Misbooking

[Lazy Bee]

Very early in my career I had an eye opening experience as a result of a misbooking. It wasn't the only one I would experience in the following years but by far the best...

Our band went on the road pretty early all things considered. We had been putting a show together for a couple years rehearsing a night or two a week. Struggling with our work schedules, learning to play our instruments, fighting over material, gathering p.a. and lighting equipment, transportation...the usual amature stuff.

The only gigs we had played were private parties and a pool hall that used to cover a couple tables with ply wood and set up a band. Good days actually. We were from a small town in the midwest and I had been contacting agents in Denver. As a result of one of those contacts we landed a gig in Colorado Springs in a club that was booked by an agent out of Montana. Our first road gig. :) It was a little joint and it went very well. As a result of that job, the Montana agent called us to see if we would be interested in working with them. That led to a couple of things in Wyoming. Those were gigs that few good bands out of Denver wanted to do ...for good reasons. Anyways we did two more gigs with that agent and they went well also.

At this point we were in the balance...to quit our jobs or not. We were in the process of working out a three month tour when the agent called needing a band to go to Salt Lake City and do a week long gig. We worked out schedlues and went for it. I was the king of BS back then without even knowing it. The club bought the band off of our promo pak and an agent who was better at BS than me. The agent hadn't seen us yet and was going off the feedback and our promo pack. We had a decent demo and picture. Our bio, that I had written, had things in it that I had heard over the years that I thought were cool. Things like "Tidal wave of human energy" and "Triple guitar threat" I was just having fun. We were a Southern Rock knock off at the time and really pushed that. Skynyrds plane had gone down that year and we were "carrying the torch"...in our minds anyway....stupid kids!!.

The club had a band fall out at the last minute and was in a jam, we were in.

After driving some 7 to 800 miles we show up in downtown Salt Lake in an old school bus with the school names blacked out with black spray paint. Now we had played some hog roasts, a pool hall, and three different 100 seat clubs. That was it!! We now arrive at a full blown 2000 seat rock palace. The band the week before was Rail, a premiere metal ban out of Seattle. They carried a semi truck load of gear. (We found that out later) We had a Peavy 12 channel mixer, 400 watts, and two Peavy SP 1s for mains. Our sound man was a buddy who had been carrying gear for us so he got the job of sound man. We used two mics on the drums and had about eight lights. Two of them were of the home made coffee can porch light variety. You get the picture. We were in over our heads big time!!

The manager who met us for load in was quite gracious. He told us he had been running a radio spot that featured several excerpts from our "bio" all weekend long. In fact there was quite a buzz, people had been calling in asking if we were former Skynyd members. I felt like puking clothes hangers. "Tidal wave of human energy?" I swiped that from a Rush review for crying out loud.

We opened that night, a Monday, to a crowd of 350 at 9 oclock sharp. The crowd dwindled quickly and by 11:45 the owner came into the dressing room during a break and said we could "stop now." Everybody had left. He said that this was misbooking. That was the first time I heard that phrase. I've never forgotten it! He was not mad at us. The agent held responsibility in his opinion. But he had to salvage the week. He said if we'd do the work, and go pick up (rent) a real pa, he'd give us another shot.

Boy this is getting long isn't it? Anybody interested in how the week panned out.

[telemarker]

Yeah, you can't stop the story there... :cool:

[scott powell]

dont leave me hanging here :eek:

[76Strat]

yea i wanna hear

[Crashtard]

I was just getting into it to... I NEED MORE!!

[Burana_400]

Pleeeease continue, sounds very interesting and you left the story in a situation where we MUST hear what happened next.

we want more, we want more, we want more...

[Sexymonkey]

What's misbooking?

[Lazy Bee]

Thanks for reading guys. It's fun to look back on this stuff.

That night we went to the motel and pretty much hung our heads.. We were to meet the manager in the morning to get our gear out and go pick up the rental equipment.

One of the guys wanted to pull out and go home. He was mad at me for getting us into this situation. The rest of us wanted to stay on so we did. The other guy quit the band two weeks later. The "triple guitar threat" would be soon end. :rolleye:

We showed up on time. The manager was so cool, he told us they were not in the buisness of firing bands. They were in the buisness of building and presenting bands. He didn't hold back though. We did a terrible job the night before and we knew it. He told us to calm down and pull ourselves together. He said we pretty much lacked in every area of live performance. But they could see we could play and they liked our set list but we needed to get it together fast. He said to go get the gear, we got you a killer sound man, get a good sound check, have a nice dinner, and "give us show tonight."

