ubit

Not I!

I had the misfortune years ago to experience a strange episode. We were playing in a local bar which had a stage that was only about eight inches high. Enough to raise you above most punters heads. I had just split up with a girl who worked for this delivery company. The family that owned the delivery company were, well, rough shall we say? We were playing away and this girl from said family stood on the stage with her back to me facing the pub. There was hardly any room and I was playing and singing with this girls head about six inches from my mic. Completely blocking me from the audience. Obviously this was meant to wind me up as it was an aggressive move but I had no clue as to how to deal with this. The bouncer came up and gestured for her to get down. She did and as soon as he left she got back up. If it had been a guy it would have been an easier situation but as it was a girl who was hard as f***k and built like a man my coolness left me and I was powerless to act. I just kept playing and singing to the back of her head. Luckily after a while of this she tired of this game and left. I can't think why I was targeted as my ex had finished with ME and I had not caused any problems. On the bright side I don't think their business is going anymore. 😃

That happened to us years ago when we were a two piece. We were booked to play a wedding in a private guest house that was trying to get itself on the circuit for weddings and such. When we were setting up the woman kept going on at us to watch her polished wooden floor., We assured her that our stands had rubber feet but she still made our lives uncomfortable. We set up in the dining hall which was separate from the bar. Instant recipe for disaster. Sure as Hell, when we started, everyone stayed in the bar. We played the whole gig to four or five kids sliding on the polished floor. We vowed to never play that place again even if we were asked. Come to think of it, we played far more than our fair share of gigs to little kids sliding on polished floors!

In our first band we really could watch Spinal Tap and think that's not funny, that happened to us. We had some amazing adventures when we were inexperienced and stupid. We could identify with that whole movie. It was a different world back then. You could hire halls and put on dances or someone would book you for a dance. Nowadays you can hardly get into pubs round here!

Nah mate, it was near Ardrishaig

Ah yes, the dodgy electrics. We played at a party out of town and it was in a barn that stank of beasts. The stage was a hastily constructed effort and the power was very, very shady looking. I plugged my SVT 2 in and we started. My bass would be ok for about 30 seconds and then stop for about 15 seconds, then it would come on again and so on. It was dreadful. I had to stop playing and just sing. When we took a break I told the rest what a disaster I was having. Then some folk came up and said that was excellent. We even got some more bookings. I couldn't believe it. It just shows if people can hear a beat, guitar and singing they are happy. Especially if heavy drinking is involved.

Drunks always have a way of bringing you back down to Earth. We played a party on the island of Mull many years ago and it went down great. A drunk guy came up and gestured towards the guitarists shiny red trousers. I've got a pair of those he said, but I wear them to bed. Next day on the ferry another drunk approached us and asked were you the band that played at **** last night? What are you called? Yes we answered proudly. We are called **** ........Well you were too bloody loud and you should be called the loud machine!

Another time when in our first incarnation we played at a village hall way up North. I won't say where for reasons later to be shared. It was a massive drive and when we got there we were told there's no point starting until one o'clock when the pubs empty. We sound checked and found that there was a dodgy cable which caused a loud noise when it was disturbed. Our keyboard player/rythm guitarist had to surrender his guitar amp as the lead guitarist's packed in. One o'clock came and no bugger turned up. We decided we should start and they should come, or so we thought. Our keyboard player/rhythm guitarist not having a guitar amp, would walk off stage if there were no keyboard parts. Every time he did this he would stand on the dodgy cable. This caused much annoyance with the rest of us and tempers were rapidly fraying and harsh words exchanged. We finished the night with about six people in the audience. When we spoke to the woman from the hall committee who had hired us and asked for our fee, she said I can't pay you, not enough people turned up. This caused more arguments as we said you booked us! It's not our fault etc, etc. She was adamant she couldn't afford our fee. We settled down for the night in the back of the hall in our sleeping bags and grumbled. Luckily someone had brought some hash and we ended up getting stoned and drunk and having a great laugh. We were so cheesed off at not getting the money that we raided the halls stock of props and nicked some footlights that did us for many years. All in all we could have a laugh about it later but at the time we were mightily cheesed off. Luckily the PA hire and disco that we had travelled with put it down to a good laugh road trip and didn't insist on being paid. Ah, the memories.

When we first started we used to rehearse in a church hall. It was on a hill so was actually under the church. We used to rehearse on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so no hassle. This time we set up and launched full tilt into our latest song and a couple of minutes later this old boy came running down the stairs with a panicked look on his face. Stop, stop, there's a funeral service going on in the church! No one thought to tell us.

We have been there too. How many gigs over the years getting that sinking feeling as you realise they have booked the wrong band. I remember years ago, again in our first incarnation when we were to all intents and purposes a heavy metal band. We were booked to play at a dance and it was all middle aged gentleman and their wives in ball gowns. After we finished the ordeal this woman came up to us and declared that we were the worst band she had ever seen and it was ridiculous that we should be playing at their dance. Not wanting to tell het to flip off we grumbled our apologies and put it down to experience. Little did we know that this would happen so many times over the years up until we finally reinvented ourselves as a function band. Its funny, a band playing in a pub might go down well but you ask them to play at a dance or party and it can be different.

