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The Steel Guitar Forum
Bar Chatter Archive
Funniest Things Seen While Playing In A Bar
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This topic was originally posted in this forum: Wanted To Buy |
| Author | Topic: Funniest Things Seen While Playing In A Bar |
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Dave A. Burley Member Posts: 170 |
posted 01 February 2001 06:56 AM
Boy, some of the crazy things that I have seen in forty years of playing. I am going to relate two to you. I was playing with a group that included Muskegon steel guitarist, Ron Lawrence. The guy that picks good steel without a thumb on his right hand. Anyway.....We were playing at the Half Moon Tavern just outside of Muskegon. This beautiful gal, looked a lot like a young Elizabeth Taylor, was having a ball dancing to most everything that we played. She especially liked polkas and really would get carried away. As she got drunker, during this one fast polka, she lost something out of her blouse that fell on the floor. She reached over to pick it up and when she bent down, her hair fell off. She picked up both items and ran to the restroom, holding one on her head and the other where it was supposed to be on her chest.Ron had to quit playing as he was leaning over his steel in tears. When she came out of the restroom,very very drunk, she had the hair on sideways, the other item about four inches lower then the mate and had soiled her britches pretty bad. From Elizabeth Taylor to a Phyllis Diller in just a few minutes. The other hilarious thing was at the Maple Island Tavern. This middle aged woman, feeling her oats, had went to use the restroom. The restroom door was to the left of the bandstand and she had to walk in front of the band across the dance floor to get back to her seat. As she left the restroom, we all noticed that she had tucked her skirt into her underthings in the back with the toilet tissue tucked in with her skirt and the tissue still hooked onto the roller in the restroom. She walked the entire length of the dance floor with the toilet tissue still tucked into her skirt and still unwinding from the roller. Dave |
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Glenn Suchan Member Posts: 1187 |
posted 01 February 2001 07:36 AM
Uh bartender? I'll have two of what she was drinkin....  Great stories, Dave!I remember while playin' at the Clachen Inn in Austin, one time (I confess, I've played there more times than I care to admit Keep on pickin'! |
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Bill Terry Member Posts: 1021 |
posted 01 February 2001 08:06 AM
Hey Glenn, it's Clachan... If anybody there ever found out you spelled it wrong I'm sure they'd be real upset... at least the ones that can read. I saw a girl / girl fight at the Clachan that was pretty entertaining. Not so unusual in itself except one of the combatants was the guitar player's girlfriend and she got booted out of the club. So he had to quit in the middle of the set, tear down and load out his gear, and then take her home. He didn't come back so we split up his dough at the end of the night... Worked for me, I'd have paid him to leave. Did you hear the Clachan is going to be torn down to make room for that Hwy 183 to Hwy 71 interchange expansion? Also that Used Tire store and the Diesel Injector repair shop are going.... I think the Wrecking Yard sorta behind there dodged the bullet. ------------------ |
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Glenn Suchan Member Posts: 1187 |
posted 01 February 2001 08:38 AM
Folks, as you can tell from Bill's post the Clachan Inn (got it right this time) is in one of Austin's classier neighborhoods  And then there was this time when four really huge women in hawaiian moomoo dresses...Never mind, I'm not gonna go there..... Keep on pickin'! |
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Bill C. Buntin Member Posts: 642 |
posted 01 February 2001 08:48 AM
Hey, another great post. I used to play Mineral Wells TX. It is a not so High Class town. Very depressed since the Helicopter training/Army Ft. Wolters folded up and went to Ft. Rucker, Al. The town is now full of some MAJOR bar flys and otherwise "seedy" individuals. I actually used to carry my Buck lock blade hunting knife in my back pocket to play ANY of the night clubs in Mineral Wells. Now that you have the picture, I was working up there one night, and a big party of people came in with a big birthday cake. They were all blasted, rip-roaring high and drunk. they sat the cake dowm and started partying. During the next break we went down to check out this party. They were in a big argument about who's cake it was. One guy said, "I think I'm just gonna stick my A@# in that cake." He got of few choice cuss words from several people. Then in front of the whole crowd (500) people.This guy dropped his pants to the floor and sat down in the cake. He raised up and the waitresses started wiping his back side. Then they all laughed and started eating the cake! They offered me a slice. I said, "No thanks, I'm on a diet." |
