A bassoonist by trade, this student teacher had been assigned to strong music program in a very posh Chicago suburb. The first week he was “on the job,” his mentor teacher asked him to demonstrate for new band recruits… on the tuba!

It didn’t matter that this student teacher (bassoonist, remember) couldn’t actually play the tuba–the regular teacher decided that it would be a good experience for him. Yikes!

Anyway, he muscled up and gave it the old college try, hacking through what must have been a few entertaining blats and plops of sound.

After he finished, the mentor teacher sidled up to him and, whispering in his ear in a very serious tone, said “You know, that wasn’t very good at all.”

Duh! Gotta love humiliation in music. We’re all one wrong move away from making a complete fool of ourselves in this business anyway, but still, why pile on the pain like that?

And I’m bad at it!

As a non-percussionist, you might think that something as “simple” as whacking a drum or banging a chime is trivial (percussionists don’t think this, of course, but those violinists and violists furiously sawing away on passages of mind-numbing difficulty might think otherwise). However, I quickly discovered, after being tasked with playing gong or bass drum on a number or two, that while playing bass on a piece is akin to sending the audience subliminal messages, playing a percussion instrument is more like standing on top of a building with a megaphone and screaming into the street. Not subtle, and all eyes are on you.

I was hired to play with a quite prestigious new music ensemble (no names–I don’t want their grow popping up on Google with this story tied to it). I tend to really enjoy playing new music, and no more so than with this group. They were musically tight and picked driving and exciting repertoire. Not a lot of slow-moving 45 minute soundscapes for them–they played groovy stuff by modern composers and had quite a following.

Anyway, one of the pieces I was playing, in addition to being one of the most technically challenging things I’d ever attempted, required me to play… chimes! And I wasn’t just covering the chime part for a missing percussionist–the composer actually specified that the bass player (for who knows what reason) also play the chimes. In fact, the chime part was written as part of the bass part!

To make matters worse, the composer had written the chime part in this very rhythmically complex way, requiring me to almost never actually play on a beat, but usually on the third triplet or fourth sixteenth note of a bar… and almost nothing else was happening. Also, there was very little time for me to put my bow down and move over to the chimes to play this part.

After getting the part in the mail a few weeks before the first rehearsal, I called the conductor up, trying to clarify why a percussion part was “accidentally” written into the bass part, I found out that not only would I in fact be playing the chimes, but that I had to go pick up said chimes from Leroy’s house over on the wrong side of the tracks. I did so on my way to the first rehearsal, trying to figure out how to fit all that chime paraphernalia in with my bass and stool.

After getting set up at the rehearsal hall, I plotted a course from bass to chime, making sure that I would be able to play my bass, dong those chimes, and see the conductor the whole time. I quickly learned just how hard it was to control how loudly or softly a chime rings. When my first chime moment came, I tried to get all suave with it, just grazing the chime and making some sort of beautiful pianissimo sound. No dice–
the conductor look up at me quizzically, not hearing the note at all. I resolved to make the next one louder and ended up making this startlingly huge sound, causing much laughter among my colleagues and more than a little embarrassment for myself.

After the “real” percussionist on the gig bemusedly gave me a miniature master class on chime technique, and did a little better on subsequent rehearsals, though I still had the sense that all eyes were on me and that every little thing I did came out much clearer than to which I was accustomed.

Though that was certainly my biggest moment as a percussionist, it wasn’t the last time I would be called upon to play something back in the world of mallets and drums. Each time, it feels like epic failure followed by a little improvement and ending up as a thoroughly mediocre experience. Nothing like trying to actually play some percussion in a concert setting to giver you a whole new respect for the art of the drum, mallet, and chime!

Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Greg Surratt:

While loading my gear in, I randomly invited two UGA college girls to the gig. They said they might come. Cool. The gig was in the upstairs of a downtown wing bar in Athens, GA. We showed up to discover the room was packed with students at a beer tasting event. This particular venue was notorious for cover bands, which suited us fine because we were armed to the teeth with classic rock, country, funk, and a violinist from the The Russian Conservatory. Yes, we played “Devil Went Down to Georgia”.

