Gig Muse

I was musing the other night with my husband about one of the crazy gigs I've played in 30 years of the music business. I am going to take this space to ponder some stuff that has happened on my musical trek. I'm just not good enough to remember these in order. It's frequently amusing to view what goes on in a bar from the stage.

* One night while playing out at the beach, a guy sitting at the bar picks up a lighter to light his smoke. It ended up being pepper spray and knocked the poor dude off the bar stool and across the room. It cleared the bar for about an hour. That stuff really burns.

* Another night, playing at the same bar, it was slow on a monday as usual then, in comes an entourage of very drunk, happy people. It was Lita Ford and her record producer husband and friends. They were incredibally nice and enthuisastic and she said," I wish i had my guitar, you look so lonely up there by yourself, I'd get up there and play with you."

* I can remember one of my chick singah friends telling me, "You can get the crowd to do anything on the dance floor." After years of gigging you could see certain songs would generate similar reactions:

Old Time Rock and Roll -Right after the famous piano lick at the beginning, inevitabally some inebriated woman would yell "Whooooo".

Shout- You could count on the dancing bears twisting low to the floor at the section which went "a little bit softer now" and some would end up flat out on the dance floor wiggling like worms, and at the crecendo "a little bit louder now" they would inch their way back up to a standing position. I never played that song with out that result.

* For some reason, being a chick singer, I would get the expected request of Janis Joplin...but it had to be Bobby McGee. Nothing else she ever did would suffice. I've never been a Janis Joplin type singer, and It has come to the point that Bobby McGee is now on my penalty tune list. In later years, it would be requests for Melissa Etheridge..the modern day Joplin. Same thing with Patsy Cline requests...you could do every hit Patsy Cline ever recorded but you better not forget Crazy...because that is the one they would come up and ask for.

* Back in the seventies when the pop hit "Kung Fu Fighting" was on the charts, I was in a band in Karamursel, Turkey..there was always one very drunk female who would hit the floor in a mini skirt and go go boots doing karate chops and roundhouse kicks. The boys in the band always enjoyed watching that. I can't tell you how many times drunk women would "star" the band...sigh.

* Furthermore, there was usually one intoxicated woman dancing alone at the end of the night.

* I have played some odd gigs over the years in unexpected places. One time I had a gig in Grayton Beach Florida at an artists market..it was actually kind of a cool bohemian place. I think they had the fattest pig I have ever seen in a pen at that place. I was told Michael McDonald lived close by so i would always make sure I played his songs very loud hoping he would wander over and give me a record deal. I have played at grocery stores and one time, at an old fort in Jacksonville , Florida. I am a flute player and I had a penny whistle...the gig called for a snare drummer and a fife player...so...i was the fife player and my friend , Stephanie, was the snare drummer...decked out as a union soldier and a confederate soldier. We played at the moat bridge while people were filing in.

* I am actually an entertainer..and i have done everything from face painting to balloon twisting, clowning, and soothsayer. I did many "tarot card " reader gigs...lol. I learned a little about it, but I am certainly no real sooth sayer. I would wear a blue turban, and was "Madame Kosmos" from Romania..complete with a thick, accent from nowhere. I was amazed and kind of scared that some people believed me.

I will continue to add to this muse...as I remember things ...

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