal but it seemed like the only option) but they’d already finished printing the sleeves.

So I rang the duplication company in a panic and they said they’d check the master. I was right – they had somehow got the tracks in the wrong order AND put a gap in one of the songs. So far so good, but then when I asked for them to send another 1,000 CDs in the RIGHT order, I was told I’d have to wait about THREE WEEKS because they’d received so many orders since mine. Can you believe it? They didn’t care that I’d placed my order months ago and they’d got it wrong and were now putting other customers in front of me. I put up the fight of my life and they eventually got 1,000 CDs to me THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ALBUM LAUNCH! I have never been so close to a heart attack. On top of that, they arrived with no cases so I spent the entire night packing 1,000 albums by hand into cases for the next day.

I have since learned from this experience. I am working on my third album now and want to make sure I get the marketing spot on. I plan to have the album complete, boxed, sleeved and sent back to me at least 3 months before its release so I can promote it properly and have the peace of mind that I’m in control!

On the plus side, I ended up with 1,000 CDs to use as promo material/ freebies!

We know what it’s like – we actually have a book of great music horror stories published a few years ago. My favorites are the one where a certain major amusement park kept singers in a booth for hours trying to capture the “appropriate” oink sound for a summer ad. (“No, that one is too sweet. That one is too Mafioso…”); and one where a songwriter answered an ad for publishers requesting a meeting at the Hollywood Bowl – which turned out to be a camper in the Bowl parking lot, where they were pitched to become Amway sponsors, heheh. What a business! MusicHorrorStories.com

In 2002 I was asked by drummer Bobby Berge (Tommy Bolin, Buddy Miles) to play guitar in the band he was pulling together for the Tommy Bolin Music Festival in Sioux City. One month minus a day before the fest I was going to drop off a tape of Tommy Bolin’s last performance off at the Tommy Bolin Archives offices for evaluation for what eventually became a CD release that I restored and mastered. I was running late so I hopped on my motorcycle without a helmet to ride to the Archives office and on the way a person talking on a cell phone pulled from a stop into my lane, totally distracted. I braked furiously to not smash into her rear end and I ended up high siding and landed on my head and hand, knocking me out. I ended up spending 6 hours in the emergency room, mainly waiting in the hall on a gurney. I had broken off the base of my right thumb (picking hand), torn out a bunch of hair and needed stitches in my face. All I could think about was missing a gig with the guy who played more drums with the late great Tommy Bolin than anyone else. I called Bobby up after I got home all tore up and said I was not going to be able to do it. He really wanted me to play though, and his support made me think it could be possible. What shook out was that I had to go a week in a soft cast, then have surgery to put pins in and a hard cast, then have the cast taken off two days before driving from Denver to the fest. What was tough was while I had the soft and hard casts I kept practicing twice a day using the nail on my right middle finger to pick with, it was the only thing that stuck out of the casts, and it frickin’ hurt. I ended up doing the show, and the spirit of support from the rest of the band had incalculable value, we actually did a very strong, musical show with great crowd support. The main moral of the story might be that you might be faced with playing through the pain sometimes, but having musical cohorts who support you is an invaluable source of strength. rock ON!

THE OPENING ACT

In the early 1990′s The Mamas & The Papas were on one of their final tours. (The only original member of the group was Denny). My sister & I (a popular folk duo) was asked to open for this nationally known group in South Florida.
At that time Linda was the singer and I played guitar.

The curtains opened and we played the first song to scant applause. Things got worse. During the second song Linda turned to say “I’m can’t take this anymore” and abruptly walked off the stage with a classic case of stagefright. I was stuck there by myself with no preparation.

The soundman motioned for me to perform 20 more hellish minutes. I tried some fingerstyle guitar songs such as Georgia and Wildwood Flower to which the audience wasn’t impressed at all! There was this errie quiet across a sold out house as for the first time I experienced high blood pressure.

Years later my sister has “retired from music” while I’m still playing full-time. But I still get knots remembering those events of twenty years ago.

As a Type 1 diabetic (yeah just like Brett Michaels but I believe I take MUCh better care of myself!;-) I was performing at the Coconut Teazer on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles with my band The GangBangs UK. On a few songs I sing and play drums as the front woman. Well I felt I was going into insulin shock (a condition when a diabetic has too much insulin in the body and not enough carbs/sugar to moderate it and the diabetic appears to be intoxicated or drunk with slurred speech and lack of physical coordination). I thought I could finish the song I was doing with my STOMP type drum kit (oil drum can and water bottles and buckets) and go off stage to get a can of COKE to drink and be fine in a few minutes in between songs. My band knew of my condition. Apparantly, I say this because I have no recollection, I played THE BEST I”VE EVER DONE (at times I’ve been known to go off rhythm when I sing and play drums at same time) and sang on key and just was SO FANTASTIC! But after all that and the applause was going- photos were taken of this and posted on the FB page— I climbed these merry-go-round horses on display inside the club and was hanging on them and with a look on my face like I was totally inebriated and to this day I HAVE NEVER PLAYED AS GREAT AND DON’T RECALL A SINGLE THING. I did get a glass of orange juice and was told ALL THAT I MISSED- although I was there the whole time. Oh, and LA Times and New Times media were there and did a whole story on how great my performance was…. and I have insulin to thank for it all! I could not be interviewed afterwards because I passed out and of course many believed it had to do with everything BUT diabetes. I wear my Medi-Alert bracelet on my forehead now:-)

My band “Take My Face” was opening up for Chris Duaurte/ Joe Satriani at Summerfest, 1996. Biggest gig we had landed so far, Thousands of people in attendance.

We started off awesome , got to the third or forth song and while I was singing and playing my strap-on keyboard my sinus started draining. Basically it was like a faucet running from my nose for about a minute (although it seemed like an eternity) during the middle of a song.

Somehow I kept going (not really knowing what was happening) and made it through the song. When we started into the next song I noticed my keyboard, when I played a note was also playing the minor second (the note next to it) on several keys. Just so happened I had a keyboard solo on that song, so as I was soloing I was also trying to figure out which notes didn’t have snot in them.

Eventually I put my keyboard down, never to use it again during the show. It felt like one of the biggest chances to showcase my band was destroyed and I was embarrassed beyond belief!

Fortunately, a lot of the people there missed what had happened (although I do have it on video) and we were able to forge out way through the show and rock hard enough to save face.

Makes for a good story at least?
The journey is the reward they say!
dan type

Rock on Ya’ll
dan type

We had been playing the local clubs and gaining popularity. We were asked to play in our cities downtown annual festival, the streets blocked off, stage brought in, lights, sound and backline equipment supplied. My favorite amp is a Fender hot rod deluxe, I requested one. Here is our big chance, we only had to play for 1 1/2 hours, our “A” list, sound provided, come up plug in and play. Perfect weather, the street was packed, we were the headliner. Our first song kicked off, we had the crowd, my first solo coming up, all the sudden the amp sounded like a thunder storm of distortion, no audible guitar notes. I immediately turned down and passed on the solo. You could see the reaction of the crowd, we made it through that song. Checked the amp real quick, no cord problems, everything sounding fine. Second song, same thing!!!! Ahhhh!!! So I like the tube amps, been playing them since 1974, they give me a Peavey Bandit amp (like 30 watts) no tubes, solid state, from that fat tube sound to a thin line of nothing!!! The sound man had to turn me up so much, were now feeding back. Our big breakout debut! We go to a song that doesn’t need guitar, I run to the car, bring up my own Fender amp, the rest of the night we killed.

The moral: no matter how sweet it seems, be prepared!

In the last band I was in we showed up to play one of those national Biker Rally events (Thunder Over Texas) where the whole downtown square was turned into Biker mania. It might have seemed intimidating to many, but all the folks we met were nice and very encouraging. The stage was a pretty decent size with a good sound board, a pretty beefy tower of speakers, monitors, a veteran sound man and a huge generator to power the entire rig. We were a Christian heavy metal band so we’re thinking this is going to be great. But guess what? The mains weren’t working. So we ended up turning our on-stage monitors around to play our first set. It was definitely weak compared to what everyone, including us, thought was going to happen.

But, because we stuck it out and didn’t let our attitudes get out of check, we were definitely rewarded. The mains were fixed for us by the 2nd set, our lunch was free, and the daughter of the main speaker of the event came to our stage to hang out for a bit. Plus the Power Team was there blowing up hot water bottles and breaking bricks and stuff right in front of our stage bringing in a big crowd. Not exactly a horror story for sure. But it sure started to look like it was going to be one.

The moral of the story is: Don’t let your attitude get in the way of your altitude. Something better is always just around the corner if you’re patient and humble enough to receive it.

For a gig in which no one died or was injured, it has to be an all-time worst gig nightmare.

