"Are there really that many ahole sound guys out there?"

yes...

Surf sound guy for hire...will work for beers!

www.cutbacksurfband.com

The Tmen have had good luck with sound guys thus far into our career. They do seem to like how we don't need miking for the most part. And we've found that most of them really dig the instro surf sound. Let's hope that continues.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

The heat was tough, but I suppose that my birthday show last year was one of my worst. I'm sure I've told the story here before...

Let's just say being onstage and doing LOTS of shots in a short time (mixing, none the less) is a BAAAAD combo for a guitarist.

~B~

i love these stories!

http://about.me/nicholaus.lee

Pyronauts
lets just say that I wasn't "arranged" correctly for the ride and some important things got a little smashed!

What, your guitar? Is your guitar okay??

wooza
What, your guitar? Is your guitar okay??

Not the guitar... but I'm happy to report that this morning I am feeling fine and my voice has returned to normal.

I don't think we'll be trying that stunt at the Hotel Utah though...

Paul

I think over time, when you have these experiences, you tend to try to "forget" them...but this thread reminded me of one memorable evening.

A friend got us a gig playing for a private party one summer. We'd have to play from 9 to midnight and the money was paid in advance so none of the sometimes hassles of trying to get paid.

I knew it was an outdoor party, what with it being July. Since it was supposed to be in a field I also mentioned we'd need some power cords out there and some staging. We wouldn't want to be standing on the ground. No fun being a conductor...:-)

We show up that hot summer night, and it's a 30 acre cow pasture, sans cows at this point (they did show up later on), and we had power to the staging they built and it was very sturdy.

Item 1: the private party was a motorcycle club. They had 200+ members. They all arrived on their bikes and parked in the field (which was interesting since the departed cows had left some "meadow muffins", and you didn't want to step one). Ever try to play louder than a bunch of Harleys? Don't. You lose.

Item 2: the stage, while sturdy, wasn't quite big enough. Drummer disappears off the back half way through a song. Well, okay, fell off. Got a standing ovation as he climbed back on the stage to his kit.

Item 3: Even if you're on a stage, when two guitars touch and the amps were on opposite polarity, there's going to be some sparks. We were in the "whoa" mode, crowd though it was cool.

Item 4: We not playing all that quiet, it's a huge field but there is a row of residential houses on a street along the far side of the field. During the night, you'd see some house lights come on, few guys would jump on their Harleys and ride to the lights, you'd see the lights go out. Not one single person complained all night about the "noise" and the cops never showed. Never asked why.

Item 5: when they light up two large bonfires 40 feet in front of you, it generates a whack of heat. It felt wonderful when they finally burned down some. After they burned lower, they put wash tubs full of water and filled them with corn for a corn on the cob roast.

Item 6: At midnight, the guy who was running the party didn't want us to stop playing but he didn't have any money to pay more. So he came up with this idea that we'd do this donation/jukebox thing. If they wanted to hear another song, he go canvas them for donations (of how knows how much) and just hand me the money.

Since most were eating corn on the cob, everything was slathered in butter, salt, pepper and beer. I didn't want to handle it and "coat" my guitar so the guy just shoved the money in my hip pocket. After while, everyone was shoving money in pocket. We just kept playing.

At 2 am, we finally pack it in, we get lots of thanks (apparently this club had problems getting bands to their parties) and we never got a break from midnight til 2am, they just kept paying, we kept playing. We pack up and go home to crash.

Item 7: There's nothing quite like waking up in the morning to a horrible smell and not being able to figure out what it is. Until you spot those white denims I was wearing the night before and you see the yellow rancid butter stain start at the hip pocket and go all the way down to the ankle. I picked the money out of that pocket with tongs and put the pants in the trash. No detergent was going to clean them. I laundered the money...:-)

To the credit of the MC club we played for, there was never any problems. Anything even remotely started to get out of hand, they were on it. Pronto. When we didn't know a request number they "really" wanted to hear, our alternate suggestions were always met with "great". A very different looking but well behaved and polite group.

The image that sticks in my mind is watching them ride past the bonfires while were playing Blues Theme and the fire light reflecting off all that chrome and paint...and the rumble...too cool for words.

Mel

65acrolite
The Deadbeats had a show this past Sunday...

Yeah, that was pretty lame. That bass drum was just the icing on the cake of a general downer of a show. Nobody got into it through the whole set, and we got basically zero response from the crowd. Disappointing. Not even the skinheads seemed to be going for us, but then again I guess I'm okay with that.

It's nice to know that experiences can be similar around the world!
- dropped a beer bottle on my guitar lead and lost all sound in the middle of a 'roaring' lead looking a little lame.
- my crackling chorus pedal frustrated me so much I threw it off stage... In the 90's I played in a grunge band which was doing OK and then for some reason suddenly we had a stream of 'spinal tap' type of gigs:
(1) We were invited to play at our city's annual show - which I was stoked about - carried my amp through the crowd like a king but ended up playing in a dark sealed room so no one could see or hear us outside, with an untrained sound guy (no offense to sound guys) to about ten people near the ferris wheel _ and laughing clowns which drew far more attention than us playing. I carefully slipped away in the night to hide in my kennel.
(2)After a few more bad gigs, we did a support in an Emo_ club that went so badly with everything going wrong that after in the dressing room we decided to call it quits.
A week later some of the audience from that same gig told our singer how great we were and 'when are we playing again?'...which happens to be the last actual large gig I've played in ...

Tim O
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