Gigs and Jam's

[DocPate]

Just what kind of gigs,jams, open mic etc playing have you done?

 

I've run the gamut from professional gigs, ongoing radio (lol - before the days of TV), jamming with friends and strangers, and even session time.

 

The public gigs done on-stage had it's perqs...Wine, women and you name it which was exciting to a young boy of 17-18, but we're all covers or standards. No originality which is what the paying customers wanted. I remember those first days of Rock and roll when the young girls would holler out - Play Elvis. while the older women were screaming, Hank! But you had to play both note for note, yodel for yodel.

 

The most fulfilling for me has always been the small jam session where a person can let his originality shine.

 

[whitefang]

I was once in a couple of "basement" bands that played a few pool parties and house parties. All people we knew.

 

That's just about it.

 

All told, my cut from all of 'em totalled about $20.

Whitefang

[DocPate]

I was once in a couple of "basement" bands

 

That's just about it.

 

All told, my cut from all of 'em totalled about $20.

Whitefang

 

Garage bands gives us the freedom to play our original stuff, improvise, and just have fun, the way it is supposed to be.

 

Heck, I was in a Pentecostal church once, solo but enlightening.😂

[Larryz]

I've played solo and in 3 or 4 bands on stage, in bars, honky tonks, county fairs, grange halls, private parties, etc., and have played many jams, acoustic and electric open mic's (still do from time to time). The audience always gave me and our bands great reception and feedback. I have never played note for note (as I still don't have the time for that concept) and have written my own leads to just about any song that I was called upon to play...we also had our own arrangements of many of our/my covers and standard tunes. In my instrumental Ventures band back in High School, we played pretty much note for note on all the leads, as close as my buddy could in those days...

[desertbluesman]

I played in two formal bands, and a few startups that did not go anywhere musically, and did a lot of jamming around town. I played out 10 or 12 Saturday nights in a jam band at a local bar. At the time, I was practicing 4 hours a day minimum, and I could play pretty fast, so that was impressive to some folks. But after doing it for those 10 or 12 weekends I kinda thought it was "work", so when the band split up I began thinking of music as my beloved hobby.

 

I did start recording in the mid 1980's and I really liked the production end of my musical hobby.

 

These are near my last years of playing/living, and looking back, I am very satisfied with my hobby as it turned out. I still play every day and I look foreword to starting up the pedals and amp and pulling out one of my 4 guitars and spending an hour or so just playing. After 10-15 minutes of scales I play/sing against one of my three 45 minute sets. I play a different set every day for three days then repeat.

[whitefang]

 

Garage bands gives us the freedom to play our original stuff, improvise, and just have fun, the way it is supposed to be.

 

Heck, I was in a Pentecostal church once, solo but enlightening.😂

 

As long as you kept THAT in the garage. But in them days, and with a basement full of mid '60's teens, Sounding close as possible to the RECORD was what THEY wanted.

Whitefang

[MartinFingerpick]

 

I've done the cover band thing. Back in the day you could actually make some decent cash and play out 4-5 nights a week. Just about every corner bar had live music of some kind. After that I did the acoustic duo thing for a while and then got into the classical guitar potted plant type gigs. Just sitting in the corner and playing background music. I didn't like doing that at all.

 

There have been a few abortive basement bands since then, but either life would get in the way or we couldn't all get on the same page in terms of what we wanted to do.

 

These days I'm perfectly content to sit on the couch with an acoustic fingerpicking, or laying down tracks on the DAW for giggles.

[jimmac]

Back in the 70"s and early 80's I played in three or four bands that did weekend gigs for small bars and clubs and lots of wedding receptions. We probably averaged 3 or 4 gigs a month. I did a couple of street party gigs but the echo was crazy. Back then I would make about $40 to $50 a night. Miss doing it a bit but find myself too busy with house stuff (my 5 rentals and a recent cabin that needs lots of work)to try to get back into it. I really enjoy reading the stuff on this site and the occasional chance to share some thoughts. Jim

[whitefang]

Interesting, Jim.

 

After 10 years as a wedding photographer and 300 weddings under my belt, I can honestly say there were only TWO of them that ever had a live band! Both were pretty good. But, somewhere along the line DJ's took it all over.

 

In MY day, the average wedding band comprised of:

 

A saxophone player, electric bass, accordian and drums. You haven't LIVED until you heard the inevitable( and usually by 10:00pm) "Proud Mary" played with that kind of line-up!

 

Oh, and(thankfully) NOT the Ike & Tina version.

Whitefang

[DocPate]

The sax isn't bad, but an accordion? Oh well, the Polish keyboard works I guess

 

[Larryz]

+1 On the Sax...in my country rock band we had a sax player that really put us on the map especially when we played the old rock and roll but a country sax really works out well for country rock (and you can even a flute!) Just listen to some old Marshall Tucker tunes...

 

At one of the acoustic open mic clubs that I liked playing in, my old duo buddy would play harmonica for me and anyone else that wanted him to. Another house guy would play bass and sing back up for me and anyone that wanted him to.

 

And guess what? We had a old guy house player that showed up each week and played, yes, The Accordion LOL! But this was no laughing matter LOL! He was/is just flat great and really put some cool vibe into the night. He plays professionally in a hot Americana type band, that would also show up at the open mics. Exceptional talent...

[whitefang]

ACK!