I will write this in bullets, as it will be too maddening/time consuming to tell it like a story. (Unless anyone wants to make a book deal out of it, in which case I will take the time)

* I drove about 3 hours in the early morning from a blues gig in the Poconos in Pennsylvania to Central New York with another musician that was also on impending wedding/cover band gig. We met the cover band trucks on the NYS Thruway and drove with them to Long Island (5 or 6 hour drive to L.I.)
* We showed up to the wrong country club and unloaded half the equipment of this 11 piece band with PA before finding out that we had load it up again and get to the right place, which took another hour and much map-fumbling
* Near the beginning of gig, alto sax player’s instrument fell off stage and turned into an unmusical piece of metal
* Gig sucked, people at reception would have rather had robots than live musicians (sorry, you should have waited 10 years)
* After gig and terrible load-out, we drove for about an hour to drop off a singer so she could stay with her Long Island family that night
* Drive another 30 or 40 minutes to a hotel that gave our rooms away in the assumption that because it was 1:30 in the morning, we were not coming. No other vacancies.
* Wait in the parking lot for an hour, band leader argues with hotel
* More waiting, cell phone calls looking for nearby hotels with rooms
* No luck
* Call singer, pick her up she says bye to family
* Get on the highway, eventually say bye to Long Island
* Stay for 3 or 4 hours at hotel in Westchester County
* Hit the highway again (band’s destination: Rochester)
* Drive hours and hours, watch the needle on the radiator thermostat go up and up in passenger truck (very hot out, i.e. 90s)
* I picked up my car at the toll parking lot where I had left it in Central NYS, said goodbye, exhaled, then left the rest of the band to experience this:
* Traffic backed up for miles and miles; stop and go for at least an hour
* Thermostat needle continues to threaten
* An hour later, band sees similar vehicle to their own burned down to its bones, normal traffic resumes
* Truck overheats, need to pull over, band thinks they will burn too
* Wait two hours to cool down
* Drive to Rochester
* Band member sets key to padlock of cargo section of equipment truck in the cargo section, then locks padlock
shut, everyone’s personal equipment locked into rental truck
* Wait close to an hour for local fire department to show up to clip the padlock

THE END

Well a few years ago I put together a fantastic CD. Just loved it. Heard one of my songs on the radio today, and boy, just a terrible mix, sounded just so bad. Lots goes to say have someone critque your songs.

Set up a gig that’s the final one for the band before we break up and I move to California to marry a girl I met at Burning Man (all mistakes flow from that one….). The same bar we’d played many times (to no pay other than food/beer), filled up with people and made money for. So the goodbye gig comes around, we’ve got more people there than the place can hold, and right before we start some kid night manager says “We’ve decided to play the basketball playoffs on the TVs instead.” No apology, no notice, no nothing. So our crowd sits around while the place becomes a sports bar, with no one there wanting to see the game because the crowd was our crowd and had come to see us. By the time they let us start, many hours later, we’d lost most of the folks. Some going away, huh? But typical of the way Austin venues treat musicians in this band-glutted town.

I have a 2 horror stories for you, guys .

1. As many Goth/Electro/Industrial band I always managed to record and sell my music by myself. But for my second official album I wanted to make things a little different, so I hired a “professional” musician and, after paying him something like 300 dollars FOR RECORDING ONLY, we recorded at his studio all the new songs of my new album. But after a matter of some months he didn’t showed himself with my finished masters. Worst thing of all, HE MOVED TO ANOTHER CITY, and after 5 months ago, he released his own CD of his musical project (I’m asking myself if there will be worthless to say his project name). After that experience, I decided to equip myself with good microphones, cables, audio interfaces and some other “decent” things and recorded my album by myself.

2. Once I had this show in my town acting as the supporting band for another local, but more famous, Electro Band. The problem was, two members of that band weren’t having a good time with me around there, so they were sabotaging my soundtest by inputing their audio signals, disconnecting cables, “equializing” themselves… and so on. For timming, the organizers decided not to continue with my soundcheck even after my protests. I was about 30 minutes to perform and one of my old girlfriend (A muscician like me.. and a real hotness at that time! )went with the audio engineer and asked him to “play some of her songs” showing him a CD. As soon as the audio engineer moved, she shouted to me “MQ!! GO!!” and started to help me in an improvised soundcheck!! That night was cool!! It was a creepy and very unconfortable night for that, but “with some help of my girlfriend” I managed to move on and the show was a success!!

Had an 8 week road trip booked. Two days before we were to leave the sound tech announced that he decided not to go on the trip (Something about girlfriend problems). We informed him that he was obligated to at least help us find a replacement. The next evening (one day before we left)we met with our new tech. He first informed us that he was mentally unstable (like his father) and should be in therapy. The next morning we left for Montana with our unstable sound man. Boy, he was not kidding! I had to room with him and be his driving companion because I sort of knew him and could help him keep it together. The truck broke down in the Great Salt Lake Desert 150 miles from anywhere. We rented a U-Haul for a week and drove back 300 miles each way to retrieve the truck. We replaced 5 tires along the way. During the trip we had to protect the sound tech from getting his ass beat, were rousted by the Sherriff and his deputies on horseback, had a subwoofer kicked in by a customer (agent said club was responsible, club said agent was resposible, band paid) and got ripped off by the band leader (whom we nicknamed “Little Caeser”).On the way home the light tech mutinied because the band decided to drive through Yellowstone to see “Old Faithful”. We had to leave before seeing O.F. erupt to avoid a fistfight (and possible arrest). Old Faithful erupts regularly and the intervals aren’t that long. I still regret not insisting on waiting another 45 minutes or so for the next display. I haven’t been back to Yellowstone since, maybe I should’ve fought for it but we still had thousands to go. This tour was christened “The Murphy’s Law Tour”.

Here’s my experience. I manage my husband’s music career. This 8-piece band, Armand St. Martin and his Bayou Bohemians, was performing its New Orleans Rock n Roll concert to a very packed house at what was then Carlos n Charlies, a popular hot-spot on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. This uptempo band was in the center of the room, like a theatre in the round – - with dancing on what would normally have been the stage at one end. The venue was jammed with happy guests and fans, all happy to rub elbows while dancing at their tables or on the stage. They were completely enjoying this wonderful 3-hour roots music concert, complete with Mardi Gras decorations and a full-surround-sound! I was, as always, racing around the room, greeting people, making sure folks were happy, solving sound problems, and the like. An estatic friend on a lower tier waved me over to say hi. So I stopped what I was doing to bend (across a lower rail than myself) to greet our friend. What I didn’t realize was that when I bent over this railing to hug this friend “hello!”, my long red hair whooshed across the candle on her table! Immediately – - MY HAIR WENT UP IN FLAMES! Without missing a beat, I raced alone right into the women’s room – - only to find that the sinks didn’t work, NO WATER! What could I do now? I thought fast and dunked my burning hair into the nearest toliet! The water quickly stopped the burning and basically cauterized the ends of my burnt hair! What a shock! I looked into the mirror to see that one side of my long curly hairdo was half the length it was just five minutes earlier! I dried it the best I could with paper towels, and began to tip-toe back into the concert, so as not to bring attention to my burning hair debacle! (I didn’t want to ruin my husband’s night with his fabulous band and SRO turnout!) However, when I entered the concert area, the venue stuck to high heaven! And the band had stopped playing. Everybody thought it was an electrical problem with the equipment! After awhile, with no electrical problem to be found – - but with the odor still hanging heavy over the concert – - the band kicked into a second-line beat, the audience jumped to their feet and danced around the room without missing another beat, for at least a half hour! Nobody in the whole room, not even that one friend I greeted over that railing, knew that it was my hair-on-fire that caused such a terrible odor! When we got home at the end of the night, my husband couldn’t believe what happened to me! The show indeed “went on”! This was in the 1980′s, and to this day, one side of my hair-do has always remained thinner than the other side from the shock of that sizzlin’ hot rock and roll night back in Hollywood! Lesson learned: no candles at concerts, and watch where your long hair goes!

I forgot to mention the female lead vocalist who refused to bathe for two weeks (with her monthly visitor) and wound up falling through the ice on the Missouri River (thereby getting her bath).

Yesterday, Oct. 12, 2010, I made arguably the biggest mistake I possibly could: I e-mailed more than 1700 radio-heads promoting our new album. The problem was that there was an error in the settings, so everyone who replied sent inadvertently 1700+ e-mails to the other recipients on the list. It span out of control so fast that within an hour there was a FaceBook page posted, titled “People against CHIWAWA” (our band). Phone rang relentlessly; letters of hatred started pouring in; interview requests… All of a sudden we were the most infamous band on the planet!
The rest is here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=161784913839791

Lesson: Careful what you wish for (and how you ask for it)!

