Goofy song requests..

[Lightningdan]

This napkin was handed to the stage by a very drunk chick at a gig. Any of you have goofy song requests at your gigs?

http://i4.tinypic.com/zyin3k.jpg

[Warthog]

That's hilarious. I've always admired Zeppeling as well as Pat Bentguitar.

 

I had someone request Roger Whittaker once...presumably a joke, but we did "Kumbaya" anyway...

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Did she want you to do ALL that? She wasn't asking for much, was she? Did you do any of them? Were you playing in a string quartet at the time?

 

 

When I used to play sax, I'd get at least one request for the Pink Panther whenever I took the sax out of its case. That really sucked.

 

And then, you always get drunk ppl asking you "Can you play that song, that song that goes 'naaaaa naaaa naaaa naaaa naaaa na na na naaaaaa naaaaaaaaaaaa'? I can't remember what it's called but it's really good."

[Warthog]

Originally posted by Kramer Ferrington III.:

Did she want you to do ALL that? She wasn't asking for much, was she? Did you do any of them? Were you playing in a string quartet at the time?

 

 

When I used to play sax, I'd get at least one request for the Pink Panther whenever I took the sax out of its case. That really sucked.

 

And then, you always get drunk ppl asking you "Can you play that song, that song that goes 'naaaaa naaaa naaaa naaaa naaaa na na na naaaaaa naaaaaaaaaaaa'? I can't remember what it's called but it's really good."

"Pink Panther" must be the sax equivalent to the piano's "Peanuts Theme"...

[Lightningdan]

We didn't have a chick singer, so no pat bent guitar. We did an ACAC though. \

 

 

I notice Ferrington that you are in Milan. My father was in the military and he was stationed in AFSOUTH Nato base in Naples for my high school years. I went all over Italy with my high school cross country team, and competed against the american schools in Milan, Brindisi, Sigonella, etc. It is beautiful there and I miss it alot.

[The Geoff]

We were once asked to play:

 

'Walk Three Times On the Ceiling'

 

obviously by a drunken spiderman.

 

G.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Originally posted by Lightningdan:

It is beautiful there and I miss it alot.

Yeah, I really like it too. I'm moving to New Zealand in about eight weeks and that's going to be a shock to the system.

[The Big G]

Are you sure she was drunk or just illiterate, but great names some of my favs Zeppling and AC/AC

oh yes its all flodding back to me now, the drunken drug haze is clearing

[A String]

Strangest request we had was probably the one we got from a biker bar. We were asked to play the theme from "Inspector Gadget".

 

After we obliged, the guy came up to the stage with a tear in his eye saying,

"That was beautiful man....beautiful!"

[Ricardo.]

So A String, you actually played the theme upon request? Does that mean you had to have it down beforehand...?

[marvar]

We've had SOBER bar owners ask us if we played any ABCD or Julius Priest!

After playing Clapton's 'I can't stand it', some drunk came up to us and said; "You guys are great! I've never heard anyone play a Steely Dan song in a bar!"

[LPCustom]

When you play in small bars you get _lots_ of odd requests.

 

We had one drunk chick that kept asking us to play "Children of the Corn" by Bobby Thorn. (it's "Children of the Sun" by Billy Thorpe...

 

Some drunk chick said she just loved "Stynx's" singer, "Roger Dabney". When asked if she meant Roger Daltrey, she said "Yeah, that's him!". When told that Roger Daltrey was the singer for The Who she said, "No he sings for Stynx. He sings that song Mr. Robot". When told that the singer for Styx is Dennis Deyoung she says most emphatically, "No, it's Roger Dabney". We gave up.

 

We had more than one person request songs by "Stynx". Someone also requested any song by the "Electric Love Orchestra".

 

I was amazed at how many people get the band wrong when requesting songs.

 

Rock and Roll by Aerosmith?

Unchained by Aerosmith?

Paranoid by Led Zeppelin?

Rock Candy by Van Halen? (_long_ before Sammy joined up)

 

In some people's minds Boston and Toto seemed to be the same band.

 

I don't know how many times we were requested to do "Rock N' Roll Band" or "More Than A Feeling" by "Toto".

 

We did get a few requests for songs by ABCD.

 

I had one really pretty girl ask me if we played "Hold The Line" by Boston. Um, no, sorry, we don't play that one. We didn't play the one by Toto, either.

 

We had a few people request the theme song from "The Banana Splits". But we brought that on ourselves. We would play that sometimes as a "shocker" to start a set when the house was really noisy. It's mercifully short.

[Eric Iverson]

Luckily I've never played in a situation where we were expected to do tunes we'd never practiced before, or even HEARD before. Or ever dealt with drunks to any great degree!

 

I imagine learning to fake songs on demand is good ear training; and dealing with drunks builds character...

[fantasticsound]

Not me, but I seem to recall Tedster saying something about a request from two girls for "The Chicken Song".

 

Where are ya, Ted? Refresh my memory, please.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Lightningdan:

...I notice Ferrington that you are in Milan. My father was in the military and he was stationed in AFSOUTH Nato base in Naples for my high school years. I went all over Italy with my high school cross country team, and competed against the american schools in Milan, Brindisi, Sigonella, etc. It is beautiful there and I miss it alot.

