b***@nirvana.org
2008-06-22 17:45:08 UTC
Having been in music for 50+ years, 43 of those as a professional and 38 of
those playing harp (I also play guitar, bass, fiddle & drums), I try my best
to be a welcome addition to any musical situation: know what key the band is
in, not stepping on the vocals or trying to drown out the guitar player,
support the music, wait for a cue to take a solo, stuff like that. If I want
to jam with someone I ask during a break if it's OK and then find out what
tune we will do, what key, etc. Basic musicianship, professionalism, common
sense and common courtesy.
There is a stereotype of blues harp players being egotistical and obnoxious.
Like the joke about "What's the traditional greeting between harp players?"
"Hi. I'm better than you." This is certainly not true of all of us, but
there is a reason for the stereotype.
I met him on June 14th.
We have this brand new band, the Oil Creek Rhythm Kings, (but not brand new
members, the drummer and I are fairly high mileage!) and we are playing the
Allman Brothers tune "Jelly Jelly." We're a 4 piece band and the drummer and
I know the tune cold - we are the "senior" members - the other guitarist and
bass player are younger and new to it and just getting comfortable with the
changes. We want to be able to play blues in more than the standard 12 bar
changes.
I am playing guitar (and my Roland GR33 guitar synth). Things are going just
fine. We're playing in C and are right in the groove. Then a friend of the
bar owner who is [always] half in the bag brings up this big guy and puts
him on front of an empty mic (we were hosting a benefit for a little boy
with cancer and had some friends jamming with us so there were extra mics
set up). The big guy pulls out a harp and starts wailing away in the key of
who-the-fuck-knows-what. After a few looooog moments he finally figures out
that it sounds like shit and pulls out yet another harp, also in the key of
who-the-fuck-knows-what, and proceeds to shit all over the tune...again. I'm
thinking "holy shit, I hope he doesn't have a dozen harps with him..." THEN
he turns around and says, "Hey, what key are you guys playin' in? I got an A
harp and D harp so I can play in E and A."
I am as fucking amazed by this guy's brass balls as by his lack of talent.
We practice a minimum of twice a week, not to get everything down to the
last little detail to do every tune the exact same way every time, but to
get the groove and the feel for the tune so we can have some fun with it. A
jukebox we're not. You won't hear us play the same thing the same way twice.
Our arrangements are mostly about cues, getting for a nod from someone or a
hearing a whoop from the drummer, someone says "here we go," whatever. We
busted our balls to get this tune down, this is the first time playing it
out and this clueless fuckstick comes up and takes a giant steaming shit on
it. I am PISSED, on the verge of losing it completely. Had I been playing my
$40 POS Chinese slide guitar instead of my start set up for my GR-33 synth
(great for piano, organ, horn section & reeds) I would have done a Keith
Richards and knocked him stone fucking cold with it (...well, officer, he
was drunk and tripped on a mic cable...must've hit his head on the monitor
when he went down). I was screaming "Get the fuck outa here!!" over the
music, which is still in the groove (our drummer, Billy Styx, is the Pope of
Rhythm, infallible, the only way he'd lose the beat is to drop dead while
playing) but the intoxicated semi-musical moron at the mic can't hear me. I
did not want to stop the tune and further make us look like idiots.
He FINALLY lumbered off and we continued playing. Suddenly the whole bottom
drops out. I look over and Randy, the other guitarist and Dave, the bass
player. They are examining a wedge monitor. I wave at the drummer and we
stop the tune. I holler "WTF is going on over there?" Randy hollers back,
"The speaker's on fire!" Sure enough, at that moment I saw the smoke and
smelled that distinctive smell of cooked electronic components. A capacitor
on the crossover board cooked. I almost think it was psychokinetic, the
burning capacitor being an outward physical manifestation of my seething
inner rage!!
We took a break to assess the damage. The owner's friend who brought the
moron onstage came up to me and congratulated me on my playing. I proceeded
to peel his ass about him bringing the "harp player" up and told him to
NEVER EVER under ANY circumstance approach the band again when we are
playing. We played there last Friday and he didn't say a word to me.
Heh...there are some people who think I'm an asshole, and I have usually
given them a damned good reason for it. It's fine with me and makes my life
easier because they avoid me after that, like this guy does now.
Then I went over to the bar and located the asshole with the harps. Turns
out I know this jerk from a local blues society from 15 or so years ago.