Ever had one of those nightmares that you could not get to a gig on time for wierd reasons? It came true for me when I was playing in a 13 piece Motown show band at a Casino in Lake Tahoe. We had an hour break after the first show so I decided not to hang out back stage but walk around the casino. Leaving back stage there were a series of doors, hallways,and stairs. I found my way to the main casino all right but when it was time to go back on stage I got lost. I tried doors that were locked, stair ways to nowhere, halls that led to darkness or large empty rooms. No one was around to help me. It was getting closer to downbeat time and I was panicing! Then the worst happened. I could her the band starting wihout me. I followed the sound and found my way to the stage by ear. I ran out on stage, strapped on my guitar (a bit disheveled) and played enduring the looks and jokes from fellow band mates.
Still scares me to think about it!

Another time I was hired to play guitar at a country gig. I didn’t know any country songs except a few Hank Sr. and Johnny Cash songs. I figure I can do this if I don’t have to sing much. Three times during the first set the club owner asks us to turn down. The third time the keyboardist gets pissed off and packs up his stuff and leaves. He is the only singer in the band besides me and I don’t know any contemporary country songs and only about 1/2 hour of old stuff. Fortunately, all of these cowboys thought that The Eagles were a country band (and Elvis and Carl Perkins and Creedence and Buddy Holly, etc). So I sang all night playing fifties rock and southern rock (and “Rawhide”). Now THAT was a nightmare gig.

I worked with a totally gifted producer on an album….we laid down ten tracks, and we were going to release one every couple months or so. We were going to do an income division when the songs started selling, and were “working on” a contract.
We released one song, and then I stopped hearing from the producer. I have tried for the last three years to get hold of him, and as far as I know he is just sitting on my music. He can’t release it without me, because I have registered my songs with ASCAP, but I can’t legally make him give them to me either, because I wasn’t paying him!
Nevertheless, there are nine songs I wrote that are gorgeously arranged and sitting on this guy’s computer, inaccessible to me.

OUCH!!!

I’ve been somewhat actively trying to get my foot in the door at an area venue for about three years. Earlier this year I spoke w/one of the owners and they were intrigued with the idea of a tropical pop duo and that got us booked without having to jump through all the hoops and finding out weeks later if we are still on their radar. So, first gig is in May and I’ve done all sorts of easy promotion, artistdata.com and my usual e-mails. Day before the show, someone calls and tells me the venue has been rented out for a private party and was given a show a couple months later. So after redoing the easy promo stuff, I find some other group is performing. I call up and find out there are two people booking groups with a serious lack of communication. I get in touch with the real booking guy and renegotiate our deal and get what was promised, a new date ‘etched in stone.’ Ok, so, the new date is in early October and I have all my easy promo stuff done and another phone call two days before the show letting me know the venue has once again been rented out for a private party. Management has decided to quit booking acts beginning the second week in November and my duo is SOL. So much for getting a gig this year. I have been promised two dates next year in the summer time; will be the first to choose dates from the stable of talent. With the track record I’ve experienced, if this happens again, I will have to think long and hard about wanting to work with them. Feels like roulette.

Ok! I want to share this story with you (one that I’m a little ashamed to tell)…

Last year I did a gig that QUT (my uni) was holding where they where trying to break the record for the longest Jam in history. The rules were that at no point during the jam was the music able to stop even between songs, even between PERFORMERS!!!!! which was really hard to pull off!

Anyway, I volunteered to play. After sorting out a few technical difficulties I did my set! and I was proud of my contribution.

After I got out of the studio (where the Jam was being held) this man started talking to me and we got into a conversation about the music industry. I could tell straight away that he really knew his stuff!

Our conversation ventured into how artists should protect the rights of their music especially from the film industry as they’re trying to steal our music…I just let him talk and I started to think, who is this person?

Then he said that he was impressed with my set and that he loved my sound. He said he always has people asking him if he knew of any artists that are available to play at various events and festivals. Then he asked for my business card. Ready as ever I dug through my bag and handed him one. End of conversation…goodbye…

After our conversation ended this guy, (who was doing some camera work for the studio event), said ‘do you have any idea who you were talking to?’

I replied stupidly “no”

I was talking to producer Michael Howlett! Who was the founder of The Police!!!!! I couldn’t believe it!

But here’s my mistake. I went home and waited patiently by the phone, checking my emails frantically for days but he never got in contact with me.

What I’ve always regretted not getting his contact details! And a great opportunity was waisted!

stephen
stephencarmichael.com

Ok! I want to share this story with you (one that I’m a little ashamed to tell)…

Last year I did a gig that QUT (my uni) was holding where they where trying to break the record for the longest Jam in history. The rules were that at no point during the jam was the music able to stop even between songs, even between PERFORMERS!!!!! which was really hard to pull off!

Anyway, I volunteered to play. After sorting out a few technical difficulties I did my set! and I was proud of my contribution.

After I got out of the studio (where the Jam was being held) this man started talking to me and we got into a conversation about the music industry. I could tell straight away that he really knew his stuff!

Our conversation ventured into how artists should protect the rights of their music especially from the film industry as they’re trying to steal our music…I just let him talk and I started to think, who is this person?

Then he said that he was impressed with my set and that he loved my sound. He said he always has people asking him if he knew of any artists that are available to play at various events and festivals. Then he asked for my business card. Ready as ever I dug through my bag and handed him one. End of conversation…goodbye…

After our conversation ended this guy, (who was doing some camera work for the studio event), said ‘do you have any idea who you were talking to?’

I replied stupidly “no”

I was talking to producer Michael Howlett! Who was the founder of The Police!!!!! I couldn’t believe it!

But here’s my mistake. I went home and waited patiently by the phone, checking my emails frantically for days but he never got in contact with me.

What I’ve always regretted not getting his contact details! And a great opportunity was waisted!

I signed on to for a paid compilation called East Coast Chill. It was going to cost $150 BUT I cleared it with my entertainment attorney, I got some promo along with other North Carolina artists and several physical CDs to sell. The problem: I uploaded the wrong track for the duplication!! Instead of a mastered version of The Color Blue, I uploaded an instrumental bass preview from Leland Sklar for a totally different song! The other problem: It’s listed as the TOP song of mine on iTunes!!! (and I actually went to grad school) The lesson? Takes few minutes to verify your uploads.

It’s really not so horrifying, but all the same, it’s a lesson to learn. If you are a performing band thinking about coming to California, there’s one town you want to avoid.
As a performing band, we’ve made our position to never play in Ventura, (unless it’s at the Majestic Theater). We’ve set shows at local bars here in ventura several times, and nearly every time, we’ve been canceled due to double bookings. The last time we set up a show, we spent nearly $400 in advertising and did a lot of footwork to get local support.
So, forget about it. Even the Ventura Theater can be a bad choice, but at least they don’t double book artists, they just charge an arm and leg with a bonus of your first born male child to play there. But it’s a great venue for someone who has great local support.
Oh, contracts? There are no contracts in this town, even if you submit a contract to a venue in this town, you will never see it back with a signature. So, AVOID Ventura Ca at all costs. Just go to Santa Barbara instead. They have some great venues there and a very high level of professionalism.

A little side note… Orange County and LA Counties are strong places for touring artists.

2008.
Our old band, Crashtv, had run its course (whole different story of selling our album to the Philippines in the early 90′s – the pirating capital of the world, pre internet everywhere) and our singer left to persue high-end plumbing (really!) So that left me and my brother being great at music and production after all these years but no vocalist (our old one was one of a kind).

We placed some net ads, got some rubbish applicants. We accidentally found a singer on an NIN site. Female. Sultry-sounding, weird looking French-Korean-Chinese and gifted on the piano in the Philip Glass way [excellent!]. With her lyrics there were many things wrong as English was not her first language. Utterly brilliantly endearing “you make a sound, I’m not found it” etc.

So after a year she came to stay at my flat where the “studio” is, so we could record most of the vocals for this album we’d been working on (8 tracks ready for proper vocs).

Spare room for her (I’m a gentleman host). All fine until she starts going on about needing a contract before doing anything. I said we don’t do that – we TRUST people seeing as we’re all working on it…

She started going for long walks every morning after 3 days here and was a little icy with me. She had a VERY successful sister singer in a huge French band who was presumably sending her ill advised advice.

Day 4 we go to pub, me and her. I’m hoping to loosen her up a bit and find out what the hell’s with all this contract insecurity.

3 pints later (me – she only had coffee – very rock’n'roll) we’re back at my place and she wants to sleep so I say I’ll grab all my studio, the smaller bits of gear, and work in my BEDROOM on a laptop so I don’t disturb her.
Here’s the moment:

She says, “Are you sure you’ve got everything?”
I usher her out saying,” haha, I just need you in there to complete it.”
Now, that’s a silly joke I’d make to any female – to anyone’s mum or auntie or gran. Things like that are why I’m always thought of by old ladies as ‘charming’
Also I am celebate (really yes by choice) for over 10 years, and she knew that.
Flippant silly gag (no this singer wasn’t good looking – she most certainly wasn’t to me anyway – weird if anything). A throw-away joke as I leave the room.

