Odd requests~

[Rockhouse]

Free Bird! The most common of requests from the audience that I'm all to happy to skip, usually lying that I don't know it all the way through, and it would be disrespectful to play such a classic any way but perfectly.

 

Of course, the usual requests are not so bad. They are general in nature: "Do you know any Beatles?" and so forth. I try to comply when I can, but there are always a few requests that make me wince.

 

But there are others; the odd little requests for songs from video games, Civil War marching songs, and Ice Ice Baby come to mind. Rap songs, to which I sheepishly reply "I'm sorry, I don't know both of the notes."

 

Somebody once asked us to play "Here comes my Girl" by Tom Petty so they could slow dance. We played it half speed and an octave too low, as if we were a slowed down record.

 

Any of you ever get odd requests or have novel ways of handling them?

[solpincus]

I remember playing with a 5 piece dance band back in the late 70's that was fronted by an old bebop drummer from the Bay Area BOP CITY alumni. An elderly couple came up & asked for IRISH JIGS. The drummer then called out SALT PEANUTS, by Dizzy Gillespie, at a breakneck tempo. those people left.....

at a piano bar in Boston (COPLEY'S PLAZA) Ray Santisi ( Berklee College) was approached by some high-flung intellecutal Mia farrow type to play GREENSLEEVE's in the style of John Coltrane. He responded with GIANT STEPS.

A common thing we would do in the big Bands was when someone would come up with some off-the-wall request ( like NEVER ON SUNDAY) the bandleader would retort : " that's not a request, that's a DEATH SENTENCE ! wHAT IS THIS, AN AUDIENCE OR A FIRING SQUAD ?"

On the late night Johnny Carson show, Carson & Doc Severinson ( or tommy Newsone) would do a skit with the audience called STUMP THE BAND. I'm going to see if i can find any of those on DVD. those were truly memorable.

[B3bluesman59]

On the late night Johnny Carson show, Carson & Doc Severinson ( or tommy Newsone) would do a skit with the audience called STUMP THE BAND.

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Actually it was Ed McMahon and Doc who started Stump The Band. People in the audience would ask for songs no one had ever heard of....didn't matter to Ed or Doc. They always came up with some tune that they would make up on the spot. Now and then Clark Terry, the world-class trumpet player in the band, would chime in with something funny when Ed and Doc appeared to be stumped. Tommy filled in when Ed or Doc was on vacation. Stump The Band was one of the best bits the Johnny Carson show ever did.

[tarkus]

WWFZD?

a 1974 concert in Helsinki, Finland, a drunken audience member repeatedly disrupted a Frank Zappa performance by shouting a request for "Whipping Post." Zappa responded by playing a southern rock version of his song "Montana",[21] subtitled "Whipping Floss".[20] (This incident was eventually captured on his You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 live album, released in 1988.) In 1981, Zappa's band learned "Whipping Post" and added it to their repertoire, since the band's new singer and keyboard player Bobby Martin knew the song and sang the lead vocals on it.[20] Zappa recorded a studio version of the song for the 1984 album Them or Us; a live recording of the song featuring Frank's son Dweezil Zappa on lead guitar was released in 1986 on the Does Humor Belong in Music? album and associated video.

 

[marino]

When I was young and cocky, somebody approached me at a jazz gig asking for some song, can't remember which one... My response was, "I'm not a f*çk'ng juke-box!"

 

Those were the seventies, no doubt....