We played a birthday party years ago and when it started there were only about 30 or 40 people there. It was a pretty big hall so it was absolutely dead. We tried our best and played our sets which the party girl and her boyfriend had seen us play in the pubs many times. I think we maybe had a couple of kids sliding on their knees at one point but apart from that it was a crummy gig. We finished and packed our gear and it was a few weeks later I mentioned to my band mate the guitarist, "did we ever get paid for that gig? I haven't seen any money yet." "Oh, yeah, I had been meaning to mention that." The girl had been holding the money back because she didn't think we had done enough to get people dancing. I hit the roof and my mate said "that's why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you would hit the roof" We did get paid but I couldn't believe that this beach had had the cheek to blame us for her disaster of a party. How can we help if she wasn't popular and her only friends don't want to dance?

Way,WAY back when we were first starting and were in our first incarnation of our band we played at a village hall a few miles out of town. We were very young and excited to find that ticket sales showed that it was a sell out. You used to get that back then. I highly doubt you would get kids driving 15 miles out of town for a dance in a hall nowadays. Anyway, the gig went great and the place was rocking. In my excitement I did my best rock star impression "you guys have been a f***n awesome audience, lets f****n rock!" All went well and the gig was superb. We went down a storm. That is until the next day when we went to the head of the hall committee to get the key to get our gear out. ' Your language is absolutely atrocious young man, you should be ashamed of yourself" I had to sheepishly apologise as all rock star ambitions were dashed and I was brought back down to to Earth and reduced to eating humble pie and thinking I bet Iron maiden don't get this.

We always dressed in what we wore every day apart from weddings. We made an effort at weddings or parties and would wear a suit

We played at a wedding once and made the basic mistake of leaving the pa switched on during our break. We were at the back of the hall having some buffet when the groom's sister, a well known heed the ba' suddenly started ranting and swearing down the mics about some girl who had assaulted her. She was really going for it and I had to dash up and switch off the desk. She was promptly escorted from the premises and the night carried on. In retrospect she probably deserved to get thumped as she was a right pain in the hoop.

I'm the same. Jamming is fine in a living room but in front of punters? No way. I have to be rehearsed to the hilt before I will perform live. I have been stung by this before. My passive aggressive guitarist mate used to say let's do our new song and I would say nah, I am not sure of it yet. I am also the singer so have to learn both parts and then learn how to do them together, C'mon you'll be fine and then he would go on and on and I would agree and invariably I would muck up somewhere.

We used to have a character that always turned up to our gigs. He used to dance on tables and not give a toss who was watching. He kept saying how great we were and it was actually quite embarrassing. He used to leap around the bar on his own. He was a figure of fun and perhaps ridicule but we would never have dreamed of taking the pee out of him as he was a fan.

You say trad but what do you mean by trad? If this is 1963 trad means something different than what I believe trad to be.

We had a situation just like that but in reverse. It was when we played in a two piece and we were playing at a bar just out of town. A group of women came in aged about 40/50 ish. We were in our early twenties and thought oh, no they are going to hate our set. We desperately tried playing all of our softer songs and as the night wore on we were running out of quiet songs so we eventually just thought sod it, we are going to have to play our rockier songs. Well these women came alive and started dancing and having great time. After the gig one of them came up to us and said I bet you thought we were a bunch of old fogeys didn't you? We had to admit we did. The ironic thing is they were all probably younger than I am now so I can totally understand how they felt about music. I mean I would hate to be thought of as an old fogey who liked Simply Red or Rod Stewart.

These things are great with Hercules hangers. Ive had my guitars hanging safely for years. https://www.screwfix.com/p/easyfix-self-drill-plasterboard-fixings-metal-32mm-100-pack/2422h http://herculesstands.com/international/products/fretted-and-bowed-instrument/guitar/wall-hangers/

As I say, dropping down to D would be easier as if you are playing with someone in standard you can play on the marked frets but just transpose it a whole step. A single fret cause all sorts of confusion if you are singing too.

We used to play with a box player (we did some Scottish trad. as well as rock) I wanted to tune down to D to make it easier to sing but Our passive aggressive guitarist insisted that we only tune down to E flat. As the box player wanted to play on his white keys, this meant we had some songs in standard and some in E flat. Rather than change tunings every few songs we used to have two guitars each, tuned to the respective tuning. Obviously you could fine tune as you went but the guitars were more or less set in their tunings. We were booked to play a gig for the alcoholics anonymous annual dance. We started the first song, Crazy little Thing Called Love and the floor immediately filled (Alcoholics Anonymous will always get up and dance right away as they don't need booze to enjoy themselves, or at least that's what they convey) After a couple of bars I suddenly realised I had the wrong guitar. CLTCL is a reasonably straight forward song but I had to try and play it one fret out and sing. The audience were very kind but you could see a bit of confusion with them. I was panicking as being the singer I couldn't just stop and change guitars. It was a real beam me up Scotty...NOW moment. In retrospect the sensible thing to do would be stop, apologise and start again but I had this show must go on kind of attitude. Definitely not my proudest moment. It would have been averted if we had just tuned down to D!

My taste in tone has never changed. I like a toppy round wound twang. My ability to get said tone has definitely improved over the years.

Did they not reimburse you for travelling? Oil companies can certainly afford it.

We have had that so many times. I get annoyed because I would never dream of doing that to a band unless specifically asked. I remember one night being in the pub with Mrs Ubit and another local band were sound checking. One of them asked how does it sound? The keyboards are too loud I replied. The guitarist said I can't hear them and so they continued without heeding my advice from the audience and the keyboards drowned out everything else in their whole set, or at least as much as I could stand before leaving.

All very well but it's useless for metal!