Spinal Tap stories

[Almost Yearly]

Cuh, no umlaut available on an n, how thoughtless.


Right. I know lots of Whores have been in a band or three. You only have to be in a band for five minutes before your first Spinal Tap experience occurs. I've got loads, such as:


(i) We somehow ended up playing in a tent in the middle of the afternoon somewhere in France. It was a cafe, this tent, and there were no customers. During the soundcheck, there was a massive horrible booming feedback going on with the bass, and try as we might we couldn't fathom out the problem. Spookily, it turned out to be a teacup which the bass player had left on top of his amp to use as an ashtray. Cup off, feedback gone. Cup replaced, feedback back. This was, of course, impossible. The cup did have a gilt metallic rim ... nah, impossible. We had discovered Discrete Teacup Feedback - alert Lou Reed.

(ii) Same gig - Our happy clappy pub rock set included a call-and-response section, in the middle of the INXS song Need You Tonight. Yes, I know. When we reached that part of the song we realised too late that we hadn't agreed not to do the call-and-response, what with the lack of audience and all. Besides, on the bright side, there was now one family sitting at a table at the back, looking on uncomfortably as their toddler scooted around in front of us on his little toy bus. So like a trooper our singer initiated the call-and-response. "I've gat to let you know," he went, and turned his mic towards the imaginary crowd so they might copy him. We stopped dead, as arranged. All you could hear was the wheel on the bus going weekyweekyweeky.

(iii) Once, after an encore rendition of Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith, three big German bikers insisted we were so good we should stub our cigarettes out on their forearms. We politely declined all British like. No really, it's quite alright, we said. But they looked irked, so we went ahead and did it. Fsss. Fss. This one's for my grandad in the trenches. Fssss.


Give us yours.

[NattyDread]

That 2nd one is class.
We once played a concert with loads of other bands who were arguing about being first up. We ended up getting so pissed off with the other bands whining, we agreed to go on first. Unfortunately, we hadn't realised how soon that was, so when the M.C introduced us, we had to shout from the wings- 'won't be a tic, our singer's on the bog'. Warmed the crowd to us, that did.

[Peking O]

A band I was in got some time at a plush recording studio once. We were nervous but well rehearsed, so figured everything would go OK. As the studio techy people helped us set up one of them cracked a joke in a laboured I've-told-this-a-million-times-before kind of way:

"This is the point where the drummer realises he's left the snare drum at home"

Yep, you guessed it, as the drummer sorted through his kit piece by piece he had indeed left the snare in his squalid bedsit. Ho-hum.

[Almost Yearly]

Heh - I have done that very thing myself. Ended up recording a four song demo with someone else's turdy snare, mic'd all wrong by a particularly dozy "engineer" (I didn't know any better at the time). Somehow (beware too much volume in the control room) we managed to convince ourselves it was an interesting, unique sound, until we got home many quids down the drain later and discovered in fact it sounded like somebody dropping a stale biscuit into a biscuit tin.


More...

(iv) Playing homespun metal in a biker pub (cunts) in Bristol, this lairy "prospect" (arselicky ultracunts) grabs the singer's mic in the middle of a guitar solo and shouts at the guitarist to "Shut the fuck up," in order to impress the proper bikers. The guitarist doesn't stop, and merely stares back at the twat with those utterly vacant eyes guitarists have when you talk to them while they're playing (they even nod as if they're listening don't they). So the prospect lamps him and a fight ensues which only the drummer escapes from (that's me, haha). The guitarist absolutely creams the prospect and plays the rest of the gig with blood all over his hand. Rawk.

(v) Worst use of an Alice band in a Murph and the Magitones setting goes to...

...Almost Yearly. Seldom has baldness come as such a relief to anyone. T-shirt naff enough? We used to play a Santana track or two there, because it's on a beach, natch, and the place had a dressing up box for parties, and we all wore massive sombreros. Well one night the bass player had a new girl in the crowd and his sombrero slipped down over his eyes and he played and backing vox'd the whole of Dance Sister Dance completely blind, and he looked so funny she wet herself. Not just a little pelvic floor squirt, she let the whole lot go. Didn't put him off though; probably encouraged him.
'Bout ten years ahead of my time with the Alice though wasn't I.

