K
KaBudokan
New member
This idea is stolen from a thread over at the PRS Gear Forum...
We've all heard various cool (or not so cool) stories about rock bands and guitar players... What (preferably true) stories have you heard (or experienced) related to famous guitar players?
One of the cool ones from that thread was that eventually Danny Gatton didn't need a tuner anymore. After playing in so many bars and clubs, he would tune to the 60-cycle hum from the outlets!
One story I experienced was with a not-quite-so-famous guitar player, but... Mark Ross used to play with Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet band - a regional blues act who was just killer. (RIP Queen Bee) My band was opening up for them at a club in PA. The club was located on the top floor of an outlet center - a cool room that had been restored from an old factory.
The elevator up to the top floor was an old freight elevator. You would get inside and there was a sign saying, "Watch Your Hands in Gate." There was an old iron gate-style door that you had to close to use the elevator - one where you would pull on a strap up top and the top 1/2 of the gate would pull down, and the bottom half of the gate would come up from the floor, meeting in the middle with an intimidating "CLANG." It was especially threatening because if you weren't aware of it, you would figure you had to pull the top gate all the way to the floor, not realizing there were two halves that would meet at waist height.
When our band was loading up and going upstairs, we all jumped when the gates closed. "Man, that's dangerous!"
About an hour later, the Blue Hornet band comes in, and Mark is holding his right hand, wincing in pain. Yup, he had smashed his hand between the two heavy iron gates. Within a few minutes Mark's hand was completely swollen up to about twice its normal size. He put ice on it and tried to relax. Eventually he picked up his guitar, but really struggled with playing.
He didn't play anymore until right before they went on. He decided he would be able to play, but he was only able to play using downstrokes - the upstrokes hurt too much.
We watched in the audience as they played 2 1/2 hours that night. Mark was amazing. He never missed a beat, and if you hadn't known it, you would never know his hand was hurting so much. At set breaks he came off and put ice on his hand again. He played better than most players I've ever seen, and he was only using downstrokes.
We've all heard various cool (or not so cool) stories about rock bands and guitar players... What (preferably true) stories have you heard (or experienced) related to famous guitar players?
One of the cool ones from that thread was that eventually Danny Gatton didn't need a tuner anymore. After playing in so many bars and clubs, he would tune to the 60-cycle hum from the outlets!
One story I experienced was with a not-quite-so-famous guitar player, but... Mark Ross used to play with Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet band - a regional blues act who was just killer. (RIP Queen Bee) My band was opening up for them at a club in PA. The club was located on the top floor of an outlet center - a cool room that had been restored from an old factory.
The elevator up to the top floor was an old freight elevator. You would get inside and there was a sign saying, "Watch Your Hands in Gate." There was an old iron gate-style door that you had to close to use the elevator - one where you would pull on a strap up top and the top 1/2 of the gate would pull down, and the bottom half of the gate would come up from the floor, meeting in the middle with an intimidating "CLANG." It was especially threatening because if you weren't aware of it, you would figure you had to pull the top gate all the way to the floor, not realizing there were two halves that would meet at waist height.
When our band was loading up and going upstairs, we all jumped when the gates closed. "Man, that's dangerous!"
About an hour later, the Blue Hornet band comes in, and Mark is holding his right hand, wincing in pain. Yup, he had smashed his hand between the two heavy iron gates. Within a few minutes Mark's hand was completely swollen up to about twice its normal size. He put ice on it and tried to relax. Eventually he picked up his guitar, but really struggled with playing.
He didn't play anymore until right before they went on. He decided he would be able to play, but he was only able to play using downstrokes - the upstrokes hurt too much.
We watched in the audience as they played 2 1/2 hours that night. Mark was amazing. He never missed a beat, and if you hadn't known it, you would never know his hand was hurting so much. At set breaks he came off and put ice on his hand again. He played better than most players I've ever seen, and he was only using downstrokes.
