No Cheese For Me Please!
Jun 03 '04 (Updated May 13 '05)
The Bottom Line Fast Set up, Good pay, No Cheese!
Cut Out The Cheese Please!
(Continuation)
So it’s about 3 years later and the place we did the trio gig closed down due to other reasons. We’ve re-vamped the main band specializing in classic R&B, Motown, 70’s Disco & funk and some other “party rock” here & there. We’ve been very busy and currently booked through New years Eve 2004. One of the places we play regularly calls last minute on a Monday night and asks my wife (She’s the band manager) if we can do a duo for the up coming Thursday night. Well we offered the trio situation to the owner, figuring we would do a similar show like before. (Read the previous article)http://www.epinions.com/content_1958584452
So once again the trio would consist of myself on guitar & back-up vocals, our bass player on ……..duhh bass & back-up vocals and my wife on lead vox. So really it’s a duo added a singer. We talked about breaking out the drum machine and the CD tracks we used before, but realized none of the drum programs were saved on the drum machine and would have to re-program it in 2 days to be ready. Also we still had the CD tracks but it had been 3 years since we even played to it, so remembering the arrangement on the fly would be scary. We had no time to rehearse this due to the bass player was out of town on company business. So we call him on his cell phone and discuss the situation……for one he would be back in town in time for the gig, and we decided the best way to pull this off was Cut Out The Cheese Please
Here is What We Did
We decided to have no drum machine, no sequencers & and no pre-recorded tracks. We would just play our tunes as normal and just see how it goes. So basically an “Unplugged” type thing although our guitars were plugged in. We would play many blues songs from our old show mixed with our classic R&B and peppered with a few Jazz standards. Everything from James “Brown’s I Feel Good” Stevie Ray’s “Cold Shot” to Pink’s “I’m Coming Up!”…..yes you read that right PINK!
So how did it go?
Hey glad you asked. Well of course the blues stuff actually sounded great, and most times blues can sound just as good or better done this way. Probably more truer to the originals from 70 years ago when some old crusty blues guy sitting on his front porch strummin’ a ratty old acoustic missing 3 stings, 3 teeth, a half empty bottle of moonshine next to him and an old tired jack azz tied to the front tree. So it sounded great and we had no jackazz either……..well I suppose my wife could argue that point. Ha. The other tunes (R&B and POP standards) went very well too. In-fact we had so much fun doing this that we are actively pursuing doing this more often.
What Was So Great & Fun About This?
(#1) For starters it was much like playing with the band just without all the fuss. Having only my-self on lead & rhythm guitar & our bassist, and Laura did shake a tambourine to give a little beat going on, this left us a lot of room to add filler licks and play as much as we wanted to fill up the sound. So what I’m saying is that the bassist and I could as one would say “Over Play” to fill up the sound (Lack of full band) but yet it did not sound like over playing. Actually by the time we added our back-up harmonies to Laura’s lead vox & tambourine shaking it sounded rather Kwel!!!! This made it fun as a player because I could flex my “Chops” a bit with out steppin’ on other band member’s toes, and cluttering up the “Mix.”
(#2)
The best thing of all is as a trio we charged $300.00 buck for about 4 hours. So $100.00 bucks apiece on a Thursday night sure was nice. We made more as a trio than we do with our 5-piece band!
(#3)
Last but almost as important as the pay is to do this gig I needed only a fraction of the normal P.A. & gear I would normally use to play with the band. What would normally take my wife & I and hour and 15 minutes to set up the gear (We own everything) only took my-self alone 20 minutes to set up a small powered mixer with 2 speakers on sticks and 3 mic’s and a floor monitor! Can we say waaaaaaay Kweeeeeeel all together now!
So there you have it, a non-Cheese version of doing your show and having a little fun to boot!
So unplug them computers, drum machines, cd tracks and play yer instruments and do your thing! It’s easy, it’s fun and Id bet Mike-y would even like it!
Thanks for reading
Mark Darnell
P.S. Another thing to consider is, Now day’s it seems the BIG “rock& roll” type clubs and gigs are drying up. At least in my area, and doing gigs like this are becoming more and more in demand, it’s smaller and cheaper for small restaurant & bar owners and it’s sure better than a juke box!
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