(vi) In another band, we used to finish with Smells Like Teen Spirit. Yes, I know. At one gig, some bloke started up his disco next door and drib by drab we lost our whole audience. As we crunched to the end of SLTS, I suddenly realised he was playing the bloody original. Now I'm not usually like this, but I'm afraid to say I went storming up to his little box and punched his face very hard.

(vii) In another gig which also turned out to be a fucking restaurant, they would only let us occupy the space of a table for four. I had kick, hi-hat, snare (with a t-shirt over it) and splash. The waiter had to wait for our quiet bits to continue taking orders. A family sat at the table right next to me and this fat ten year old wanted Knocking On Heaven's Door, because Guns'n'Wankers had it in the charts at the time. His dad gave us some money. The singer deferred vocals to me, bless him, and as I tippy tapped away I had to sing the damn thing à la Axl to this spoiled brat sitting right next to me, stuffing himself as he watched.


I've got loads, as I say. C'mon bandy people.

[23 Daves]

The female lead singer of a band I was in used to do "band astrological charts" and picked members often on the benefit of their star signs alone (it's how I got in).  

She was a pain in the arse in all other respects.  She once waited until halfway through a major showcase gig in London (and halfway through a bloody good song) to complain that she couldn't hear all of the band.  "I can't hear them!  I can't hear them!  This is fucked up!  Sorry, this sounds fucking shit!".  It did not endear us to the A&R throng who were looking for a full band with a professional attitude to such problems.  

I was also in a band once with someone who believed he could get in touch with Hendrix on the spiritual plane - more Bad News than Spinal Tap that one. He used to fiddle with ouija boards trying to contact Hendrix.  He also used to go on such elongated guitar solos with no regard for what everyone else was doing that we would often creep round to the back of his amp whilst he was pulling gurning faces with his mouth with his eyes shut, and turn the power to the whole thing off.  He would then spend the next few seconds continuing to play and gurn, before regaining concentration and realising that we'd unplugged him.  This made him seem so foolish that he'd often go into a strop for the rest of the day.

[Almost Yearly]

The female lead singer of a band I was in used to do "band astrological charts" and picked members often on the benefit of their star signs alone (it's how I got in).  

She was a pain in the arse in all other respects.

Well that one's right on the money, Janine. We can only beat that with a real life miniature stage prop or an air force base. Come to think of it, I have had the pleasure of the AA on the PA ... Testing, two, two, t- Pickup Fiat Uno Tesco's car park, two ... but that's fairly common. Minicabs, etc.

[boki]

Heh - I have done that very thing myself. Ended up recording a four song demo with someone else's turdy snare, mic'd all wrong by a particularly dozy "engineer" (I didn't know any better at the time). Somehow (beware too much volume in the control room) we managed to convince ourselves it was an interesting, unique sound, until we got home many quids down the drain later and discovered in fact it sounded like somebody dropping a stale biscuit into a biscuit tin.

You are Lars Ulrich and I claim my five virgin goats.

[Ambient Sheep]

Oh God, where do I start?  And how to find ones that match AY's standard?  Trouble is, all the worst memories are 20 years old and have been drunk away.  The only one that comes to mind is this:

I was the sound/lighting guy and general technical bod for a small local band back in about 1984/5.  As such I always recorded - on my own initiative - each gig on cassettes, which I then tended to keep.  Some of the other members kept pestering me for copies, which not having two tape decks handy I couldn't make; and I was loathe to lend out the original, being an awkward sod.

So, after one gig, our drummer just walks up at the end of the gig while I'm in the bog or something, swipes the tape out of the ghettoblaster (the desk wasn't sophisticated enough to provide a feed!), and goes home with it.  Unfortunately about 15 minutes earlier, while the band had been packing up, I'd had a stand-up drunken row with a young lady (not a girlfriend) which had been gloriously committed to tape in all its gruesome entirety.

The next rehearsal was quite uncomfortable, as various members of the band took turns to recite choice lines from my drunken fury back at me...

