Drunken/Doped-up band members................

[Richard Sinkler]

I've never consumed alcohol or used drugs. Not because I was better than anyone else but rather, I'd played too many gigs where the lead guitarist or whomever after too many drinks, always professed that he played better after about 1/2 dozen drinks.

LOUDER! Yes...........
BETTER! Nope..........

Yes, we all know it takes ten drinks to start to sound good.

[Steve Spitz]

I don't have to drink to have a good time, but I guess you got to wash the pills down with something.....

[Steven Albrecht]

our Band, have a written agreement, no more than 1 beer ever on a gig, we have been together almost 4 years now and have only been praised for the committment to our music and not the party factor, we still have a great time with the crowds

[Jim Cohen]

I don't have to drink to have a good time, but I guess you got to wash the pills down with something.....

Physician, right?

[Joe Casey]

I never did believe in drinking while driving. You hit a bump and you spill it all over the car. Besides alcaline and gasoloon don't mix.

[Charlie McDonald]

I never drink anything stronger than pop, and there wasn't anything pop wouldn't drink.--Mad Magazine, ca. 1960

[Richard Sinkler]

[Alan Brookes]

...no more than 1 beer ever on a gig...

I'll go along with that. Beer and Jack Daniels don't go well together.

[Mark Hershey]

played in a punk band, we had a gig in Brooklyn, we got loaded and it was like that scene in the blues brothers where the fans were throwing beers at as up on stage. We were sloppy but it was a great gig.

We played a follow up gig in Ann Arbor and we doubled down on our intake. We smoked weed, drank way too much booze and beer before the set. It was a complete disaster of a show, I'm not even exaggerating when I say didn't make it through more than 2 measures of music. For all the wrong reasons though, a few people told us they thoroughly enjoyed the 'show'.

[Jim Fogarty]

I don't drink onstage anymore.....

.....it interferes with my crack habit.

[Mike Neer]

I was very shocked to read in his autobiography that Herbie Hancock had developed a crack habit which he kept hidden for years. Was not expecting that!

[Jim Fogarty]

I was very shocked to read in his autobiography that Herbie Hancock had developed a crack habit which he kept hidden for years. Was not expecting that!

Yeah.....that's shocking, indeed. I wonder if it was around the time he was hanging out with Laswell and the whole "Downtown" scene? That always seemed an odd fit for Herbie.

[Charlie McDonald]

Everybody was doing something... everybody.

[Joe Casey]

everybody was doing something I always hired guys that knew the difference between a Job and a party. They sure knew how to party.

[Dick Wood]

I don't have to drink to have a good time, but I guess you got to wash the pills down with something.....

I nearly spit coffee into my computer when I read that line.

Thanks for a good Friday morning laugh.

[W. C. Edgar]

I remember a buddy of mine telling me about Jimmy Day years ago.
He kicked the song off then laid his head back down on the strings he was so wasted.
When it came time for the ride, like clockwork he raised his head up and played the ride.
Funny thing was, he said you could see the lines of the strings on his forehead.

[Paul Wade]

I don't drink onstage anymore.....

.....it interferes with my crack habit.

p.w

[Louis Armentaro]

Nov. 7, 2015 On the subject of drinking playing a gig, my rules were to my musicians: You are getting paid to play, not to drink. If you want to drink, quit and go to the bar, it's your last job with me. At 91 years old, I am still playing. i HAD NO TOLERANCE FOR DRINKING. That's for weak people or ones who can't stand adversity. So there. Louis

[Earnest Bovine]

All these posts are making me thirsty.

[Ray Montee]

Really, I sorta of had a soft pot for drinkers.....

They'd go of into the woods with their buddies for a week or a long weekend.

It didn't take me long to realize that they were leaving their good looking horny wives at home alone.
I felt as a band member, that it was my civic duty to
take care of the home front and that I did. Quite well, I do believe.

[Charlie McDonald]

Really, I sorta of had a soft pot....

Thought this was going a different direction, but the home situation improved, civic duty and all.
Looks like the smart guys stayed out of the drug and drinking scene.

[Don Ricketson]

All this makes me think of the good old days when the first thing you heard on the bandstand was "Hey is any body holding)? Them days of the white crosses and pink hearts and black mollies. That's what made some of those pros so good. All they wanted to do was play a gig then go set up at some ones house and finish the night then take their steel home and practice the next day:-). Yep them was the daze.

[Eric Philippsen]

I'm old enough to have been in the time where every steel player was playing all the time. Drinking? Doping on the gig? Looking back I now realize it was stupid and, as far as I'm concerned, I consider myself lucky to be alive.

I do know this for sure, though. Tapes don't lie and the ones I heard of me back then were just plain embarrassing.

[Tommy Shown]

Ray, I have played with guys who were drunk and doped. And it ain't fun. I look at it this way. The person who owns the venue hired the band I was in to do a job, and that job, was to perform for the owner's clientele. I would usually drink one beer, before the gig, UT for the rest of the night while I there, It COCA COLA ALL THE WAY with nothing added. I did that because I would like to come back and p[lay again for him. I left a band after one night of working with them, back in 81, because the lead singer and the lead guitar player were, TWO HOURS late getting to the gig. And when they arrived, I could smell the WACKY BACKY about their person. I finished out the night, but that was it. I am REALLY PICKY about who I play music with. I remember my mother telling, about the time she and her brother were playing a gig, back in the 1940s. Her brother left a drink on the bandstand and he took a break for the restroom. He returned after the break, and took a sip. He looked at my mother , who was the drummer in the band and said . "THAT'S NOT MY DRINK"! It seemed someone on the dancefloor put something in his drink while the band took a break.