Next morning she apparently has a sister in hospital and has to go back to France.

Next month she tells me in email I am disgusting for trying to have sex with her and she spent all night scared I was going to come into the room and rape her.

I’m also ill a lot – I have Lupus Anticoagulant which requires daily medication to stop dying from it. She said I’m making that up too! Haha! All those pills in the kitchen then…

WTF??!!

Mad, mad, madder than mad, mad woman.

Pretty glad we never signed a contract as I’m sure she is on reflection. But in MY reflection I wish we HAD signed a contract and then it would haunt her – only applying to things we wrote with her and none of that will ever be used.

The point…

We spent a year recording stuff online for our newly invented band Slunq. She was perfect for it and did some great stuff.
You cannot be a band unless you KNOW the people.
Luckily we found out she was a paranoid lunatic before it went too far.

The happy ending is we asked our old friend Dan Knowler from Leisur::Hive to be our singer and wordsmith and he accepted with vigour.

Slunq is no longer like the Cocteau Twins. It’s more like Muse and Radiohead being sat on by Nick Cave’s original vehicle The Birthday Party.

Moral:

There isn’t one. Maybe the French are as arrogant as you think they are and a bit more. That’s not a moral though, it’s a statement.
Okay Moral: The second best will be the best. No, that’s useless. Okay the grass seems greener but it isn’t. That doesn’t apply to this story but it’s a moral.

Her IP is regularly seen checking out Slunq.com and slunq myspace with our outstanding singer, Dan. (She never knew I’m good at sneaky IT as well as music.)

Snippets here for you:

http://www.slunq.com

Album on the way.

Peter

I had a blues/rock band in the 70′s in the Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX area. After trying for months without success to book us into a (now defunct) club in Dallas called Mother Blues, having played there in another band with some success, our new drummer tells me that he knows the head bartender there and that he will give us a shot (bypassing the booking agent who was keeping us out of there in the process.) Sure enough, we got in and proceeded to give a good show. The crowd was having a great time, they were responding positively to everything we did, and we thought that we were “in like Flynn” to use an old cliche. The show was SO good,in fact,that the bartender (not the fellow who got us in the club, but one of his subordinates) upon seeing the agent we had gone around to get in the club, proceeded to tell him how great we were, as well as saying that he had really done a great job booking us in there, and then let him drink all night on the house! (We talked to the head bartender later where we got this story.) Did we ever get back in?!!?? EVER???!!!! Was the agent grateful for his free night of booze thanks to us?!? HA!!! GOOD one!!!! We had committed a cardinal sin by going around him. Don’t do it! No matter HOW well you go over, an agent scorned will NOT help you……. EVER!

I have 2.

First one is one of mine. This is typical of people. At least people I’ve dealt with. My band was just starting out and we were looking for a singer. Hard to come by. We finally find a guy who is great! He’s willing to audition and loves the music. He wrote lyrics to the songs and showed up to 2 practices. We decided to go out the night of practice 3 and we talked. He loved our ideas and we scheduled practice 4. Little did we know we’d never hear from him again. It’s now been 6 months and still no word. We’ve called, emailed, texted, and no response. Now we’re up against a scheduled show we had planned months ago and no singer! The new singer (we finally found recently) isn’t quite ready for a show so we may have to bail. Not a good situation.

Moral: don’t count your chickens… Ever. Whether it’s before or after they hatch. Just count them.

Number 2 is about a bad I know. They are a well known band in their genre but have never been great on the business side of things. They recently ‘signed’ to a label that was, according to them, very reputable. Turns out, their new ‘manager’, who they had never met, had made the whole thing up. The ‘record rep’, who they had also never met, was presumed to be the same person and took them for 3 GRAND saying they had “breached contract.”. Haha!

Moral: meet people do you business with. If they aren’t willing, they aren’t worth it. Don’t trust ANYONE’S word, even people that you know or work for you. AND, whenever possible, do it yourself.

One more thing, read a book on the music business, Tour:Smart is a good one and so is The Indie Band Survival Guide. What the heck!

Read both!

I have another one, and it is related to our first show:

While I was making my first demo I worked with a very popular software. Not long before, a new version of that software was released.

I was also trying to have mi first show and a local Goth boutique was opening a new shop and they agreeded to line-up us in their little festival (3 bands + us). They asked for a demo of our songs, so I though I could impress them by giving them a demo with all my songs remade with the new software version.

So, I took the installation CD, started the installation, restarted my PC, the program was fine and it looked awesome! But when I went to my projects folder… THERE WAS NO SONGS!!! NO PROJECT FILES!!! NO SONGS!!! AND THE WORST THING OF ALL: I NEVER EXPORTED ANY SONG TO MP3/WAV!!

…. OOOOHH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!

I was frantic and without knowing what to do!! So I spent the next week, almost 16 hours each day trying to remake my songs from zero. Even I missed school!! I didn’t have any musical skills so it was a miracle I could remake many songs and create new ones. Fortunatelly, the CD deemo conviced the boutique owner and let us play at his fest.

And that’s the story of my first demo!! .

I play in two bands, RAW DOG(www.myspace.com/rawdogmk) and DEAD TO SOCIETY(www.myspace.com/deadtosociety101). Raw Dog is an alternative music project and Dead to Society is punk rock. Dead to Society was scheduled to play a show at a downtown pub as the headliner, on the back patio. The opening band wanted to wait to see if more of a crowd would show up. They started about 10pm, instead of the original start time of 8. Two songs into their set, it started raining heavily and since the back patio has no roof, everyone had to scramble to load up their equipment. As for Raw Dog, along with our good shows: we’ve played shows for 4 people, shows where a member’s cheating girlfriend showed up with her new lover, shows with a lousy sound engineer, and we also had our biggest potential show, at a local festival, rained out. We’re still having fun, but we’ve discovered that the one true law in the music world is MURPHY’S LAW.

The band I was in was playing at a outdoor festival in San Francisco. We were supposed to go on mid afternoon but the guy kept putting us off while other bands he knew kept getting up on the stage. Sat around for hours. Finally, it about 7pm.Its getting dark when we get the word that now, its our turn. Get on the stage which is wet from the moisture cause the fog has been rolling in. I test the mic and get the shock of my life. Feels like a hot needle going into my lower lip. PA is so blown out all I can hear is my voice fuzzing and popping. We start to play and the guitar player breaks three strings on his guitar and his bridge pops loose and is dangling from the guitar. The bass player sounds like he is playing with a fuzz tone until smoke starts coming from his head box and the smell of something burning. Most of the people are leaving cause of the cold n wind. Mercifully, the set is over. But,the guy who we were talking to earlier stayed for the set. we gave him are address and phone number and the next day, we found a note taped to our door that read,”I got you guys a gig!” He ended up becoming our manager.

A couple years ago, I tried to save a little money by having my recently recorded and mastered CD manufactured by a lesser known company from Texas. The 500 CDs arrived a couple weeks late but I was excited. Then I opened one and saw the blurred print on the CD label. I frantically opened several and all had the blurred print. After many phone calls to the Co., they agreed to pay for shipping them all back. By this time, I looked like a fool after having announced a CD release date that had long passed. I shipped all 500 CDs back and waited another couple weeks. When the replacement CDs arrived, I opened a couple and was relived to see the CD labels were fine. Later that night I decided I better play one of the CDs. To my horror, on one of the tracks, it just stopped in the middle of the song and continually skipped at that point. I opened many more and all had the same problem. Played them on several CD players thinking it must be the CD player. Nope, same skipping on all CD players. Now I was really pissed when I called the Co. They said it must be my master and they would pull it and check it. A couple days later, they reluctantly admitted it was their fault and they don’t know how it could have happened and it has never happened before…yada, yada, yada. This time they told me to take all 500 CDs to the landfill and they would be doing the whole project over and it would be done right. My rep would personally oversee the project. A few weeks later, the third batch arrived. Nervously I opened one of the CDs. I kid you not, they botched the job for the third time. This time the CD label printing had little specks all over them. I was so pissed I opened all 500. Turns out, about 100 didn’t have the specks and were usable. It’s now 5 months past the day that I announced my CD would be released! I had to threaten a lawsuit to get a (partial) refund. Then incredibly, they told me they hoped this wouldn’t prevent me from considering them for my next project!

The band was booked to play a private party and were told to expect a rager!
wwhen we arrived the back yard was to be our venue and was decked out with a few banana lounges and a bonfire, so far so good.
When it was time for us to come on we walked out to a sleeping ovation as the 8 person party we were to entertain and rock the hell out of were all high as kites and on the nod!(A term I had never heard before that night)
one patron decided he was a bit of a santana and wanted a go on the guitar. after much begging and annoying we handed him the guitar and wandered off stage to find a beer, when we came back, the guy, playing our guitar had been strumming so hard he had shredded the back of his fingers off and covered the guitar in blood.Gross!
We packed up and left, when we got home the guitarist filled a big laundry bucket with demestos antiseptic and just dropped his entire guitar in it !!! pickups and all! HA HA HA Good times.