The conditions were perfect and oh were we ready to rock some rowdy fratboys. What happened next was astonishing. People starting leaving. And leaving in droves. We jumped on stage to stop the hemorrhaging. It didn’t help. By the end of the first set, there was no one in the bar…except the two girls I invited. When the singer announced that we were going to be taking a break, the girls started clapping and left. At least we still got paid, both in free beer and money.

Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Steve Pinkston:

In the mid-1970s, I was the bassist with a touring band that was backing up a Vegas-style singer on the hotel/nightclub circuit. Robert Kory was pleasant, always paid us on time, and had a lovely baritone voice. However, Robert was not exactly the brightest fellow I’d ever worked for. As an example, he billed himself as “Robert Kory, the Singing Baritone.” He couldn’t understand why I giggled whenever he uttered that bit of tautology.

At that time, American bands had to post a bond when they crossed into Canada to work. The amount of the bond was equal to one-third the retail value of all of your music equipment when it was new. This applied to all equipment not manufactured in Canada, and supposedly was to ensure that we would not sell our filthy American gear in Canada (My Canadian-made Traynor bass amp was exempt). As you can imagine, this created quite a hardship for many touring entertainers, and you generally had to pre-arrange the bond with a Canadian bondsman before you got to the border.

We were just wrapping up an engagement in Idaho Falls, and our next venue was a two-week stint in Lethbridge, Alberta. I had heard from other touring musicians that there was one remote border crossing called “Kingsgate” where the guards—all long-haired music fans—were sympathetic about the bond problem to the point that they would let American bands cross without the bond. The only problem was, this crossing was nearly 300 miles out of our way. I managed to convince Robert and the other guys to take a chance and give it a try.

We got to the Kingsgate crossing in our three separate cars about 6:00 in the evening. Sure enough, here were a couple of Canadian hippies in their official uniforms. They seemed really happy to see us. “Hey now! An American band, eh? Come on in and have some coffee, eh?” We started chatting with them, while Robert started filling out the considerable pile of paperwork involved in allowing us to work in Canada.

“Hey, you know we’re supposed to have you guys put up a bond on your instruments and stuff, eh?” None of us said anything, but shot nervous glances at each other. We didn’t have a back-up plan. The hippie guard went on, “But we think that’s a bunch of political baloney from those hosers over in Ottawa, eh? We never make the Yank bands do that; just don’t spread it around, eh?” We silently relaxed, and went on chatting with the guards, letting them play with our instruments and listening to their self-deprecating, eh-punctuated jokes. Robert kept on filling out the immigration and work-visa forms for all of us.

After about an hour, all of the forms were filled out. The head hippie-guard said, “OK, then, all we need now is to see everybody’s ID, and you can get on to your ‘gig,’ eh?” We all pulled out our driver’s licenses and started showing them to him. Everything went smoothly until he got to Robert. The guard looked at Robert, looked at his ID, looked at him again, looked at his ID again, and said, “So… who the hell is Riley P. Farkas?”

Robert smiled in that sweet, clueless way we had seen many times before, and replied in his lovely singing-baritone voice, “Well, Riley P. Farkas is my legal name. Robert Kory is my stage name. See, it’s printed on all of these 8×10 publicity pictures. Would you like one?” Our Canadian pals suddenly were not so friendly anymore. The head hippie-guard said, with barely controlled rage (an emotion you don’t see too often in Canadians), “You stupid damn Yank! You wrote your damn stage name on all these official papers, eh? What do they teach you in school down there?” Then he grabbed the inch-thick pile of official papers—all duly signed by the fictitious ‘Robert Kory’—and tore them in half. “OK, start over; and this time, mister FARK-ASS, put down your real, legal, honest-to-God, stupid Yank name, eh? Oh, and you better see about getting that bond arranged. Since we’re gonna have to explain why we voided twenty-five official forms, we have to do this by the book, eh?”

Robert called his agent in Calgary, who found a bondsman the next morning, and drove the bond paperwork out to the lonely little Kingsgate border crossing. By the time we got across, we had been there for twenty-six hours, through two shift changes, eating candy and the Canadian equivalent of Slim Jims from the vending machine, and had to listen as each shift of Canadian hippie border guards told the story to the great amusement of the next crew of Canadian hippie border guards. We made it to Lethbridge just in time to set up and play our first set. On our first break, Robert said, “Gee, Steve, you sure were wrong about that border crossing. Those guys didn’t seem friendly at all!”

