Worst Gig Ever

rogue_drummer

Gold Member
Oh man, just came off the absolute worst gig ever. Get this:

A friend of my wife's from high school, many years ago, who I've come to know through her put up a request on FB for musicians to come to Austin play. He's saying his usual guys are all busy with other projects and he needs the entire fleet: bass, drums, piano, harp, etc.

Three years ago we drove down to his place in the country around Austin for a jam. It lasted the entire weekend and we just stayed at his place with a couple other friends. The entire weeked was great. He had an outdoor stage built and all kinds of Austin musicians came to jam. We mixed and mingled with quite a few people and made some new friends. It was an enjoyable weekend filled with great music.

Flash forward to last weekend. I answered his FB post and he told me to come on down and to bring my drums and congas. I thought COOL! I'll get to jam with some really great musicians around the Austin area and get paid and get free food and drinks. The gig was at a hip liittle restaurant in Blano, right outside of Ausitn and the deal was I'd get paid plus get my meal and drinks free. The wife, kid, and I wanted to get out of town anyway, so this was a good mini-vacation.

Had I known! To make a long story short, this guy, I'll call him Jerry, showed up 30 minutes late to set up, was stoned out of his mind, drunk, and cussing and yelling at everyone and everything. And this was just setting up! He was totally rude to the restaurant owner, his staff, me, etc. I should have left right then, but i wanted to see who else showed. No other musician came and I was told before I left to just bring my Congas.

Throughout the night, this d-bag kept telling me how to play, couldn't keep a beat to save his life, was loud, obnoxious, rude to everyone...cussing in front of women and children, etc. My boss even drove up from San Antonio to see me play. He has his own band and has been playing since he could walk just about, so he was interested in seeing us.

I know, I should have said "eff it" and started packing up and left. Thing is, I was trying to be professional and fullfil a commitment and smooth things over beteen Jerry and the restaurant owner, who was a fellow musician and seemed to be a real nice guy. He was giving me free food and drinks, so I felt a bit committed. Even HE was po'd at the guy but kept his cool and let this Jerry flake continue to play.

It gets worse, the gig is over, my wife, kid, and my boss are helping me pack up to make a quick exit because Jerry is off smoking weed and was too trashed to even confront about paying me. We just wanted to get the hell outta there. So Jerry becomes really angry because the restaurant owner isn't right there immediately with his gig money and he's threatening to kick his ass. He even barged in the restaurant and threatened to kick the owners ass if he didn't pay up right then and there. Two really big guys who were friends of the owner had to stand in between the two. The owner paid him off and told him never to come back.

I know this because I saw the owner the next day and he filled me in.

Anyway, Sunday the wife, kiddo and me had a great breakfast, my boss got home okay and we drove back the country roads and enjoyed the scenery and some decent shopping the these little mom and pop shops along the way.

Come to find out Jerry sends me a really nasty note on FB, so I replied back what I thought of him. He unfriended me. Awe.... shucks....gee......No love lost there. Haha.

Lesson learned.
 
Wow... That is quite a story of events. Drugs and alcohol have obscene influence over judgement. Sounds like you took the high road on the situation which puts you one up.
 
Thanks dmacc! I really wanted to deck the guy, but my wife, 15 year old daughter, and boss were there, so I had to keep cool. Jerry was so tanked up I thought even the slightest hint of what I really thought of him might set things off, so I had to play along.

Afterwards I got kuddos from my boss and wife and daughter for handling it well and keeping my cool, so I scored points in that area. But man, it was a challenge!

I forgot to add, to top it all off, Jerry never paid me. He kept all the money for himself. What I was supposed to have gotten wouldn't make me rich, but it would have least paid for my gas down there and back, which nowadays, it substantial.
 
Name and shame on the local craigslist or musicians wanted website?

You had an agreement with him, he requested you to come and play. At best you get paid, at worst, at least you may prevent a fellow musician having to deal with this idiot.

