The “performance part” of playing music is a complex developmental process for most people. Any musician will verify that the comfort of one’s own living room is where all the perfect notes are kept.
The folk and bluegrass music scene conjures images of dedicated acoustic musicians bonding with an audience that supports their efforts with its time and monetary appreciation.
It is a rewarding experience almost ALL of the time, but there are those “isolated” (shhh!) incidents where things do not work out as smoothly as planned. You know, those times when we have arrived at our musical destination with a high gloss applied to our instruments, our shoes, and perhaps our fingernails, tuned to the “nines” with our Strobe-A-Rama electronic wonder with a cents and no-cents view meter, and we have just backed up behind the stage in a U-Haul packed with state-of-the-art equipment ready to unload.
Then, a blue cloud instantly hovers over your incredulous observations. The person in charge didn’t know you were coming. Or didn’t think you were being paid. Or had you scheduled to play at a different place or time. Or he/she just didn’t show up at all. Or even, of the most sacrosanct of bluegrass priorities, no one told you that your band was not GETTING DINNER?
As hired musicians in the acoustic music scene, many of us at some time have run into an occasional “glitch” where things just haven’t synchronized with our meticulous plans. Glimpses into my own recollection include incidents such as: playing at a county fair the same night as a tractor-pulling contest, performing onstage at a town celebration when the power generator exploded, or the time when my band had begun our first song and the soundperson decided all was well and suddenly ventured off to meet his friends at the beer garden.
I started the research on this project in 1996 by mailing out a questionnaire to fellow musicians in my local area, and received a number of very candid and interesting accounts that were just a “little short” of being ideal in their own performance experiences. I entitled the survey “BAD GIG NO DINNER”, and printed the name on address labels for the mail-out.
I resurrected this project in 2005 and my article was featured in a two-part series in a music publication. Readers were asked to detail some unusual experience that occurred when they went to perform somewhere, and things sort of “clunked out”.
For a starter, here is one of mine:
THE GRILL I LEFT BEHIND ME
Our band was setting up for a backyard barbeque. The woman hosting the party emerged through an elaborate doorway leading out onto the patio, glanced briefly at us and announced, “I hope you don’t play terribly loud”. Waiting for her to reach an out-of-earshot distance upon her return to the kitchen, our mustachioed banjo player then sweetly muttered, “No, we just play terribly!”
Tables outside were laden with drinks and bottled water, appetizers, and lovely baskets of fruit. It was a very hot August night, and after we had been playing for about an hour, the hostess stepped away from the guests in the backyard, and on her way to the kitchen stopped by us on the patio, holding an ornate lacquered tray with several leftover grapes rolling around on it. We were offered only these stray grapes, another sour note to the story.
The guests attending the cookout were appreciative of our music, and we were paid, but our band departed that evening with no dinner and only memories of barbeque aroma wafting from afar.
—-Tina Louise Barr
These other stories will capture a bird’s-eye view from performers in general, with some of the challenges they might have encountered as musicians.
Not every musical performance will be a “keeper” for the scrapbook, but with a positive spirit, something always can be learned for the next time.
Here are a few more true BAD GIG NO DINNER stories:
A WESTERN NIGHT IN BLACK AND WHITE
My “Open Mic Nightmare” all started when my dear, sweet husband told me about a radio advertisement he had heard for a local western-type establishment that included an invitation for musicians to come out for an open mic every Tuesday night. He excitedly suggested, “This is what you need to overcome your stage fright.”
When Tuesday night came, my husband helped load my hammered dulcimer and autoharp into my car. I drove to the advertised site, where the parking lot and restaurant looked packed. I walked in, pulled a chair onto the stage up front where the other musicians already were playing, set up my instruments, and joined them for a bit.
During the break time, I then found myself sitting alone on the stage waiting for the other musicians to return. A man from the audience walked up and asked me, “Say, when did you join the band?” Like a bolt of lightning, my entire life then flashed before my eyes when it occurred to me that the other musicians on the stage happened to be dressed alike —- in black and white. At that point, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I was there on the wrong night, and I’ve never gone back!
—-Evie
BAD GIG BY THE SPOONFUL
My first attempt at “busking” was a bit of a disaster! After a busy day and part of the evening working at the Town Council, I then went out to the courtyard over to the farmers market, to be ready to play music at 7:00 p.m.
It was packed, and there was a choir of thirty or more singing where I was supposed to play! I waited for a couple of carols and then asked one of the vendors behind this choir, how long they had been singing – about twenty minutes. I waited whilst they sang two or three more, and then I asked the choir leader when they were due to finish, “as I thought I was starting from 7:00 until 7:20.”
She said, “Yes, you are on at 7:00”, then she realized that it was already 7:20! She said, “Well, we were late starting, so we’ll do one more!” When they finished, some lingered there, so I had a job to set up my amp.
Then after I had played four short tunes, three women came up and asked how long I was going to be – they were due to perform at 7:30! As they had somewhere else to go afterward, I told them to go ahead. In one of their numbers, they were using wooden spoons and saucepans – they were very funny – but, at the end of the song, they flung the spoons in the air and one hit me in the eye!
I did play again for a while with my swollen eye and people enjoyed my music, but my collection hat wasn’t what they noticed.
—-Susan
MY FIRST OPEN STAGE
My first open stage happened at a coffeehouse in 1975. I arrived early one Sunday night, and there already were ten people with their guitars, waiting to sign up to play.
Finally, an emcee wearing a big hat showed up. He told us to put our names in the hat if we wanted to play, and that he would draw our names at random during the night. He didn’t guarantee that all of us would be able to perform, and then he launched into a long spiel about good stage presence, looking professional, and offering the audience something unique and special.
For the next three hours I sat through each performer’s three-song set, wondering if my name would be next. My name finally was called at 11:00 p.m., and by the time I got up on stage, there were only four people left in the audience. As I played through my set, my hands were shaking, and I didn’t look at the audience. Somehow I made it through. Afterwards, I packed my guitar, and got out of there as fast as I could.
I didn’t attend another open stage for five years.
—-Tony
DISPOSABLE DULCIMERS
Years ago, when I was performing in a hammered dulcimer duet that I had named Stringed Fantasy, my music partner and I were to play at a regional park. When we drove up to the gate, we found that it would be necessary to lug in our instruments. Our hammered dulcimers were identical, and with each having 96 strings and weighing 45 pounds, they felt like oversized dresser drawers and were bulky to handle.
When a park worker drove by in a motorized cart, we quickly took up his offer to transport these wooden “anvils” to our assigned space.
We set up and enjoyed playing traditional pieces all afternoon. When the event was over, we were told that a cart would return for our hammered dulcimers.
The little detail missing about the park worker’s return, however, was that he had just collected garbage from the trash barrels on the grounds. Our beloved, obviously sturdy dulcimers survived a rocking return ride to the parking lot atop a bulging cartload of trash bags.
—-Tina Louise Barr