Garage Band Stories!!

[SBdrumz]

Fellaz--

The 'Strangest Drum Track Ever' and 'Best Band I've Ever Seen Threads' really made me laugh (as well as many of you). I got to thinking back to my earlier days playing in the garage with my buds, and thought that it may be fun to recount some of the funnier stories from our innocent garage-band glory days.

When I was in the 8th grade, our middle school made the decision to let 2 bands play a 4-song set at a middle school dance. The school provided a stage and PA, and we got signed up to play.

I remember we did '2 Minutes to Midnight' and 'The Trooper' by Maiden, 'Scene of the Crime' by Ratt, and some other tune that I can't remember. One funny thing was: we didn't have a singer! But, we were undeterred nonetheless.

I had a five pc Slingerland kit at the time: 24" kick, 12" and 13" racks, and a 16" floor. These had the old slingerland chrome on wood finish. To be cool, I borrowed a buddies 5pc Slingerland kit (22" kick, 12/13" racks, 16" floor") in that blue-ish oyster finish. I now had my monster double-bass kit (which I couldn't play for sh!t!!!!) with a bunch of cymbals (that I couldn't reach).

So here we are, slopping thru our vocal-less tunes in front of this huge crowd of middle school kids and teachers. I'm sure we sounded like crap. I'm sure we played all the tunes wayyyyy to fast. I'm sure the solos sucked. I know my drums sounded like ass. But we didn't care: we were freakin' ROCK STARS!!!

Near the end of the set, I remember taking a solo. I was bashing everything in sight, and trying to cop some of Neil's YYZ solo in the middle. For the big finish, I remember running on the double-kicks (dugga dugga dugga dggggudgadspgadsf dugga ppppppftttt duggaduga) and chunking sticks into the crowd. Not just any sticks, mind you...I only wanted to get rid of all the broken ones I had amassed in the previous few months.

Here I was in the middle of my rockstar moment when I get a tap on my shoulder. It was our principal with 2 cops trying to drag me off the stage. He took me to his office and gave me the 2nd degree about trying to kill people, and told me that the cops wanted to arrest me because someone could've been hurt. Of course, I'm trying to tell him that the cops never tried to arrest Alex Van Halen!!!! He ended up calling off the cops, and I had to call my father to come pick me up. What a drag!!!! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Anyway....just taking a trip down memory lane. Any of you guys got any stories from the old days??

-Scott

[cjbdrm]

Not a garage band story but...

My first professional gig was playing Jesus Christ Superstar while in high school...I thought I did great, but I remember the musical director making really sour faces the entire time during rehearsals and the shows....I didn't realize that it was me until several years later when I realized how bad my time was...I bumped into the guy about 11 years later at a jam session...I apologized...he remembered.......we laughed about it. When he brought me up to play he introduced me as "the drummer from hell"... It was funny...

[got_a_matchgrip]

Ha ha, see my post in the Strangest Drum Track Ever thread, I guess:
http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...c/f/609/t/5246

[SBdrumz]

GAMG:

Somehow I KNEW you'd have a tale!!!

God help those people who used to hear me play Rush tunes on a 5pc....LMAO

-Scott

[tombo74]

LOL! And cool topic.

I invited my old time music buddies last weekend to play music for my girlfriend’s birthday. We played favourites of her (Gino, Sting, Lionel Richie,...). A huge...and memorable garden party!
Anyway, they were my first band and we talked about the good old days. We remembered SO many garage band stories that I don’t know where to start…I’ll just tell the story of my beginnings on drums which could read like the scenario of a cheap little B-series teen movie.

In high school I was a total nerd (look at Peter Parker before he became Spiderman in the 1st movie; it’s me). A shy mathhead but with a secret passion: music; spending all my money on records from heavy to prog. Had an acoustic guitar, but couldn’t really play.

