"Stupid stories!"

[MrKnobs]

Bump to see if the INDEX LINK works....



Terry D.

[MrKnobs]

Guys, I'm taking a hiatus from internet forums for a while. You know, just to see if I CAN!

In the meantime, Happy/Blessed Holidays to all of you here in my original HC home. Good luck with all the increased work this time of year brings for those of us in this trade, and hopefully you'll bring a nice chunk of Christmas cash home in the deal.

I'm gigging a lot this month, just did a pretty "stupid" one last night, but not quite "Stupid Stories" worthy.

Hopefully a few of you will pitch in and keep this thread alive with your own stories. I wish Readybeans hadn't left, he seemed to have a few good yarns left in him.

Anyway, I'll be back most likely. Just gotta get busy in the real world for a while.

See ya soon!

Terry D.

[agedhorse]

Hope you're back soon Terry;)

[MrKnobs]

Hope you're back soon Terry;)

I'm back.

Wow!!! 40,000 views of this thread! I wondered what the number was.



Terry D.

[xOriginalNinjax]

bump for oldivor

[kevinnem]

bump for oldivor

 

 

 

hope your back soon.

 

lets all start posting more stories.

 

 

I am doing a gig on feb 10th, that will have a bunch of internationial super models at it the promoter doesn't ahve a clue. - the bonus is that it is a "winterfest" sort of thing, .. theme is lion with and wardrobe, one of the models will spend 35 mins sittin gon a frozen ICE THROWN!

 

 

I will post pics.

 

Kev.

[pro1-54]

hope your back soon. lets all start posting more stories. I am doing a gig on feb 10th, that will have a bunch of internationial super models at it the promoter doesn't ahve a clue. - the bonus is that it is a "winterfest" sort of thing, .. theme is lion with and wardrobe, one of the models will spend 35 mins sittin gon a frozen ICE THROWN! I will post pics. Kev.

 

 

 

 

 

Kind of reminds me of the gig I did where we shared the stage with an artist making an ice sculpture before the band played. Ice chips were flying everywhere - the band gear wasn't on stage yet but once the sculpture was finished, a crew swept all the ice shavings away and the gear was put in place. Then it started to snow and by the end of their 20 minute set we had to find the stomp pedals by following the 1/4" lead. To make matters worse, they were frozen to the stage because of the water left from the sculpture. remnants. Luckily, the only thing that was damaged was an LR Baggs para-di which was being flaky anyway.

[paulwannabe]

Well, I'm new here, but I have a few decent stupid stories to share with everyone.

I'll start with my own stupid story. A few years back, I joined my first band and started getting serious about music. I didn't want to have a "group" PA system, because then when the band broke up we would have to figure out how to split it evenly. So I took it upon myself to buy the PA system. Being a naive teenager, I was blown away at the thought that a basic PA system would run around $700! I kept searching until I found something to fit my budget: a $480 Kustom package with a 7 channel, 200 watt powered mixer and two 12" cabs.

After practicing with the new system and putting together a decent set list, we decided to record ourselves to see what we sounded like. We had done some recording in the past with a single microphone and a cheap tape deck, and it sounded like crap. We wanted to record something that was "demo quality," so I decided to run all of the instruments into the mixer and then run the mixer into the tape deck. We were recording live, and I figured we would get a better signal from the guitar amps if we ran a line out, as opposed to miking the amps. Well, keep in mind that we were a crappy teenage band with crappy equipment, and both 15 Watt guitar amps did NOT have pre-amp outputs. They did, however, have headphone outputs, and being stupid and inexperienced, I figured these would work just as well. Well, bear in mind that a 15 Watt amp does not put out too much volume, and in order to be heard over the drums you have to crank it pretty hard. I believe we were running both amps at around full volume. In this situation, a headphone output would not be a good idea, since it had 15 WATTS OF POWER BEHIND IT!!! I proceeded to hook everything up and turned on the power. I fiddled with the mixer volume on the guitar channel, and wasn't getting anything. I presumed it must be a bad cable. So while our guitar player went to search for another instrument cable, we started to notice a burning smell, and I thought someone must be smoking in the house or something. Well, our guitarst returned with a backup cable, and as I clasped my fingers around the "faulty cable" and began to pull it out of the mixer, a miniature explosion went off inside the PA head, and a blue bolt of electricity followed me as I pulled the cable out. The LED's all went out, and the unit wouldn't turn back on.

