Dreams never stop as long as we’re sleeping, not even nightmares. I was recently reminded of a nightmare of meeting the reunited members of The Band (minus Robbie Robertson) backstage at some crappy rock club. Each one of my childhood heroes was more burnt out and deluded than the next one. In the dream they were like the guys in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, after the crackdown, when that mean nurse dosed them out of their souls. That dream still disturbs me, but I’ve had worse musical nightmares in my waking moments. How about you?
This post initially appeared 2/26/07.
While listening to some new Nora Jones song playing on the radio (free – I get what I pay for, right?) on the way into work today, I was reminded of a couple of my musical nightmares come to life.
First I recalled the lowpoint of an especially bad trip in the middle of an acid-soaked wedding reception. My similarly fried friends had wandered off to assorted locations, and I was left alone in the middle of an acoustic hippie jam session in the newlyweds’ den. A hippie woman got right in my face and started merrily singing Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz”. The horror…the horror… Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Then I recalled seeing Stone Temple Pilots at an outdoor concert. They might have been playing behind their second album. My friend and I went to the show to see the openers, Flaminig Lips, who were just beginning to achieve the status of disregarded opening band for an inappropriate headliner. Flaming Lips were good and ignored by all but a handful of us in the crowd. Then STP came out and you’d think a rising Hitler had appeared in front of an adoring throng the night after Kristallnacht. People immediately rushed the stage. Fists were thrust into the air. The band’s front rushed its edge of the stage and thrust axes back at the audience. They barely broke betweeen songs, each bellowing song blasted in our faces. If we’d liked more than a song or two of their’s at the time my friend and I, too, may have been swept up on The Power and Glory of Rock that day. As it was, we felt like Jews in the middle of a Nuremburg rally. Chilling!
So, how ’bout you? Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a musical nightmare come to life? It could have been at a show – either as a fan or musician, in a party, on a date, alone in the car, whatever. I look forward to your sharing.
A few years ago some Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony was on the Bravo network. Therein, I got to see Paul Williams sing “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” in “tribute” to Randy Newman.
If that was Cindy’s wedding your talking about, that was so bad, it scared me away from psychodelics permenantly!
I think some of the bands we played with were nightmares – Big Red at City Gardens comes to mind
Wrong woman in that pair of old friends, but yes, you have the right wedding. I think just about every member of the Head who qualified was scared straight, at least in terms of a certain category of drugs, that night!
Sometime in the early ’90s I found myself stuck in a party where the host played nothing but Blues Traveler, Phish, and other nascent ‘jam band’ CDs. To make matters worse, no one was on anything stronger than white wine.
In 1989, some “friends” of mine dragged me to a Ratt concert. They were bad in general – but the drum solo that night remains THE worst piece of music I’ve ever seen on a large concert stage.
I appreciate Bob Seger’s desire to play tribute to the greats that preceded him, but that’s not much of a performance. Very disappointing!
Having an old boyfriend serenade me with a Counting Crows song while he hugged me. I literally couldn’t get out of his grip. All I remember is wanting to run… run!! I was at his parent’s place in Toronto for the weekend so it was impossible. It was too cheesy for words.
A recurring musical nightmare I have is any Beatles fan picking up an acoustic guitar and showing me their skills in playing the opening to “Blackbird”. This must have happened to me a dozen times over the years.
Wait, how does that go again? I’ve got the guitar up… ha ha ha (evil):)
Or any Led Zep fan playing the guitar intro to “Stairway to Heaven.”
Or an aspiring bass player playing the intro to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ version of “Higher Ground”. Over. And over. And over again…
Aaaaugh! Making my head spin!!
Having to watch Third Eye Blind to get to Gomez. I really wonder what I was thinking with that one. I probably got in for free though.
I guess intro riffs are a major recurring musical nightmare. I thought I’d wiped out all memories of that “Stairway…” opening. Now I’m thinking of the opening to “Roundabout”!
Any more specific, horrific musical nightmares from our Townspeople? I’m sure there are!
hey, I used to promote these musical nightmares… I got stuck having to run a show with moronic Scottish punques “The Exploited”. Randy Now from City Gardens booked the show under false pretenses through an agency at the venue I used and once it was set, I ended up having to run the show as to not damage my standing with the booking agent. Just an total nightmare from start to finish.
Here’s a musical nightmare! Almost getting stuck with a $500 dollar dinner bill at a greek restaurant after interviewing and recording the band Symposium (UK pop/punk) in Detroit – it was us or their label rep… after the band excused themselves abruptly from the table to get to soundcheck, we slunk out faster than she could stare at us and say, ‘Um, waiter?!?’
