Worst Jam Ever

[EliasMooseblaster]

[quote name='Sharkfinger' timestamp='1452781727' post='2953448']
I can't top it either but here's an anecdote from the best man's speech I gave a couple of years ago for my (guitarist) mate Garry;

"One particular time, we were looking for a drummer and Garry finds
a potential one on facebook. We had him come down for an audition at a
rehearsal studio. When we met him there, it was clear right away he was
mentally unbalanced.[b] Then he started drumming, and it was clear after the
first couple of beats that he’d only ever played a drumkit a handful of times
in his life.[/b]


[/quote]

But had he had plenty of practice on a plank with a pair of forks in the meantime?

[leschirons]

Ha ha, the OP's story reminds me of the Alan Partridge episode where the nutty fan has got the Alan "cut-out" figure in his "interview" room.

[EBS_freak]

Amazing OP!

[Number6]

Plum is the worst jam i've ever had whereas i quite like quince jam.

[linear]

This reminds me of the time I was on the bus when some nutter randomly starts talking to me, then gets off at my stop, and follows me back to my parents house. I tried to explain that there was a wake on for my great-uncle, who had sadly departed, but he was having none of it. He marches straight into the front room, plonks himself down on the settee next to my widowed aunt, and sits motionless, staring fixedly at a blank wall.

I stammered to my assembled relations that he was the barman from my uncle's local, and it seemed like I might get away with this, but as my mother brought through a cheese board and cutlery for the assembled guests, he whips off my great aunt's false leg and begins flailing away on it like a demon, insisting that my mother 'drum along'. My aunt is, naturally, distraught and bursts into tears. I pass her some tissues, which this guy snatches from her hands and starts scrawling on them intelligibly with the pen from the condolences book. By this point, the place is in uproar and I have to hold my brother back lest he murder the fellow, who has, by this point, returned to sitting motionless and staring at the blank wall.

It's pretty clear there's no salvaging this, so I go through to the hallway to call the police. When I return I am informed that the guy has run off, pausing only to steal a vase of daffodils and one of a pair of carved wooden deer that sat on the side table.

[ballstomonty]

[quote name='KK Jale' timestamp='1452780532' post='2953424']
Can't compete.

But...

I once worked in a place in Bristol, a very easy-going and fun job with lots of people my age, and one of the guys on my team was a drummer (pattern emerging?) who seemed very friendly and who eventually invited me over for a jam with a mate or two of his.

So I went along and we started mucking about with these "pieces" that he had. They were very strange. It was like a kind of math-rock-meets-world-music, but odd and disjointed. The drummer seemed fixated on superimposing odd patterns over certain chord forms while smiling a lot.

Eventually the story came out. The drummer was involved with a cult - sorry, "esoteric movement" - called the Emin. The Emin, as far as I could make out, believed in many things, including colour vibrations, numerology, the power of object's shapes, attaining levels of knowledge and light, and some kind of actual space exodus. The drummer was attempting to create, with the movement's local leader, some form of music to illustrate/accompany these beliefs. Hence the clashing time signatures, weirdness, and air of basic unlistenability.

I didn't hang around long enough to discover whether the Emin involved some kind of pay-as-you-go system. I suspect it did.
[/quote]

Never heard of the emin. At least it sounds like a creative cult

[Doctor J]

Many years ago my band was a playing a support slot to a bigger band and we were sharing the only dressing room in the venue. When we entered it was empty apart from one guy sitting there on his own, who we assumed to be part of the entourage of the main band, so we engaged in conversation. He was a pleasant enough fellow and seemed normal enough, aside from the fact that he was dripping wet from head to toe. At that point I left to attend to some things and our singer and a mate who was lugging gear for us kept chatting with the guy. About 10 minutes later I returned to find the lads ghostly pale saying that they had to get security to eject him. As it turned out, he was wet from being "in the Liffey" before he made his way to the venue. He was excited to hear that our singer played harmonica as, wouldn't you know it, he played harmonica too and proceeded to produce one from his wet coat and toot merrily away. To say our singer actually [i]played[/i] harmonica is stretching the truth a little, his talent limited to sharp, shrill, high-pitched blasts at ear-splitting volume. Things had turned somewhat sour though and our moist friend said "Anyone messes with me and they get this!" and pulled out a short iron bar which he started to whack hard against the dressing room wall until security arrived to take him away. While we did have a scuffle which almost erupted into a brawl onstage later, I'm still thankful Mr. Wet and his iron bar weren't a part of the melee.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Doctor J

[LayDownThaFunk]

[quote name='linear' timestamp='1452792554' post='2953584']
This reminds me of the time I was on the bus when some nutter randomly starts talking to me, then gets off at my stop, and follows me back to my parents house. I tried to explain that there was a wake on for my great-uncle, who had sadly departed, but he was having none of it. He marches straight into the front room, plonks himself down on the settee next to my widowed aunt, and sits motionless, staring fixedly at a blank wall.

