Ep 33: Storytime Volume Two

In today's episode, John continues what will be a podcast tradition of sharing memorable gig stories.

One of the greatest things musicians can do is tell one another stories about their most memorable gigs. We encourage one another, remind each other why we do what we do, laugh together, and celebrate together. We learn from one another. We normalize the chaos that most definitely happens. We pass down our survival knowledge.

Best of all, we preserve moments that happened in space and time. The show happens live. The stories live with us. The best way to keep those stories fresh is to retell them.

Transcript

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You are listening to the Gig to Live Podcast. Welcome everyone. I'm John Foles and I'm a full-time working musician. This podcast is about building a music life that holds up over time. It's practical, enjoyable, sometimes uncomfortable, but it's always about helping you stay in the game and actually enjoy the life that you're building. We'll meet some wonderful working musicians from time to time. So whether you're just getting started or you've been doing this for years, you're in the right spot. This podcast is for you. Hello everyone. Welcome. Go ahead and grab one of those little carpets over there in the corner, throw it out in a corner of the room, get yourself a snack, sit crisscross applesauce, make yourself comfortable because kids, it's story time. Welcome to Storytime Volume Two. When we did volume one, I mentioned that I think one of the greatest things that musicians can do is to tell one another stories about their most memorable gigs. I think we encourage one another, we remind each other why we do what we do. We get to laugh together, we get to celebrate together, we get to learn things from one another, and we normalize the chaos that most definitely happens as we are out there in the wild. We pass down our survival knowledge. And I think best of all, we preserve moments that happened in space and time. The show happens live, the stories live with us. The best way to keep those stories fresh is to retell them. And so today I am going to be sharing some more memorable gig stories with you. This story, the first one, is called Black Socks. I play a lot of assisted living and memory care centers, and since I'm a full-time musician, I'm able to do weekday shows that some performers can't do. Many of those gigs are at like two o'clock in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. And whenever I'm in this one town in Northern California, I play this special place called Esquaton. I play there a few times each season. So I'm there one time and someone asked if I would play some of my original music. They were curious about the songs that I had written, which I love, and they asked when I only had about 10 minutes left in the set. So I introduced them to one of my humorous songs called Black Sox. Now, Black Sox is a song about getting old and uh and not only be getting older, but becoming more practical and thrifty as I get older. It's autobiographical. Black Sox has become a metaphor for me at this stage of life. The song has turned into a regular request at my shows, and as I guess they would, they loved the song. There was lots of laughter. So I go back there a few weeks after that, and when I arrived for my visit, a woman immediately grabbed my attention and she said, Please tell me that you're going to play black socks today. I laughed and I told her I would be happy to. Well, about halfway through the set, I told the room I had a request for black socks, and people clapped and cheered, and I played the song, and I could tell they were having a great time. They were hanging on every word. People were chuckling, they were elbowing each other, they were smiling, and then the last chord of the song rang out, which is an E, by the way. And suddenly everyone reached under their chairs and they started throwing wadded up black socks at me. I couldn't stop laughing. I actually started crying. I told them it was one of the best expressions of appreciation I had ever received at a show, and I told them how much I love them. After the hour was over, some of the ladies who organized the whole sock toss asked if they could take a photo with me. And I walked out of there that day feeling incredibly loved. There was also a bunch of joking about how it was a good thing I didn't write a song called Black Underwear. All right, the next story is called German Pop-Up Funeral. Does that pique your interest? I was playing music for a group of teenagers at a boarding school in the Black Forest of Germany. And the students' parents were scattered all over Europe. Some of the parents were in the American military, some were peace workers, some were government contract workers, some were missionaries, and I was asked to put a band together for the event. So I took three of my great musician friends, and we stayed in the Black Forest for a week. One evening after the band finished the show for the night, the organizer approached me with a woman in her thirties. She spoke English, but very simple and labored, uh way better than my German, that's for sure, though. I'll just throw that out there. She explained that they were having a funeral the next day. It was for her father. It was in a nearby cemetery, and she was wondering if I was able to come play music. She didn't care what I played, she didn't care what song I picked. They just wanted something beautiful. The family didn't know any of the local musicians in the Black Forest, and they heard our band playing as they were out for a walk. They lived close by, and I told her I would be happy to. And the next day I met the family in the cemetery. The organizer of the event went with me to translate what was happening and what they wanted