Jimmy from Philly, a half-assed biker with sleeves of extremely unartful
tattoos who used to run a local grease pit disguised as an eatery called the
Phila Deli with his two unappealing morbidly obese sisters. "Hey man, I'm
playing a lot of harp now" he says. I'm thinking that a "lot" of harp for
this dumb fuck blues harpist wannabe does not necessarily equate to actually
making anything called "music" with it. Then he wants to know if he can come
up and jam with us! Jeezuz H. Christ on a speeding moped! I can't believe
what I am hearing! He barges onstage, fucks up a tune and NOW he asks if he
can jam with us! I simply tell him "no." Not to be deterred, he goes to the
other guitarist and runs the same shit by him. He is told "You wanna play
with the band, you practice with the band. Otherwise forget it." "Well, that
SUCKS, says Jimmy, and he stomps off not to be heard from again. Must be he
thinks I'm an asshole too. Life is getting better all the time!!
Now, I am a harp player and I love playing harp and I found myself thinking
"...typical fucking harp player..."
It's guys like that - morons who have too much to drink and a couple harps
in their pocket - who give the rest of us a bad name.
Oh, and we have a new band policy: anybody that pulls that shit in the
future will be carried out of the joint.
I suppose the reason this kind of stuff happens is that anyone can afford a
harp and it can be carried easily in a pocket and fancy themselves a blues
player (kind of like anyone who sits behind a drum kit thinks they can drum
because all you have to do is hit them). For those of us who are serious -
and I am - my main concern is that I refuse to embarrass myself by the
material I play, how I play it, or with whom I play it. Those are my basic
professional standards. The other guys feel the same. We have great rapport.
We rehearse every week and try to have our shit as tight as possible when we
play. Guys like Jimmy just don't get it that a BAND works hard at what they
do and are under no obligation to let anyone else on stage. Ever. When a
group of musicians put in the time and effort we do it is not reasonable for
anyone else to reap the rewards of that by getting onstage and benefiting
from the band's hard work without having put something into it themselves.
They're into "Wow! look at me! I'm SO fucking cool...".
Now, if anyone in the band says someone else is OK to jam with us, that is a
different story and good enough. If another musician meets the standards of
any one of us, they are welcome to sit in. But an unknown quantity like
Jimmy is not welcome. I don't remember that he could play 15 years ago and
don't have any reason to think he has improved.
Just wanted to share this war story with my brother harp players.
We don't have any harp tunes up on myspace yet, but here's our URL if anyone
wants to check us out:
http://www.myspace.com/oilcreekrythymkings
Gene Johnson
PS. That was a Carvin crossover that cooked and they are sending me another
capacitor. Top notch customer service there!
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
those playing harp (I also play guitar, bass, fiddle & drums), I try my best
to be a welcome addition to any musical situation: know what key the band is
in, not stepping on the vocals or trying to drown out the guitar player,
support the music, wait for a cue to take a solo, stuff like that. If I want
to jam with someone I ask during a break if it's OK and then find out what
tune we will do, what key, etc. Basic musicianship, professionalism, common
sense and common courtesy.
There is a stereotype of blues harp players being egotistical and obnoxious.
Like the joke about "What's the traditional greeting between harp players?"
"Hi. I'm better than you." This is certainly not true of all of us, but
there is a reason for the stereotype.
I met him on June 14th.
We have this brand new band, the Oil Creek Rhythm Kings, (but not brand new
members, the drummer and I are fairly high mileage!) and we are playing the
Allman Brothers tune "Jelly Jelly." We're a 4 piece band and the drummer and
I know the tune cold - we are the "senior" members - the other guitarist and
bass player are younger and new to it and just getting comfortable with the
changes. We want to be able to play blues in more than the standard 12 bar
changes.
I am playing guitar (and my Roland GR33 guitar synth). Things are going just
fine. We're playing in C and are right in the groove. Then a friend of the
bar owner who is [always] half in the bag brings up this big guy and puts
him on front of an empty mic (we were hosting a benefit for a little boy
with cancer and had some friends jamming with us so there were extra mics
set up). The big guy pulls out a harp and starts wailing away in the key of
who-the-fuck-knows-what. After a few looooog moments he finally figures out
that it sounds like shit and pulls out yet another harp, also in the key of
who-the-fuck-knows-what, and proceeds to shit all over the tune...again. I'm
thinking "holy shit, I hope he doesn't have a dozen harps with him..." THEN
he turns around and says, "Hey, what key are you guys playin' in? I got an A
harp and D harp so I can play in E and A."
I am as fucking amazed by this guy's brass balls as by his lack of talent.
We practice a minimum of twice a week, not to get everything down to the
last little detail to do every tune the exact same way every time, but to
get the groove and the feel for the tune so we can have some fun with it. A
jukebox we're not. You won't hear us play the same thing the same way twice.
