Story by Hung One On – Mystery Digital Mischievist
Hi, Hung here.
Don’t you just love it h,h,h, anyway me and young hph (another h, all I need is Helvi or Huffed Holive J) have been talking about music over at The Muse page here at the Arms, the page I originally set up for music as The Dot was starting to slow down. At the time me and Mikey thought it may be due to all the links we were all posting so I set up The Clip, The Muse, The Comma and The Link to take our posts into categories.
Hph was interested to know that I was musical so I thought you may want to know about what is was like to be in a “band”.
When I was a kid growing up in Austinmer, as you know from my Christmas story, I didn’t mention one of my real sisters. Her name is Clare. Clare’s boyfriend now husband was a drummer and he taught me how to play the drums. I then went to the guitar and then finally to the bass guitar. Now I was good but never great, although some said I was a fantastic blues guitarist and the last band I played in was called Ambush. We played pub rock seventies music. Heres out first bracket, not in any real order and I am struggling to remember them all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbG6M28UkFg
Tom Petty – Breakdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFxGBB4UGU
Van Morrison – Moondance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2Fs5GrUBwI
Steely Dan – Do it Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRufMP1HCS8
Dire Straits – Down to the Waterline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCLXy-vSu3o
ZZ Top – Tush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fafCCsb6jzc
Roy Buchanan – Further on up the Road
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3JsuWz4xWc
Jimi Hendrix- Hey Joe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTwsbKYaoY0
Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B0Y3LUqr1Q
Rolling Stones – Brown Sugar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGBuQoDt4G8
Jimi Hendrix – Fire
Now let me tell you. Being in a band is crap. We got $85 each a gig. I would leave home at four in the afternoon and get home at two in the morning. This is sweatshop wages. Rehearse Friday nights and one big lesson I learnt. Never introduce a song to the band that you really like. The reason is by the time you have perfected it you will hate it. Play songs for the audience not yourself. In my song list there are several examples of this. More later.
Groupies – Not when you are big, fat, married.
Drugs – heaps and heaps but you couldn’t take any and any way apart from a few whiskeys to settle the nerves you couldn’t afford to take drugs, you have to stay alert, you need to know how to play around 50 songs, people would steal your equipment and you had to drive home.
So why did I do it? – Simple, you can sit at home and play Stairway to Heaven perfectly to the cat, dog and TV set however playing in a band made you play to a certain level. The song had to be right, as close as to the original that you could get. When I retired from the band scene I found it really difficult to play a song out on the back patio as I would need to get it right. From time to time I pick the guitar up but honestly I really can’t get into it any more.