of me for that a for that afternoon. One of the most meaningful funerals that I have ever played music at was for a German family in the Black Forest who just lost their father and they needed a favor from an American musician whom they had never met. That day, I was incredibly moved, and I was reminded that tears and sadness and loss, smiles, and laughter and hugs are the same no matter what language you speak. This next story is called The Czech Republic Show and the Polish Border. That's kind of a long title. I should have something flashier than that. I was traveling with a band throughout Europe back when border crossing was a little bit more intense. And at that time, by the way, they actually stamped your passport, which was super fun. So it was neat at that stage in life to get, you know, stamps in your passport wherever you travel. They don't do that anymore. You have to ask for it, and sometimes they do. They really just kind of want to get you through the line. Well, we were heading to a place in the Czech Republic called and I'm gonna butcher this, but it's called Novem Mesto Pod Schmirkum It's it's spelled N-O-V-E-M-E-S-T-O or P-O-D-S-M-R-K-E-M, and it translates as New Town Under the Spruce, which is funny because that new town was founded in the late 1500s. It's a beautiful area. It's mountainous. It's in the Jazera Mountains on the Czech Polish border. And it's famous because it's a European mountain biking destination, and it has a ton of single track trails around there for mountain bikers. Well, we were traveling from eastern Germany, and we had to go through a small part of Poland before entering the Czech Republic. And the border we passed through looked like every stereotypical border crossing that you would see in a movie, with armed guards in uniform looking angry or at least stern and maybe annoyed that you're passing through. So we all get our passports out. And the guards started checking through the back of the vehicle. I mean, they had mirrors underneath the vehicle, uh, you know, for anything, I'm sure, that would explode or anything we were trying to smuggle in. They were rummaging through all of our stuff. They were taking things out of the trailer we were pulling, they were setting it on the ground. One of them came to our open window and asked, Who plays the guitar? And everyone looked at me. I raised my hand and I said, I do. And then he said in a bit of an intimidating voice, step outside the vehicle. With his machine gun strapped to his side, he pointed at my guitar case, which was taken out of the vehicle, and he told me to open it. I opened it and he said, play something. I took the guitar out and I played part of a song. I didn't even sing. I don't even remember what I played. And then he asked me, Do you like Guns N' Roses? And I I couldn't tell by the way he asked if I should or I shouldn't like GNR, but I somehow thought that getting through this checkpoint was contingent upon my answer. And while I'm not a Dyed in the wool kind of a Guns N' Roses fan, I do enjoy them. So I answered yes. It was the right answer. The next thing I knew, the guard pulled up his pant leg to show me a tattoo of Slash playing guitar that went from his ankle to his knee. He said a few expletives as terms of endearment for the band, and he told me and the band that we were then free to leave. He told all of his guard buddies that I was a fan, and they all hooted and hollered and applauded as we drove into Poland. The next story I don't really have a title for it. One weekend, after a gig, a woman in her forties approached me and asked if I did private concerts. I told her I did, and she said she would like to hire me to come play for her daughter's birthday. I told her I played quite a few private birthday parties, but I wanted to make sure that I could provide the style of music that her daughter wanted. So I asked all the normal questions, you know, her daughter's age, the style of music that her daughter liked, if it was all her friends at the party or a mixture of family and friends. And then she smiled and she told me the concert would be for her daughter alone. Her daughter, who was in her young teens, was confined to a wheelchair, and her daughter was embarrassed about being in that wheelchair, and she didn't want to go out in public. She went a few places, but they decided it would be great to just hire a musician to come and play for her. Wow. What an honor, what a privilege. So I asked the mom if we could put together a few songs that she knew that her daughter would enjoy, and she obliged. We did that, we put a list together, and then the mom said, you know what, it really doesn't matter what you play, she is going to be so thrilled to have you in the home and to know that we did this for her for her birthday. And so the day came, and there I went. Just me and my guitar, no sound system, just me and my guitar. And when I got into the room where I was going to play, this beautiful young girl was sitting in her wheelchair with the biggest smile on her face, and there was one chair for me, sitting about ten feet from her. Mom asked the daughter if it would be okay if her and dad sat in the room, and the daughter said that would be fine. And so mom and dad sat in the back of the room, and I looked into the eyes of this girl for an hour and played some of her favorite music. There was laughter. There were tears. Dad got up and danced with her as he moved the wheelchair around a bit. It was one of the most meaningful private events that I've ever done. This next story is called Come to the Eagles with Us. I debated telling this story because I didn't want it to sound like I was actually celebrating it. I don't celebrate it. I think it is weird, but it is stuck in my mind as one of the weirdest things that has happened at a gig. Every musician has their