Sorry you had a cr*ppy trip.

I should add, "Jerry", on the off chance you are reading this, and some of your addled brain cells recognize and recall your 'excellent' behavior, do the the right thing, pay up, and maybe cut back on the weed & booze?
 
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Sounds like you handled it with grace and class. It's just a shame that you didn't get rewarded for that.
 
Considering some of the nightmare gigs and auditions you've had over the years, rogue, I opened this thread expecting to find something incredibly awful. And you did not disappoint!

I'm sorry it went down that way. What a crappy experience. At least you'll know better next time than to work with this clown.
 
I say this in the most respectful way possible, but... dude, you are like the Bermuda Triangle of gigs.
 
The Bermuda Triangle of gigs. Lol Al.

Rouge has great stories. I feel for ya Rouge, but I gotta be honest, I love hearing your crap gig stories. So entertaining. I am of the mindset that everything evens out in the end. If that's the case, you should be in for some great stuff in the future. You've getting all the bad gigs out of the way all at once it seems.
 
Rouge has great stories. I feel for ya Rouge, but I gotta be honest, I love hearing your crap gig stories. So entertaining. I am of the mindset that everything evens out in the end. If that's the case, you should be in for some great stuff in the future. You've getting all the bad gigs out of the way all at once it seems.

I know, right? Some people pay lip service about paying their dues... RD has paid his dues and two or three other peoples' dues as well. I'm waiting to hear that he's edged out Charlie Watts for the next Stones tour or something.
 
Thanks everyone! Funny and inspiring stuff here. That's what makes Drummerworld so great, YOU guys!!

(If I ever land that Stones gig, free tickets for everybody. haha)
 
not to make this worse for you, but I saw an ad someone posted in the Austin Crag's list about all the bad things you just listed, almost to a T. It said it was from Blanco, so I knew it had to be this gig. It must have been pretty bad if somebody felt the need to post that on CL, even though they did give kudos to the percussion player. Some people really change once they get lit up, especially on the hard stuff, so there was no way to know how that was gonna go. He's probably been acting like this for a while, which is why no one else showed up.
 
This only gets worse. Listen to these recent developments:

This Jerry character is a real piece of work. We come to find out, the night of the gig down in Blanco, AFTER he's left the restaurant, another friend who went down there to film it got into it with Jerry and was told all invites are off. The poor guy was planning on staying at Jerry's place for the night but had to drive an hour to some little town and finally found a hotel at 3 am.

Some people there that night at the restaurant who were friends of the restaurant owner and musicians have posted notices on CraigsList warning of this guy and telling the Austin musician community to stay away from him.

And he's calling all his friends up here in Fort Worth ragging on them to come "down and jam". But everyone knows what happened so they are staying away and when they tell him no, he starts cussing them out.

When I finally confronted him via email saying all the trouble he caused and he still owes me money from the gig he promised I'd get, he told me to "stop stalking him or else he'll call the police and report me as stalking him." And "sorry for what went down, but that's rock and roll, dude"!

Maybe when you're 20, but not 51.

Hopefully this is the end of this epic clustergaggle.
 
one of these days I hope it all finally pays off for you! what a nightmare.
 
This only gets worse. Listen to these recent developments:

This Jerry character is a real piece of work. We come to find out, the night of the gig down in Blanco, AFTER he's left the restaurant, another friend who went down there to film it got into it with Jerry and was told all invites are off. The poor guy was planning on staying at Jerry's place for the night but had to drive an hour to some little town and finally found a hotel at 3 am.

Some people there that night at the restaurant who were friends of the restaurant owner and musicians have posted notices on CraigsList warning of this guy and telling the Austin musician community to stay away from him.

And he's calling all his friends up here in Fort Worth ragging on them to come "down and jam". But everyone knows what happened so they are staying away and when they tell him no, he starts cussing them out.