Did you compete against schools in other countries? When I was 13 I was considered highschool at the Frankfurt Int'l School in Germany. (My dad worked for Abbott Labs and we lived there 14 months.) My coach organized the first International School Cross-Country Championship that year. (1980.) We hosted teams from Belgium, France and Egypt among others. I don't remember if any schools from Italy were represented. I loved running cross-country there, in the mountains. I gave it up sophmore year back north of Chicago because it was boring running "cross-country" strictly in athletic fields, etc. rather than in relatively wild forests.

[Ricochet]

A time or two I've requested a song by Harold Smith. "Harold Smith?" "Yeah, that guy that did Walk This Way and Dream On."

[jimash]

I remember a certain bar in Hudson County.

We were plaing all nite and ummmm... there was a group of motorcycle afficianados who were in attendance to take revenge on some poor sot.

While they were kicking the piss out if him under the pinball machine , one of their girlfriends came up with a shouted request " Play some fuckin' Elvis man..."

 

20 minutes of Blue suede shoes....

[Dr. Ellwood]

Not a request really but I remember one time a guy comming up to the stage yelling " Your hurtin' ma womans ears man, but I love it"

[Tedster]

It's a horrid polka thing called "The Chicken Dance".

 

We were playing this bar...and these relatively young hotties were shakin' their stuff on the dance floor, so we were thinking "What kinda hip dance stuff can we play?". We did some sure fire crowd pleasers, and the dance floor cleared. Then one of the hotties comes up and requests........ THE CHICKEN DANCE.

 

(Smacks forehead and winces).

 

I KNOW you know that one, Ellwood...you're living in the heart of polka country.

[dreibel]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

Not me, but I seem to recall Tedster saying something about a request from two girls for "The Chicken Song".

if only you had known the song of the same name that was a big hit for the Spitting Image crew in the UK!

 

It's the time of year, now that spring is in the air

When those two wet gits, with their girly curly hair

Make another song, for marronic holidays

that nausiate-ate-ates in a million different ways

From the shores of Spain, to the coast of southern France

No matter where you hide, you just can't escape this dance

 

Hold a chicken in the air, stick a deck-chair up your nose

Buy a Jumbo-Jet, and then bury all your clothes

Paint your left knee green, then extract your wisdom teeth

Form a string quartet, and pretend your name is Keith.

 

Skin yourself alive, learn to speak araphahoe

Climb inside a dog, and behead an Eskimo

Eat a Renault 4, wear salami in your ears

Cassarole your gran, dis-embowel yourself with spears

 

The disco is migrating, the sound is loud and grating

It's truly nausiating - let's do the dance again..

 

Hold a chicken in the air, stick a deck-chair up your nose

Buy a Jumbo-Jet, and then bury all your clothes

Yes you'll hear this song, in the holiday discos

And there's no escape, in the clubs or in the bars

You would hear this song, if you holidayed in Mars

 

Skin yourself alive, learn to speak araphahoe

Climb inside a dog, and behead an Eskimo

Now you've heard it once, your brain will spring a leak

And though you hate this song you'll be humming it for weeks

 

Hold a chicken in the air, stick a deck-chair up your nose

Buy a Jumbo-Jet, and then bury all your clothes

la la la la la la la....

[Eric Iverson]

Are you guys implying that chickens don't have a right to dance? Throw corn in front of them and watch! Or maybe you're implying that you don't feel obligated to provide a polka soundtrack..

 

I'm personally more concerned about the human beings who are too "chicken" to dance...

[J. Robert Rennix]

When I played bass in a modern rock cover band two years ago, we had a very large, very drunk Native American man insist that we play "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone. No one in the band had ever heard of Redbone, but we sure as hell couldn't explain that to him. He even sneaked behind the mic in between sets to try to voice the injustice of a bar band that didn't know any Redbone. Major pain in the a$$.

[Eric Iverson]

Yes, drunk customers can be a royal pain, and often are!

 

One time it did work out positively, was when Nat King Cole was playing piano in a bar... and he was a very fine jazz pianist!... and some drunk insisted he sing some song for him, and would not take no for an answer, and so it was discovered that Nat had a beautiful singing voice as well.. at least, that's how the story goes!

 

I wish all such encounters had such benefits!

[Jay See Double You]

Originally posted by Kramer Ferrington III.:

Originally posted by Lightningdan:

It is beautiful there and I miss it alot.

Yeah, I really like it too. I'm moving to New Zealand in about eight weeks and that's going to be a shock to the system.

Where are you from originally? Milan? Or somewhere else?

[Jay See Double You]

you know, I had a thought: if these drunks are so messed up that they can't remember songs or artists or any of that stuff. Chances are, they wont remember exactly how the song goes, either.

 

Now the fun and games begin!

 

You could make up a song and swear that's how it goes, or be largely faithful to it, and then add a verse about something weird like a robot ninja that wielded sausages like nunchaku, or deliever a subtle message in the song...I don't know: "I drank myself to death at the bar. If only I had had a li-i-ife. The bar band's about to murder me cause I can't get my song titles ri-i-ight...and I probably should be pulling up my pants. Cha Cha Cha!" All you have to do, is convince them that's how Stairway to Heaven really goes.

 

So, some drunk requests an unlearned song, say "No problem."