An old guitar buddy called and asked if I wanted to do a steakout gig with him. It would be us two, my old guitarist and his drummer. I should have known better - it was 4.5 hrs and we were getting $100 each. I had to drive an hour to get there, thinking I'd be late, but my old guitarist got stuck in the same traffic jam as I did but didn't take a detour.

The music was the same old stuff we played 10 yrs ago when I played with him. My guitarist friend had mellowed a bit and didn't seem as much on his game as I remembered. The tempo was a step short and the drumming - well, let's just say the drumming was the weak link for me. The PA was a Mackie 808s with two unmatched cabinets. The EQ was horrible and I tried a couple times to go over and adjust my channel but couldn't completely get myself out of that low EQ delay tunnel.

I blew the band away with my setup - they loved the s910 and were amazed at the Bose Compact. I split the keyboard and played left hand bass all night, very strong with no problems thru the Compact. Then I keyed up a couple midis and surprisingly enough the drummer did the best job keeping up, the band leader stood mostly stunned at the sound and tried to play along very quietly.

All in all, it was fun to play with live bodies again, it was an easy job, the music was sloppy but good enough and being with guys I hadn't seen in a few years made the $100 worthwhile.

Tomorrow I play my standard one hr NH job by myself with only my equipment, entertain about half as many people as we did last night and walk away a happy man with - you guessed it, $100.

Looks like that 100 is popular all ower the world.
I allso play about only three and a half ouer last Soturday morning.You can gues:its 100 Euro....

Ever played with dead ones, Cass?

Sorry, couldn't help it.

Taike

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Bo pen nyang.

Taike beat me to the punch with his comment. Good post, though. Kinda brings back some memories of just a month ago here at my home. Lots of fun, and all the old guys raved about the PSR-3000 and L1 Compact.

Thanks again Cass,

Gary

Sure have! At least it felt like it at the time... great post, Taike.

An interesting thing happened to me last week. I was working a retirement home I work on a regular basis and someone came up to me in the middle of a song and asked if a drummer could sit in. I said to him, I'm sorry but I don't see any drums here. He explained that the guy played congas and went upstairs to get them. About that time, I saw him coming in with the congas. I said sure. I mean, how bad could it be. As it turned out, the guy had played congas in LA for 30 years and he was great. I had 30 minutes left in my show and I immediatly switched to all latins. It was awesome. It's amazing the extra dimension that was added to my music by the live congas. Live musicians are still the best. But I'm thankful I don't have to run a band anymore.

Joe

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Songman55
Joe Ayala

I played with live musicians tonight. No amplification of any kind. Not even for the female vocalist. It was so much fun to just do music the way it used to be done, when audiences had to be quiet and respectful if they wanted to hear the music. It was a real pleasure.

Rory, I am concerned that we're raising a generation of people who will never experience the pleasure of "trading fours" and the other delicate interactions musicians share when creating music; especially extemporaneous arrangements.

Playing live with other players is still the ultimate for me! It's a lot easier to do it with arrangers, but well worth the extra effort, in my opinion.


Russ (traditionalist) Lay

DISCLAIMER: This is MY opinion only and not meant to imply that doing music any other way is a less desirable option...for OTHERS!

Russ, I'm with you on playing with other musicians - big fun and very rewarding. And, while humbling, I always find I play both less and better with really good players.

Through our music co-op I also support and play at jams with various level players. While I always try to be supportive and encouraging, privately I am often amazed at the folks who play in public when their time is nonexistent and their singing is, well, questionable. On the plus side, it's great to see people improve as musicians (a worthy goal for all of us, I suspect).

I love the arranger functions for practice and fun, and definitely see some real possibilites for certain types of gigging, though.

I turned down a blues band gig this weekend to go camping with my wife. The gig paid, yup you guessed it, $100.00. We made more than that per person back in the 70's.