I have so many horror stories it’s not funny!

Here’s one. I’m based in New York City. I was on tour in Illinois and Wisconsin for 10 days. I injured my leg the first day I was there; popped my gsatronemous (calf) muscle. Ouch! Much pain! And no medical attention. I was like “Oh, I’ll be OK.” Then, the last day, I drove from Milwaukee to New York; 16 hours without stopping. I arrived in the Big Apple, and my leg was swollen and pounding. I became concerned. So after dropping off my stuff and returning the rental car, I went to the hospital. They told me I tore the muscle; and I should stay off it. Did I listen? Noooo! I had a solo gig that very night. I went to the gig limping on a cane I’d found and in terrible pain, and by the time I started playing, I’d been awake for about 32 hours. Then, when I was playing, I fell asleep! But I kept playing, while I was asleep, and nobody knew I’d nodded off! I was on autopilot!

Another time, way back in 1978, I was gigging with a rock band. Like the young lunatic I used to be, I took three hits of acid before I went onstage. I thought I could handle it. Guess again! The lights kept making strange colors, the cables looked like snakes and insects, and the harmonics were causing all kinds of weird things to happen! And while the band was playing hard rock music, what I played would have been better suited for Sun Ra or Ornette Coleman! The guys in the band wanted to kill me! Later, they dumped me in a large park, where I got lost and had terrifying delusions of being chased by demons!

That same band had the local record for the band with the most riots at their shows. But that’s another story.

Let me soften this with a good story. Once, around ’83 or 84, I was hired to play guitar on somebody’s record. The engineer pulled out an old Sunn amp. After I played the tracks, he told me he used to be a roadie with Mountain; and that Leslie West had bought that Sunn amp from Jimi Hendrix! I played through one of Jimi’s amps!!

We were booked to play at a party after a concert by a major act. Didn’t think much of it and we brought our own backline and small rehearsal PA as this is usually enough for club gigs. First problem was that it turned out the stage was in the middle of a large ice hockey arena. Second problem was that nobody had informed people were the party was(!) We ended up playing for a hardly visible crowd, standing in the far end by the beer stand, who barely heard us.

It was during the summer of 2004. I was performing with my band at the time, Electrophile. We were geeked at having packed the venue that night. About two songs into the set, the stage outlet shorted rendering our equipment useless. We were an electronic band, so there went EVERYTHING! So while our keyboardist and sound engineer scrambled to find a working outlet and extension cords. Here I am with my backup singer, front stage and center, with a mob of drunk detroit-ers expecting entertainment. We managed to pull it in our favor by calling in a couple of bottles of vodka. We did our drunken shenanigans for about a half hour or so until they got the electronics running again… It ended up being one of our more memorable shows!

we have gone through many different band members and dancers since we started 7 years ago mostly playing private venues. Obviously when production starts so do the trouble and bloated eagles. Akasqrl produced a few songs in which other members and some former members felt that thier efforts may have gone unrewarded. First, if you are the lead on producing the idea, (music, lyrics, etc.), and applying the patent, why would one assume that millions are being made and hidden. With this idea in mind there are missing master tapes, stolen cd slates, and music showing up on different sites, ( Apple itunes, amazon, etc. ) mono and no lyrics on most. If your gonna swipe a master tape and sell it to the big wigs at least swipe the one that include lyrics.

We’ve also been hit with internet viruses. So now we go with the George Lucas theory, “Do not put your project computer on the same line as the internet!” Someone will obviously be looking for unreleased new music, projects, etc. After you go through the out of court settlements and several restarts of new faces and studios,
we just figure that things happen for a reason. Although we’ll be releasing music in a few weeks, it will be who of you to work with knowledgeable people with some studio experience with a proven track record in order to keep delays from happening to your music launch.

This happened in Venezuela in the 80s when I was a young Australian rock chick on tour as keyboard player in the backing band for Maria Conchita Alonso (Actress, singer). Firstly we, the band, drove along the crowded roadway in a limousine towards the stage area to play a huge outdoor night time concert. Fans were peering into the windows and thought I was Maria Conchita. They climbed onto the car and banged on the windows. (It was quite scary, I’m glad I’m not a super star!)
When we finally arrived, we were ushered under the stage to wait for Maria Conchita to arrive. We waited and waited, but she was a no show. Meanwhile we all had stinging, itchy noses as if the dirt under our feet was pepper.
Then we were told that Maria Conchita was not coming to perform because several clauses in her contract were not met, ie there was no grand piano on stage and the crowd was too close to the stage.
The organisers gave us two options, we could leave and not be paid anything, or go up on stage and perform as a band and get paid. The guys opted for the latter. Now, we were just Maria Conchita’s backing band and had only ever played her repertoire together, and we didn’t know any other songs we could perform well. So it was decided to play a blues in E, of course! I think the guitarist sang some incomprehensible words.
Suffice to say, we sounded terrible and the crowd began to boo and hurl bottles at us, shouting that they wanted Maria Conchita. The guys unplugged their guitars and told me to run to the car. Terrified, we ran to the limousine, hearts pounding in fear of a mob attack, remembering what it was like entering the gig. We managed to escape out a back way. Talk about excitement! I’m happy to be writing musical theatre now! Enough of the high life of a rock musician.

I have another story from the same tour with Maria Conchita Alonso. She was really well known in Venezuela at the time and this tour was a big deal. We turned up to this particular gig, I think it was at a resort and they had built a stage across some kind of lagoon.
Electric cables, junction boxes, my transformer to change my 240 Volt keyboards to 120 Volts were all running across this flimsy stage. Then it began to rain! Yes everything was wet and WE HAD TO PLAY!
I was so scared of getting electrocuted and my keyboards kept cutting out. Looking back, I really could have died that night! Maria Conchita wasn’t on the wet makeshift stage, just the musicians! What idiots!

Want a horror story? I caught koobface 2 months ago and it took all of my websites from me and my band, including last fm. Now all the music I have with CdBaby is on torrent sites, after I requested the removal of my music from last fm over 3 months ago. Here is the scariest part…I am suing you for not taking my music off.

About 10 years ago I spent months laying down tracks for a CD and had several with lead vocals complete. The engineer got into a nasty divorce and apparently his wife destroyed my work in revenge because he never found my tape. Weeks of work went down the tubes, never to be recovered. (By the way, I was NOT “the other woman”)

I was having a performer at a small town far from the city of tegucigalpa Honduras, when show finished & heading back home we were driving our truck car on a gravel road about 40miles per hour, it was getting cold and for some reason we felt unsecure, all of a sudden 100 meters from the car a a lady on a white blanket, long black hair appeared and She began following us, we never saw her face clearly, and She had legs but no feet, We speed our car and after 3 scary minutes, some of our members screamed realy loud, and oooooohhh! the lady just dissapered. We never saw her again, and We never came back to that town.

Forgot to say a little one story!
Once on a cold december night, performing with my 13 members Band in Central America there was fog all over the place that we can no see the crowd dancing from the stage, and they can barely see us too! It was like perfoming on clouds or dark heaven.

OK here’s my story.
I’m a songwriter and over the years I’ve had the good fortune to record and release some of my songs with a few international artists. In short, a nice situation.
A few years ago I received a letter from a big name publishing & record company which I’m not at liberty to name here. Believe me, you know them.
The letter informed me that a television personality in Europe was promoting a newcomer band on his prime time show and they wanted to record one of my songs. The song in question was originally released on Universal Records and to this day it still does pretty well for me. According to them this was my ‘big’ chance.
There were five copies of a rather lengthy contract they wanted me to sign and send back to them immediately. The letter said that the contract was to give them permission to record and release the song. This made me suspicious.
I faxed a copy of the contract off to my lawyer. A few hours later he called me back saying, “Don’t sign it!”
I asked, “Why not?”
He said, “Well the contract grants them all the rights to the song including the original version.”
I said, “OK … so like, what are they offering me?”
My lawyer said, “Well, that’s just it. Absolutely nothing!”
He added that this kind of a contract is fairly standard these days, because in the hungry grab to get their shit out there many young musicians sign almost anything.
I was shocked and I’ve framed this hideous little document as a constant reminder, no matter how desperate I may get in the future.
If there’s a moral to this story, it’s simply this … look both ways before you cross the street and get a good lawyer!

Forgetting the lyrics to your own songs, on stage, one song after another. I didn’t sell anything that night. I was relieved to find out that even the most famous singers forget their lyrics and music from time to time. We are human. It happens. Hint: Just start making up words and chords to play and end the song quickly. After the applause (if any say, “That was a special song I wrote just for you, just now. It may or may not be appearing on the next album depending on whether or not I can remember what I just did.”