I called around town to find a repair place, and got hold of the only one in town. They told me that they required 50 or 60 dollars up front just to look at it, and then if I decided to have it repaired they would contribute that money towards the first hour of labor, but that I would have to pay for labor and parts after that. Having no other choice, I went ahead with this proposal, and they told me the power amp was fried. After waiting for about a month for the manufacturer to send the parts, I finally got my mixer back with a price tag of about $220. I could have bought it new for around $280. I was crushed, but from that day forward I knew the difference between a powered signal and a line level signal.

[paulwannabe]

Okay, luckily these next stories don't end in anything getting destroyed.

One of our guitar players (I'll call him Bob) was rather technologically impaired at the time, although he was the best guitar player among us. On day I noticed that Bob was not using his usual guitar strap and commented on it, and he replied that he had replaced it because it wasn't long enough. I picked up his old strap and looked at it for a second, and then thought "this can't be happening." He didn't know that you could adjust the strap length!!! He was amazed when I showed him how to make his strap longer. I still give him a hard time about that one.
Later on in the band's career, Bob decided to expand his guitar arsenal by getting a Crybaby wah-wah pedal. It worked great until one day it tragically broke. Bob sent it back to have it repaired, and it was returned in a week or so. He brought his newly refurbished Crybaby to band practice, and it was working fine for one song. A few songs later, when Bob went to use the wah again, he got nothing, and started complaining that it had broken again. I began to get a little skeptical at this point, so I took a look at Bob's Crybaby, and noticed that there was a little button underneath the pedal. I pushed the button, and the pedal started magically working again! It had never been broken in the first place, we just didn't realize that it could be kicked on and off!
After almost two years of practicing on and off, we got an almost real gig. It was an outdoor party at the pool where I lifeguarded, and we would be playing for a private party. We weren't going to get paid, but we were so happy to get to perform we didn't care. The location posed a couple of problems: first of all, the pool was completely surrounded by barbed-wire fence, and our designated spot to set up was on the back deck. The only availabe entrance was at the front gate, so we pulled the van up and unloaded our equipment there. This meant we had to drag all or our equipment across the upper deck, down the steps, and along side the pool to the platform at the back deck that would serve as our stage. Our next obstacle was power supply: there was only one power outlet onstage, and the next outlet was at least 50 feet away. We had to power two guitar amplifiers, a bass amp, and the PA system. Luckily, we brought a handy-dandy power strip, and the pool had plenty of extension cords. I figured I would hook up the bass amp and the PA head directly to the outlet on my side of the stage, and then our two guitar players would use an extension cord and hook it up to the power strip. While I tended to the PA system, I sent our other guitar player (not Bob) to run the extension cord. He returned a minute later to connect the power strip. He told me there was a problem. He had a male plug that had to connect to the power strip. Obviously two male plugs cannot connect. While he and the other guitar player tried to hook up the extension cord to one of the outputs of the power strip, and then hook that up to who knows what, I tried to think of what could have gone wrong. All of a sudden, it occured to me. I asked the other guitar player if he had plugged the extension cord into the wall outlet. He said no. He had run the extension cord over there backwards, not paying any attention to which end was which, and we spent a good five minutes or so trying to solve this dilemna. It was a true Spinal Tap moment.
Our band was none to bright, but we had a lot of good times, and I learned a lot about live sound the hard way. But boy, oh boy, did I feel stupid.