Everybody that day was so cool to us. We eaily could have been considered a joke and sent on our way. Seriously, it was a concert club that featured excellent rock acts. The owner was also the owner of an indie lable that had Rick Derringer signed for a while after his decline. They regularly booked national acts. And here they were trying to help us.

Off to the store...

The guys at the store were very cool, we knew they knew what was going on. They could have treated like chumps, but they made us feel great. They took us to the back room where they stored the B 3 organ that Gregg Rollie, keyboard player for Santana, played at Woodstock. We were all like "we're not worhty, we're not worthy" The p.a. the owner ordered up was awesome. They told us "you're gonna like this" It became the model for the p.a. we eventually owned. Two of everything per side. 18s 15s 10s 2"horns 1"horns. Lots of power, processing and a nice board. Not a monster sysytem, but it turned out to have amazing punch. Oh yeah we picked up a multi colored spot light also.

Sound check began with the kick drum...I was blown away, I'd never heard our drummer sound like before. :D I was in rock and roll heaven. We played a few tunes, got dialed in and headed to the motel room.

As we got ready for the night it was really gut check time. The one gutarist wasn't with us and you could tell it, he was still whinin. But the rest of us were doing our best to focus and get ready for this. We all wanted to tour and do this for a living, and two months ago we were playing a farm house party not far from a hog lot...ya know?. We knew the oppurtunity that was in front of us. The club owner may have been mad at the agent, but I wasn't. He got us this gig and we had a three month tour on the line with him. We needed to deliver. Plus, for me, this was it, were we a real band or not?

We opened at 9 oclock sharp to a crowd of a couple hundred or so. Just the sound lifted the band. I felt good about things. We played better than we ever had. At the time our lead singer was our drummer, sounds odd I know, but it really bacame one of our calling cards. And he was really, really good. But we all sang a little to give him a break and add some variety to the songlist. About half way into the first set it was my turn to sing one. I stepped into the spotlight to sing Roadhouse Blues by the Doors and was instantly done in. As I approached the mic I got real nervous, the spot light from the back of the room swung my way and I was blinded. The crowd disappeared, the room just went away, and I got lost in a tunnel of white light while the band thundered away. I was at complete ease and pumped at the same time. My life made sense all the sudden. lol I know that sounds a little dramatic...but it was quite a moment. Maybe ya had to be there.

During the first break we all just stayed in the dresing room feeling pretty good about things. The crowd seemed to appreciate what we doing. We knew we sounded our best and we felt comfortable.

We normally closed the night with Freebird...remember this was a looooong time ago. :) We decided to close the second set with it since it was one of our strongest songs. We wanted to get it out there early. We left the stage in a strong round of applause after playing it. We were all in the dressing room doing high fives, laughing, and really feeling good when..."the knock" hit the dressing room door. It was the owner. He came in smiling and asked "How you guys feeling?" I dont know what I said. He told us we were doing better but he still needed to change some things. He asked if would be interested in opening for the rest of the week for another band. He felt we didn't have enough strong material to carry the week but he thought we would make a good opener. Of course we agreed.

By the end of the week were playin to a full house. The club allways filled up on the weekend regardless of who was there. They could pack aroung 2500 in and they did. We were doing it. The crowd really liked us. The band they brought in was a local three piece with a Police like sound. Really good. One by one different club employees came around and congratulated us for pulling it off. The club was so big there were different merchants in the building. We didn't know it but on Monday they voted wether or not to fire us. One guy who had a food joint in the club came up to me and told me he had voted to can us, but was really glad it all worked out. He said he liked us.

When the owner paid us Saturday night he had a long talk with us. He told us things we carried with us the rest of our band days. I could talk about club owners all day and not come up with many good ones to talk about, but that guy finished out our band for us and sent us on our way. He held out the agents fee and told me not to worry about that, he'd handle it. :D The agent...now that'a another story!

The next week we played a little bitty rock pub in Jackson Hole Wyoming called The Mangey Moose. The place held about 75 people comfortably. We barely got our equipment in. :rotf: We finally squeezed the SP 1s in the corners some how. We tore that place apart and became a house favorite for a while.