Though I had tough times over the 12 years my dance partner and I did acrobatic adagio dance with tricks and spins and tosses, like you see on ‘Dancing with the Stars’… here are two of the toughest. They took place on cruise ships, that back in the early 70′s, had very little entertainment. Just a 7 piece orchestra, a singer, a comic and an opening act.
Once in the middle of our act, while we were dancing and all was well, we noticed the audience stirring somewhat and looking behind us at the band. The horn player had fallen off his chair with a heart attack, was pulled by his legs off the stage and later had to be airlifted to a hospital…
Next horror story was during a storm where the ship was rocking like crazy and in the middle of our number, a dramatic lurch shifted the lights off the stage.
Good thing that happened because I had been up in a lift held by one hand on my hip with my legs in a split in the air, but not for long as both of us were down on our butts in the same phrase… Kaboom! (You can see the trick on my youtube. Search my name.)

We toured western Canada alot in the 80′s. We had a 1966 GMC 72 passenger school bust that had been converted for band use. The band that had it before us had added another gas tank. On a tour of Alberta/BC in 1982, we filled the ad-on tank in Edmonton. About 10 miles south of Edmonton…the tank fell off the bus and exploded in flames…we drug it for about a quarter mile until the line severed. The stock tank had not been working due to a plugged line. Once we got the flames on the read tires extinguished..we heard the sirens. A full emergency crew from Edmonton had responded to a call about an exploding school bus…once they saw it was a bunch of long haired rockers from the States, they headed back into Edmonton. The the real problem…with no functioning gas tank…what were we to do? I stuck the severed gas line down the filler tube of tank one and we had enough gas in that tank to get us to a station and we finished the tour with the bus operating as such.

My first professional gig was on tour with a big band in Ulm, Germany.
I was subbing for the second tenor sax chair. The band was made up of really seasoned players and when I asked for the ‘book’ a week before the tour to practice a bit, they all looked a little surprised. Anyways, I dutifully looked at as many of the over 200 charts as I could, skipping over any that looked simple. There was one chart where the page was black with notes. It was a blues so I figured it must be a down tempo number and just glanced at it.
The band leader was notorious for getting loaded before gigs and sure enough he counted in the black paged chart at a hair raising tempo. I knew I was in trouble. So I thought, “Just try and get the first note in each bar”.
Then it happened. The entire horn section stopped and my page remained black with notes.
It was a written out solo!! … fortunately for me it was a blues and I could improvise, but the whole band knew and well, I definitely got caught with my pants down.

I was racing to a gig and got sideswiped, crashed into a phone pole and was killed instantly. It is a miracle that I can even share this with you!

Just recently, a band that I manage was booked to play a gig in Tahoe. The moment they arrived and walked into the casino, there was a large woman on the floor being worked on by paramedics. The band told me that as this woman lay dying on the casino floor, people sitting right next to what was going on continued playing the slot machines. Horrible.

I was playing in a covers band 20 years ago and we were booked for a company dance at a country club outside Brighton.

We got half way through the first set and the organiser asked us to stop. The “young” people in the audience wanted a disco. The most annoying thing was that the DJ then proceeded to play most of the songs we had already played!

We were paid in full and were told we could have free drinks the rest of the evening – a pity we were all driving…

Then there was the time the singer in one of my early bands started berating the very sparse audience for being less than enthusiastic about his songs. I started remonstrating with him and the drummer had to step out from behind his kit to break up our fight. I think it was the only time the audience applauded.

One of the first festival gigs for me as solo singer-songwriter in northern Ontario. Got a set on a daytime stage. Vocal, guitar and harp. And it turns out there’s a much repected folk music icon in the audience, so I’m really wanting this to go well. Choose a real energetic tune to hit the ground running that features a doubled guitar and harp solo. get to the solo blow that harp … it was the sound of a dying animal “screehawnk” mess. Moral: Check your harp, ESPECIALLY if it’s been in your pocket and a freakin’ flatpick has gotten itself lodged in the harp…

A band I was playing drums in, When Rocky Beat The Russian, was going into a professional recording studio for the first time to record a song for free. Our band had become notorious for chewing up bass players and spitting them out, but our bass player at the time was a superior screw-up. He didn’t show up to the session and didn’t call anyone to tell them he wasn’t coming. Even worse, all of our gear was in his van and we had no idea where he was. Fortunately, the studio had some things that we could rig up to still do the track.

About 2003 or 04 our band tattoo billy played a venue in Salem mass…We showed up a day ahead & got our room & went into town, we parked by an old phone co. & it gave me the creeps & I had the feeling of being watched from the old building . We went to a remake of the witch dungeon & the creepy feeling persisted I took pictures as I went…that night we took a ghost tour the last stop was the phone co. the guide stopped & said…this is where the real witch dungeon was unearthed during the construction of the phone co… I would like to say it ended there but it didn’t whatever it was followed us home mainly my father the singer & rang his doorbell every day until he took it out & when I got my pictures back a full body apparition was in them . The upside the gig was a good one.

Did you ever have one of those dreams you were on stage and everything was going wrong and there’s nothing you could do but watch it happen. It was a big night for this local group who hired me as a back up fiddle/mandolin/guitar player. We were opening for a major group with lots of press sitting in front of us. The leader of the group seemed nervous and also quite drunk. I found out later his wife and secret girl friend were sitting dead center stage in front of him across from each other. The leader decided to hire a bass player who never played with us before and there were no charts to follow in this all original band. Starting with the first song it was all down hill to hell. The singer was drunk and singing flat and talking nonsense on the microphone. The bass player just started playing lead guitar on the bass. The pedal steel player through his arms up into the air and gave up. My instruments were never on in the PA. The crowd listened to the mess for about a minute and started having there own concert of talk at the tables. To top it off they introduced me as the bass player with a different name. Later after the gig I sat down with some friends in the audience and they looked at me and said Oh My God that must have been embarrassing to say the least. It was the dream nightmare.

I was rescued from what was a horrible situation that combined music,romance, physical abuse and songwriting, by a rather popular punk band at the time who was managed by a very important hollywood manager and they were also negotiating a contract with Atlantic Records. I left quickly and I was desperate to take any job or contract that came my.
I committed to the Record Label and the new band (the guitar player and bass player where married or common law).
Towards the end of the contract The label picked up our option, however the couple broke up. Disbanding the group was only part of the loss. The bass player left with the manager and what was worse was that I was told ” you are talented, you will get another contract, but I didn’t sign with anyone else.
I later realized that the period of time in which I spent with the band was gone.

I learned to do my own thing because no one can do it for me.

After a long cry, I picked myself up and wrote new stuff, the internet helped me gain my courage and CD Baby helped me independence!

OMG everyone, you all should be in my book! I just released “Truly Rotten Gigs from Hell: The Funny, The Sad, The Unbelievably Bad True Tales from the Music Trenches”! 75 true stories by 35 musicians including famous ones (Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul and Mary, The Smithereens, half of The Starland Vocal Band) and many more lesser-knowns, to whom most of the truly bad ones happened!

Check it out at http://www.trulyrottengigsfromhell.com OR http://www.patriciashih.com and click on “store.”

If this book does well, there may be a Volume 2 and then you should send me your stories!!!!

I’m not sure if this is a “horror” story but it’s something that really happened and quite frankly…really sucked ass. My mastering engineer and I were working on the final masters for my latest album. He gave me half of the tracks and the remainder would be completed in the next couple weeks. Turns out a lot happened during that time.

He was rushed to the hospital because he had had a stroke one evening. I wasn’t aware of this, mind you. A couple weeks go by and I hadn’t heard from him but I assumed it was because he was still tweaking. During a meeting at my (previous) office, my boss announced that he died during the weekend (side note: my engineer also freelanced for my previous job – hence my boss’s information).

Needless to say I was shocked. My first reaction was, “I can’t believe my friend is gone.” A few minutes go by and I realized that he still had my files. I felt horribly selfish for thinking of this but I was more concerned that we had a good thing going. The album was almost there and I knew he would be the one to make it great.

I had hoped to retrieve the Pro Tools files from his computer to have on hand when I found a replacement engineer but that never worked out. Fortunately, I had my final mixes saved. Unfortunately, it was like starting the mastering phase from scratch.

I miss my friend and I miss the quality of work he brought to artists. If you want to hear some of his mastering at work, visit http://www.tinoghost.com and listen to tracks 1-4.

The most horrific thing, musically speaking, that’s happened to me over my career was when I had composed a song (Foreboding Premonition, fact fans) and got it all good and ready to go, and then suddenly my computer decided to have an aneurysm.