[Dogoth]

OK I'll post again.
One time the group Sha Na Na was playing a two week stint at the venue I worked at. The monitor guy and the drummer had been harrassing each other all week long (in a friendly way). It was one of those prank for prank - Payback's a bitch things. There was a solo part of the show where most of the band left the stage for about 40 seconds. On the closing nite the drummer comes back on stage drenched from head to toe. The monitor guy had opened a sphigot and a garden hose on him full blast. By the end of the show he was mostly dried out (and with a greaser haircut his hair never changed a bit).

Luckily he was such a cool guy (both the monitor guy and the drummer) that the only comment was..................Payback's a bitch...

[MrKnobs]

OK, I told this one over on OJ but I see it's on my list here. Without further ado, here is:

 

The Chick Pulling the Train Backstage at GS

 

One time I found myself working a really large show at a skating rink in Brenham, TX. The headliner was a famous country artist you'd all know, but it's best I don't use his name as really he had nothing to do with what happened that night.

 

This handsome entertainer is a magnet to the ladies. Most of them are content with just screaming during certain quiet parts of his songs, or holding their boots up to be autographed. Then, I guess, they go home to their husbands and the husbands wonder what's gotten into their wives.

 

But of course some less stable women are attracted also, from time to time. This was one of those times.

 

So I'm back at the FOH pre show making sure all the routing is working as I want it to. There will be opener, then the main guy. The huge skating rink has two stages so we've got two snakes and things are a little more complex than usual.

 

I'm deep in thought and it takes me a moment to notice that a stunning young woman with a big bag is trying to get my attention. I'm on an elevated platform, so the first thing I notice is her considerable cleavage. Instinctively I glance sideways at my brother-in-law, who is assisting me tonight. I'd be a terrible poker player, I have so many tells.

 

But of course the young lady is not there to meet me. She wants to meet the famous singer guy. She tells me that she feels a "connection" to him and that if only she could talk to him, she's sure he'd feel that way also. She realizes he's a busy guy, so she's put her thoughts together in the form of letters - HUNDREDS of letters.

 

She strongly hints that she will be VERY grateful to me if I can help her with this.

 

I told her I only knew G in that I was working for him, but that I was pretty sure he wasn't going to read a bunch of love letters in a bag. She reiterated what her gratitude might be, making it even plainer than before.

 

Now, me being freshly married and at the gig with my brother-in-law, I didn't do what I ordinarily would have (probably not what you're thinking). And my brother-in-law couldn't tackle the job if he wanted to with me there either, so we kinda canceled each other out.

 

All I could think of was to scrape her off my shoe onto one of the single guys in the opening band, a nice guy I knew. So I told her "I think Ronnie Joe plays golf with G, you might try him, he's somewhere backstage in the dressing room area." And I gave her a laminate to get her through - though probably she could have just talked her way backstage, she was very young and cute.

 

Anyway, that was the last I knew about it for a while because I was working. After the opener finished their set, some of those guys and their entourage were milling around the sound board talking and I heard them discussing the chick with the letters. I asked one of the guitar players to tell me what happened.

 

He said that he didn't know how it got started, but that he found a line of guys waiting to get in the backstage bathroom and he asked what was up (thinking someone was hogging the bathroom). The guys in line told him some crazy chick was in there pulling a train.

 

I asked Rob (the guitar player), "What?!! Did you f**k her?" He said, "F**k no! I just waited my turn in line and when I saw her on the floor all gross I just said, 'You're disgusting!' and spat on her!"

 

 

I found this conversation quite alarming, and as it was between sets I immediately went backstage to see if she was OK (though really, how could she be?) I couldn't find her so I asked a few guys and everyone knew who I was talking about. They all seemed a little embarrassed too.

 

Finally someone said, "She's out back sitting on an AC compressor, her boyfriend is with her, he's going ballistic and she's all freaked out and crying."