 

You guys are talkin' about a sax as an ADDITION to your regular line-up. Or a REGULAR player in the band.

 

READ my post carefully. JUST sax, accordian bass and drum.

 

Not exactly a FAB FOUR lemme tell ya.

Whitefang

 

[DocPate]

Yeah Fang, missing some key strings

[Larryz]

ACK!

 

You guys are talkin' about a sax as an ADDITION to your regular line-up. Or a REGULAR player in the band.

 

READ my post carefully. JUST sax, accordian bass and drum.

 

Not exactly a FAB FOUR lemme tell ya.

Whitefang

 

You may not believe it Fang, but at my wedding the lineup was JUST Sax, Accordian, Bass and drums (I can't read your posts all that carefully, but this time I was right on LOL!

[whitefang]

Yeah, that sounds like the old KEN STRAND band that did weddings around my neck o' the woods for a long time. MY first wedding in '72 also. And most of my buddies at the time as well.

 

Tell me, did THEY also play "Proud Mary" at around 10:00pm? Seemed they ALL did between 10 and 11 back then.

Whitefang

[jimmac]

Crazy as it sounds at my first wedding we had three bands. I played in two of them a few songs and everyone switched back and forth and the third was the old timers My parents, my uncle and grandmother who played in the 40's and 50's. Grandparents actually build a dance hall at their place. Party ended about 4 AM then we cleaned the hall. By the way no accordian or fiddle but mom played sax.

[Larryz]

It's been 44 years since I danced at my wedding and I forget just about every song they played. They were pop standards that you could glide around like ball room dancers or something slow like I Left My Heart In San Francisco, etc. The Sax did most of the lead work. The band was picked by my father-n-law as he was footing the bill LOL! They were very good Union Scale pros and the music was done very well for the older generation...

 

My wife and I were young hippy like Laugh-in mods (I guess). We were into James Taylor, Jim Croce Carole King, Elvis of course, Roy Orbison, oldies kind of stuff. We had requested our song You've Got A Friend. But these guys had no idea what the hell we were talking about??? For all I know it could have been Proud Mary LOL!

[skipclone 1]

Okay, it took me a while to get to this and I`m pressed for time even now.

You`ll see why in a moment-it`s a little complicated.

 

I`ve been in formal bands in the U.S. Taiwan and Japan-but under very different circumstances.

 

In the U.S. my three main band situations were first, a group of four friends who got together for jams, for our own enjoyment. That is still something I enjoy but I don`t do it much these days. I`d especially like to jam with some traditional Japanese instruments, my usual live venue has unfortunately cut that from their schedule for now. Myself and the keyboardist from that group went on to put together a band that played entirely originals. That was a five-piece and four of us wrote-it was highly creative but a lot of personality issues. I sometimes stay with our drummer when visiting upstate N.Y.

The other U.S. situation was a band that did R&B, rockabilly, classic rock and some originals from the other members. We played local venues but would sometimes drive to places further away with a carload of gear. Call it a local touring band. I actually decided to split with that band eventually, because of the situation DocPate mentioned-too many covers. I mean, driving one-two hours one way for $50.00 and playing `My Girl`-give me a break. I told the guys I really wanted to do more to get my music out there. Good experience though.

In Taipei I was with two house bands, one of which paid very well and the other didn`t, but was at a club owned by a friend. We had some legendary parties and lots of free drinks.

My band experience in Japan was with a core band that was Japanese, but would hire foreigners to do English songs for special events. We had a legendary gig at a place called Xanadu in Tokyo, it was for the holidays. Four singers including myself, keys, guitar, bass, drums and sax-the sax player from that band is part of my `Live Japanese Music` post. But the fact that the band was based in Yokohama-I would get back from rehearsals or gigs at 2 a.m. and have to get up at 6 for work-and the fact that a lot of venues charge bands to play, made it difficult to continue.

These days I do solo acoustic unless I`m recording. Basically my live shows are divided between open mics, and my vocal shows as a member of a mixed group of performing artists. I have a live performance on Saturday, and I`ll be recording the next day near Yokohama.

 

[Larryz]

After my country rock band broke up, I formed a band with our drummer and sax player and another friend who was an exceptional bass player and very good on vocals, and another friend on guitar and vocals, and another kid on guitar who was very talented (the most talented lead guitar player I ever played with). I was on lead vocals, rhythm guitar and keyboard. We brought in another of my old buddies who played sax, bass, flute and 12 string, and sang harmony on the vocals. We were more into a jazzy version of country rock, some old rock and roll, and some harder blues and rock stuff (Hendrix and Winter style). We played some pretty hot gigs (much hotter than my Country Rock band but fewer in number)...

 

Then we started jamming up in the boondocks at a trailer out in the woods on a high cliff looking out over the mountain pines, river canyon down below using a generator all summer long. The band expanded with two studio musician guitarists (which caused me to just play keyboards and leave my guitar in the case LOL!). We also added a trumpet...so we had two saxes and a trumpet in our horn section, plus I could add 6 more horns or orchestral strings on the keyboard LOL! After practicing all summer at what we called "the cliff jams" we would come down the mountain and do our stuff (more of a jazz rock now!) on Sunday Afternoon Linners (lunch/dinner champagne mimosa time) at one of our local clubs and pack the place every Sunday during each fall for a couple of years or so! Great times had by all. We would also do larger gigs for some very rich club owners out of county...those were the days for me.