Chuck, if you ever want to write up some of your best and worst promotion experiences, you’re welcome to publish them here. I can imagine you’ve got some amazing stories. Let me know if this is something you’d like to do, maybe all in one big batch or spread over time, maybe one a month, or whatever works for your schedule.
Go Phils!!!
Another musical nightmare story…
On my first tour with Mondo Topless in February 1997, we were booked on a Wednesday night in Wilmington, NC at a place called “The Sandwich Factory” by some guy allegedly named “Nick”. We showed up at said venue only to discover that it was a deli with about 8 tables, no stage, and no PA.
“Nick” arrived a while later, extremely high on crack. He and a crony managed to rustle up a PA-on-a-stick from the only other club in town, which thankfully did not have a show booked that night.
We played the gig to 5 people, one of whom was an extremely drunken Swede who showed up with a guitar and insisted loudly throughout our set that we allow him to come up on stage and “jam the blues” with us. Didn’t happen. “Nick” tried a similar move with a trumpet that didn’t look like it could even be played – nice try.
At the end of this fiasco, “Nick” said that he didn’t have our guarantee (my guess is it went into his pipe) and told us to “come back tomorrow (yeah, right). We haven’t played Wilmington since.
The Exploited headlined the first gig I ever played. The singer counted off each song by slamming his hand over the (club’s) microphone four times. The mike predictably broke after about three songs. The monitor soundman replaced the mike and signaled to the house soundman that the vocal mike was in channel 4. Before the house soundman had half a second to turn up the mike, the singer yowled into it, decided that the lack of sound meant that that mike was broken too, then spiked the mike onto the stage, probably breaking it too. This went on a few times on the course of the set. Finally they got cut off early, and there was much unpleasantness between the band and the club as they left. This was my introduction to playing gigs.
But as for my own nightmare, it’s an easy call: The Dave Matthews Band. The gulf between the mediocrity of the act and the going-wildness of the crowd was horrifying. They went wild when Matthews took a new pick off his mike stand. I’m completely serious.
Thanks, Jim. I will write up recollections of doing shows when apropos. Rick- Ya, what a pack of pig-shit ignorant buffoons the Exploited were. I was very pleased that when they toured America, they would be dogged everywhere by skinheads who took umbrage to their “Fuck The USA” song. I guess the bonehead skin element back then were good for something.
Well like a fair share of townspeople here who were/are in bands, I’m sure we all have horror stories to tell of shows and life on the road.
Speaking in general, one of the things I hated was that because the Dead Milkmen got stereotyped as “wacky” and “goofy” (side note: maybe a topic of discussion could be developed regarding humor in music…paging Mr. Zappa…), we were often paired with retched opening bands who were the local goof balls, OR some funky Red Hot Chili-Peppers wannabee’s. I blame the Peppers for spawning a whole genre of lame-ass pseudo funky crap-rock. (can we blame them for spawning jam-bands too?)
Speaking of specifics, one of my musical nightmares was attending a Stevie Nicks concert at the Spectrum – a girl I was sweet on at the time had a ticket. Dazzled by my friend’s charms, I agreed to go – at least as an observer of “the Nicks”. The crowd was filled with girls dressed just like her. I think that Mick Fleetwood was on drums so I can say I did get to see him live – complete with his hanging “balls”. A truly awful show.
Mrclean, let’s pick up on this humor in rock issue. Maybe we can get a dedicated thread started on the subject later today or tonight. Maybe you’d be willing to answer some direct questions in advance or on the fly. Others will be likely to offer their own experiences.
I’m especially curious to hear how your band dealt with it. You were really funny, but seeing you up close, it seemed that the humor in your music and performances stemmed from your relationship as musicians (and the fact that Rodney and Dave were naturally two of the funniest people I’d ever met).
Let’s see what we can do. Thanks.
Hey Dean first off I’d like to say it’s an honor to read this stuff as I’ve loved The Dead Milkmen since I was 15. I have to say I agree with you 100% on RHCP. How did punk/funk go from truly great (Gang of Four/Minutemen/Big Boys, etc.) to so awful? I definitely blame RHCP and Faith No More not just for spawning awful pseudo-funky crap rock, as you say, but also nu metal (same difference).
I do have an actual question, though. What was it like to play with The Wipers when both your band and they were on Enigma? I know you two toured together at some point in the late ’80s. I consider them a truly great band, but from what I’ve read, the audiences didn’t really appreciate them like many openers (even good ones).
