club gig from yesteryear
here's another one from my music archive. if you're not into halfassed "jazz" bar combos, give this a pass.Last Call for Alcohol (7 MB .MP3)
that's the last song from one night of a semi-regular gig those guys had at a local hotel penthouse/lounge bar. i was sitting in for their usual piano player while he was away. probably 1985, which would mean i was 22.
starting in 10th grade, i picked up occasional work playing piano in local big bands. first one was because the regular piano player had a heart attack. he got better, and eventually began holding bop combo sessions at his house on weekend nights. this was during 12th grade ('81), when i was doing nothing but living bop. for white people with day jobs, the playing was sometimes surprisingly good. learned a lot jamming with those guys. i think i was the main pianist there, because alan (the host) was playing bass or something. can't believe i don't remember the details.
got a call a couple of years later that he was going to be out of town or something. maybe he was sick again. i forget. he asked me to fill in for him with a small combo doing a lounge thing at a hotel in crystal city VA, near national airport. far as i recall, we did rehearse before the gigs. think that's when i met guitarist rusty bogart, a badass who always reminded me of tiny grimes. brenda was the great singer (also not bad on the ol' eyeballs), but i can't remember her last name for some reason. it'll come to me. didn't like playing with this drummer and bass player. recorded another gig with a different drummer, but i'm lucky i even found this single song. haven't kept good track of my old analog tapes, many of which were destroyed by sticky shed syndrome.
recorded this with a TASCAM portastudio — 4-track analog cassette thing, then mixed to half-track 1/4". piano was just some shitty upright, but at least wasn't severely out of tune (IMO, nearly every piano not out of tune is usable). opened up the lid, put a radio shack PZM across the top, and closed it. hard to beat for a 1984 $40 mic.
Labels: music
posted by saltypig @ 08:40
I get a kick out of this, even more so because I can't tell which parts are schtick and which parts are serious.
Cool piano playing. I wish I were more musical, I bought a couple guitars but I haven't been motivated enough to gain any success autodidactically as I was assuming I would, so I'll probably have to hire out an instructor at some point to get me started.
Post up more of this stuff if you've got it (I laughed my ass off at the "Ganga-weed" rasta-man too, showed it to a friend who didn't get it at first but chuckled after the fact if I did impressions of the lines, in one of those "that's so dumb I have to laugh" moments).
thanks. far as serious and not... hmmm. i guess i tried to put in a good solo, but the whole thing has a sorta frivolous taint to it, obviously. i'll probably be putting up a couple of things soon where i played drums seriously.
thing with guitar is that it's helpful to have someone get you on the right track. get a guitar freak to teach you a rock song you like with power chords, and maybe a simple solo. you'll take it from there. when i took up the guitar, i had the dual advantage of already playing another instrument, and a guitarist brother in the house who could answer most of my questions whenever i had them (and who'd also just bought a gibson ES-175 that was a blast to stand in front of an amp with and feedback all to hell).
Sorry, when I said I didn't know what was schtick and what was serious, I was referring mostly to the female vocalist and her "Say a few words" "A few words" type stuff.
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