funniest/weirdest/most embarrassing thing ever

[zephonic]

to happen to you on a gig, at a rehearsal or in the studio? I found a similar thread on gearslutz and had to scrape myself off the floor from laughing so hard. I bet y'all can one-up them!

 

For good measure, I'll throw in a story I posted over there as well.

 

Many years ago, I was recording a singer (a really nice dude and a pretty decent vocalist) for some project and innocently told him that I recorded his voice in mono. He got all indignant and insisted that his voice would sound fuller and more natural in stereo. I tried to explain, but he didn't buy it and when I did not give in he remained unhappy about it. This affected his work ethic somewhat as he kept complaining about his sound.

 

I related the incident to the studio owner, who disappeared and later came back with a set of Sony cans. During recess he introduced them to the singer telling him these were new surround headphones and he should try them. The singer tried them on, was delighted with the clear improvement and went on to nail it in three takes.

He later credited the surround sound headphones for making all the difference.

[EscapeRocks]

Most embarrassing:

 

Many thousand years ago (it seems) at one of my first gigs with new MIDI equipment, I went to start a song. REO's Roll with the Changes, I think. This was about 1987.

 

Well, the drummer counts it off, and I nail that first chord in C, and what do I hear? Trumpets sounding CHARGE! and it won't stop.

 

LOL.

 

I quick stab at the mute button on my mixer in the rack cured that.

 

I unplugged all midi cable, and we went on to perform the song.

 

 

 

[MuzikTeechur]

Not sure if this was funny or horrific.

Many years ago, when I was in college, I was playing with a GB band on weekends. The pay was great for a starving college student, and I was getting good use out of the tuxedo I'd had to purchase for the campus ensembles.

So, we had a drummer with chronic tempo problems (I know, hard to imagine). We were playing a Christmas Party for a small local hospital staff. Doctors and nurses as far as the eye can see. We go into "Wipe-out" and mid-way into the second drum solo, the Chief Surgeon, the "Old Man" of the hospital who was about 75 years old grabs his chest and drops to the floor. Surrounded by trained medical personnel, the poor old Doc was dead before he hit the floor.

So, as they're valiantly performing CPR on the guy, the bandleader, who was not known for his tact, said to the drummer, right next to a microphone: "I TOLD you you were playing that TOO F$#@ING FAST!!!" Only when he heard the collective *gasp* from the crowd did he realize he'd said it into a live microphone.

 

We packed up quickly and departed. Still got paid, though.

[Ian Sharrock]

Many years ago I was in a band playing '60s & '70s music, with the odd Neil Diamond song thown in. One gig (at my home town club, all my friends were there, including a rather cute blonde that I was trying to even friendlier with), I started playing the piano intro to "Love on the rocks". I thought at the time how well I was injecting just the right melancholy feeling to the playing, and I was well pleased with myself.....until the band joined in and found I was playing the song a whole tone up from the rest of the band. Don't think I ever played it in that key before, either.

 

 

 

Didn't stop me getting to know the cute blonde, though!

[The Real MC]

Not music related but still a good story...

 

I'm working late and one of the engineers stops by my desk and asks me how to do a female.

 

!

 

I'm carefully analyzing this request from left field. He certainly sounded sincere.

 

Is he talking about a connector or some mechanical device? My mind comes up blank for a perfectly rational answer.

 

So I repeated his question "How do you do a female?"

 

"Yes"

 

"Well you get her on her back, spread her legs, start taking off her clothes..."

 

WHACK! I get smacked across the back of the head and I'm busting a gut in laughter.

 

"What did you mean as in female?"

 

"THE FORM FEED CHARACTER!"

 

For the uninitiated, in the days of DOS (before Windows existed) the form feed character appeared as a female symbol on the DOS screen.

 

I finally realized what he was talking about. I didn't know how to implement it in his program, but he chuckled and admitted he won't be hearing the end of that for a long time.

 

He never stopped hearing about it - the story got all over the plant.

 

And to make it even funnier, he was straight as an arrow and I didn't know it at the time!!!

[hookie]

Many over the years. I'll keep them short.

 

Playing a big wedding when during one of the songs, the bride's uncle, collapses at his table, and eventually passes away. We took a longer break, and returned to play out the night per the bride.

 

Another wedding years ago on the northside of Chicago. From the time when first saw all the people enter the room it was obvious. The brides family sat on one side and the grooms on the other, with the band and dance floor in the middle. The tension in the air was so thick, you could cut with a knife. You guessed it, before the last set, a fight broke out in front of and onto the bandstage. I proceeded to protect my precious boards.

 

Another wedding years ago on New Years Eve, we started a set just before midnight. Well, uncharacteristically, I took several glasses (actually plastic-ware)full of champagne as the waitress was parading around with them on a serving platter. These, along with a few glasses of wine at dinner, and a few beers later, set the stage so to speak. First song was Phil Collins "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven". I had programmed all the horn sounds and had played all the complex parts in the intro many times before (sober). Well, all I heard on this night was "1, 2, 3, 4, !" and I plopped my hands on the keys with the wrong notes and wrong programs! The intro was not even recognizable! No wonder I didn't drink on gigs!

 

Best one, is when one of the bridesmaids at a wedding we're playing at a swank country club, loses the top of her dress while dancing on the dance floor and keeps going until someone covered her up.

 

I could go on and on, but, oops I said I'd keep it short...

[Moonglow]

These threads are always fun, and many of us have contributed hilarious stories to similar threads in the past. So I'll continue with a non-music theme.

 

As some of you may know, I work as an industrial psychologist for my day gig. A few years ago I was called upon to conduct an assessment for a client that had been terminated for sexual harassment. This fellow worked as a maintenance technician in an office full of ladies working on their computers in individual cubicles. When computer problems would arise, he would often have to crawl under a desk to trace wires, check connections, etc. Anyhow, during one such instance, after he fixed the problem he asked the woman, "Is there anything else I can do for you while I'm down here?" He was terminated shortly thereafter......

[Dave Pierce]

About five years ago I had a blues/R&B band with a female singer, and we were recording a demo at a very nice converted-barn studio up in the redwoods in the Santa Cruz mountains. Very nice setting, and the whole band was there for a full-day tracking session.

 

Now, the guitar player was about 10 years younger than the rest of us, and us older guys had noticed Janice (our singer) making eyes at him. So of course, we all teased her about this without Matt (the guitarist) knowing what was up.

 

Now this studio didn't have enough iso rooms for the way we wanted to track live, so the engineer had set up the bathroom with mics -- I think the sax was going to track in there or something. So there are mic cables and stuff running under the door, it just looks like another iso room. Matt walks into the bathroom, and we all hear a squeal -- natch he walked in on Janice.

 

But that wasn't enough embarrassment for the day. A couple of hours later the drums are finally dialed in, and we're ready to start tracking the first tune with a full band. Everybody is ready and has cans on, we've all done a level check. Mics are nice and hot in the cans. We start looking around, "Hey, where's Matt?"

 

You've probably guessed it by now. No sooner were those words out than we all heard -- very clearly -- just exactly where he was (tinkle tinkle). You've never seen five people pull cans off their head so fast in your life!

 

 

--Dave

 

[clpete]

Sometime back in the eighties I was playing a wedding, in the middle of nowhere, in small town in Idaho. This was a way out of town gig and we went out in 2 vehicles. The lead guitar, bass player and I were in a van and had about half the equipment in the back. The drummer and rhythm guitar player were driving a Chevy pickup with the rest of the equipment.

 

As on the trip out, the pickup was following us on the way home. After we had gone about thirty miles the guitar player said something about mooning our band mates behind us. We all agreed it was a great idea and they decided that I was the one to do it.

 

So I crawled up over, shimmied and slid over the PA speakers to get into position to drop my pants and stick my rear end on the back window. Man, did we laugh. We had just gone one up on those guys. Yeah!

 

About two minutes later we all notice that the Chevy pickup is trying to pass us. Well, obviously they want to get ahead of us to return the favor, but we speed up and they have to drop behind us again. Ahh haw sucker! Man, did we laugh.

 

About five minutes later here they come again and they are cruising. We cant even begin to match their speed and as the pass us we notice that on their back window it says Just Married. Opps, guess thats not Tim. Man, did we laugh.

 

 

[Jason Stanfield]

Nothing too horrific, but still kind of funny ...

 

The band I was in played a private party gig, and we were literally there for no other reason than the guy who hosted it wanted to show off that he could hire a band (like it was some big deal). We weren't that good, we were on a small stage with no PA, the repertoire consisted of the 10 classic rock songs we knew stretched out to make for about 90 minutes of music, and no one was paying attention. Boooooring.

 

We got through the second chorus of one song, and vamped while the guitar player took a solo. He was into it for a while, but soon lost interest and just noodled over the changes for a few minutes. He didn't realize that he should cue someone to come in and take over, and finally the bass player said "are you done?" -- in the mic -- and by the time the guitarist signaled that he was, we forgot what song we were playing.

 

I still can't remember what the song was.