 

I went outside and the situation was exactly as described. I hung out at my truck pretending to look through some cables for a few minutes, just in case he was going to start hitting her. After I had heard some of the conversation enough to judge that it wasn't going to turn violent, I figured it was none of my business and I went back to work the show.

 

I often wonder what happened to that girl. Even more often, I wonder how someone can lose their mind over a celebrity.

 

Terry D.

[agedhorse]

OK I'll post again. One time the group Sha Na Na was playing a two week stint at the venue I worked at. The monitor guy and the drummer had been harrassing each other all week long (in a friendly way). It was one of those prank for prank - Payback's a bitch things. There was a solo part of the show where most of the band left the stage for about 40 seconds. On the closing nite the drummer comes back on stage drenched from head to toe. The monitor guy had opened a sphigot and a garden hose on him full blast. By the end of the show he was mostly dried out (and with a greaser haircut his hair never changed a bit). Luckily he was such a cool guy (both the monitor guy and the drummer) that the only comment was..................Payback's a bitch...

 

 

 

Ahhh, payback!

 

My monitor guy (sort of) and the lead singer for an international touring act (name not disclosed) who was finishing up the last night of a 10 or so week tour, got into it on stage in the second half of the show. Turns out the tour manager was throwing a "nerf" type ball at the lead singer while standing behind the monitor console, and the singer had turned it into a big game by throwing it back to my guy. Turns out the tour manager had more than nerf balls, he had small stuffed animals, dolls, and it did pretty much disrupt the show but by then it had turned into kind of a fiesta type atmsophere. It was all in good fun, and the audience got into it also, as he threw stuff into the audience, and they threw it back etc.

 

Well, the other part of the story is that this was a performing arts organizatiion that put this event on, we had been their sound contractor for almost 20 years by this time, and the average age of the audience was about 60. There were some students in the audience too, as it was a university organization. Anyway, the university promotor (older guy) came back stage as the show was getting ready to end and just ripped my guy a new one for "trashing" his show. Now my monitor guy's a pretty straight shooter, he's also a lawyer and does this for fun now (and some pretty good money too as we were the experienced company in town) and he's concerned as to how to respond since he had nothing to do (for the most part, though he wasn't "entirely" innocent) and the tour manager see's this coming down and was a good sport in that he immediately defused the sitiuation, along with the lead singer, and they dragged both my monitor guy AND the promoter on stage and then he thanked the promoter for providing all the toys and starting the big fun. Of course, now the promoter is back pedaling and doesn't know how to respond on stage in front of 1500 people, and then he thanks my monitor guy for being such a good sport and a good monitor engineer and it was a perfect end to a North American tour.

 

The best part about this is that the band helped us load out then took us out to a really nice dinner and drinks before they prepared to leave for home (West Africa IIRC). The promoter did appologize and it turns out that this was just another first for the organization, the blue hairs can let their hair down if given a chance.

[picker13]

We had an outdoor event last weekend so set up our usual outdoor rig, with subs, tops, and micing everything on stage. Running the I-pod through the system sounded great before the show, and people were digging the first few songs. But then people started coming up and saying our speakers were making noises (the dreaded fart noises). But we kept on going as the set was almost done, planning to spend the break figuring out the problem. Turned on the I-pod and everything sounded great. Then the drummer goes "hey, the snare mic's been sitting on the drum head the whole set!" Dohhh.

[fantasticsound]

...For my own knowledge, do you really get speakers that light up from the inside like that to indicate clipping? -Nigel

It's not uncommon for speaker manufacturers to use bulbs in place of slo-blow fuses. If you can see inside the speaker when it's running your view is of the bulb lighting up. It ain't supposed to smoke, though.

[sdraobyek]

Man, it's going to take me months to read through this thread...

I've got a few stories, first one that comes to mind is playing in a Christian rock band in the late 80's.