Matthew: I will have to say that I did like early RHCP. We played a show with them early on at Fender’s Ballroom (with The Meat Puppets also on the bill – read about it here: http://www.deadmilkmen.com/tourstories/archives/000076.html)
As for the Wipers – I do remember playing a show with them but not much about it or them. We probably got paired up only by way of the Enigma connection? My recollection is that they were always a “critic’s favorite” and never met with popular success (another topic of conversation Mr. Moderator?)
As for our audience not appreciating our openers – read this recollection of a show in Atlanta with the Sun City Girls. We thought they were fantastic – the crowd had a little trouble with them: http://www.deadmilkmen.com/2006/03/21/a-blast-from-the-past/
I’ll toss out a nightmare: I was at a fundamentalist Christian wedding reception with no alcohol listening to the guests singing along to Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville”. I still haven’t quite peeled apart all the levels of wrongness.
I went to see Marshall Crenshaw at the TLA several years ago. The opener was this guy named Peter Stuart, from the band “Dog’s Eye View.” It wasn’t just that I hated his music – which I did – it was that his lyrics would contain either curse words or sexual innuendo where he would cock his head and make a face, like a little kid trying out a word he knew was bad, thinking he was being sly. He reminded me a bit of Adam Sandler.
I remember desperately wanting to get up and leave, but I was stuck in the middle of a row and would’ve had to get past 12 people to escape. Afterward, I found out that my friends all had the same reaction, we should’ve split en masse. Honestly, I really thought the guy deserved a swift kick in the nuts, that would’ve been awesome.
Bostonhistorian, that takes the cake!
Mrclean – love the Milkmen! Saw you open for the RHCP on the Mother’s Milk tour. In a reverse nightmare, I wore long, chili pepper earrings to the show, and was in the mosh pit when people started pointing at me and making horrified faces. I was sweating like a fiend and I was wondering what was going on. When I got out of the pit and joined a friend, she pointed and kept asking if I was alright. The red earrings had “melted” with the sweat and I had 2 long red marks of paint down my neck. I think they were ready to get me to the hospital.
I got to see Warren Zevon once, a couple years before he died. David fucking Lindley opened and all these hippies came out and started doing hippy dances. I guess Lindley took this as a sign to play longer because his opening act turned into a double feature in his mind. We were treated to his little hippie diatribe againsts SUV’s between songs. I wish I’d had an SUV to run his hippie ass over. Look at the fucking poster, Lindley. Warren Zevon in big letters, your in small. Get the fuck off the stage, hippy.
And why is it that when people are on a sail boat, they must only listen to crap? Granted, my sample is of about 3 sailboats, but I have been sickened each time, and not from the waves or the booze. #1 Tracy Chapman. Over and over and over. #2 Jimmy Buffet (with extra pause/replay of Cheeseburger in Paradise or Margaritaville) #3 Christopher Cross – THE WHOLE ALBUM with Sailing on it.
Little known fact: the playing of Buffett and over and over caused the mutiny on the Bounty.
I saw Los Lobos open for Buddy Guy at the Kimmel Center (the big fancy symphony hall in Philadelphia for all you out of towners). I was there to see Los Lobos and they were great.
Then came Buddy Guy. I have very mixed feelings about the blues but it boils down to this: For me, it is an extremely limited genre and I don’t want to hear anything recorded after about 1962 or so. I know he played with Howlin’ Wolf and all but I just find his style to be really dull. The crowd was very middle aged white lefty-suburban. I left after some woman yelled out “You’re the real deal, Buddy” in the middle of a very quiet solo during a breakdown. I never got a look at her but I can guarantee that she had a mom haircut and Birkenstocks.
I once saw the Cranberries. End of anecdote.
http://perezhilton.com/2010-07-02-james-camerons-next-3d-movie-avatar-2-black-eyed-peas
Paul McCartney wants to duet with me.
But he wants to play the songs he did with Michael Jackson and I have to sing the Michael parts.
“….No, really, right after Hendrix should be Steve Howe, seriously….Think about it…will ya?…..”
Must…wake…up…too…horrible…
But y’all have come up with some good ones. How about an endless loop of RHCP playing Cheeseburger in Paradise? Sweet Jesus, get me out of here!
I love David fucking Lindley. Stay on the stage, hippie!
Sydney, Australia, 1987. Opening Scene: a large professional sound hire and second hand music shop in the inner city. Enter Beenreepin, an 18 year old guitar nut with dreams of superstardom. Been walks through the racks of second hand axes and picks out a Gretsch White Falcon copy and starts hammering out ACDC riffs on a nearby amp, much to the delight of the store staff and customers (not).
