Syracuse Ska Forum

anyways id like to hear some stories about bands having akward things go on at shows. here's what i'd like to share.

on monday our band (mechatama) was asked to a last minute show at mowhawk place with Folly. I loved folly and talked the rest of the group into it. when we got there the place was filled with hardcore kids and we discovered that our set was in the middle of the show. performing to a group of kids expecting hardcore was akward and hilarious. those squares were so freaked out.

now its your turn...dont make choose!

at magic goats second show i broke a guitar string. while we waited for a replacement guitar our sax player alex told dead baby jokes to the crowd. some were over joyed and some were appaled.

I played with Bomb The Music Industry! and I was really thirsty. The venue had water but no proper containers. Jeff from BTMI! left and came back with a blender full of water and poured it into my mouth. I said I felt like Terri Schiavo.

Yeah know Matt, you remind me of Steven Parker, you really do.

BTW, we'll finally meet this weekend in Knoxville. We also finally get to meet the mystery person behind 21 Dead Monkeys. I just love those comics!

A couple of summers ago, The Emersons played a benefit for a friend of ours who has severe kidney disfunctions. It was at a pavilion outdoors at a hotel out in the 'burbs on a Saturday afternoon. We knew it probably wasn't going to be mostly our crowd, so we toned back on the cursing, etc. in our set a little bit. Little did we know that it wasn't going to be at all our crowd (except for about 3 friends). We followed 3 acoustic country groups, and played ahead of a zydeco band. The sound guy came up and started to set up mics on our amps before we played.

"Dude," I said, "we're really loud. You really don't need to do that."

"No," he replied, "it's cool - I've got enough mics."

"No man, seriously, we're really loud."

"Man, it's my new toy, if I need to pot 'em down, I will."


Well, according to our friends, several older women (literally) ran from the pavilion with their hands over their ears, saying things like "THIS IS AWFUL!" and "WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?" The only people left in the pavilion two songs into our set were the four people who were there for us and the sound guy.

I guess really it wasn't that awkward, though. We didn't really care that much. We were there to help out a friend, and we were glad to do it. And it does make a fun story.

Who's Steven Parker? And yes, me and my car are part of the Michigan convoy, which also includes Boston, Hoss, and the Baron. They're all cool people, I promise.

Some of you were here for this, but for those of you that weren't...

Hobo Slobo held our CD release party at the Annex Coffeehouse in Manlius this past october. If you have never been to the Annex (r.i.p. ), it's a coffeeshop literally, maybe, a third the size of the Westcott, if even that big. The fire code occupancy limit is somewhere around 40. Well, when we arrived a half hour before the show, there were already about 30 people there. By the time it was ten minutes till, it was more like 90. After a later cashcount, we discovered that there were around 130 people packed into the Annex, not counting those who snuck in, the 5 band members, or the couple of staff.
So we were halfway through "Wagon Wheel" when our wonderful friend Mickey Pomfrey (you FM kids might know him) yelled out, "It's the po-po!" We stopped the song and jokingly called him an asshole for interrupting. But then we realized that he was serious...the police were literally outside, with the fire marshall.
We quickly hustled everybody out into the parking lot just in time, so that when the cops did enter the building, they couldn't shut the place down or ticket the owner. Then we proceeded to finish our set under umbrellas in the pouring October rain in the parking lot, to the hundred-or-so kids who stuck around. We bought them all coffee, and the night was a definite success.

Other random stories: Hugh (Jedediah) using his brute strength to literally push a car out of an icy ditch in Marcellus when we were already late for our show; The band getting kicked out of a church for doing our regular set; Playing the BOCES Graduation; Trying to fit an upright bass, Banjo, Guitar, Washboard, Trombone, and 3 people in a PT Cruiser (and succeeding!); Hugh and I and the groupie follies...

hmm

haha someone is ascared of the black folk!



I haven't played at many shows in my life so I don't really have anything good.


One time my old band, Shoegazi, was playing in Ithaca at Sue(some of the punks may remember!)'s birthday party. We decided to do something different for this show than our previous ones. I wore a leather jacket and a really homoerotic leather biker hat trying my best to be a Halford wannabe and Johnny wore a ski-mask. So anyway we get up play our first song which was just really loud and gibberish and sounded nothing like the rest of our stuff but we played it first to try to make people think it'd be. Well uhh Keith from Fulton? Steve Parker would know who it is, anyways he was there. He heard the first song and since we were a two piece band(singer and guitarist) he asked to play drums cause there was a drumset from the last band still up. So we let him and it was so f*ck stupid. He had never heard us, we didn't really care cause all we cared about was having fun hoping others would too. So he played drums for us but I think he thought we were going to be some sort of powerviolence type band.

Grandma!

Hahaha! Shoegazi! Awesome.

heres another akward story. in november we were asked to ope for zox. we couldn't say no to that show, but on the day of our show our bassist and drummer dissapeared. we called up the basist from rex banner who sometimes fills in for our basist, and a jam band drummer who's good friends with us. everyone knew what they were doing except the drummer and we eneded playing all of our songs soooooo slow. i like song songs but they were slower than slow, even our guitarist was getting sleepy. at the end of the set we found out that the drummer dosed out before i picked him up and passed out in my car while we were putting his kit away. hope that nevr happens again.

i dont think ive ever played a show that wasnt awkward and embarrasing actually i can think of like 3. but i dont have any cool stories, except for the chronicles of the 80s jogger suits, candy and confetti that noone else found funny

haha glad someone else remembers her!


and I seriously thought I could get over it but the amount of just wrong things said in that Fuce guys story is just too much. Seriously, I understand if it wasn't your purpose to say wrong things but you were scared of getting capped in Syracuse, you called a bunch of presumably black people standing outside a place gangsta's and then go on to explain you were wearing Hollister because you thought you'd be playing to intellectuals...which we know black people are not.Crazy handshake? I'm sorry if I blow this out of proportion and all but you have to be the "whitest" person in the world. Either that or VERY VERY sheltered in your life. It comes off like as I read the story I was waiting for you to say something along the lines of "Them crazy bloodthirsty negroes were looking at our vehicle. I think they wanted to steal it and take it to their hoe-mies chop shop" Like something corny as hell like that. I ain't trying to dog you or anything but I take from this that you have not had much time communicating with people living in urban areas. Do you cross the road if you see a guy with tattoo's walking towards you too?

Sorry but I got that vibe from it all. Had some deep undertones of racism/prejudice. Maybe I'm the only one who felt it.

Nope - I was figuring that or an extreme case of being really f'n sheltered.