• "This wasn't in our contract rider."
  
  
• "If I eat at one more Subway on this tour, I'm quitting."
  
  
• "We can replace you on this tour."
  
  
• "Where's the bus? Has anyone seen the damn bus?"
  
  
• "Hello, Chicago!!! ... oh crap."
  
  
• "All these cities are starting to look the same, man."
  
  
• "We need a new opening band."
  
  
• "I can't wait for this tour to be over and we can get back in the studio."
  
  
• "The record company just called. They said if we wreck one more hotel room, they're pulling the plug on the tour."
  

Saturday, July 17, 2010 10:47:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5]

After watching a few of my stage plays produced when I was in college, a fellow student asked me where I "came up with these crazy ideas." I responded that we all have good ideas, but I just take the time to write them down. In fact, I write everything down - or else it slips away from me. And before I was writing down ideas and notes having to do with writing and stories, I was writing down the music/chords to any song I learned. Look right here at this scribbling of the notes to Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything I Hate About You," crudely written out by me 15 years ago on homework looseleaf.

That's the actual first draft copy. After writing it out, I stored the paper in my big music binder and would come across it once a year when leafing through all the songs I had musically transcribed then I would refresh myself on how the song went. Cut to 2010, when my cover band's lead singer couldn't make a recent show and we had to hastily fill the show with a replacement lead vocalist (Matt, pictured below). Well, Matt knew plenty of our songs - but not enough to make the magic number of 52, which is the amount needed to fill four hours when you factor in breaks. So we had little practice time to throw together some final rock songs. During some down time at practice, I start playing the notes to Ugly Kid Joe for fun, and, wouldintyaknowit, Matt jumps right in. We quickly pieced together the song and added it to our set list for that upcoming show.

So I say to you: Write everything down. Carry a pad or write things on your Blackberry. Every joke, every interesting character, every four-chord structure you figure out on the piano. Write it all somewhere, so you can remember that you know it - and you can review it later. And then maybe, just maybe, you'll have a rockin' moment like this one with me and Matt pictured below.

Friday, April 16, 2010 8:31:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

I had a few beers¹ at this weekend's show with my cover band. As the night went on, three things you started to see from me were more smiles, more stage presence² and more mistakes. It's all part of the way alcohol affects one's musicianship when consumed in not-tiny quantities.  

You ever read one of those articles, where it says "After three beers, you can't drive a car; after four beers, you can't..." -- Well, here is the cover band breakdown of all that.

After 1 Beer: Functionality normal. Skills unaltered.³

After 2 Beers: Slight Relaxation. One no longer feels any apprehension about playing in public or that there may be better musicians in the crowd eyeballing their every note. Musicianship actually improves with new confidence.

After 3 Beers: Skills peak. Some dancing and grooving begins. Good blend of enthusiasm and playing, though first mistake will reveal itself as musician lets his guard down.⁴

After 4 Beers: Miss the harmonics on the Violent Femmes and some backup vocals on Billy Joel. Other bandmates begin to look at one another and question the speed and quantity of your drinking. Slippery slope begins here.

After 5 Beers: Everything is hilarious, even your multiplying mistakes. You think you can fake your way through Beastie Boys even though you can't, and you scream at the drummer to let the "Alive" solo last for a minimum of three minutes. The set list no longer exists. The next song is whatever you feel like.

After 6+ Beers: You won't remember in the morning that you completely wrecked the beginning to Brown-Eyed Girl nor that a guest singer came up and led the crowd for two songs. Attempts to dolly gear out of the venue afterward will only lead to damaged gear. Somehow, the bar owner comes up to you and thanks you for a stellar performance. Success.

     ¹ Accounts vary from six to eight.
     ² Not necessarily a good thing. 
     ³ Not responsible for skills not being there in the first place. 
     ⁴ Usually during a Queen song.

Saturday, April 10, 2010 11:06:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

Looking through all the pictures of my cover band shows, you start to see the same things over and over again. In other words, a lot of people who come to our shows fall under a certain grouping, and these posts will help show you some of the characters we see over and over again. Here is Volume 2 (see Volume 1 here). Note: These are all real photos from my cover band shows. (I even know some of these people.)

4. THE CREEPY STARING GUY

Creepy Staring Guy (homo sapien crisis midlifis) is a harmless nuisance, but an unnerving one nonetheless. He oftens stands awkwardly close to the band, usually staring at the guitarist or bassist, sometimes without blinking for long periods of time. He's either a musician, examining the band's skill at close range, or just a very strange guy.

5. STAGE GIRLS

When that fourth drink has kicked in, these are girls who want to one thing: Dance! And dance they will. When one decides to cross the audience-band border, the floodgates are open, and more follow. Never mind the smiles and friendly demeanor of Stage Girls (homo sapien dancus babus); the truth is: They're very dangerous. Stage Girls result in the most amount of accidents per capita for cover bands worldwide. They spill drinks on surge protectors; they bump your mic; they try to play the instruments. It's all very crazy.