Today’s gig story comes from double bassist Luis Baars:

When I was a senior in high school I was invited to play in the Area All-State Orchestra in Batavia, NY. The drive to the rehearsal/concert location was almost an hour away. Since we had several students in our high school playing in the orchestra, the school had arranged for one of those short yellow buses to take us back and forth to the rehearsals and the concert itself.

The first rehearsal day came and per usual the usual bass transportation stories we had a hard time getting the bass into the bus and into a suitable transportable position. We ended up having the bass lying on it’s side in the grimy middle isle.

I wasn’t pleased with this situation so I decided to drive myself on the 2nd day. It took a little while, but I finally convinced my music director and parents that this would be the best option. The 2nd rehearsal and the concert went flawlessly and I decided to get out as quickly as possible since a winter storm was coming in.

The only reason why I was allowed to drive was because I promised both my music director and parents that I would drive carefully. Of course, being a teenager, I was driving too fast for the conditions outside. I hit some black ice, ran into two guardrails, and ended up in the left lane of the highway facing the wrong direction. After making sure no traffic was coming, I got out of the car and got on the other side of the guard rail to wait for help (this was before cell phones). As I stood there watching, the very next car that came down the highway proceeded to do the same exact thing I did and ended up crashing into my car.

Five minutes later the state trooper was there. Five minutes after that, my parents were there. Ten minutes after that, the short bus drove by with all my friends looking at me, their mouths agape.

The car was totaled; I didn’t own another car until 4 years later. Thankfully, the bass survived without a scratch.

Today’s gig story comes from Justin Locke, the author of Real Men Don’t Rehearse and a former Contrabass Conversations interview guest. Here’s a bit of news from Justin:

First off, just quickly, I have written a little free e-book titled,
“marketers stage fright/ and how avoid it.” While it’s really
designed for people in the marketing world, I am finding that people
in the performance world are enjoying it even more as it is a
pragmatic look at the elements of stage fright. It’s free,
downloadable through my web site at justinlocke.com/msf.pdf.

Also, I’m on a free e-book binge here, I did up a tiny little abridged
version of Real Men Don’t Rehearse. It has maybe three stories in it
. . . Justinlocke.com/rmdrx.pdf.

And now for Justin’s story:

The Battle on the Ice

I started “gigging” in Boston at the tender age of nineteen and a
half. Back then there was just enough freelance work in town to
support three bass players, and one of them, none other than now
Maestro Richard Fletcher, got an unexpected offer to take a conducting
class in New York City. So the contractor needed someone quick,
called my teacher, the phone rang, and the rest is history, as told in
Real Men Don’t Rehearse. ’Tis the stuff breaks are made of.

Anyway, going so abruptly from student to professional mode, I did not
own a car the first three years I was freelancing in Boston.
Amazingly, I pulled this off… there was plenty of public
transportation, and for out-of-town gigs, I just bummed rides from
anyone and everyone. Most folks were happy to have someone willing to
pay half the gas.

Anyway, one disgustingly cold February night, I was scheduled to play
the Brahms Requiem with some choral society up in Concord, New
Hampshire. The conductor lived in Lexington, Massachusetts. So to
get to the gig, I talked somebody into giving me a ride with my bass
out to Lexington, where I was to have dinner with this conductor and
her family, and then hop a ride with her up to the gig, which was two
hours north. Free food, free ride . . beautiful.

So I arrived at this beautifully appointed Lexington home. I left my
bass in the hallway, and their teenage daughter dutifully picked up my
suit carrier (which contained both my tuxedo and my black dress
shoes), and hung it up in the closet. (This is where you start
hearing the low strings tremulo-ing in the back.)

So we have a lovely dinner, and then we realize we’re very much behind
in the schedule, as we have to make a two-hour drive in the freezing
cold to get up to Concord New Hampshire for this gig at eight o’clock.

So were driving up route 93, happy as clams, when it suddenly dawns on
me that, while I certainly packed my bass in this woman’s station
wagon, my tuxedo and my dress shoes are still happily hanging in a
nice warm closet in Lexington. There was no turning back, we had been
in the car an hour or more.

