The Steel Guitar Forum

WOW! A chainsaw, guns, suicide, people dropping dead, bar fights, naked dancers, naked band members
... I gave up my law practice for this?

After more years of doing this than I want to admit to, I have been in a lot of these same situations, shootings, police raids, the whole bit. A couple of
years age we played what had to be the redneck social
event of the year.

Loving wife hired us to play for her husband's 40th birthday party in a quonset hut, open at both ends.
She paid us when we arrived, thank goodness. The
highlight of the party was to be a stripper she hired. At the appointed time, they ran all the kiddies out the end of the building. Of course, they
simply ran around to the other end behind the band, to watch the procedings. By then, the whole crowd of adults has taken drunk.

Hubby is seated in a chair in the center as stripper
woman begins to do her thing. She then proceeds to sit on hubby's lap. Well, he's enjoying it a little
too much to suit her employer (said loving wife).
Said loving wife begins to cuss, cry and flail.
Other drunk party goers try to restrain her and soon the whole throng is fighting. After a while, they break up into smaller groups inside and outside the
building, still fiighting, cussing and crying.

We stealthily packed up and slunk away.

I played for a wet T-shirt contest every Thursday night for a year. I was in the house band 5 nights a week. Every night was crazy, but Thursdays were especially wild. On wet T-shirt night the club was full of guys banging their beer bottles on the tables. A real classy gig! As the girls danced we played "Hold It", or some other funky tune, and the guys poured the water... you know the routine. Once in a while a girl would face the band and "upshirt" us. One night a drunk guy got out on the floor wearing nothing but his underpants. We started playing "Hold It". He took a pitcher of water, stepped into the wading pool and poured the water down his front, while doing a drunken dance, and then he dropped his drawers for the whole audience to see... Man, that was Ugly! After that gig I decided to reassess the direction of my career!

Doug, while taking notes of strange and unusual "clientele" or paying customers, I would call attention to a husky band of rowdies who patronized our few bookings in a hinterland village. Luckily my steel was on an elevated stage, where I could look the other way. One member of the clan was called the "moon man" for obvious reasons. At a selected moment he would moon our audience while dancing near the stage. That place left me with memories galore.(not a pretty picture).. Another gig became a source of surprises when a real jackass was let into the room that we were set up in. The adjoining bar was nearby, off to the side in the same room. I questioned the intrusion, only to learn that the jackass was treated to one beer at the bar around midnight. Apparently it was a tradition at The White Stallion Club in Hillsdale, N.Y. In any event, the animal was unbelievably calm as he finished his beer and turned to find the door. It was a night to remember. In the course of the night a rock 'n roller who claimed he had worn out a Fender guitar while playing with The Party Cats ruffled my patience. He attempted to intimidate me further by claiming he could blow the walls out, if allowed to play. As he turned away, a banjoist barged through the door with his son, and was quickly assigned to making an immediate guest appearance. He was an established entertainer living in nearby Connecticut. I remember playing "Caravan" that evening on my guitar, no doubt while the jackass was in the room. (not the banjoist)