There's also the *nice* story of a gig I played when I was about 16, involving being mobbed by a bunch of salivating 14-year-old girls, but I'm *sure* you don't want to hear about that, do you?

Oh, and Yearly, I don't see an Alice band in that photo, must be my eyes.  How old is the photo, out of interest?

[Gazeuse]

I've not been in many bands, but I've heard some fantastic stories, like one where a certain singer got stroppy on a night out on the town with his band, so they chucked his crutches in a river leaving him stranded...Band doing a dream gig in Greece go scuba diving and swim under a high overhanging rock which the guitarist is crapping from into the sea to watch high velocity turds enter the water...Member of public gives backing band a camera to and asks them to take backstage pics of squeaky clean star. Of course, they take pics of each others arses before handing the camera back.

But here's one of my own. I was in a punk band at the end of the seventies. On our first gig, our singer (Without telling us) decided to burst onstage twirling a union flag around his head. Infortunately, after a couple of twirls, the flag got caught over his face and he dropped to one knee clutching at it to tear it away from his face so he could start singing. We were booed off soon after.

[Morrisfan82]

(arselicky ultracunts)

I think my mate's band supported them.

And what's wrong with the tom on the left in that photo? It looks like it's been left in a hot car.

I'm not really good enough to play bestow my 'playing' on the the paying public, so I only really have one anecdote about a practice session. Maybe later...

[Pilf]

Despite not having any Spinal Tap moments come to mind. I just want to express my love of this thread - AY's stories had me killing myself laughing.

And to NattyDread, you must listen to Half Man Half Biscuit - Running Order Squabble Fest if you haven't heard it (I'll post a link to an mp3 of it when I get home tonight).

"You're going on after Crispy Ambulance"

[no_offenc]

(arselicky ultracunts)

I think my mate's band supported them.

And what's wrong with the tom on the left in that photo? It looks like it's been left in a hot car.

It'd have to be parked pretty close to the sun to melt wood.

[twatloops]

Jesus, where to begin?

First time I played a major festival, my kit got delayed so I was rushing around during the day looking for a kit to borrow.  In the end, the only one that anyone would lend me was a clowns drumkit painted in different colours thats only use in it's normal stage show was to be fallen over repeatedly.

The manager's 11 year old son came on tour with us so we had to think of varying ways of getting him to shut the fuck up.  I bought him a huge gobstopper and told him if he could eat it all before we arrived at the next venue, I'd give him a fiver.  Needless to say, the three hour journey flew past in silence.  However, when we got there, the gobstopper had magically disappeared.  Not wanting to fork out the cash, I leapt from the bus door with an eleven year old boy clinging to my shoulders shouting "Where's my fiver you promised?  I've been sucking for the last three hours!"  Now that's how to make an entrance...

We used to open our gigs with an improvised jam thing in whatever mood we were in that night just so we were nicely warmed up.  One night we were playing in Preston ("Depreston") when we had the grand audience of 1 chap sat at the front table.  Bearing in mind we had quite a stage setup with drapes, midi footswitches, drum racks etc, it was somewhat overkill.  To make the most of it, we decided to do the whole gig in whatever key, tempo or mood the guy suggested.  Actually turned out to be great fun as he got really into his glorified jukebox.

The gearbox failed on our tourbus one night and Green Flag decided that it was at that point they'd decided they didn't want to provide cover after accepting our money for 8 months.  The result was our driver had to drive from Cardiff to Sheffield in first gear.  Yep.  All the way.

A guy who was trying to impress us into becoming our manager booked us a gig at a very posh venue.  Thinking it was a little odd, we went along with somewhat doubtful thoughts only to find it was the 80th anniversary of the local University Geology Department and all the guests were in full dinner jackets and ballgowns.  Bearing in mind we only played original material and were pretty loud, it wasn't too surprising when halfway through the first track, a man came rushing to the stage with one hand covering his ear and another with a wad of cash in his hand to make us stop.  We then had to strip all the gear down and carry it out in front of a silent hall of geologists.  As the guitarist left the stage for the last time, he somehow caught his pocket and a cascade of kingsize rizla exploded everywhere, floating to the ground around him.

Loads more but that's enough for now...

Tad