Not sure, to gig or not to?

[Yonce N Mild]

You're the kind of unprofessional, no account putzes that shouldn't be allowed in a bar at all, much less attempt to play music in one. Not only do you ruin your own reputation, and the reputation of serious musicians trying to perfect their craft and make some money, you jeopardize the safety of everyone in the same room - no the same fucking CITY that you're in.

We had a drummer get that trashed at a gig once. The rest of the band and I egged the bouncers on as they beat the living shit out of him, then left him lying in the parking lot with his drum set piled around him. He was like your drummer in being too fucking stupid to stay sober at a gig OR driving, so he didn't have a car or a license. He wound up spending the night in the drunk tank. The drums he was too drunk to play spent the night in the parking lot, in the rain. That was the last time I saw his worthless ass.

Haven't missed him a bit.

Damn dude talk about heartless. Couldn't you just throw him out of the band?
You sound like a fucking prick. I bet your band is a ton of fun.

 

[Lt. Bob]

OK ..... my best "drunk musician" story.

I'm playing a pool party and the guy I hired for the gig was a well known local jazz guy ...... someone I'd known for years and I already knew that he had a drinking problem and would go too far sometimes but I had to have someone and he was all I could find at short notice. Maybe this would be one of his better days.

So we get to the last break and he's just totally out of it ........ I'd be playing some jazz standard and he'd look blearily at his guitar and randomly strum it *SPRANG* at various moments. It was like if a chimpanzee was just banging on a git.
So I told him to just go sit in the car and I'd finish up.
But about 10 minutes into the last set here he comes, gonna do his part I guess. And he's walking up to his stool with his big money PRS semi-solid and when he bends down to get on the stool he starts falling forward and then BAM , he's on the concrete sliding across it and supporting his body weight on the PRS and just grinding its' face across the concrete!

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAHAHAHA!

So we're sitting there and as we're playing I notice that there's a lot of strawberry daiquiri splattered all over the concrete in drops all around him. I asked if he was ok and he said, "Yeah, I just spilled my drink".

But when we finished I got to looking and the drops weren't daiquiri, they were blood!
When he's slid across the concrete he hadn't just ground the face off his ax, he'd also ground the back off his knuckles!!

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAHAHAHA!


Next time I saw him I asked about his guitar and his knuckles and he said, "What are you talking about?" as if nothing had happened but the back of his hand was all scabbed up and there were deep grind marks in the face of his PRS.

Funniest thing I ever saw!

 

[Jouni]

Bwhaha! Allkinds...

Well shit has happened to my drunken metalbands too.

Regular 3-band set, we were playing last, during the second band, our drunk guitarist climed to the stage to mosh with the performers, a couple of drunken headspins later he takes a step forward...
Right off the stage, downward, landed on his head!! I could hear the thud through the music several feet away.
On his feet a couple of seconds later, allright, thank god.
There's a set of stairs behind the stage, where the artists clime to the stage... Well, It came our turn, and on the first song, the same guitarist takes a step backwards, and right down the stairs!!!
Climbed right back up, but leaned to his marshall-stack for the rest of the gig.

We played on our singers 30th birthday, up until the singer took off all his clothes!.. well, ok, the guitar hid his shame from the audience, but after looking his ass for one song the drummer walked away!

 

[dogonjon]

Not drunk

Here is a non-drunk story. We were showcasing a songwriter our lead guitarist was producing. He hired a back up singer whos day job was erotic dancing. It was the songwriters birthday so Rose (the stripper) handcuffed him to a chair on the dance floor and proceeded to perform a lap dance. As the women lead their men out the door the club owner, biting his lip in anger chewed us out and threatened to fire us. Being local to the area he relented but this is the closest I've come to losing a gig. Being sloppy drunk doesn't seem to be a problem. The wrong act in the wrong place is.

 

[mikemorgan]

I gotta side with Moonrider on this, because I never had the heart to take it to this level. Guys like hias drummer are the reason we have "Bass Player" "Guitar Player" jokes. Some folks only do this for fun and really screw up a proffession some of us take pretty seriously. I've been in too many bands with drug and alcohol problems to ever put up with it again. Hell, I've even BEEN the problem. I learned my lessons though. If you're getting paid, act like a pro, some people might notice. If you're not getting paid, you're taking jobs from people who want to.

You can argue that bars can't afford live entertainment and want you to play for the door. Maybe they shouldn't have to pay for the rent or beer, or maybe they can get waitresses to work for tips only?

 

[dogonjon]

For years I was serious about music and I couldn't find a band that stayed together long enough to gig. Once I gave up and did it just for fun people wanted to play with me. Intolerance doesn't work, what works is the desire to rock out, shake the ground and have fun in spite of the fact your drummer is insane.

 

[Chater-La]

When I played around with my band we never got paid and still had to fight for the good slots. At most we'd get food and beers. That was good enough. For us after a while is was like practicing outside of our practice space, a change of scenery. Twice a month was enough.

We never had a hostile crowd, just an apathetic one. The most hostile one was our drummer, who one time tried to stab the soundman with his bass drum pedal. Now that was a good gig!