I was a musician, I was never a good one: Part 3
I had a good time reminiscing about how I accidentally became a musician and was involved in 2 different bands in two different countries for a grand total of about 6 years. In that time we had maybe 40 gigs between both bands and the main one was the one that I was involved in during college.
Just to recap I didn't mean to be in the band and the only reason why I ended up in it was because some people that I met liked "my look" and my attitude and as lame as that sounds that was the only reason I ended up in the band. I had rudimentary knowledge of notes on a guitar and although I never had played bass I figured that since it only has 4 strings (most of them), how difficult can it be? I went and tried out for the band over a weekend using a borrowed amp and guitar and since I knew where all the root notes were, they offered me the job. The type of music they were playing is not difficult for the bass and the note progressions were normally very simple. I think most people with some level of rhythm could have done it.
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I would soon end up purchasing all of my own gear including, eventually, a pretty high quality bass that was reasonably expensive and pretty high quality. In all honesty, it was probably excessively quality given the style of music we were playing.
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This is almost exactly what I had, but because I was metal and punk rock, mine was black of course. This set me back about $800 which if you account for inflation is about $1600 which is just nuts when you consider that I was a relatively poor college student at the time.
I didn't need a bass of that magnitude and looking back it was stupid for me to buy it. Prior to that I had been playing on a throwaway Ibanez bass that was given to me and my sound honestly didn't change very with the upgrade. It may have actually gotten a bit worse because the Fender was much heavier
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Had I not been given the Ibanez guitar I could have bought it brand new for around $150. Looking back, I wish I hadn't bought the Fender. I ended up giving it to my sister when I left the USA and when I speak to her about it, she doesn't even remember what happened to it.
The punk rock band in college was a lot of fun. We truly got along at first. One thing that I should point out is that I mentioned in the previous write-up that after some squabbles, I was rather unceremoniously kicked out of the band. I didn't even know I was kicked out of the band until they started practicing without me and I heard about it through the grape-vine.
This shouldn't have surprised me because the de-facto leader of the band was Andy the drummer and his brother, the singer, was kind of the number 2. When I was added to the band 4 years or so prior, there was a keyboard player and a guitar player. When I was added to the band Andy and his brother really took to me because they were both big fans of punk and surf music so we would work on songs from this genre without the other two around. This was because the guitar player, who was extremely gifted was a Phish-style of jamming guitar player and the keyboard player was interested in the kind of music that you would expect a keyboard player to be interested in. When I joined up, the leaders started to really enjoy playing the kind of music that the 3 of us were interested in and it wasn't long after that, that both the keyboard player and the guitar player were kicked out.
I didn't feel bad about that at the time but the addition of me in the band kind of changed the trajectory of the band and it was because of me that those two other members were released...rather unceremoniously as well.
We picked up a guitar player who I happened to work with named Nate and Nate was perfect for the band. He was a classical guitar student at the university and he could rip out some absolutely breathtaking classical music such at some Beethoven out of nowhere... but his true passion lied in metal and punk rock. He was perfect and the band really started to thrive with the 4 of us. We were a good mix because we all got along and shared a passion for the same direction as far as music was concerned.
I was never a good songwriter, but what I was good at was producing. I had and still have an excellent "ear" for music. I could listen to something that Andy had written, which would be something that I would be incapable of writing myself but I was almost always able to make the songs much better by refining them.
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My nickname in the band became "3M" because the above was their business slogan at the time and that perfectly described me.
I also had a knack for socializing at that time in my life and it was because of me that a lot of doors were opened as far as getting low-level gigs were concerned. I also lived in the college city and next thing you know, we were gigging at local bars on a regular basis and even became the "house band" at a corner dive bar and we had a regular fan base.
one thing I will say about us and I feel this way about all bands that I see live even in Vietnam to this day. If you are a house band, chances are that the people that are there in the bar are not there specifically to see you play. You just happen to be there. When this is the case, you shouldn't be playing at AC/DC levels of volume yet we always did. This ended up annoying quite a few customers the same way that it does me these days and if I could go back in time I would have us turn it down a lot. I think it would have been more enjoyable for everyone had we done that.
