Playing again... after 9 year layoff!!!

[ghodaddyyo]

Last time I played out was in '94!!! Other than a couple company X-mas and award parties, I have not been onstage. And to make things worse, I will be SINGING!!!!

You see I've always sung a little backup, but my current band recently became a trio and many of the singing duties fell to me and my bass player.
We haven't had luck finding the right players since our group is very "specialized". We are an Asian group trying to break the Asian market with modern rock. In my community, there's many keyboard pop/techno/weddingband/danceband types of musicians, but the only rock they know is Black Magic Woman and Hotel California.

We are ending out one such evening at the end of the month, where the afore mentioned band is giving us half an hour at the end of the night at a local club. My drummer is neck-deep in this community (wedding band) and used his connections to get this gig. We play modern rock from the 80's to present, like AIC, Weezer, Echo & Bunnymen, Jesus & Mary Chain, etc...

Please give me advice on how to talk to an audience that may not even speak english, and may not be accustomed to hearing distorted guitar tones! Words of encouragement will do as well.

For the history of my band, go here (free site, sorry about the annoying pop-ups):
www.blackapril.8m.com (http://www.blackapril.8m.com)

[bugman]

Good luck and have fun. Your drummer has some awesome influences listed.

[ghodaddyyo]

What... the wedding band stuff? The modern rock stuff is my influence... Since noone else comes forward with any material to play, I've just picked many of my own little known favorites.

[fingerpickingood]

ghodaddyyo, Ive heard your knowledge spread on this forum before and know that you are probably one hell of a player. My view is that a good muscian can indentify with any human no matter their form of cumminication. Just be yourself between songs - keep it short and to the point - have a good time - and play some music...... and i swear it will go off without a hitch.

[This message has been edited by fingerpickingood (edited April 07, 2003).]

[ghodaddyyo]

Thanks FPG, I used to post here a lot, but after awhile I found I was constantly repeating myself. Thanks for your compliment.

The guitar playing will be fine, it's the whole "frontman" thing that's making me anxious. I always let my guitar do the talking, and now, well....

[bugman]

What... the wedding band stuff? The modern rock stuff is my influence... Since noone else comes forward with any material to play, I've just picked many of my own little known favorites.


No. The drummers that he listed as his stylistic influences (http://www.blackapril.8m.com/custom4.html) i.e. Buddy Rich, Carter Beauford, Neil Peart, Stuart Copelan, etc. ...unless you got him interested in these drummers.

[ghodaddyyo]

Sorry, didn't know you checked out the site, thanks for doing so... Hate those pop-ups!

Yeah, I have a lot of jazz influences myself, but our current music style really doesn't lend itself to our jazz studies. My area of town is chock full of excellent jazz musicians, due to close proximity to GIT, LAMA, and USC school of Studio/Jazz Guitar... even the coffee shops have stiff competition. I'm still too deep in lessons to go out with jazz.

Maybe in 10 years!

[Muckquaiker]

Good luck!

Have fun

Miranda
http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

[BrettV]

hey! Have fun .. you'll do fine. If you want a friendly (albeit unknown) face there, let me know when it is and I will try to go too. http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif I'll stick out like a sore thumb being a simple white boy, but I can be encouraging! http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif I'm up in Burbank .. so not too far from you!

-tk

[ghodaddyyo]

Cool to see a fellow Californian forumite!

I appreciate your support but I'd hate to see you drive all that way just for a half hour set.

Don't worry, I get called white boy all the time, at least around this crowd!

[dmt]

Well, I used to live in LA, I play guitar, I like rock, I live in Asia, I teach English to non-native speakers, I know a number of Asian Americans (including a good bud up in Seattle) and tons of Asians and... I can't think of a single important piece of advice to give you!

Good luck!

I did recently read this bit of advice from the famous studio bassist/instructor Carol Kaye:

When you first play a job again, be sure to practice every night before the job and then don't play one note the day of the job, leave your mind fresh and clear all day, then it will feel "great" that night, very fresh. Don't beat the music to "death" by over-practicing, but rather practice 1 hour every day (if you can, and even a 1/2 hour is better than nothing), the consistency is what is important. It will snow-ball and you'll be surprised how good you play...

Good luck!,
David

[ghodaddyyo]

Good advise! DMT, what country are you living in currently?

[dmt]

I'm in Korea.

BTW, she also recommended don't even listen to music the day of the gig. Then, when you finally start playing that evening, it'll be like a sweet relief.

Of course, different things will work for different people, but you asked for advice for playing your first gig in nine years just after I read her advice for a musician first returning to gigging after many years - it was like she wrote it just for you!

[ghodaddyyo]

Here's an update... my show was last night.

The venue was a sports bar. I was told to show up for an 8:00 soundcheck. When I got to the club it was in full sportsbar mode. The owner didn't even know who we were. She told us we couldn't soundcheck until after the game... about 10:00pm. The soundman and houseband showed up around 9:00 and we finally got a few minutes soundcheck at halftime. The game ended up in overtime, so the houseband didn't take the stage until 11:30... my band's slotted time to perform.

The houseband plays songs so that a variety of singers can come up to sing, mostly dance songs in the fashion I described above. The crowd was huge, with at least 300 people in the club. The promoter kept on announcing my band would go on in 15 minutes. This happened about 3 times. We finally got on stage at 1:00 and played until 1:30am. By that time half the crowd that was there for us had to leave.

My main post had to do with dealing with stagefright and overcoming that, and well... after waiting so LONG to play, I wasn't nervous at all. In fact it was a relief. It was also a relief that we were well received with lot's of screaming and even a few older members of the audience dancing! That was a sight to see! Especially amusing was after each song we played, the promoter would translate our songs into Vietnamese! Other than some typical feedback problems, and small hearing/timing problems everything went much better than we could have hoped for.

Thanks for the encouragement and advise.

[dmt]

Nothing like tired, ****** off and late to take the edge off of stage fright! Glad to hear the playing and crowd reaction went so well.

Congratulations on pulling it all off,
-David