I stammered to my assembled relations that he was the barman from my uncle's local, and it seemed like I might get away with this, but as my mother brought through a cheese board and cutlery for the assembled guests, he whips off my great aunt's false leg and begins flailing away on it like a demon, insisting that my mother 'drum along'. My aunt is, naturally, distraught and bursts into tears. I pass her some tissues, which this guy snatches from her hands and starts scrawling on them intelligibly with the pen from the condolences book. By this point, the place is in uproar and I have to hold my brother back lest he murder the fellow, who has, by this point, returned to sitting motionless and staring at the blank wall.

It's pretty clear there's no salvaging this, so I go through to the hallway to call the police. When I return I am informed that the guy has run off, pausing only to steal a vase of daffodils and one of a pair of carved wooden deer that sat on the side table.
[/quote]
Surely that can't be true?!

[ballstomonty]

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1452780784' post='2953429']
This was hilarious haha!

Must admit I've gotten myself into some weird situations too, not unlike this one and maybe worse, non involving musical instruments however.

Just a thought funny if while indeed he did get his gf, and you did one people started showing up for said party. Glad you got out haha.
[/quote]

To be honest I hope that's what happened, after I stopped shitting myself later on I felt sorry for the guy.

I just remembered that he also offered to make a joint, and then proceeded to pull random bits of fluff and detritus off the sofa cushions and putting them in a cigarette paper so that when he lit it it immediately turned in a flaming torch of acrid sofa grit.

He then took a huge drag coughed violently and immediately passed to me.

I can categorically state on that occasion I DID NOT INHALE!

[Roger2611]

I replied to an add for a bass player wanted some years back and ended up going to meet a guitarist that had been playing for some twenty years or more......definitely more as he turned out to be at least 70 years old and still lived with his 90+ year old mum! anyway I was invited up to his bedroom where he had a dirt cheap Strat copy and a ten watt practice amp.....he was utterly lousy on the guitar and after about 3 minutes dear old mum staggers in yelling at him to shut the bloody noise up....a slanging match between the two ensued.....I made my excuses and left...he rang me three times after that to see when we were going to start this band and got quite shirty when I said it wasn't going to happen...like ever.

Not up to that of the OP by a long way but I still have that nagging fear whenever I answer an add for the first time

[Mornats]

[quote name='linear' timestamp='1452792554' post='2953584']
This reminds me of the time I was on the bus when some nutter randomly starts talking to me, then gets off at my stop, and follows me back to my parents house. I tried to explain that there was a wake on for my great-uncle, who had sadly departed, but he was having none of it. He marches straight into the front room, plonks himself down on the settee next to my widowed aunt, and sits motionless, staring fixedly at a blank wall.

I stammered to my assembled relations that he was the barman from my uncle's local, and it seemed like I might get away with this, but as my mother brought through a cheese board and cutlery for the assembled guests, he whips off my great aunt's false leg and begins flailing away on it like a demon, insisting that my mother 'drum along'. My aunt is, naturally, distraught and bursts into tears. I pass her some tissues, which this guy snatches from her hands and starts scrawling on them intelligibly with the pen from the condolences book. By this point, the place is in uproar and I have to hold my brother back lest he murder the fellow, who has, by this point, returned to sitting motionless and staring at the blank wall.

It's pretty clear there's no salvaging this, so I go through to the hallway to call the police. When I return I am informed that the guy has run off, pausing only to steal a vase of daffodils and one of a pair of carved wooden deer that sat on the side table.
[/quote]

But was he a good drummer?

[sunburstjazz1967]

Drummers tend be either using public transport or driving it ime!

[FinnDave]

Great thread. I can't really compete with the OP, but back in 197something, I used to hang out with a group of people who'd get together for a friday evening jam in someones house. Many substances were consumed and others changed hands. One friday while we were playing amidst the mass of stoned and tripped out bodies, there was suddenly a frantic banging on the door. Several of us went to investigate, and found our regular drummer (no surprise there then!) with wild eyes gibbering about being followed by the police. As one or two people left rapidly by the back door, we tried to reason with him (and suggest that leading them to us might not have been the smartest move).

I was trying to think what to do but kept asking the people in the house to turn the bloody music off as it was getting a bit weird and hypnotic and starting to freak me out. They looked a bit worried when I said that, and finally someone told me to look at my hands (shades of a Castenda dream) and I found that the only music playing was my bass.

Never really lived that one down!

[spectoremg]

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1452783827' post='2953485']
Ha ha, the OP's story reminds me of the Alan Partridge episode where the nutty fan has got the Alan "cut-out" figure in his "interview" room.
[/quote]Me too - priceless. Please Steve do another series!

