One of the best parts of being a musician is the plethora of stories one acquires, both from personal experience and from talking to other musicians on rehearsal breaks. Since I fancy myself a story-teller, on this page, I will share my favorites with all who are bored enough to read them. Some are from music-related experiences and some are just from life, but they are all true. I can only keep one story here at a time, though one day I may have a link to an archive of past stories. I'll change the story as often as I feel like it, so check here every now and then if you want. Or don't. I don't care.
We were playing a wedding reception at a hotel ballroom in North Carolina. It was a pretty big affair with around 250-300 guests. One of the families was Irish and had several guests present who had flown directly from Ireland to be at the wedding, and it was just one such guest who asked if he could sing a song with the band, being sure to mention just how far he had travelled to attend these festivities so that we would be unable to refuse. After he had successfully pleaded his case, I heard our bass player teaching our guitar player the chords to the song that he had apparently requested, and thought to myself, "Oh God, it's that stupid "Down in the Boondocks" song!". I caught up with the other two horn players at the bar and told them of our impending plight. After bracing ourselves with our preferred spirits, we made our way back to the stage. I was intercepted, however, by the bass player, who informed me that this guy had flown all the way from Ireland to do a song with our band and he wanted the horn section to play on it.
I explained that horn section parts had to be pre-arranged and rehearsed to avoid sounding like a third-rate Dixieland band, and we couldn't just "wing it" like the other rhythm instruments, and that we would play percussion instruments as we usually did on tunes that didn't have horn parts. Forced to capitulate, the bass player went back to his corner while I ascended to the relative safety of our riser and picked up a cowbell while the other two horn players picked up a tamborine and a shaker, respectively.
The bass player introduced the guest vocalist, a portly red-faced gentleman in his late 40's who apparently needed no introduction at this particular venue, and he turned to face the band and counted off his tune. The rhythm section played through the familiar chord changes twice and then the guy snarled, whipped his shoulders around and turned looked over his shoulder at the audience and started singing, "We're caught in a traaap..We cain't walk out..becuzz I luuv you too much ba-by".
At the end of the chorus, we were still so preoccupied laughing at the singer's delusional sense of self-importance (We had never seen a red-haired Elvis impersonator before), AND the fact that these two hideous songs had the same chord changes--which seemed appropriate in a deranged sort of way--that we were completely caught off-guard when the guy spun around, pointed directly at me, and shouted "Take it!". I looked up and noticed that all eyes were upon me, the saxophone player, and there I was holding a cowbell. Naturally I did the only thing I could do in such a situation.
I held my cowbell up to my microphone and played a clanky, off-beat solo: gank gank ga-gank, ga-gank gank gank (halfway through I remembered to stick my tongue in my cheek). At least everybody saw the humor in the situation--well, except maybe for one man, and I don't think his face could have gotten any redder anyway.