Composing, for me, is a long old process, as I have to do all the arrangements and whatnot as well, myself. Imagine, then, my horror at spending days on this one song – and bearing in mind this is my only copy – only to be left with an older, much truncated and woefully skeletal piece of nonsense. Thankfully, I was able to reconstruct the song in an approximate fashion, but when you’re attached to the perfect but demised version, it sort of rankles a bit if you cannot get it exactly the same.

I suppose, therefore, one should always heed the advice of one’s pet geek and back up. That said, if all you can back up to is a USB stick which has a tendancy to get lost, then the best other option is to try and stop the computer going mad…

It was years ago in San Antonio Texas at a huge outdoor arena called “The Sunken Gardens”- my band “Ben Beckendorf Band” was the opening act for Carlos Santana.( yeah the time Carlos Santana got busted for having pot) We were all excited about it and got to hang around backstage with Carlos and the gang. I got Carlos Santana to autograph my guitar ( a 1970 Black Les Paul)- which he did and we went and did our show. After the show I had to leave and hit the airport for a gig I had in Dallas – I didn’t even get to see the Santana show. After the show the band and crew left in the bus and headed to Dallas for a show the next day. We were doing a show with “Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen”. Well it was time for us to go on and the crew members were setting up and one of our crew asked me “where’s your Les Paul?”. We looked in the bus and the trailer to no avail. Someone had stolen my Carlos Santana autographed Les Paul. The only guitar I’ve ever had stolen. A real horror story.

We chose a band name. The demo tape was recorded. The clubs we wanted to play were discussed. The set was well-rehearsed.

WE TOOK A BAND PHOTO. We got the proofs back and picked one to send out with our demo to get gigs.

Then the lead guitarist started to get flaky and not show up regularly, but not quit. And then the drummer too. They had to be kicked out. Then the band collapsed.

Moral: Don’t take a band photo, if you can avoid it. The primitive, peasant soul of many rock musicians will react as if their soul has been stolen by the camera.

In high school I was in a few different bands. As is the case with most high school bands, none of them were very good. However, one of the bands I was in started to get fairly regular gigs enough to the point that we were confident in our performance and knew what we were supposed to sound like. One of the gigs we had was a battle of the bands at our town fair. After seeing some of the other bands, we were pretty confident that we would be able to take the show. However, when the “professional” sound guy went on a power trip, our sound went down the tubes. He had the guitars turned down to barely audible, the vocals marginally louder than the drums, and nothing coming through the monitors. After the other guitarist’s pedalboard crapped out on him, the cohesion of the band fell apart. Soon we were 4 instruments playing completely different parts of the song. The worst part was that we didn’t even know that we were on separate parts of the song because the mix was so poor and muddy. After a set like that, it’s no wonder we didn’t win…

I was playing a restaurant in Australia. Beautiful place, on a river outside Sydney. Great gig, good money, steady bookings.

One day the owner asked me to write a special song for his best friend’s 50th wedding anniversary. It was going to be a big party with their whole family there and many well-wishers. Sure I said and went home and whipped something off. I thought the Ausies had a good sense of humor so I decided to go with a kind of barroom sing-along. It starts with the chorus:

I knew your wife when she wasn’t your wife
She invited me up to her place
I would have given anything in my life
To have felt her lips on my face

I tried and I tried but she never gave in
She said she was waiting for you
You better watch what you do
You got two of us waiting for you.

From there the song goes into a story about how his wife calls me all the time to tell me how gross he is, how he leaves her cold and unsatisfied, how she wishes he’d divorce her, how I wish he’d just die… you get it.

As I sang, the place got quieter and quieter. No laughter. No smiles. People stopped eating and every line of the song fell flatter than the one before it.

This is how bad I bombed. I got fired before I finished the set.

Ironically, the song works pretty good now as an embarrassingly funny barroom sing-along. But I wonder what made me sabotage that job…

Moral? If you’re stupid, you’re stupid. You may as well believe it if the proof is all around you.

One evening I arrived early for an open mic that I frequent. However, it was so early, the tables that they normally took down to put up the stage were still up and the restaurant was pretty much full, so I left quickly, intending to come back later. Little did I know that someone named Chris Rubinski who also frequented the establishment, and whose description I vaguely matched, had had a bad day, and someone, fearing what he might do to himself or others, had called the cops on him. I headed up the street to a local corner store where I remembered they had ice-cream that I had been meaning to try for some time, not knowing that a local police officer was following me on foot at quite a clip, having found my quick entry and exit to the restaurant somewhat suspicious. When we reached the gas station he called out to me, and I, not knowing who had called out or what he had called, turned around. He had called out, “Chris,” so he naturally assumed that’s was who I was and within 5 seconds he had me in hand and stuffed me in the back of his patrol car where I spent the next 20 minutes explaining the many ways in which I was not Chris Rubinski, and how all I had intended to do was attend an open mic at the restaurant, but had arrived too soon. The copy was so on edge he wouldn’t even allow me to show him my driver’s license to prove it. Finally after I failed to display any signs of having had “a bad day,” a great effort on my part given that I was now having one of the worst days in my life, he let me go. I made a point of telling this story at the open mic, in the hopes of shaming whoever had called the cops on someone for having “a bad day” but the people who were clearly carefully watching the doors for signs of Mr. Rubinski just laughed at me. To top it all off, while I was playing and singing, the entire audience was treated to a spectacle with which my music had no chance of competing: a police tow-truck with rollers flashing taking away Chris Rubinski’s car which had been parked in front of the restaurant. I have never felt so thoroughly mistreated and disrespected as I did that evening. To this day, the liner notes for my album “Everybody Thinks I’m Dave” state

Gabe wishes the Minneapolis Police Department to know that he is still not nor ever has been Chris Rubinski.

During a short lived stint as the lead singer of a cover band, we were playing in a roadhouse type bar one Friday night wrapping up our final set. It was about 2am, the remaining crowd was drunk and flopping around on the dance floor. After our last song I left the stage and was grabbing a drink when this guy came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and proceeded to tell me somewhat incoherently that he enjoyed the show and thought I had a great voice. I smiled and thanked him and was ready to turn back to my drink when he completely surprised me by punching me in the stomach. While I think he meant it as a playful punch, he managed to get me right in the solar plexus and knocked the wind out of me. I keeled over and was in such disbelief that this had even occurred that once I caught my breath I managed to say “what are you thinking, I’m a girl!” The guy looked pretty embarrassed and immediately stumbled away. If anything it was a first for me as I’d never received a compliment in such an aggressive manner.

This should never happen to anyone.
I sent two months recording my cd project Carbon McCartney,
near the end of mastering one night my computer started acting funny, so I save my work and shut down.
The next day when I went in to work, my computer would not start up.
So after trying everything I new (and I work on computers) I had the sinking feeling my hard drive was gone, so I took it in to have it looked at.
And that is what it was, so I had them retrieve what files they could, and I had backed up everything on disks a day or two before. so I felt safe.
They dope in a new drive, but when I got it back and started working after reloading sonar/cakewalk and reason, I found that most of my files even the ones I had backed up on disk would not open or he track were blank.
Need less to say I had to start 95% of the project over from scratch, having to remember what I had played.
Moral of the story, back ups don’t always help

I tour a lot (from Seattle). Covered over 100,000 miles. I drive a class C RV, which makes touring MUCH easier than a van. You’d think SOMEWHERE in those 100,000+ miles I would have been a bit smarter in knowing that trying to navigate my RV in downtown Manhattan would be a MAJOR mistake. I mean, I had navigated in just about every major city in the US, how hard could NY be? Tried to cross the Holland Tunnel, got turned around by police, tried the Lincoln Tunnel, turned around again (finally told that propane is a no go…despite everyone having gasoline in their tanks!). Crossed the GW Bridge for $20 toll, tried to navigate to the venue, couldn’t find parking ANYWHERE despite having told the promoter what we were driving, how tall it was and how long. I was assured it would be ok. Hell, I even had a CONTRACT saying it would be ok as it’s a stipulation in our hospitality rider. Took me more than 6 hours to get into lower Manhattan and the booker could not be reached by phone. After tears, yelling and several threats to drive off into the river, we decided to call the show off and head to Pennsylvania for our next show.

The next day, the booker calls REALLY irritated.
Booker: “Why didn’t you show!”
Me: “No parking! You didn’t answer! WTF!?”
Booker: “You could have just parked in a parking garage!”
Me: “My vehicle, which I told you ad nausea is 10’11″ tall! Explain how I’ll get that in a 7′ garage!
Booker hangs up on me.

Years ago when I was living in New Zealand, I was asked to sit in with a band because they had got a really well-paying gig doing a biker club rally, but the usual drummer was Maori and he was afraid the gig. The promised pay was pretty good, beggars can’t be choosers, etc. so I agreed.

It was definitely a scary bunch. They were nice enough to us at first, but I did notice that there was not a single non-white face in the crowd. Drummer guy probably made a good call.