[Twincam]

[quote name='ballstomonty' timestamp='1452794446' post='2953603']


To be honest I hope that's what happened, after I stopped shitting myself later on I felt sorry for the guy.

I just remembered that he also offered to make a joint, and then proceeded to pull random bits of fluff and detritus off the sofa cushions and putting them in a cigarette paper so that when he lit it it immediately turned in a flaming torch of acrid sofa grit.

He then took a huge drag coughed violently and immediately passed to me.

I can categorically state on that occasion I DID NOT INHALE!
[/quote]

LMAO! I would have been genuinely genuinely frightened at that point.

And I have honestly been in some frightening situations myself but yours is a good one haha. Also reminds me of the time someone crawled out from under a car.... knocked on my cousins door and kept asking in a shrill frightened voice "what has happened to the population?"

The nutters are out there. And I'm not being disrespectful as mental health issues are not funny but some folk probably shouldn't be let loose in public.

[ahpook]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1452800270' post='2953671']
I was trying to think what to do but kept asking the people in the house to turn the bloody music off as it was getting a bit weird and hypnotic and starting to freak me out. They looked a bit worried when I said that, and finally someone told me to look at my hands (shades of a Castenda dream) and I found that the only music playing was my bass.
[/quote]

Brilliant

[Twincam]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1452800270' post='2953671']
Great thread. I can't really compete with the OP, but back in 197something, I used to hang out with a group of people who'd get together for a friday evening jam in someones house. Many substances were consumed and others changed hands. One friday while we were playing amidst the mass of stoned and tripped out bodies, there was suddenly a frantic banging on the door. Several of us went to investigate, and found our regular drummer (no surprise there then!) with wild eyes gibbering about being followed by the police. As one or two people left rapidly by the back door, we tried to reason with him (and suggest that leading them to us might not have been the smartest move).

I was trying to think what to do but kept asking the people in the house to turn the bloody music off as it was getting a bit weird and hypnotic and starting to freak me out. They looked a bit worried when I said that, and finally someone told me to look at my hands (shades of a Castenda dream) and I found that the only music playing was my bass.

Never really lived that one down!
[/quote]

Haha I approve of this experience.

[CamdenRob]

[quote name='ballstomonty' timestamp='1452794446' post='2953603']
flaming torch of acrid sofa grit
[/quote]

I've been looking for a new band name...

[colgraff]

I can remember a jam session when I longed for death, or at least a massive heart attack, to save me from further humiliation. I was on holiday with a friend in a trashy bit of Spain and after a few nights of drink and vomit, we took a 'night off' and went to a local muso bar. It was nearly deserted and the barman asked if either of us wanted to jam with the band. I was a nearly adequate bassist at the time and with my mate's urging and a hefty dose of Dutch courage I was convinced to join in. The first warning sign was that the band didn't speak more than a word or two of English, much like my Spanish. A stream of Spanish came out and I was clearly being given a choice of some sort so ventured a "Si" at one option. The band launched into some terrifying modern jazz number which sounded as if it was in 13/7 time and changed key every 20 seconds. The tune lasted about 7.5 hours (okay, five minutes but it felt like eternity) during which the guitarist kept bellowing encouragement at me, or maybe he was taking the piss, who knows?
Either way, before the drummer had finished his final flourish, I was out of the door and heading back to some trashy nightclub. The only plus is that this was all before mobile phones and YouTube.

[ballstomonty]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1452800270' post='2953671']

I was trying to think what to do but kept asking the people in the house to turn the bloody music off as it was getting a bit weird and hypnotic and starting to freak me out. They looked a bit worried when I said that, and finally someone told me to look at my hands (shades of a Castenda dream) and I found that the only music playing was my bass.

Never really lived that one down!
[/quote]

Love this. Nothing better than freaking yourself out.

[Daz39]

I went to a jam session once after meeting a guitarist in Newcastle's premiere Rock Pub (it's sadly gone now, I believe).

I rocked up to the community centre or wherever it was with my Strat copy (18th b'day present) and my Zoom 4040, and we made some random noises for a bit. Once we decided to actually do a song I switched to Bass - the centre had one there; an RBX with a Trace Boxer Amp, very nice, and the keyboardist took my guitar.

We played Comfortably Numb and being a bit drunk and bored and still a newbie I started playing in every octave available (all 5 or so notes of the bass line), while the rhythm guitarist struggled to work out which chord was which and the lead guitarist was off in the ether playing like Gilmour himself.

I thought we were brilliant, but then strangely the lead guitarist moved to Barnsley to attend music college, the rhythm guitarist quit to get a job at Burger King and the Drummer's wife told him to stop messing about with new bands. At least that's what they told ME!!

OP still wins at the moment though...