Our arrangements are mostly about cues, getting for a nod from someone or a
hearing a whoop from the drummer, someone says "here we go," whatever. We
busted our balls to get this tune down, this is the first time playing it
out and this clueless fuckstick comes up and takes a giant steaming shit on
it. I am PISSED, on the verge of losing it completely. Had I been playing my
$40 POS Chinese slide guitar instead of my start set up for my GR-33 synth
(great for piano, organ, horn section & reeds) I would have done a Keith
Richards and knocked him stone fucking cold with it (...well, officer, he
was drunk and tripped on a mic cable...must've hit his head on the monitor
when he went down). I was screaming "Get the fuck outa here!!" over the
music, which is still in the groove (our drummer, Billy Styx, is the Pope of
Rhythm, infallible, the only way he'd lose the beat is to drop dead while
playing) but the intoxicated semi-musical moron at the mic can't hear me. I
did not want to stop the tune and further make us look like idiots.
He FINALLY lumbered off and we continued playing. Suddenly the whole bottom
drops out. I look over and Randy, the other guitarist and Dave, the bass
player. They are examining a wedge monitor. I wave at the drummer and we
stop the tune. I holler "WTF is going on over there?" Randy hollers back,
"The speaker's on fire!" Sure enough, at that moment I saw the smoke and
smelled that distinctive smell of cooked electronic components. A capacitor
on the crossover board cooked. I almost think it was psychokinetic, the
burning capacitor being an outward physical manifestation of my seething
inner rage!!
We took a break to assess the damage. The owner's friend who brought the
moron onstage came up to me and congratulated me on my playing. I proceeded
to peel his ass about him bringing the "harp player" up and told him to
NEVER EVER under ANY circumstance approach the band again when we are
playing. We played there last Friday and he didn't say a word to me.
Heh...there are some people who think I'm an asshole, and I have usually
given them a damned good reason for it. It's fine with me and makes my life
easier because they avoid me after that, like this guy does now.
Then I went over to the bar and located the asshole with the harps. Turns
out I know this jerk from a local blues society from 15 or so years ago.
Jimmy from Philly, a half-assed biker with sleeves of extremely unartful
tattoos who used to run a local grease pit disguised as an eatery called the
Phila Deli with his two unappealing morbidly obese sisters. "Hey man, I'm
playing a lot of harp now" he says. I'm thinking that a "lot" of harp for
this dumb fuck blues harpist wannabe does not necessarily equate to actually
making anything called "music" with it. Then he wants to know if he can come
up and jam with us! Jeezuz H. Christ on a speeding moped! I can't believe
what I am hearing! He barges onstage, fucks up a tune and NOW he asks if he
can jam with us! I simply tell him "no." Not to be deterred, he goes to the
other guitarist and runs the same shit by him. He is told "You wanna play
with the band, you practice with the band. Otherwise forget it." "Well, that
SUCKS, says Jimmy, and he stomps off not to be heard from again. Must be he
thinks I'm an asshole too. Life is getting better all the time!!
Now, I am a harp player and I love playing harp and I found myself thinking
"...typical fucking harp player..."
It's guys like that - morons who have too much to drink and a couple harps
in their pocket - who give the rest of us a bad name.
Oh, and we have a new band policy: anybody that pulls that shit in the
future will be carried out of the joint.
I suppose the reason this kind of stuff happens is that anyone can afford a
harp and it can be carried easily in a pocket and fancy themselves a blues
player (kind of like anyone who sits behind a drum kit thinks they can drum
because all you have to do is hit them). For those of us who are serious -
and I am - my main concern is that I refuse to embarrass myself by the
material I play, how I play it, or with whom I play it. Those are my basic
professional standards. The other guys feel the same. We have great rapport.
We rehearse every week and try to have our shit as tight as possible when we
play. Guys like Jimmy just don't get it that a BAND works hard at what they
do and are under no obligation to let anyone else on stage. Ever. When a
group of musicians put in the time and effort we do it is not reasonable for
anyone else to reap the rewards of that by getting onstage and benefiting
from the band's hard work without having put something into it themselves.
They're into "Wow! look at me! I'm SO fucking cool...".
Now, if anyone in the band says someone else is OK to jam with us, that is a
different story and good enough. If another musician meets the standards of
any one of us, they are welcome to sit in. But an unknown quantity like
Jimmy is not welcome. I don't remember that he could play 15 years ago and
don't have any reason to think he has improved.
Just wanted to share this war story with my brother harp players.
We don't have any harp tunes up on myspace yet, but here's our URL if anyone
wants to check us out:
http://www.myspace.com/oilcreekrythymkings
Gene Johnson
PS. That was a Carvin crossover that cooked and they are sending me another
capacitor. Top notch customer service there!
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **