Craig Anderton's Sound, Studio, and Stage

[the stranger]

This is where you hang out and talk trash, post jams, rant, or whatever. This is where we will build the hive mind. Thanks!

[the stranger]

anderton's forum
i wonder what they're up to?
new site redesign

oh yay

[Anderton]

Don't worry, make as much noise as you want...the cops are paid off.

One of the weirdest parties ever was when, as a teenager, I was in a band that was hired to play a wife-swapping party. Seriously. About halfway through the gig I realized what was going on...but they paid cash, which was a beautiful thing. I think I used the bucks to buy the wood and speakers needed to make a Fender Bandmaster cabinet clone. More power!!

Then there was the potentially weirder party in college, that had something to do with Andy Warhol. They wanted to hire us but the gig was to play "Walk Away Renee" continuously for four hours. We didn't do it, but in retrospect, we probably should have. We could have invented looping looping looping looping looping.

Speaking of Andy Warhol, there was Pepper, the Factory Girl who showed up at Steve Paul's Scene during a gig and...naw, I won't go there. Nor will I talk about climbing on top of the bar at the Roxy in Cologne and playing feedback guitar. Oh wait, I just did.

Parties are fun!! Let's talk about weirdass parties, I'm sure some of you have some stories that are doozies...if not, I have a few more up my sleeve   The one in college where a guy got so drunk he passed out and landed on my pedalboard in such a way as to hit the Astro-Fuzz enable button and generate ear-splitting feedback was, shall we say, interesting.

[techristian]

I never played a gig at  any parties but I did play at least at one weird club....but I'm not going to tell you about it. All I can say is that the U.S. money was real good.......AND recently, a guy who I gigged with over 30 years ago approached me with a "a very well paying gig" at a nudest colony 100 miles away. I declined.

Dan

[UstadKhanAli]

I played keyboards in a really heavy, loud, Goth band headlining Helter Skelter, a 2000-person venue.  Marshall stacks.  NIN-type keyboards.  Female vocalist wearing a Medusa hat and spitting blood.  Black everywhere.

Even though a couple of thousand people came here to see us and would mouth the words to our songs, the audience didn't always come up in droves to talk to us afterwards.  But one person did come up.  He was completely dripping in black, white pancake make-up, hair so black that it actually seemed to absorb the light, the whole bit.  He came up, extended his hand.  I reached out for it, realizing that somehow, it was very limp and clammy.  He then said in a quiet, monotone voice, "That was the greatest show I've ever seen in my life", took back his hand, and walked off.

We occasionally had Goth girls making offers, which the band (except for the singer) often readily took them up on, but I never participated in this.

I used to joke with the band during rehearsal.  I'd say things like, "I'm sorry, I'm probably going to have to quit this band."

"What?  Why?"

"I'll be lifeguarding in a couple of weeks, and will unfortunately get a tan."

[UstadKhanAli]

I played a party in one of the Claremont colleges.  It was one of these fun basement parties, and we were just supposed to play groovy space jams that people would dance to.  It had to be groovy, but spacey, ambient, droney, or psychedelic was encouraged too.

There was this guy who would keep going to the keg, then putting his full cup of beer on my P.A. head, which I used for my keyboards.  I asked him politely not to put his beer there.  He'd say, "Oh, sorry!!!!  Didn't mean to do that!"  But of course, I'd turn around and it'd be there again!  So I grabbed it and drank it.  He put another one there, again, just after filling up from the keg.  I drank that one. 

"Hey, where'd my beer go?"

"I dunno."

I drank probably 4-5 of his beers.

[UstadKhanAli]

The Evil Sound Man Story

Some years ago, I played keyboards in a band around the Hollywood area. We used to play occasionally at Club Lingerie and some of the other clubs. At Lingerie, there was a large oaf of a guy doing sound, knocking back beers while slapping the waitresses on the ass as they walked by.

We played our set, and of course, it sounded like garbage since he wasn't behind the boards most of the time. Afterwards, he tried to rush us off the stage, physically pushing our female bass player down the stairs in the process. There was almost a fight over this. We complained to the manager. We were due back in a few weeks, and we said that we didn't want this guy to do our sound.

We showed up at Lingerie for our gig a few weeks later. Murphy's Law reared its head. Same sound guy, same ugly attitude. We had a feeling that this would happen.

As we played our set, I used my Korg DSS-1 sampler to trigger sounds that I had created in anticipation of this misogynistic slob doing sound again. I had it all: horrid crackling cable sounds, microphone feedback, strange intermittent buzzes, the works. It was all we could do to stop from laughing as we saw this guy diving for the board, trying without success to get rid of a loud 60 cycle buzz or excruciating microphone feedback. To fan the flames of his frustration further, we had some of our friends in the audience continually complaining to him and the manager that the sound was really horrible, and that the feedback and lousy sound was hurting their ears.

We played Lingerie a few more times, but never saw him there again.

[Anderton]

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UstadKhanAli wrote:

But one person did come up.  He was completely dripping in black, white pancake make-up, hair so black that it actually seemed to absorb the light, the whole bit.  He came up, extended his hand.  I reached out for it, realizing that somehow, it was very limp and clammy.  He then said in a quiet, monotone voice, "That was the greatest show I've ever seen in my life", took back his hand, and walked off.

---

Do you REALLY expect me to believe that Dick Cheney came to your gigs?

[UstadKhanAli]

Dick Cheney is into pancake makeup and jet-black hair?  Who knew?

Those people at our gig dressed in black...it was some sort of West Coast Halliburton party perhaps?

[UstadKhanAli]

---

UstadKhanAli wrote:

I played a party in one of the Claremont colleges.  It was one of these fun basement parties, and we were just supposed to play groovy space jams that people would dance to.  It had to be groovy, but spacey, ambient, droney, or psychedelic was encouraged too.

There was this guy who would keep going to the keg, then putting his full cup of beer on my P.A. head, which I used for my keyboards.  I asked him politely not to put his beer there.  He'd say, "Oh, sorry!!!!  Didn't mean to do that!"  But of course, I'd turn around and it'd be there again!  So I grabbed it and drank it.  He put another one there, again, just after filling up from the keg.  I drank that one. 

"Hey, where'd my beer go?"

"I dunno."

I drank probably 4-5 of his beers.

---

I should probably add that I remember someone on the Keyboard Corner had posted that he had constructed some sort of pyramid-shaped contraption to fit over his gear so no one would put beer on it.

I, on the other hand, embraced the moment by simply drinking the guy's beer.

Either way works, but I get more beer.

[the stranger]

Did Ken say Claremonet?

[the stranger]

When I was in like 10th grade or something, one my my buddies knew where some punk party was going down. We were thrashers, but back in that day the two groups mingled a lot. 

So we go to this party...by the time we get there, these people have completely destroyed this girl's apartment. I guess her Dad was out of town so she decided to throw a party.

Word must of got out, because this thing was off the hook and it wasn't even dark yet. These punkers had knocked holes in every wall in the place, tore down all the fixtures, etc. All the furniture had been either destroyed or defaced heavily. It was project mayhem for sure.

There were a couple of guys out in the parking lot driving golfs balls with her Dad's golf clubs...which is amusing considering were in the middle of an apartment complex. They didn't care.

After getting a good taste of this mayhem, we decided the cops were going to be there soon so we got the hell out of there. The rumor I heard later was they did like $4k in damage to this place. And this was in the earky 80's, so $4k worth of damage was significant.

[the stranger]

Dick Cheney scares me way more than some misguide goth kids. It appears to me they are trying to build some sort of immortal cybernetic killing machine...er, politician. The goth kids just pretend to be dead, Cheney ain't pretending. Technology has assured us he will be around for the next couple of centuries to advise on foriegn policy.

[UstadKhanAli]

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the stranger wrote:

Dick Cheney scares me way more than some misguide goth kids. It appears to me they are trying to build some sort of immortal cybernetic killing machine...er, politician. The goth kids just pretend to be dead, Cheney ain't pretending. Technology has assured us he will be around for the next couple of centuries to advise on foriegn policy.

---

Goth kids don't scare me at all.  Well, of course not.  I played in a Goth band!!!  

I've never played in a band with Cheney, though.  And I have no plans to.  He scares me too.

[philbo]

Here's my nomination for 'most creative way to fund a party'

I remember being room mates with another guitar player named Bizz Bailey when I was single, back in 1978 or so.  He took out an ad in Popular Mechanics classified section that said "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes!  Send $10 and a SASE for details."

(for you who don't use snail mail, SASE is a self-addressed stamped envelope.)

So when the letters started coming in, he made copies of this letter and sent it back to each one:

Instructions for a home business stuffing envelopes:

1) Take out a classified ad like this: "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes!  Send $10 and a SASE for details."

2) Mail this letter to everyone who responds to the ad.

Amazingly enough, he raised about $400 this way, enough cover rent and to pay for a 4 day party binge with crazy young girls, beer kegs, all night jams, roof climbing  and, well, enough said...   You get the idea.

[philbo]

Playing in a band with Cheney? I imagine it's hard for him to get good chord sounds from his shotgun... (I'd recommend face protection too)

[the stranger]

Please press accept as a solution on the above post.