The Gig from Hell

The other day a fellow drummer commented on the subject of bad gigs (The Gig from Hell), on a social site for us drummers and I thought I would write about mine. Every musician has one or thirty. Sometimes it's difficult to determine which one was the worst. Other times there is no thought needed whatsoever. Mine falls into the latter category.
Way back in the 80's (that would be the 1980's for those who aren't aware of the last century), I received a phone call from a band-leader who I will refer to as the world's worst saxophone player for a gig in which he needed a drummer. Being a "professional" musician means not turning down too many jobs otherwise you will no longer be a "professional" because nobody will call you. So with that mindset I gladly accepted the gig. Turns out this was an indefinite engagement at a now defunct casino in South Lake Tahoe. Most "indefinite" engagements typically last a month if you're lucky. Welllllll, this one lasted ten, a new record.
One of the interesting aspects of this particular gig was the leader liked to play the song, "Yakity Sax" by Boots Randolph. The song is OK, it was a big hit back in the 60's (1960's that is) and a good deal of saxophone players play this tune. The average tempo is somewhere around 120 beats per minutes which is two beats per second. This bandleader liked to play the song at approx. 3,000 beats per minute making it without a doubt the fastest that song has ever been played. Another interesting aspect was that at those speeds the song became completely unrecognizable. After 3 or 4 times through the tune, which was 6 or 7 seconds, it had become a cacophony of noise. As the time keeper, I basically waited for the pickups which is the introduction played by the saxophone player, and then played as fast as humanly possible while rushing the tempo for a couple of minutes until I heard the "shave and a haircut, ten cents" tag, which identified the song as being over. This bandleader had a reputation for playing many popular songs of the day in an unrecognizable manner but none as fast as "Yakity Sax".
Another thing he liked to do was play two (2) saxophones at once. Well, he tried to play two saxophones at once. The idea is to have two notes producing a harmonious musical chord. It was neither harmonious nor musical. Ever. It was, however, reminiscent of stepping on a chicken while skinning a cat. And he would try this more than once a night, every night, always unsuccessful.
About three months into this gig from Hell the world's worst saxophone player announced he had booked us into a lounge in Jackpot, Nevada for either two weeks or a month. I don't remember which. Having no choice, we packed up the equipment and headed east for Jackpot which was about an eight hour drive. I had the band leader in my car with me and the female singer drove her car with the keyboard player on board. Somewhere around hour number three a $5 piece of plastic broke and ended up dumping all of the motor oil onto the freeway, causing the engine to blow up. There weren't cell phones back then and the female singer with keyboard player on board never saw my headlights flashing on and off nor did they hear my horn blasting at them...they just casually disappeared over the horizon never to be seen again, until the next day. So there we were; stranded in the desert miles from nowhere with a blown engine. The band leader ends up hitchhiking to the next town and hours later shows up with a guy in his tow truck, who doesn't take checks. At that time the only one in the band who had a credit card was the female singer. Go figure. So the tow truck guy tows us into the next town and the band leader writes him a check all the while telling me he's going to pay for half of the expenses including having the car towed back to Lake Tahoe. Right.
By now it's evening and we are hungry so we check into a motel (he writes a check!), have dinner and end up in the bar shooting some pool and wondering what's next on the agenda. I have to point out that he was a recovering alcoholic and I had been clean, straight and sober for almost a year myself but for some reason he wanted a glass of wine. I didn't. Beer, however, was sounding pretty good at this point and not wanting to drink alone, he bought me one. Two bottles of wine, two six packs of beer and a pack of cigarettes later it was determined this was not going to be a good gig. I'm still not sure how he paid for all of this but we crawled to the room and passed out. In the morning there was a knock on the door and the keyboard player had driven five hours against his will to pick us up. I remember very little of the drive.
For the most part,all I remember was the daytime temperature never got above 18 degrees and the sun never came out. I do remember having a birthday and the two cute little keno writers who wanted me to take them to California had disappeared, never to bee seen again. And the cute cocktail waitress wanted nothing to do with me though she understood my predicament: I wanted a cute cocktail waitress for my birthday! It didn't happen. What did happen was I broke the cardinal rule of musicians: I ended up with the female singer. How I managed this I still have no idea. I remember a hot tub in a hotel suite and the next thing I know is I now have a girlfriend who happens to be the singer in the band. A note to young, up and coming drummers: Never, ever, EVER get involved with the female singer! Ever. It will scar you! Every drummer I know has done it at least once and look at us!! Now if you're a female drummer, well it's rather obvious this won't happen unless, of course...
Anyway, back to Tahoe and the rest of the story. The band has taken on a whole new demeanor as we're all a bunch of lushes now. I thought "Yakity Sax" sounded strange before. It was now on a whole new plateau this time around.
An interesting observation was that the club was about four miles from where I lived and at mile three of the drive to work the headache would hit. Every night. Without fail. On the bright side, at least at the time, was the fact that there was an open bar for the band. Needless to say, we got there early enough to make sure the headache was gone before the first song of the night! Most of our senses and abilities were gone as well but this truly was the gig from hell and that was how we dealt with it.
Another notable observation of this gig was the band was set up behind the bar on a very small stage with the drums being closest to the blender which made the strawberry daiquiris. I never realized the bartender would take the cover off while the blender was still churning to put some other substance in until that first time when the overspray got all over the drums! For weeks I complained about it and was told by the GM that if I didn't like it I could go...deal with it! I decided that if they didn't care, I didn't care.
Like all good rat packs I had numerous drum stuff laying around the pad and determined I would create a drum set just for this gig. I took all the hardware off the drums I had and wrapped the shells with white contact paper and proceeded to "camoflauge" them with a plethora of spray paint cans. I then painted all the chrome hardware white, threw it all together and schlepped it down to the club. The piece de resistance was the cover of a GQ magazine which had a deadpan photo of Woody Allen that the female singer duct taped to the bass drum! In a weird sort of frame of mind they looked pretty cool but in reality they looked like $#@t and sounded worse. "Blend away, Matey!" says I. In less than a week I was told I would be fired if I didn't remove them from the stage. They never got one bit of spray on them, either.
After ten months of insanity I was given a one week notice the night my female singer girlfriend was fired because, after all, I wouldn't want to be in a band that she wasn't a part of anymore. The good news is I broke up with the female singer shortly after, I cleaned up and have been sober since and I never had to play with the world's worst saxophone player again. Hallelujah!