Who, what, when

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Fender Precision I believe. Borrowed it. I hadn't played bass in 14 years since i moved to drums. That was a reunion show in honor of our former singer that was murdered. :(
 
11th grade at a friend's house party, but we got totally shot down by another band...

I was on drums and I had the best gear of any of us with a cheesy Japanese kit I had bought from Columbia Record Club. Using the terms loosely, the guitarist had a "guitar" and an "amp". The singer sang through, well...nothing.

Each of us knew maybe 20 songs; unfortunately there were only about two that all of us knew.

We were about half way through our first song and had gotten about three people to pay attention to us (out of about 20 people who were there), when somebody came in from the den and yelled, "Guess who's on TV!" and everybody headed toward the den.

Personally I think it was pretty lousy of some fellow musicians to shut us down like that. I often think that if those damned Beatles hadn't decided to premier "Strawberry Fields" on TV that night who knows where we might have ended up?
 
What counts as a gig?
I played a piano recital in 3rd grade. (Blew the crowd away with my sweet rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle (Little Star)")
I did an open mic in middle school where I played an awful rendition of OLP's "Superman's Dead" with just me and a guitar.
The first time I played with a "band" was probably my dad's band backing me up for a few of my songs at a graduation party that they were asked to play.
My first actual gig was... opening for my older brother's band (Dawn's No Longer With Us) in Madison my Freshman year of college. I did bass and vocals. Our rhythm guitarist was on backup vocals. We borrowed DNLwU's drummer because ours couldn't make it. After the show, my brother was nice enough to give us the door to cover our bus back to Eau Claire.
 
11th grade at a friend's house party, but we got totally shot down by another band...

I was on drums and I had the best gear of any of us with a cheesy Japanese kit I had bought from Columbia Record Club. Using the terms loosely, the guitarist had a "guitar" and an "amp". The singer sang through, well...nothing.

Each of us knew maybe 20 songs; unfortunately there were only about two that all of us knew.

We were about half way through our first song and had gotten about three people to pay attention to us (out of about 20 people who were there), when somebody came in from the den and yelled, "Guess who's on TV!" and everybody headed toward the den.

Personally I think it was pretty lousy of some fellow musicians to shut us down like that. I often think that if those damned Beatles hadn't decided to premier "Strawberry Fields" on TV that night who knows where we might have ended up?




You are wicked dating your self here bdenton
 
I did a techno-industrial cover of "devil woman" circa 1991 - I was a bit if a lunatic at the time and downed a bottle of Kiwi Mad Dog 20/20 before the set... Good times.

I think I did a couple other shows around that time but as I was partying a bit too much I don;t really remember much about it. ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!!

those were my first and last gigs. - But I am getting a new band together, just need a bass player and I have about 6 originals ready - once we get about 9 we will be ready for a show. I will skip the Mad Dog this time around :eek:

Ahh - youth is wasted on the young...
 
'What counts as your first gig?' indeed. The very 1st time I ever played out was a friend's bday party at a hall in a bowling alley when I was about 17, I had been playing guitar for a month at that point.. That was so retarded I don't even count that, we sucked so bad, it was truly pathetic.. We did not get paid, they didnt even offer to pay us, we just went for the hell of it. We took requests and tried to play shit that we never rehearsed, and in some cases never even HEARD. Total unadulterated suck.

Fast forward a few years, I got in a garage cover band, we played the same bar every weekend for a few years, but nobody ever came except the regulars, which was basically our extended families. It was definintely 'gigs' I suppose, but not in front of anyone we didn't know, it was just fucking around and partying.. We played for free beer.

Fast forward a few more years - I joined a new band, all original material. THIS band's 1st gig is what I'd call my first REAL gig. We got a wed's night slot at one of the best places in Milwaukee (The Globe on the east side). It was a real venue, they had a bar, but the place was more geared towards the stage, bands and live music. Not just a bar.. They mic'ed up everything, which was the 1st time ever. None of my last bands mic'ed up anything except vocals, we were on our own to control our own volumes, which never worked out as you can imagine.... Now we had a sound man behind a mixer, arrays of PA speakers and subs, and a stage 4 feet high. It was sweeeeeeeet, I felt like a rock star :D

So the guy announces us and we take our places on the stage. Our 1st song starts with an acoustic guitar intro, then the whole band kicks in with drums, bass, me playing a little guitar solo before the 1st verse. Everything was normal standard operating procedure, we practiced it a million times. Intro is going, I got my fingers on the 1st note/fret ready to hit it. My solo starts on the '3' of the 1-and-2-and-3-and-4, and the rest of the band nails everything on the '1' of the next measure. I got my '3-and-4-and' notes done, and one the '1', the bass drum kicks, bass guitar kicks, and I had NEVER EVER in my life heard a kick drum so deep and loud.. I thought I was gonna die, lose it and freeze up, I was overwhelmed by how unbelievably AWESOME it sounded up on that stage.. To this day, that was still the best sound I have ever heard on stage in my life, and I have been on a LOT of stages, even places way bigger that still didn't come close.. I kept it together tho, we had an awesome show, and they moved us to prime saturday night slots immediately. I will never forget that show as long as I live. We maybe got paid $50 total to split 4 ways, but that opened the door, we started playing everywhere real quick.
 
This past October. My school had a band play at the weekly chapel thing. They asked me to play guitar because their old guitar player graduated. (I'm still confused on how they figured out I play). I couldn't be rude and said yes. There were 200 students and I was uncomfortable because I don't like Christian music, didn't know the songs, and was supposed to look at a chord sheet and play...
and, I shit you not, the keyboard (the vital instrument there) wasnt working, and they asked me to just play a song. I ended up playing a medley of songs for 15 minutes... i messed up and was so pissed about it but i got an unexpected standing ovation for 2 minutes after sitting down. the guy speaking at the service even changed his "sermon" things and applied it to me and my "soulful juicy playing"... i felt pretty awkward.
I wonder how they would feel if they knew that I played slayer and other "secular" songs :p

I was really comfortable while playing though. It felt insane knowing people were actually listening to me play. The stuff after that felt weird though. I started getting invited to partys and lame stuff which i never went to. World of Warcraft is too cool.

I played with them twice after that before stopping. Just couldnt get into playing that stuff. They all thought they were the shit too.
 
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