At school, there were guys who had a band. They played at school parties and were immensely popular and had all the girls. From my corner, I was looking at them with envy. These guys were in my math course and couldn’t care less about that matter. One day they passed a little rock music trivia in class. They just wanted to laugh at how weak was the musical knowledge of those ? Culture-Club-preppies ?. I happen to be the only one with the answers. They came to me after, surprised that the little math nerd knew this stuff. This got my foot in the door of their tight circle and we would chat about Sabbath and Gentle in the breaks.

Bandleader eventually told me: "Hey, if you want you can come at our place, we rehearse each Friday night." YES! So I went. All the cool guys and the hot girls were there. They were all looking strangely at me like I didn’t fit at all. But I didn’t care, I had a personal invitation and it was so cool. I went there regularly and the drums caught my ears. I started to analyze what the drummer was doing and to understand a bit how it worked. I had already wanted to play drums but I figured it was the time to really try it. So I sold my moped and bought a terrible set of used Coronet Deluxe drums with all-cracked cymbals (got screwed big time). Then I asked the drummer of the band to show me how to play. The guy was a real a**hole and the only one who was not cool with me: "You’ll never be able to play drums, forget it!". But I kept bugging and bugging him until he said okay. He came to my place and, after laughing out loud at my drums and at my playing, he proceeded to play beats, fills and solos without really explaning it; but I taped everything and looked carefully. Since summer vacations were beginning, I started practicing like mad everyday from dusk til dawn; trying to replicate everything the guy had played.

After a couple of months, I went to a Friday night rehearsal of the band. In a break, somebody told with a smile: "Hey, we heard that you play drums. Show us!" And the drummer to insist that I play (an evil grin on his face). I knew he wanted to have a good laugh at me. I said no, no, no; I was so afraid to suck and be rejected. But everybody insisted so much that I sat at the kit. I closed my eyes and...<s>played</s> bashed like there’s no tomorrow. Pulled out the stuff the drummer showed me, but faster, louder and with fierce energy. I didn’t even heard the drummer yelling: "STOP, GET OFF MY KIT NOW!! ?. When I finished, it was silent. I could feel some embarrassment. Although what I played was surely super bad, I felt it impressed the kids and that I had hurt the ego of the local drum star.

Some time later I got a call from the bass player telling me they were tired of their drummer and that they wanted me to join the band. That totally transformed my life! This band was my first and the longest I’ve been with. And even though the band split 15 years ago and that we all live in different cities, those guys are still my best buddies and we try to hook up once a year for a reunion jam and to retell our "garage days" tales.

PS: I hope you're all still awake...and should I sell my story to HBO? [img]wink.gif[/img]

[got_a_matchgrip]

bought a terrible set of used Coronet Deluxe drums with all-cracked cymbals (got screwed big time

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">LMAO - me too [in that other linked-thread]...$500 hard-earned smackeroos for a set that wasn't worth $150-200!!
But i got way more worth than that out of it in practice experience... [img]wink.gif[/img]

should I sell my story to HBO?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">How much do ya want for it?
I'll trade ya several genre-snob, pop-geek, or rock-poser yarns for it...
...good for a sleeping aid...
...or a good reason for an antacid commercial...

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 18, 2005 08:31 PM: Message edited by: got_a_match_grip? ]</font>

[Rhythmatist]

This isn't a garage band story per se. We had a 4 piece thing going for three years until graduation when we all went our separate ways. The guitar player called me a couple years later to tell me our bass player was to be ordained as a Catholic priest and would I like to attend. I was completely floored! This guy was the wild man of the band, the first one of us to get laid, get drunk etc. Well, I had to go. We went to the ceremony at DePaul University in Chicago and had a pleasant reunion and again, we went our separate ways.

Later, I was playing five nights a week making my living in the music biz and I would get home late and my normal routine would be to hit the couch and flip channels on the tv looking for something interesting to watch to unwind. Well I stumble across Oprah and I see my old bass player/priest friend Tom sitting with Ms. Winfree and a rather attractive young lady. Seems the young lady was a nun and her and Tom sort of hit it off and decided to leave their vows and run off to L.A. together. I guess Tom really hadn't changed all that much. Still the rebel.

Not really all that great of a story but if you saw my reaction you would have laughed.