Well, we played the gig and the crowd was enthusiastic – VERY enthusiastic. We took our first break and they freely shared their beer and offered other drugs as well, which I declined – not because I’m Mr. No Drugs but because I can’t play messed up. AT ALL. So we played until we said we would, pretty late, but the party was still raging full-on. When the band leader approached the guy who booked the band, he was high as a kite, being more than a little belligerant, he wanted us to play longer and wouldn’t pay. Bandleader assured us that he’d take care of it in the next couple days when this guy was in his right mind.

Disappointed and more than a little angry, we started packing up…and the bikers wouldn’t let us leave! They very threateningly insisted we play more. And more. And more. All night long, well past dawn. We played everything we knew, more than a few that we didn’t, and these guys didn’t notice the difference. We were bone tired, scared for our lives and just playing worse and worse as the gig went on.

Finally arounf 10.30 or 11 the following morning they finally let us go…and paid us ten times the agreed-upon amount. It was ALMOST worth it.

There’s always something that doesn’t go as planned, but rarely does every possible bugger happen on the same night…

It was in 2006, we were to play a Halloween gig in a pub in the small Belgian city of Herentals. Approaching the city, we realized the road indicated by the venue owner was closed for repair. That was a time when I didn’t have a gps, only a lousy map I printed on a website. Poring over my map, I tried to find an alternate route, only to find that ALL accesses to the centre of Herentals were closed. It seems that 10.000 inhabitants city was locked hermetically, closed like an oyster. Each road that led to the venue was torn open and machines were quietly sleeping in the way…

The other band’s members began to call my cellphone in panic, so I rang the venue. I speak very fluent Dutch, but I swear the language he spoke to me must have been some kind of lingo from outer space, as I barely caught a word of it. I understood there was one narrow street remaining open to access the venue. We finally all got there (1 hour late already) to find the venue was a lousy, dirty and smelly pub, where the soles of our shoes made a “scratch scratch” at each step, and the smell of vomit made the eyes itch as the floor hadn’t been cleaned since the death of King Baudouin the Ist, at least.

A few pumkins drawned by a 5-year old and the usual Guiness posters were all of the announced “halloween animations”.

I spotted the venue owner and went to apologize for the lateness and explain the road trouble. The bartender was already so drunk he barely remembered his own name… Since he was smiling, I thought he wasn’t too mad at us, and the fact he repeatedly pointed to a spot in the middle of the pub made me think this was where we were supposed to install our gear.

There were about 30 young folks in the pub, who seemed not to have noticed we were there. We installed our PA, did our soundcheck and started playing… for the walls I guess, as NOBODY turned their eyes from the flipper where they all were gathered. Was there some kind of contest going on or something, we played 90 minutes for ourselves. To close the “show”, we played the “Drunken sailor” and only then came two guys to yell something at us, with thumbs up, but nonetheless undecipherable.

The venue had prepared us a sort of Irish stew (considering the rest of the evening, it seemed the best part of it) and we asked for our money as we wanted to escape this nightmare asap… Then two girls in a very flirty mood came to sit by us. Now, this is always nice for the ego, even when you’re not going to conclude, but the fact the local dialect remained totally mysterious to us, even when spoken by charming lips, made it a bit uneasy, and when I noticed that 5 of the guys by the flipper were looking at us with faces that clearly stated their intention of transforming us into a meat loaf, this really was the last straw and we got our cash and ran away in exasperation.

The next morning, I realised I had forgotten a box of 30 of our brand new CDs there… The flute player, who carried the PA in his van, noticed there was a multiplug missing too. Like Morrissey sang, “I can smile about it now but at the time, it was terrible”

Oh let’s see:

Losing a wheel on the highway in Montreal. And being so freaked out once it was fixed, it took the band 15 minutes to convince me weren’t going to die if we started driving again.

Being pulled over by a Texas state trooper and lined up on the side of the highway nearly at gunpoint while he ransacked our van looking for dope.

Getting the evil eye from local RCMP in Swift Current at Tim Hortons at 3am, and being pulled maybe a minute after leaving the parking lot.

Knocking the muffler off during a flood in Dallas, and spending the rest of tour keeping it held up with guitar strings. I always thought we should send the picture to D’Addario.

And the best drive ever: Dawson City, Yukon to Harrisonburg, Virginia. WITHOUT STOPPING. That’s 60+ hours of highways, one territory, two border crossings, three flat tires, four time zones, five pronvinces, six states. The things you do for a festival gig.

One time, my band played a show on a slippery floor without a carpet or mat and the drums slid all over the place 20 seconds literally into every song, and the mic stand broke on the singer, and he had to chase the mic around in circles. It was total chaos.

You guys should submit these stories to Gig Anecdotes (www.giganecdotes.com) — they have a bunch of musical horror stories and it looks like a fun project to entertain us working musicians…

I have had a couple nightmares with my music. Starting with my exhusband, who was a recording engineer and record producer in Phily. When we got married, he put the idea into my head that I should have my music recorded. Over our 13 years of marriage, he did everyone else’s album but mine. I finally got my piano tracks recorded on the DAT machine with my arranger. When I told my ex I was ready to record the vocals, he went into the studio, came back and said that the DAT had been eaten by the machine. He fixed the tape a few months later, but then he announced both of his DAT machines were broken! At this point, i think he was making it up or sabotaging the project. i had to get those piano tracks off that DAT or I would have to do them all over again. He said he couldn’t buy a new machine, which was true. I pointed out there was a vendor he could rent one from at least to get the tracks and transfer them to the digital machine he bought. It was another year before that was done. So, I thought finally the album would get done. He then said that no one would buy an album with a piano and vocalist. I thought he was nuts. I had a solid fanbase who was bugging me for a CD! He wanted to have a full orchestra. Well, that costs a lot of money. I drew a line in the sand. I said that if he didn’t do the album by a certain date, I would hire someone else to do it. He got really mad at that, but I had enough. We wound up divorcing soon after that for other marital problems. I made sure before I left that I took the tracks with me. After the divorce was final, I hired the studio to finish the album. They played the first song I was going to lay vocals for, and the engineer said he couldn’t use any of the tracks because the levels were peaking too high. The squiggly lines were getting chopped off at the top. I asked if that could have been done by a professional by mistake. He said it had to have been done on purpose. A pro doesn’t make errors like that. I was so angry! I had to call my pianist and start over. I was in tears. I sent my ex this nasty email about sabotaging my album again. He swears he didn’t do it. I had the engineer come to the pianist’s house to record the tracks again. I started laying the vocals in the studio. The engineer decides to move to California in the middle of the project. He gives me the master of what we did so far. The new engineer said the disk was already finalized so I couldn’t fix any of his mistakes. He cleaned it up best he could, but you can tell the difference. When the album was done, I sent it to the replicators. The shipping dept lost my fedex package I sent. So like a good musician, I got the copy of the other master and resent it. Although I found out later, it was not the final master. It was the one before that had some off pitch notes I fixed. I finally got my CD’s from the plant. They were beautiful, and I was happy. Now to plan the release party! Well, my pastor wouldn’t let me have a release party at the church because that was worldly or something. I sing Christian music, so I can’t do it in a bar, for crying out loud! So my best friend told me I could have it at her church. The church commitee gave me permission, but I had to get event insurance. That was 300 bucks for the evening. After I did my marketing for the release party, I had 3 people RSVP. My own family wasn’t even coming! I had to cancel the party and the insurance policy. I never did have a release party. I am remarried to a musician now. We are working on the second album, but hopefully it will go smoother than the first one!

I Am in 3 Bands…..Sounds Great Huh ? Well its Not……After Endless Double Bookings and not Enough Time to put into 3 Working Bands My Advice is #1 dont try to be in more than one band.#2 Don’t be in a Band with your Dad….I Am Once Again Double Booked for March 12,2011 Niether Band will Budge on the Issue and I Am left Trying to Figure Out What I Am gonna do…Do I show up and Play with The Rock Band that I Love Playing in so much…or do I Play Music I dont like with my Dad ? …this Might be the End of me……I Am close to Retirement Because of this Crap…..When things are no fun Why Do it at All……its not the Music thats not fun,its all the Drama and Stupid Politics.

[...] year, we asked CD Baby artists to share their tales of musical terror. Most of these involved embarrassing moments on stage, creative differences, drunkenness, and the [...]

Is she paying you royalties?

We (acoustic guitar and vocal duo) were asked to open for the Mamas & The Papas on the tail-end of their final tour. (Denny was the only original member at that time) I was the guitar player and never sang. Suddenly in the middle of our 2nd song my lead singer, with a bad case of stagefright, walked off stage leaving me to finish the set. The side technician indicated 20 minutes remaining to which I nervously continued to play unprepared fingerstyle guitar instrumentals to a less than impressed wide-eyed audience. Twenty years later I still have nightmares about that evening.