If they had fired us in Salt Lake, I dont what would have happened. Maybe the agent would have dropped us. We might have gone back to Nebraska with our tails between our legs and broke up...who knows. As it was we lost one guy whos heart wasn't in it and moved on. The agent kept us till we eventually out grew him

With the exception of a week or two off here and there....the tour that started in Salt Laker City lasted eight years.

It wasn't our last misbooking, but as I said earlier, it was the best!!

Thanks for reading all this.

[kurtwash]

Great story man, thanks. :D

[scott powell]

very cool story! i'm glsd it had a good ending for ya'll!!

[NinjaBoat]

An 8 year tour! Impressive.

[Tingly]

That was an excellent story, and was very well written! 'Funny how life works out, sometimes...

[Lazy Bee]

Our determination took us a lot of places. Within a few months most of us had no home. Which was ok, we just booked more gigs and widened out our circut and lived on the road. It had a serious draw back though, we became slaves to the machine.

Anybody out there remember the Triumph album that had a board game on the back (or inside) of the album cover. I'm talking a vinyl record here, the sleeve was large enough for this board game about a rock and roll band. I dont think you had pieces to move but the thing looked and read like a board game. Well square one said something like "Borrow money from the bank for P.A. and lights and hit the road".....LOSE YOUR TURN..... I first saw and read that about 3 or 4 years in. I laughed my butt off. I remember thinking "that would have helpful information to have"

There were times we wanted to lay low and start writing and go more original and we couldn't. The overhead of the show demanded we kept working. We were very close to getting a backer/manager in Pheonix when our singer/drummer of 5 yrs went home to marry a girl that was threatening to leave him if he didn't. Maybe we should have taken a year off for him then, but we couldn't afford to, plus the target had been LA and we were close, our circut now included a few places LA band s came, and we in the thick of things. Around 85 I think.

By the way the guy married her , became a roofer, had two kids, and one of the meanist divorces I ever saw. His blonde hair went snow white, with gray and blonde steaks that year, weird. To this day he regrets leaving the band.

We kept working and went through three frontmen and three drummers over the next few years. But the band was never the same. A couple of those line ups were a lot better in some ways. But the momentum had slipped, the chemistry wasn't as strong, the soul of the band was tired or gone. The interest out of Pheonix waned...another band who got their butt kicked. But for a while there we got to do our share too :cool:

[scott powell]

very cool story, brought back alot of memories.do you still play out?

[stratman50th]

Great story LB!
Hey guys, how about some stories on managers, club owners, etc. I'd love to see Tales from the Road grow like OM, except with better quality, real life stories, good and bad. Too many young-uns round these parts think they're going to be rock and roll gods. Let them work towards the big show, but they need to know what they're possibly in for.

[Lazy Bee]

brought back alot of memories.do you still play out?


Very little, only because my real job is a night job. I do an occasional writers night with an acoustic. I've become so lame!!!

[scott powell]

Very little, only because my real job is a night job. I do an occasional writers night with an acoustic. I've become so lame!!!


awwwwwww well working at night makes it tough. is the Hall of Fame Club still open?

[Lazy Bee]

is the Hall of Fame Club still open?

In Nashville?

[scott powell]

In Nashville?


yes, back about 10 years ago we went to nashville regulary bout once a month or so, they were cool about people sitting in, it is/was down by the river,a real dump, but lots of fun. you would sign up to play,and thye'd call names out,the singer would call a song,and off you'd go. i learned ALOT from the times i jammed there

[Lazy Bee]

I'll have to ask around, but I dont think so. A lot of those little joints have been squeezed out by development but there are still several (little dump :D ) clubs on lower Broadway (the river area) to get your ya yas out.

[Nameless]

that was one of the coolest stories in Tales I've heard for a while.

[gtrhrcane]

Awesome, that's one of the best threads I've ever read. Thanks for typing and sharing all that man! Inspiring...

[Lazy Bee]

My pleasure, thanks for taking the time to read it. :)

[guitarnoob_555]

That kind of stuff is my DREAM job *mmm heaven....tastes like victory*

[DaMacca]

Thanks for that story, I really enjoyed it. This is what Jam Session is all about.

[Arc]

That is a sweet tale right there...fantastic.