I'll be very proud of you if you understand the reference
It was during this time of us getting gigs almost every weekend that I started to kind of take on a rockstar sort of persona. I was the only rockstar in the band actually and I think that this was part of the reason why I was eventually released. Although it didn't happen often, there was one time in particular that I remember being absolutely trashed on stage, and I was making mistakes during the songs. This is completely unacceptable and I realize that. Be that the case though, I was very entertaining to the crowd who really enjoyed my antics. I would dress up in an absurd way one time of which I remember I was wearing mascara and had emo style black fingernails, I wore rings on almost all of my fingers, I had my long hair in pigtails with ribbons in them and I wore a spiked collar and an Elmo T-shirt. It was completely ridiculous and the crowd loved it.
The rest of the guys in the band were relative squares in comparison but I think there was some level of jealousy on their part because even though I was content to remain in the background as far as my playing was concerned, I was getting a lot more attention from the crowd and especially from the ladies. Normally the bass player is the person who doesn't get the girls at all but since I was the only one that was acting like a fool and dressed in a crazy way, the girls gravitated towards me.
The gig where I was making mistakes during the songs was the same gig where the crowd started having fun and it became a game with the small crowd to come and pour drinks into my mouth during songs. The crowd LOVED this and before you know it, I was blackout, dead-man walking drunk. A friend of mine was in the crowd and during a break he came up to laugh and talk to me about what was going on and he noticed I was slurring my words. He was just being a good pal with what happened next but here is another film reference for ya.
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this one is a bit more obscure
My friend who was in the crowd was a true mate and we had been pals for years up to that point. He knew what I needed in order to get through the rest of the gig and he happened to have it on him. The only problem was that the mens room didn't have a door so we had to go into the ladies.
I'm talking about how he had the good ol' "reset button" that is cocaine. He put out some rails on the back of the toilet (as one does) and i took two rather big lines up each side.
Here's the thing about coke: It doesn't really matter how trashed you are, if you do a couple of lines you become completely in control of your body and your speaking. You become not only in full control but you are also charming and confident. That's all fine and dandy but when we came out of the bathroom one of the bouncers didn't see the virtue in what we were doing in there.
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When we came out of the bathroom, the gigantic security guy said "i'm gonna guess you two weren't making out in there" and I suppose my witty response of "we could have been, what are you homophobic or something" was not the answer he was looking for.
He threw us both out of the club not realizing that I am in the band. I'm guessing he never looked up at the stage because there couldn't have been very many dudes in there with long hair tied into pigtails with ribbons in them. He was later forced to let me back in once the owner came to the door to let me back in because the band was trying to start our second set and was staying "has anyone seen our bass player" on the microphone. I'm outside talking to the bouncer telling him "it's me there for dude." I kind of have to respect that security guard because he was very professional and wasn't having any of it. Rules were rules to him and it wasn't until his boss overruled him that I was allowed back in.
It was kind of ironic because it was about 3 months later where I scored a low level but still large quantity (for me) amount of coke and as is often the case when people get this sort of quantity that you try to offset the cost by selling some of it to other people. One of the people that I sold a gram to 3 months later was that bouncer. I recall laughing with him about this because I was like "dude, you kicked me out for exactly this!"
2000 words already? This is why I enjoy writing about this topic.
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Anyway, this would end up being one of the last gigs that I would play with this punk rock band and when I look at it that way, I could say that this instance was a pretty good reason for them to question whether or not I should be in the band anymore. I had become an outsider in the group but here's the thing: I was a very large part as to why people were coming to see us. I was the only "rock star" in the band. Everyone else was really straight-laced and serious and I treated it as one really big party. It wasn't cool for me to be screwing up songs because I was too trashed on stage to do it right, but when I went up in the 2nd half of that show, the coke kicked in and I played one of the best and most accurate sets of my entire life.
I no longer do drugs kids, and I am not encouraging anyone to do so either but I will say this, coke does have its benefits and that is why it remains a rather posh and sought after thing to this day.
The gig at that dive bar remains one of my fondest memories I ever have from playing in a band because it was about as nutso and rock star as I ever got in a band. I was basically above the law that day and I partied and acted a fool in front of 100 people or so and they all loved me for it. Unfortunately, I wasn't getting any love for these antics from the other people in the band. I can see how they would see my behavior as irresponsible but if they were being honest, I think they were also jealous of the fact that I was getting the most attention from the crowd and the girls were flocking towards me while almost completely ignoring the rest of them. This aspect of being in a band is something I will talk about later. It gets saucy!
I'm gonna wrap things up now. I had planned on this being the conclusion of this story but there is still a lot more to tell.