We have of course decided we're the next Styper of the decade and everything is taken about as serious as possible. We've been practicing and playing small gigs here and there for months and then we get a call that someone wants us to play at the crystal cathedral. We're stoked and have about 6 weeks to get things tightened up so we're "worthy". Problem is we've got this Samoan guitar player that's about as lazy as you can find. (not saying Samoans are lazy) He's late to practice if he even bothers to show up. Finally two weeks before the gig we find a replacement guitar player but there's one problem. This new guy can't sing worth crap so the rest of us come up with this genius idea.

The guitar player is put "on probation" show up for every practice on time and you're still in the band, but to punish you for the crap, you can't play the next two gigs, only sing backup, but off-stage where nobody can see you.

Now we get to the gig only to find out it's not quite what we think, we're playing in the GYM at the crystal cathedral while the youth group eats dinner...... Anyway we set up full stage and sound. We had built our own stacks of dual 15's for subs and 15-12-horn combo on top on either side of the stage. We get ready to warm up and play, but there's only one problem. There's no "off-stage" for the guitar player to sing at. Solution? Picture this in your mind.

Six foot four, two hundred ninety pound Samoan dude trying to stand up behind one of the main speaker stacks and hide so nobody can see him. So many people we pointing at him that eventually in a deep voice he says "pay no mind to the man behind the speakers" which of course causes all of use and the crowd to lose it. Needless to say that was the last time we "punished" anyone. At the end though the lead singer ended up ticked because most of the crowd thought he was lip syncing and the guitar player was really singing the lead lines.

-mike

[polar69]

I have to ask

"He said that he didn't know how it got started, but that he found a line of guys waiting to get in the backstage bathroom and he asked what was up (thinking someone was hogging the bathroom). The guys in line told him some crazy chick was in there pulling a train. "


Pulling a train ?

[summit111]

My Brother,

Gang Bang!

For some of us who grew up during the late 60's and early 70's, when a chick allowed a group of guys to "have their way with her", she was "pulling a train"!

[polar69]

Damn, wish I was a famous Country singer............no I don't even I couldn't stoop that low for free sex

[PRS9784]

Speaking of country singers, there seems to be a resurgence of country turned gospel acts floating around the central Texas area as of late. I've been gone from the forums for a while...slaving 15 hours a day for a master's degree tends to take the fun out of everything, but about 3 months ago, I ran a show as a favor for my wife's old church out in a desolate little town called Rosebud. Mr. Knobs would probably know where this little hole in the wall is. Unfortunately, my father-in-law is also the pastor at this little church. Against all my warnings, they decided the best thing to do for the youth in the county was to host a 'mini Christian Woodstock' in the middle of a cow pasture. After having to bum 2 generators off of my dad and supervising the building of a decent sized stage 5 feet off the ground, I was prepared to run this 6 hour fiasco for 5 bands. One of the bands that came hired a lead singer who was a reformed ex bar hopping country singer that I unfortunately had numerous run-ins with. After seeing the light, this guy now had a need to spread the gospel to as many needy women as possible. Needless to say, I knew this whole event was going to go downhill pretty quick with this guy a part of it. The first three bands did pretty good (or as best could be done for groups of 17 year olds playing their favorite Switchfoot songs), but when the 'gospel singer's' group came up, I could pretty much tell things were about to fall apart. Visibly inebriated, he took the stage and sang some standard gospel songs, slurring the lyrics as best he could. The one that took the house down was medley of "I'll Fly Away" going into a very disjunct version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", and then into an obscure Pat Green song called "John Wayne and Jesus". While the kids in the audience loved it, the singer apparently was eying some under aged girl in the front of the crowd and felt the best way to end the set was to pull a Garth Brooks and take his acoustic guitar and smash it into a set of my JBL 2x15s! This didn't shock me as much as him then losing his balance, grabbing onto one of the speakers and then falling off the stage with the speaker. Through all of this, the band stayed together and never missed a beat, amidst wide eyes and laughter from the audience. By this point, I was seeing red and damn near about to kill the entire system and tell everyone to leave. Hobbling around the side of the stage in embarrassment, the singer went to his truck and opened a can of beer, cussing profusely in front of my father-in-law about how cheap the pay was for gospel music and the absolute waste of talent he spent only to be embarrassed because I was jealous and rigged the speaker to 'push him when he got near it'. Miraculously, the singer ended up with a fractured ankle and my speakers only ended up with a 4" crack to the casing. Needless to say, the singer's moved back to country music after a buddy of mine told him that the majority of the girls at these events were jail bait.

