I dont have video or I'd post it.

SOMEBODY who was there has got one....go find it....

 

I'm guessing that wasn't the senior living gig.

 

Guess I’m old. I had to look it up.

 

I’m not so old but I’m not sure… Do you drop the “gl”?

 

When I was in 9th grade the HS band was invited to “play for President Johnson.” He was landing at a nearby Naval Air Station. The school bus brought us there, where I lugged around the bari for a couple of hours. Finally his plane landed and the band played Hello Dolly, because at the time his PR staff had co-opted the song as a “Hello Lyndon” variant. Took him all of 7 seconds to make his way down the mobile stairs and into the limo, that then whisked him off. With all the build-up, spotless uniforms down to the fresh white shoe polish, and lecture on decorum, the whole thing seemed pretty silly.

 

Welcome to my 20 years as a Navy Band saxophonist lol

 

Guess I’m old. I had to look it up.

And I thought the French knew all things love 😍

 

Yeah he did

 

Been doing the dance floor/wireless thing for years and having a blast! Even got the rear pinched with this one by the bridesmaids

 

There you go. !!

 

There you go. !!

 

When I was in 9th grade the HS band was invited to “play for President Johnson.” He was landing at a nearby Naval Air Station. The school bus brought us there, where I lugged around the bari for a couple of hours. Finally his plane landed and the band played Hello Dolly, because at the time his PR staff had co-opted the song as a “Hello Lyndon” variant. Took him all of 7 seconds to make his way down the mobile stairs and into the limo, that then whisked him off. With all the build-up, spotless uniforms down to the fresh white shoe polish, and lecture on decorum, the whole thing seemed pretty silly.

This is a little reminiscent of apocryphal and hugely distorted story of Maximilien Robespierre waiting in drizzling rain with his schoolmates in parade uniforms for the arrival of the king Louis XVI.

 

Back when I played in a really good salsa ensemble, I hated it when a drunk partygoer would go up to the congas or bongos and try to play along with them (happened multiple times)...this isn't a drum circle!

 

So many inebriated wedding guests try to touch the instruments... or maybe it's just one clueless shmendrik, & he crashes every wedding reception in the world. Regardless, I've often wished for an electrified fence around the bandstand.

 

I had an entire beer spilled in the bell of my alto when I used to take two horns to gigs. Had to redo all the pads on the lower stack of the horn K

 

I had an entire beer spilled in the bell of my alto when I used to take two horns to gigs. Had to redo all the pads on the lower stack of the horn K

Not to mention the inconvenience of finding (and possibly fine-tuning) an alternate instrument.

 

I had an entire beer spilled in the bell of my alto

...thus rendering it a malt-o saxophone!

 

I had an entire beer spilled in the bell of my alto when I used to take two horns to gigs. Had to redo all the pads on the lower stack of the horn K

Same thing happened to me when I was in high school, except I was playing at the time. We got a few frat party gigs, this was one of them. I had the presence of mind to finger low Bb and pour the beer back out on the drunken frat boy. He thought it was hilarious. (I probably would get shot for that today…)

Luckily the fraternity was cool, they paid to repad the lower part of the horn.

 

in the glorious '70 at a new year end eve party they threw firecrackers into the bell of my sax

 

Please tell us more of the end result of that! We’re you hurt? I am shocked to imagine anyone, no matter how drunk or stoned….. throwing lit firecrackers into an instrument.

 

a couple notable ones:

played a noise show in Times Square through a nonprofit with my project "The New York Review of Cocksucking"; the audience consisted of all the mascots on their smoke breaks and tourists taking selfies in front of our screeching feedback, they seemed to enjoy it.

years ago played a fancy cocktail hour gala at a big performance art space honoring a particularly ****-disturbing artist friend, who insisted I only do aggressive screeches to disturb the rich people during cocktail hour. When that didn't suffice she insisted I play exclusively into her crotch (a la "The Devil's Honey", a movie with the greatest sax scene in movie history), which seemed to do the trick.

 

So many inebriated wedding guests try to touch the instruments... or maybe it's just one clueless shmendrik, & he crashes every wedding reception in the world. Regardless, I've often wished for an electrified fence around the bandstand.

‘’the bride at a weeding I played grabbed my tenor and started “dancing“ when the sound guy was playing “Shout” on our break.
The guys thought I would freak out but I had a bar horn then and was kind of hoping she’d drop it so I could tell her how much it would cost to fix it. Plus, I could’ve gone home early.
The worst is when you don’t have a stage. A drunk guy was acting like he was going hit the bell of the trumpet players horn when we were playing. I was using a wireless then and went right to bouncer, still playing, and had him tossed.

 

So, did you see the glass as half empty or half full?

 

I was on break, with my tenor still strapped on, when an attractive female took hold of the neck, and put it in her mouth. She suggested doing the same to another part of my anatomy.
Because she was obviously quite inebriated, I declined and went off to wash the piece and reed before the next set.

 

When the next set started, did you find that your reed had gone from a 2S to a 5H?

 

I played a gig one time and there was a woman there who worked as a barmaid, and who recognized me from eating Friday lunch at the bar with a group of friends. I did not recognize her. Unbeknownst to me she had apparently been an exotic dancer in her younger days. She had too much to drink and came up to the bandstand during one particular song (after she recognized me) and started dirty dancing in front of me. I was playing with a very puzzled look on my face and the other guys in the band were wondering what was going on, then she said to me, 'Don't you recognize me ? I'm Carla !'. Then it dawned on me who she was...

She was all over me at break then was looking for me backstage when the gig was over. I heard her asking one of the guys where I was so I busted out of there without even getting paid. The bandleader paid me after the next gig...

 

I played my sax solo to the girls glass

Is that an accronym for Giant Large GLass?

 

I was playing (bass) in an instro surf band. Toward the end of the evening, an extremely inebriated young man took over the mic and began vocalizing* along to the Link Wray classic "Rumble." This is a song that has no words. It has never had words. The vocalist was making them up as he went along. The words made as much sense as you might imagine.

*"Singing" would be overstating it.

As for the playing for a celebrity thing, I played in the Pasadena City College Tournament of Roses Band the year Frank Sinatra was the Grand Marshal of the parade. We had to show up long enough to play "My Way" at an event featuring Frank. When we finished, he said "Thank you, boys and girls." (We were all at least seniors in high school; most were college students.) I guess that's better than playing for LBJ for 7 seconds.

 

A few Amsterdam friends have stories of playing brothels back in the day. Actually a band I play in on occasion recently played a famous sex club in Berlin but I missed it. They said the gig wasn't great (who goes to a sex club to hear weird prog punk jazz) but the rest of the evening was great.

Here's one of the weirder gigs I did that happened to be filmed... Deep in Siberia.

 

Aahh,... Three Coins in the Fountain. One of my favorites. I love what you did on the bridge!

 

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