On about the 208th attempt at the opening riff to “Jailbreak” a short figure with long dark hair sits down next to Been and asks what he’s playing. “Um, Accadacca, Jailbreak” he mumbled. “Know any more ACDC?” the mystery figure asks. “Yeah, heaps” responds Been and proceeds to do to the intro to “Riff Raff” what booze did to Bon Scotts liver.
The mystery figure corrects a few finger positions for Been and then asks “You must really love that band, hey?”
“Yeah, used to but they don’t tour anymore. Last time they toured was in ’81 and I was too young to go. They’ve sold out. I follow the Angles now” (Aussie pub band on the same label as ADCD, toured the US as “Angel City” – best live gigs in the history of music).
The mystery figure simles and walks off, past the shop staff who Been realises have been watching the whole episode.
Later, as Been proceeds to the counter to buy a packet of shiny new picks and a string winder (all he can afford at the time) the guy behind the counter says “so you’re not an ACDC fan then?”
“Well, yeah, I am acutally. Have all their albums. I just wish they’d tour more often.”
At this the store clerk starts cracking up laughing. “Well Ive got some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that they’re about to announce some dates for Sydney next year. The bad news is that bloke you just told that you prefer the Angels to ACDC is Stevie Young (Angus & Malcolms cousin) and you just missed out on some backstage passes, my friend”.
I have never had the guts to tell my mates, and it remains a shameful secret to this day.
It turns out later that Stevie replaced Malcolm on their 1988 tour as Malcolm was fighting alcoholism at the time.
Moral of the story: Never diss a band to a stranger – you dont know who you’re talking too.
I was on a first date years ago where a woman told me about the greatest moment of her life. Seems she’s was nursing a broken heart when Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” was a hit. It was a revelation, “there MUST be a Higher Love” than with this guy who dumped her she thought. To honor the man who got her through the break-up, she brought a dozen roses to the Steve Winwood show at the Spectrum and presented them to him during the song. Everyone was patting her on the back afterward and congratulating her, and she became one with the crowd. “Isn’t that cool?” (cue to me to have the proper reaction).
That was the same date that we bumped into a friend of hers who related a tragic moment from her day: her dad was helping her move into a new apartment and while carrying a box his artificial leg fell off and he landed “right on his stump!” (cue to Dan to show proper reaction, i.e. not giggling…)
Great tales, all, keep ’em coming. beenreepin, it’s good to have you back. I kept thinking you’d appear during Australia’s run through the RTH World Cup with news that you have found a loophole allowing Motorhead to join the Aussie team.
Thanx Mod,
Thought I’d avoid the world cup – us Aussies have never been much chop at the round ball game. I’ll stick to Rugby. I’d have put in Rose Tattoo as we can’t claim Motorhead.
Ladymisskir, as an avid sailor I hear you pain – you leap on board looking forward to a pleasant day on the water only to be subject to some of the worst MOR/AOR dross ever committed to disc. What seems to go really well with sailing for me is spanish influenced stuff – Flamenco guitar, Bossa Nova, Latin dance (not venturing into Tito Puente style stuff though, too much on a boat) – or alternatively, electro chillout music. Rock in its many forms however does not, sadly, work on a yacht (powerboat, maybe).
Was once in 45 knots and 4-5 meter seas and the skipper was playing Vivaldi’s Quattro Staggione and Wagner’s Valkyrie through the cockpit speakers – worked for me!
Beenreepin – next time I’m asailing, I’ll be bringing your suggestions. Thanks!
Conversely, I like to imagine McCartney coming up to me and saying “Let’s do Say Say Say, only I do the Michael parts and you do the me parts!” He’d offer me a lyric sheet, but I’d be all “Come on, Paul, like I don’t know all the lyrics to Say Say Say?”
Been’s (great) story somehow proves that Australia needed to play “Jailbreak” in the World Cup of Rock to advance.
Dan, did you actually manage to not laugh at the Steve Winwood story? I know I could make it through the leg-falling-off one without laughing, but I truly have no idea if I’d be able to muster up any faux-sincerity for the Higher Love love.
I can’t think of anything close to as good as this stuff, but I went to a cousin’s wedding where I believe she declared the best gift to be tickets to a Jimmy Buffett show. Naturally, the music selection followed a similar plan, and only headachey light beer was available to help for those not drinking margaritas. I can’t stand tequila or Buffett, but of the two I probably could have stomached the agave more easily. I believe I began to grow a contact beard from all the Michael McDonaldish stuff that was played. I also remember being lambasted by her older sister for going to this wedding and not hers, which occurred a few years earlier. I just said I promise I’ll go to your next wedding.