[King Loudness]

Ok,here's mine,I was playing a festival show and it was sunny as all getout.As we were setting up,rain came out of nowhere! $$$ of equipment was gonna be soaked!A tarp was thrown over everything and the wind was whipping!Suddenly the rain cleared and we resumed.Later I strapped on my Tokai V and we went into "Crazy on you" by Heart.I went to sing my backup part and BOOM!the mike explodes and i'm thrown backwards and my Tokai V gets a huge chip in the side!I got real mad and grabbed my spare guitar,A 1990 Yamaha RGX 112 only to find it out of tune!Not one of my better gigs.

[Dogoth]

One just came to mind.

Back in the day I used to play occasionaly (weekend warrior stuff) at being a drummer. I used to play with this bass player/singer who had the most horrendous tone (we used to call it the farting bass). The guy had a single 18" cabinet with a reducer ring and a 15" driver (nowhere near enough air dampening for this driver). On top of this he would turn the bass to 10 and the treble to 0 on his amp. He was also proud that he had gotten 13 years of use out of his current strings.

Now to set things straight. This guy was an excelent singer/frontman and in the context of what we were playing (mostly old motown as a trio) his bass was sort of a FAT percussion instrument (kind of like an augmented bass drum). You couldn't really distinguish any exact notes (it was more like lumpy mud) but that was ok because it made for a really FAT (did I say fat before) foundation for our trio. We all sang well (great harmony) and in the end everyone danced their butts off. But I'll never forget the farting bass.

[agedhorse]

Today, a (pro) throw-together band is playing a large festival I am doing and the bandleader places set lists for the guys, but it's all songs they haven't played together or in some cases didn't even know. He did it just to see the expressions on their faces... nobody wanted to admit they didn't know what was going on and the band leader milked it for what it was worth. Nicely played joke, I'm sure the rest of the band will eventually get even.

[Gregidon]

Today, a (pro) throw-together band is playing a large festival I am doing and the bandleader places set lists for the guys, but it's all songs they haven't played together or in some cases didn't even know. He did it just to see the expressions on their faces... nobody wanted to admit they didn't know what was going on and the band leader milked it for what it was worth. Nicely played joke, I'm sure the rest of the band will eventually get even.

That is mean ... I was just thinking that i hadn't seen this thread on the front page for awhile and it was getting to be time to get it back.

[moody]

Ok, absolutely bonehead idiot story for you.

Doing recording (which I haven't done often) of the band. 16 channel digital recorder with 8 ins (balanced TRS jacks).

Because I don't have enough cannon to trs jack cables I'm doing a workaround with a sub mix of drums + 2 guitars on aux's through a mixer for four of the channels. All my cables into the recorder are the same having gotten them made at the same time with the same ends.

Started testing out the drum sound, kick and snare are fine, toms and overheads through the sub mix sound really distant and hollow. Spend a good half an hour on it adjusting mics, adjusting eq's and panicing trying to get something approaching not awful.

Get the guitars to check their levels, sub mix levels are through the roof from the drums - I've mixed up the inputs for half an hour, the tom and overhead mics were confusted with the mics on two guitar amps 5 meters away. Quick swap around of channels and a rough recording of one song and we were good to go.

After that everything went smoothly and we recorded something like 15 tracks in 3 hours (except for minor overdubs on backing vocals).

[6Imzadi]

Kudos for calling yourself an idiot, moody.