Just my luck

[Boota]

Tonight my band is performing a showcase for a few record companies and management agencies and I wake up with no voice. It's just plain gone. I'm not the lead singer, but I'm the main harmony singer. I either sing back-up by myself or the other two guys follow me. We're doing a brand new song tonight that we only chose because of the really cool harmony part at the end. My singer has given me some tips for getting it back, but I doubt I can get it back and functional by tonight. I have until 11pm.

The last time this happened was the day we booked our time in the most expensive studio we've ever worked in. Goddamned traitor throat!

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Tonight my band is performing a showcase for a few record companies and management agencies and I wake up with no voice. It's just plain gone. I'm not the lead singer, but I'm the main harmony singer. I either sing back-up by myself or the other two guys follow me. We're doing a brand new song tonight that we only chose because of the really cool harmony part at the end. My singer has given me some tips for getting it back, but I doubt I can get it back and functional by tonight. I have until 11pm.

The last time this happened was the day we booked our time in the most expensive studio we've ever worked in. Goddamned traitor throat!

Bummer! I was in a show once, with a solo, and got to dress rehearsal to find myself completely laryngitic. My doctor was at the dress rehearsal too, so I asked him what to do. He said not to talk too much. Then he suggested Benadryl and tea with honey and whiskey. I think I got my voice back for the performance the next day, but it's more likely that I was just too looped to care at that point. Hope you get better, big guy! Maybe they should just withhold that info from you until the day of the performance.

 

[Safe_Bet]

Tonight my band is performing a showcase for a few record companies and management agencies and I wake up with no voice. It's just plain gone. I'm not the lead singer, but I'm the main harmony singer. I either sing back-up by myself or the other two guys follow me. We're doing a brand new song tonight that we only chose because of the really cool harmony part at the end. My singer has given me some tips for getting it back, but I doubt I can get it back and functional by tonight. I have until 11pm.

The last time this happened was the day we booked our time in the most expensive studio we've ever worked in. Goddamned traitor throat!

Could part of it be nerves, dude?

Bummer! I was in a show once, with a solo, and got to dress rehearsal to find myself completely laryngitic. My doctor was at the dress rehearsal too, so I asked him what to do. He said not to talk too much. Then he suggested Benadryl and tea with honey and whiskey. I think I got my voice back for the performance the next day, but it's more likely that I was just too looped to care at that point. Hope you get better, big guy! Maybe they should just withhold that info from you until the day of the performance.

I have GOT to get the name of your doctor!

 

[Boota]

Where I messed up this morning is that I went to work for half a day. Impossible not to talk there. My voice is coming back a little bit, though. Don't know if I'll be able to sing tonight or not. I'll do what I can. I have one song that I have to growl on and sing real low. That probably won't be a problem. A couple of others are going to kill me. Fortunately there are three of the eight songs we get to do that don't have any backing vocals. If I can space them where I need the rests it might help. I'll be doing the tea/honey/whiskey. My singer does that, but without the whiskey. I'm thinking of it more as medicine than a warm-up/vocal lubricant, so I have a bottle of Crown Royal riding along in my tech kit tonight.

Safe Bet, it's not nerves. I felt this coming on a couple days ago and I think it was from sleeping with the window open and the temperature dropped about thirty degrees over night, with rain. When I was making my calls from work yesterday a lady said I had a really "hot" voice because it was so deep. Well, hot is gone. LOL. Now it sounds like a shovel being dragged through gravel.

I've never been nervous or had stage fright at any level before. If anything I'm overconfident to a fault at times. The first time I ever went onstage was in front of over 3,000 people and I remember thinking, "I can't believe the other guys are nervous. These are just a bunch of people who don't know how awesome we are yet." And that was back before we were even very good.

Well, we're off in a few. Should be fun if nothing else.

 

[DeeZire]

Years ago, I saw Linda Ronstadt doing a concert with a cool vapor humidifier behind her blowing mist at her. Anything you can do to keep your throat moist should help. Also, not talking at all is imperative. I read somewhere that Broadway singers have to sign a contract that says they won't talk on show days.

 

[Vermilion]

so......... how'd it go?

 

[Boota]

Well, I got home just in time to wake up the kids and get them to school and get to work. I finally got to bed at around 1 am this morning, but now I've slept a couple hours and I'm ready to roll. Probably not a good idea to drive a big truck all over Hell's half acre on no sleep, but I did fine.

The show was weird. I completely lost my voice and didn't even have a microphone on my side of the stage. You never realize how many questions you have to answer until you have no voice to answer them.