When I finally confronted him via email saying all the trouble he caused and he still owes me money from the gig he promised I'd get, he told me to "stop stalking him or else he'll call the police and report me as stalking him." And "sorry for what went down, but that's rock and roll, dude"!

Maybe when you're 20, but not 51.

Hopefully this is the end of this epic clustergaggle.

Do you have it in writing that you were supposed to get paid? Email, or something? Take his loser ass to small claims court. Probably not worth the time/money ratio, but I'm a man of principals, however loose they might be.
 
That's rock and roll dude lol. Too funny.

Actually, it's called swindeling lol.
 
hey rouge:

you handled it better that i would have, i probably would have fit that guys pie hole w/ a conga head or something. i think my worst gig ever was w/ my most recent cover band. we had landed a rotation at a rather popular and historic blues/ canjun bar-venue in the south bay area of los angles. we started out on fridays doing a happy hour(s) thing from like 4-7 to get our feet in the door and the first few gigs went off actually pretty cool. fast forward a few months after certain band members egos/ heads grew rapidly out of proportion to their talents and capabilities and we get a satuday night spot. kind of prime fodder for this area.

we were doing the classic rock/ vocal harmony thing a la CSNY and the Eagles and we actually started to generate our own sound and style with this material....cool, but the whip master guitarist decides we are gonna start doing 80's stuff as well as these obscure 60/70's tunes. keep in mind this is a sat night for a younger crowd in the south bay which is basically like a giant frat house at the beach.

anyway.....the night starts off ok, but there are some waring sings, mood altering drinks on the stage being several of them.... the guitar and bass player are these semi functional control freaks and with each trip to the bar the musicianship <<<<< and the a hole factor >>>>>.

we start in on a joe walsh tune...rocky mountain way...pretty standard bar blues...right ?, nope..... the guitar player kicks it off waaayyyyyy tooooo slowwwww....the keyboard player comes on on like 2 or 3 and holds his pattern cause he has already had like four trips to the bar. we all are staring at each other like the hindenburg is falling down upon us...so i just kinda like stop and keep playing time on the hat....the guitar playing starts barking out crap at us and we are like 'whatever dude'; and somehow we get thru the tune...mr guitar queen then stands there and scowls at us telling us how we have to follow him...really..the guitar player is now the primary time keeper ?.....it gets better...

a few tunes later we go into American Girl by Petty....a rather straight forward cover we did many times...but for some reason mr guitar control freak lands in on the wrong part of the beat during the intro and is stopping his foot to try and find his place or maybe obliterate it altogether...don't really know...so, the band tries to salvage the impending crash landing......but mr guitar virtuoso starts Screaming at me 'STOP......STOP....STOP'...each time with more semi alcoholic laced type rage......ok....so i STOP...he keeps stopping his foot while playing the guitar part...he miraculously finds the long lost missing down beat and i bring it back together. we then complete our newly arranged version of the petty classic....sorry Tom. the rest of the night as they say is history...we (they) manged to clear the place out on a sat nite at the beach. cool.......that's what i aim for as a working player.....a clean house on sat @ 10pm.

we were supposed to play five hours; but, after playing for 3 we are on a break and the floor manger comes over and in a very diplomatic way says we are done....no kidding....and soon after i was done w/ said classic rock cover band....so the moral is: alcohol/ weed/ drugs/ monster drinks....any thing that takes one up or down basically is kryptonite for playing at ones best.....so do yourself a favor and don't put up w/ anyones addictive/ dysfunctional behaviour/ mood/ treatment. life is too short and don't waste your creative energy w/ these types of people. i know guys like weckl and brechtlein sure as hell wouldn't......their standard of professional is beyond the scope of your hobby-week-ender drinking type clown.......and so is mine !
 
Great story Mr. stdrummer. You paint a good picture lol. Though no one can compare to Rouge in the sheer number of bad gigs. He is King of Bad Gigs around here lol. But he's also like the proverbial Timex watch. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. I mean, he is from Texas.
 
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