6. THE UNINVITED SINGER DUDE

Who cares that he wasn't invited onstage? This man is so sure of himself that he's coming up anyway. Drink in hand, he's a wild dude (homo sapien drunkus annoyus). There's no rhyme or reason as to when he'll suddenly grab the lead singer's mic and belt out a lyric. It's all random (fun!) and he likes it that way. Sure, you can ask him to leave the stage, but he'll be back, and he'll be drunker next time.

Saturday, March 06, 2010 6:08:42 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

Looking through all the pictures of my cover band shows, you start to see the same things over and over again. In other words, a lot of people who come to our shows fall under a certain grouping, and these posts will help show you some of the characters we see over and over again. Here is Volume 1. Note: These are all real photos from my cover band shows. (I even know some of these people.)

1. THE POINTER

Usually men, Pointers are guys who know how to have fun. And how do they express their happiness? Through a finger point. Some might shoot an index finger to the sky, others right at you. These gents are usually rockers, and have a tendency to request Motley Crue and AC/DC no matter how many times you tell them no. Pointers (homo sapien rockus pointus) are a common sighting at shows and are generally harmless. However, Pointers can turn violent after serious alcohol consumption (such as the two-beer dude on the left below).

Tongue men are pack hunters, and find an excuse to stick their tongue out at anything or anyone. It's a sign of intoxication, but also a sign of an illness I call "D-Bag Fever." They tend to show up in large quantities or not at all, depending on the venue. The rarest of the tongue men breed is the Burger King Greaser (homo sapien tongus beefus). Below you will enjoy a rare sighting.

3. THE TERMINATOR

An exceptionally rare find, The Terminator (homo sapien WTFus) is often the first one on the dance floor, for better or worse (usually worse). These people are most noted for the out-of-place sunglasses, but are also identifiable by having shirts tucked in, and sometimes wearing a fanny pack. Ironically enough, they are harmless creatures but seem to frighten others away. 

Saturday, February 27, 2010 3:59:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [3]

A while back, I blogged about a time when our lead singer was sick and his voice just gave out about 10 minutes into a four-hour show. Well, this past Saturday gave me flashbacks to then. My cover band was playing a show on Saturday night in Cincinnati and the lead singer was/is battling a "toothache from hell." So our gig was supposed to last until 2 a.m., but at 1:30, our singer simply declared he was "done." The announcement was made in the microphone and that was that.

The final song ends (and, yes, it was "Zombie," as always) and the lead singer up and leaves the bar. Our bassist tells the drummer and I everything is going to be OK and that we'll just tell the bar owner to take $100 off our price for the night in exchange for this hassle. Uh ... well that plan didn't work.

I wanna rock right now
I'm Chuck and I came to get down

The plan seemed good until the bar owner walked up and whispered some words into the bassist's ears. The bassist turns to me, spooked, and says "Chuck, you have to sing right now. I'm not kidding, dude, you need to sing like right now or we're all dead men."

OK ... but what about the lyrics? And what about how I can't really sing? Taking a quick look over the set list, I pick out a few songs that I can barely pull off: "Alive," "Margaritaville," "Johnny B Goode," "I Want to Be Sedated." So off we go. I make an explanation to the crowd and then set off into some Pearl Jam.

And what happens? The crowd digs it. They seem to realize instantly that our bus no longer has a driver, and they're singing along with me, dancing more than before, trying to show some enthusiasm and keep the party going. In fact, when 2 a.m. finally rolled around (Thank you Jesus), the dance floor was packed. My bandmates thanked me afterward for saving the show, but the truth is the crowd saved the show. They could have thrown rotten tomatoes and little packets of Splenda at us. But no. They were kind, and that's a nice memory to have.

Sunday, January 31, 2010 6:38:11 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [6]

I'm going to briefly put the continuing ridiculous adventures of my Cincinnati rock cover band on hold for a second to rewind band life a bit. My roots in music go back as far as I want to remember, starting with high school band from grades 7-12 (band geek the whole nine). Now I play with a rock cover band. But one year-long episode in my life I don't mention very much was when I was in an original Cincinnati funk-rock band, of all things, while a senior in college.

I saw the old band is reuniting after several years (without me, naturally) and the songs they have up on MySpace are actually the ones I recorded with them several years ago. You can hear me playing guitar, piano and trombone.

That's me on the left, playing
guitar while slightly out of focus

That year playing originals was a weird experience, with some odd stories to be told. I was in college at the time and was too young to really know what I was doing, truth be told. The other dudes were all in their mid- to late-20s. Some of them were married with kids and had been like 10 bands to that point. And then here I was, this babyfaced "college boy" who didn't even have a car. I still remember that we would play these Thursday night shows in rinkydink smoke-filled bars, starting our set at like 12:30 a.m. I would do homework in the corner with a textbook open while the other band guys talked with people or drank.

One thing that was pretty cool is that our first shows together as a quintet were through a Battle of the Bands in Cincinnati at a place called Bogarts. A lot of incredible bands played that stage and signed their names on the wall in the back. Before our last show at Bogarts, I scanned over the wall and found the signature of Kurt Cobain, whose music pretty much got me through adolescence, as cliche as that is. A lot of those memories have escaped me, but seeing Cobain's name before I got onstage never did, and I am thankful for that.

Saturday, November 28, 2009 5:03:19 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]