share of flirtatious moments from the crowd, inappropriate things that are said by someone at their show, moments that cross a line. And it's it's not because we're hot, it's not because we're irresistible. There's something about a musician that sometimes maybe it seems dangerous and attractive to some people in the crowd, uh, especially if they've kicked their good judgment to the curb, and especially when they're under the influence of alcohol. I too have my fair share of those stories when the music is grooving and the lighting is perfect and everyone has lost their inhibitions and the cocktails are flowing. It's not actually that abnormal. My wife has a funny little saying that she says occasionally as I leave for a gig. She says, Remember, she's drunk and she's not as cute as me, and we both laugh. And I assure her that she is my one and only, and she's right. The things that are sometimes said in a bar at ten o'clock at night would never be said at ten o'clock in the morning when you pass someone on the street. We should never confuse those moments with some kind of cosmic connection with someone. One of the most indecent proposals I ever had was weirder than most because it wasn't just an inappropriate comment. It sounded like a plan. I've forgotten most of the flirtatious moments, but this one sticks out for me. I was approached after a gig by three women who were full of flattery and equally full of cosmos. And they asked teasingly what I was doing after the show. Sleeping, I told them. Where are you staying? One of them asked. I chuckled a bit. At home with my wife. Then one of them said, Look, we're going to Vegas, the three of us. We have tickets to see the eagles at the sphere, and we want you to come with us. You can stay with us. While I have always wanted to see the Eagles, I can assure you that none of this was tempting for me. This kind of flirtation is not only true for musicians. Human beings are naturally attracted to people who show confidence and confidence. I have friends who are teachers and athletes who run into the same kind of thing. Most of the time, the comments aren't really about the musician. They're about what the musician represents in that moment. Confidence and freedom and creativity, attention maybe, fun, escape. It's not really the person that they're attracted to. It's the version of the person that they cooked up in their heads after watching a 90-minute show under the influence. So, musician friends, don't kid yourself. I didn't go to Vegas. I politely turned them down. I laughed it off, and I went home and I went to sleep next to my wife. Okay, one last story for today. This is called Headbashing the Cymbal. I got invited to speak at a conference in Chicago because I had written a theme song for a big company. Uh they worked with the airlines and they had a safety campaign that they needed a theme song for. I got hired to do that. It was an honor. It was amazing. It was super fun. Recorded a video for it and everything. They asked me to come and speak at their event where I would also play the song that I had written for them, and I would also do a concert of some songs that I enjoyed playing. They didn't care if I did original songs or covers or what. They just wanted me to entertain as well. So it was a big deal. It was super fun. They flew me from uh California out to Chicago, and I was able to uh do this gig. Have a blast. Well, as I'm there, I'm approached by one of the higher-ups in the organization who says, We have a surprise for you. We have a house band. We have a band that is put together of people that work in the company, and we would love it if we could join you on stage and you could do your solo stuff, and we could also do our band stuff. We could maybe collaborate and do something together. You know, it sounded super fun. And by the way, he was one of the guys who would make this decision, so it's not like I had to ask permission to see if this was going to be okay. I was taken off guard a little bit because I hadn't prepared for this kind of thing, but I thought, what's the worst thing that could happen? This will be a memory that we're creating. So I sat with him and a few of the other people, uh, and they they came prepared. Let me tell you, they had brought a van out there full of all of their band equipment, and they set it up with a stage one night, and we put together a full set list, and we even had time to practice, and it was amazing. Well, I was feeling on top of my game, the crowd was loving it. It was a private company party, everybody was a bit liquored up and having a great time, and we did an ACDC song, and it was super fun. I think we were doing a great job of it, and Idiot Knucklehead Me decided it would be fun to smash my head into one of the cymbals at the drum kit as we were playing just to show them what a rock and roller I was. So at the right moment, I took my head back and I banged it down on that cymbal, not knowing how loose the hardware was on that drum kit. And a giant piece of whatever was in the middle of that drum cymbal stand came up and hit me right at the forefront of my bald head and cut my head open so badly that blood just started gushing down my face. We finished the song to the shock and horror and awe of some of the people that were in the front row wondering why the lead singer had blood all over him. It was a rock and roll moment, move over kiss. It was something out of this world, and it's one of the most stupid things I've ever done. I can see the scar. I don't think anybody else can see it. I know it's there. The biggest scar is in my heart. The biggest scar is my pride. What an idiot. All right, hey, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this story time. Stay creative, stay after it, and stay hired, if you can, after shenanigans like that. My gosh. Let me love.