Now this may be hard for your younger readers to comprehend, but this
all happened way back when, before the advent of cellphone technology.
So absolutely no “problem solving” could occur until we got to the
gig. Bear in mind, the outfit I was wearing was my then standard
casual wardrobe . . . And it was not exactly what you might call
“sartorially resplendent.” I think I was wearing a ripped pair of
blue jeans, a yellow polo shirt and a faded gray sweatshirt. oh– and
Adidas sneakers– you know, bright white with black stripes. Not
exactly formal attire.

Well, we arrive in Concord New Hampshire with very little time to
spare. After a quick discussion, one of the local ladies in the
chorus called her husband, and he brought down to the gig a dark blue,
broad pinstripe, suit. There’s maybe 10 minutes till downbeat. It
was a bit of a snug fit all around, and the lapels were so wide you
could have driven a truck over them. But it was better than nothing.
And I had to do SOMETHING, as I was the only bass in the orchestra.

One small problem though,… this guy didn’t have a spare pair of
dress shoes. Well as luck would have it, in this concert’s
configuration, it was in a cinderblock high school auditorium. The
orchestra was down in the pit, with the chorus up on stage. So
thankfully my my unshod socked feet were out of view of the audience.
But . . . the floor of this pit, and I will never forget it, was
unfinished, plain old, concrete. It being February in mid-New
Hampshire, I would estimate the average temperature of that concrete
floor to be approximately 38 degrees. And I stood on that ice sheet
concrete floor with my slightly damp black socks for that entire gig.
Talk about getting cold feet.

I admit, this comes nowhere near Jason’s expressway flaming car story
(does any story match that one? I doubt it), but in terms of pure
angst, embarrassment, and long-drawn-out inescapable physical
suffering while cranking out the notes, it was one of the worst gigs I
ever played in my life.

How we suffer for our art.

–jl

This story is the latest submission for the Upton bass pickup raffle. If you’d like to be a contestant in the raffle, just email me your worst gig story (either personal or second-hand is fine) by March 15. You can send them to jasonheath -at- doublebassblog.org.

Gig Story from Deborah Lamb

Here at The University of Oklahoma (OU), I play in various ensembles. Some required of me, some just for my own enjoyment. Wind Symphony is just that!

Two weeks ago the OU Wind Symphony had a concert, and we were going to play David Maslanka’s 4th Symphony, which requires A LOT of bass and has some very exposed parts. David Maslanka was there for the concert, so the pressure was REALLY on. During the day of the concert, I wanted to make some improvements on my bass to get more sound out of it. So, I took it to my apartment to accomplish the task.

My uncle, who comes to every concert, wanted to take me out to dinner that night to celebrate my recent birthday. Around 5:30 I loaded up my bass in my car and headed back to the music building to meet him. After parking in the parking garage, I usually take the stairs down unless I’m on the 3rd or 4th level of the parking garage. I had parked on the second level. Seeing as how I live up a flight of stairs, I saw no problem taking just one flight down to ground level. While going down the stairs, I put my foot where a stair should’ve been, and it wasn’t. I then fell down 6 stairs, injuring both of my knees and my left elbow.

I gathered myself together (with the help of some very nice strangers) and headed into the music building. Noticing the top of the bass was limping down, my heart sank into my stomach- I knew then and there what happened. The scroll broke completely in half and everything had collapsed. Not caring about my injuries or my crazy crying over what happened, I needed a GOOD bass- I had a concert to play in after all, and I didn’t want to let anyone down with this incident!

I found a master key, broke into my bass professors office, and stole a bass from one of our graduate students. I played through the concert on a bass I had never laid my hands on before with two injured knees and an injured elbow. I had never been so proud of myself in my life. I definitely earned my scholarship that night!

-Debby Lamb
Music Education Student at the University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK

This story is the latest submission for the Upton bass pickup raffle. If you’d like to be a contestant in the raffle, just email me your worst gig story (either personal or second-hand is fine) by March 15. You can send them to jasonheath -at- doublebassblog.org.

Gig Story from Kells Nollenberger

(This story is already giving me nightmares, by the way…)

It was the summer of 2000 and I had just finished high school in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Soon, I would be heading off to college to study music with my 100-year-old Czech bass that I had recently purchased from A440 Violin Shop. I bought the bass in the classic American fashion, by accruing massive debt. I didn’t care though, I was officially a bass player and I was loving it.

That same summer I was chosen to perform at the Texas Educators Conference with an All-Star College Big Band. There were going to be clinics and musicians from other states and free hotel rooms in San Antonio! My father agreed to buy me a plane ticket to the event for $350. Soon after I convinced him to pay for the flight, I found out that I could take the bus to San Antonio for only $150. My father agreed to let me keep the difference if I took the bus instead. $200!!! It was only a 22-hour bus ride, how bad could it possibly be? The prospect of sitting in a bus and making $5/hr seemed better than going out and trying to find a job that summer. Plus, the bus provided an added benefit in moving the bass. I figured that I would have a much easier time getting my bass on a bus than on a plane.

So my plan was hatched. I called Greyhound and gave them the dimensions of the hard double bass case that I was planning on borrowing from my high school. The woman on the phone informed me that there was no size limit on luggage, just a weight requirement of a 100 pounds. Her conformation was all I needed and I showed up the next week at the bus stop in downtown Chicago with my mom and a comically large instrument.

When I arrived at the gate, the Greyhound employees did not seem happy to see my seven-foot tall friend. They insisted that anything that big had to be sent through the shipping department and could not be put under the bus. We wandered over to the shipping department. Walking around with a hard-shell bass case can make you feel as if you have a large growth on the side of your head. Everyone just quietly stops what they are doing and stares, minding their words carefully. Naturally, the people in the shipping department also wanted nothing to do with me. It is around the time that you turn 18 and become an adult that you realize new things about your parents and that day I found out that my mom is an awesome “bad cop.” She was not going to take “no” for an answer. She started yelling, and I tried to look as pathetic as possible. One of the greatest weapons that you have as a traveling bass player is that people will do whatever it takes to make you someone else’s problem. The man in shipping department insisted that if we returned to the main terminal and informed everyone that I was a professional musician and the bass was essential to my livelihood then they would have no choice but to be accommodating. So we headed back to the terminal and after several more rounds of academy award winning “good cop, bad cop”, we managed to get my bass into the belly of a greyhound bus.

Once the baggage door was closed, I hugged my mother and made my way up to the bus door. The bus driver stopped me before entering. There was no room left on the bus for me. My brain went crazy. Should I try to get my bass back out of the bus? Would it take another two hours of yelling to get it into another bus? I couldn’t handle that. So I watched as the bus pulled out of the terminal. The bass that was leaving in the bus had a value that I could barely understand. I had not worked enough hours in my life to pay for the item that I had just lost control of. It had taken me several years just to raise enough money to have a down payment.

The next bus to San Antonio arrived shortly and it too was packed with people. I somehow managed to get on board to begin my 22-hour journey. The seat next to me was full for almost the entire ride. Mothers with their babies screaming, cowboys sleeping on my shoulder, air conditioning that barely worked: these were the least of my worries. Each time the bus stopped the bus driver would announce over the intercom and kindly remind the crowd, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please make sure that any and all of your luggage remains in the bus that you are traveling on. Greyhound can not be held responsible for any luggage that is not on your bus.” I tried to fall asleep.

We arrived in San Antonio and I jumped out of the bus looking for my bass. I looked all around the inside of the terminal. There was no sign of it and it’s not the kind of item that can easily blend into its surroundings. Having been unable to find it inside the terminal, I desperately rushed outside and could not believe what I saw. All seven feet of bass case sitting up on its own in the middle of the parking lot. I still have no idea what it was doing out there. I can only assume that someone saw the unclaimed instrument, and thought to themselves, “Maybe I should give the bass a try?” After carrying the instrument one hundred feet, they must have decided that it simply was not worth it.

This story is the latest submission for the Upton bass pickup raffle. If you’d like to be a contestant in the raffle, just email me your worst gig story (either personal or second-hand is fine) by March 15. You can send them to jasonheath -at- doublebassblog.org.

Gig Story from Eric Hochberg

My band was scheduled to play at a private residence in Glencoe, IL (tony Chicago suburb) for a reception on a Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful summer day when we arrived at the house. When I enquired where we would be setting up, I was told by the boat dock. When I asked where the boat dock was, I was directed to a tram that went up and down a ravine from the dock on Lake Michigan to the residence. Ok, pretty weird, I thought, but manageable. So, my bandmates and I made a few trips getting our equipment down to the lake on the tram. When we got there I realized there was no covering for us to play under, ( a usual requirement for outdoor gigs), but being a sunny clear day, I thought nothing of it and we set up.

The guests started to arrive and we began playing. By the middle of our second tune I see a bit of blackness over the water out in the distance and for the next five minutes or so it gets blacker and closer. I’m getting a little worried at this point, but we keep playing, until you guessed it, we’re in the middle of a thunderstorm. Naturally, the guests were all rushing to the tram and stairs to get back up to the house. We were stuck on the deck, out in the open with no cover and all of our gear. I noticed a small shed that I opened and found a nasty old tarp in, so, we gathered our instruments and sound equipment in a pile and covered them along with our tuxedo clad selves under that funky tarp (complete with dirt, spider webs and leaking holes) until the rain stopped about 20 minutes later. What a damn mess!

We made it back up the ravine, packed up our cars and when our employer came out to say that she would like us to meet them at a restaurant in town to continue the “party”, I told them our equipment was more than likely damaged by the rain and we wouldn’t be able to make it… I guess she didn’t notice our rain soaked tuxes, either!

Eric Hochberg
www.erichochberg.com

Gig Story from Brayden Wise

When I lived in Vancouver, I played with the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble (http://www.pswe.ca) under the direction of Marc Crompton. One of the things I loved about playing with PSWE was that we always got to play some really bleeding-edge wind band music. Sure, we did the classics — Grainger, Claude T. Smith, etc, but we also got a chance to have at stuff by guys like Adam Gorb and Fred Stride, and play wind band (and chamber-winds) adaptations of Zappa, and so on.

This particular show in question featured a tune by Robert Jager called “A Sea of Glass Mingled With Fire”, which was originally a commission for the Tacoma Concert Band. The second movement of this tune is quite peaceful and pastoral, unlike the bookending movements which are a little more on the “fire” side of the title. In any case…

I was just out of college at the time, working a low-paying job in a high-rent city, and couldn’t afford great gear, but the stuff I had sounded wonderful, and worked for me. The bass I was playing that night was a Chinese plywood bass (I can hear the groans already!) which was seemingly made out of balsa wood and put together with Elmer’s glue. Despite its (many) shortcomings, it had an amazing sound to it, and was ridiculously easy to play. That is, until the quietest part of the aforementioned piece.

The score was down to just a few players, and they were all at the low end of the dynamic spectrum, when this earth-splitting cracking noise came from my bass.

This cracking noise was followed in quick succession with the sound of wood clattering on the stage.

I looked down, and wouldn’t you know it, my tailpiece wire had snapped and my bridge had fallen onto the floor.

My bass had basically gutted itself onstage at the LEAST opportune moment.

Panic gripped me quickly as I realized that we were only coming up to intermission and I was now bass-less. Irrational (and terrifying) thoughts of my soundpost falling over started to enter my mind, so I laid my bass on its back and hoped for the best. Mercifully, the third movement of “A Sea of Glass…” is played on Electric Bass, so I calmed my nerves, strapped on the electric, and played the end of the half.

At the start of intermission, my friend Roy Sluyter (a fantastic Vancouver-based jazz pianist and recording engineer) comes bounding down the aisles and just says “Get your keys — let’s go”.

We jump into my car and split from the theatre. Now, I have to fill you in on Vancouver geography. The show was being held at the Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam. Roy lived in Port Moody — about a 15-minute drive away. Now, especially as a father, I don’t condone driving like this, but Roy and I managed to drive from the ECC to his house in PoMo, get the double bass that just *happened* to be sitting in his living room, jam it into my hatchback, and get back to the ECC in time to tune up and play the second half of the show.

It was through this experience that I got acquainted with Gerard Samija, who became my luthier of choice for the rest of my time in Vancouver. Gerard did a wonderful job of rehabilitating my instrument and it’s still working well for me to this day.

Brayden Wise
Bassist – The Central Band of the Canadian Forces
Ottawa, Ontario
http://www.braydenwise.com
Twitter @braydenwise