We had the most technical problems for one show that we've ever had. My bass player has this really cool six-string bass with one problem: all the electronics. There is something majorly wrong with it and it picked that night to really act up. And of all the songs for it to completely cut out on it waited for the one with the really cool bass intro. My processor kept switching programs on it's own. The monitor system - at this extremely awesome club - waited for us to go on to fail. About three songs into the set the cross stage monitor by my drummer went to loud static that nearly drowned out the bass amp, which was the only thing he could hear as far as the live amps on the stage.

Still, we got a good response. The audience was very receptive. They seemed to understand that the problems with the gear wasn't our fault, which isn't always the case. I've heard people say a band sucks because they blew up an amp.

The record company stuff is probably going to be a bust. It was reps working with the two bands we were asked about touring with this summer and they are primarily hard core labels. We always get stuck playing with hard core bands and that just isn't us. When we play with hard core bands we tailor our set with our heaviest songs and we usually end up winning over their fans. (To the point where some of these bands are really pissed at us. They hate seeing "their" fans enjoying us more, but it happens.) Thursday we had so many things being decided by our set that we couldn't just go out and play an all heavy night. The club we were playing at was deciding whether to have us back in the future. And they pick the unsigned bands to open for national touring acts according to style of music. We played a range of things to prove that we could open for pop to metal. With all the songs we have we could open for Bon Jovi one night and Slayer the next, just by switching around our own songs.

We left the stage feeling bad about the performance. It was the source of arguments on the way home. We felt that it was our most amateur set since we were amateurs. The good news is that after we watched the video we realized we made a mountain out of a molehill. With everything stacked against us, it really wasn't all that bad. It just felt bad, being a part of something that is crashing down around us.

Something I else I found cool and I learned that night is that one of my musical heroes played his last concert on the same stage. Dimebag Darrell Abbott played on the Piere's stage the night before he was murdered onstage in Columbus, OH. Putting things in perspective, feeling bad about a show is much better than getting shot in the head.

My manager will be finding out more from Piere's and about the tour possibilities over this weekend and into next week. I don't expect to go on the tour. The other bands liked us, but we just won't mesh well as a package.

 

[Handley_Page]

Good Luck.
Wish your band was over here; I'd go and see.

 

[3113]

Good Luck.
Wish your band was over here; I'd go and see.

Hmmm. So would I. But Boota would have to promise to have "I 3113" painted on his chest...and to play without a shirt, of course

 

[Xelebes]

Tonight my band is performing a showcase for a few record companies and management agencies and I wake up with no voice. It's just plain gone. I'm not the lead singer, but I'm the main harmony singer. I either sing back-up by myself or the other two guys follow me. We're doing a brand new song tonight that we only chose because of the really cool harmony part at the end. My singer has given me some tips for getting it back, but I doubt I can get it back and functional by tonight. I have until 11pm.

The last time this happened was the day we booked our time in the most expensive studio we've ever worked in. Goddamned traitor throat!

Have you ate an apple yet?

 

[Boota]

http://http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Boota/FetishUnleashed.jpg

 

[Boota]

Well, there was a picture of us onstage, but all I see is the red X. Anyone else?

 

[Boota]

Have you ate an apple yet?

Do apples work? I've never heard of that.

3113, I've never had my chest painted, but I actually wear lipstick at every show. Just not on my face.

 

[Boota]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Boota/FetishUnleashed.jpg

 

[3113]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Boota/FetishUnleashed.jpg

http://www.beatles-tr.com/Beatles_ilk_Shf/Beatles_Hikayesi/Beatlemania.jpg

"Ohmygawd it's him! It's him! BOOTA! BOOTA!" (scream, cry, faint)

 

[Xelebes]

Do apples work? I've never heard of that.

3113, I've never had my chest painted, but I actually wear lipstick at every show. Just not on my face.

Apples are the best food for the throat. They may not exactly make it better but they help maintenance.

 

[DeeZire]

Nice guitar. BTW, does your bass player know he's playing left-handed? No wonder the electronics on his bass are screwed up.

 

[Boota]

I brought that up to him, but he's convinced it's not the problem. It could also be the six strings. Those two extra strings can fuck up a bass player. In all seriousness, he's the best bass player I've ever heard. We keep trying to get him to do a bass solo at a show, but he won't do it. Hates showing off. During soundchecks other bands' bass players get intimidated when he runs through his warm-up patterns.

Despite the bad show the other night, we've got video and it didn't come out to bad for a little digital camera. If you want to check it out:

www.myspace.com/fetishrock

It's for our song "Bleed". I would normally be singing a lot during that song, but not in this video.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Boota/FetishUnleashed.jpg

Looks purdy goot, mon. Stage presence to the max!