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Tony Orth Member Posts: 428 |
posted 01 February 2001 10:51 AM
Perhaps not funny, but exciting. Playing in a tiny bar in the middle of nowhere, that's Somerville, Indiana. Two friends, a guy and his wife, had a bit too much liquor, went outside and got on their horses and rode them into the bar. They did a 360 on the dance floor and then rode out. Scared the H out of me. If those horses had been spooked by the music, our equipment and ourselves would have been history. |
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Sage Member Posts: 525 |
posted 01 February 2001 11:42 AM
It's a good thing those horses liked your music. My animal story is a lot quieter than that. Up in Red Feather Lakes CO one night I watched a big fat salamander come out on the dance floor and start waddling my way. I couldn't believe it, but none of the happily oblivious dancers stepped on him. He made it all the way over to my steel and under the pedals just as it was my turn for a ride! It was the first time I'd tried a "no-pedal" version of that- didn't want to set a new standard for "squishy" action! |
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John Cadeau Member Posts: 355 |
posted 01 February 2001 01:02 PM
Tony we had a similar thing happen, two outriders from a local rodeo kept telling our lady singer they were gonna come in on horseback, and by gosh one night they did. Our band was fairly loud and the horses spooked a bit. One of them reared when they got on the dance floor. I was worried about them losing there footing on the dance floor. Another one, was one night there were three young ladies line dancing right in front of the bandstand. At the end of the song all three turned their backs to the bandstand and in one finely choreographed moved they dropped their britches and mooned the band. It was something to remember. John |
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Dave Long Member Posts: 112 |
posted 01 February 2001 01:19 PM
Hey Dave, did you say The Half Moon in Muskegon? I think that was my first wife... |
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Tony Orth Member Posts: 428 |
posted 01 February 2001 01:58 PM
John, 3 moons in one night? Bet that really lit up the faces of the band members. Tony |
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John Cadeau Member Posts: 355 |
posted 01 February 2001 02:04 PM
We had one heck of a time, composing ourselves for the next song, but it was a beautiful sight. A great floor show. John |
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Bob Blair Member Posts: 1002 |
posted 01 February 2001 09:15 PM
There was a place in the Toronto area, a roadhouse kind of place in a wooded area out near the zoo. When I played there racoons came in on more than one occassion. At the New Edwin Hotel on Queen Street in Toronto in 87 or 88 they used to have "ladies night" with male dancers every Wednesday. I worked a few weeks there with a singer/songwriter named Joe Sloan (some of you Toronto guys might remember Joe - he wrote some pretty good tunes, but rarely got much above the dive circuit as a performer). One night I wandered up to Joe by the bar and asked how he was doing - he allowed as how he was not doing so great, that in fact his stomach was giving him a lot of trouble. I asked how come. Joe pointed down at the dance floor, where a dude in a black leather cowboy outfit (hadn't got to the point where the outfit was coming off) was strutting his stuff to the infamous "Rodeo Song" (mercifully, I can't remember what other songs came later in his act as the duds came off - maybe we went to the donut shop, which is what we usually did on Wednesdays). "HE gets respect", is all Joe said. And that just about said it all. Wasn't too long after that I packed it in with the bars! |
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Jim Walker Member Posts: 654 |
posted 01 February 2001 09:57 PM
I've seen quite a few funny things happen in the clubs playing music, and most of the time they happen to me. But about a year and a half a go, we were playing an outside gig out behind a Bar&Grill joint and the flies were realy bad at that point in the afternoon and they were attacking the bassist. He kept flapping his arms to the beat of the music to keep'em off him. One of the patrons ask him why he kept doing the Chicken Dance.....  |
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Mike Perlowin Member Posts: 6731 |
posted 01 February 2001 11:40 PM
Back in the 70's, I played lead guitar for a guy named Frankie Howard. Frankie wasn't a singer. He was a gigolo who played in clubs to attract female customers. He had some sort of magical magnetic attraction for women. They just threw themselves at him, begging him to choose them to go home with after the gig. On more than one occasion one and sometimes more than one would show the band her breasts. It wasn't funny, but it was fun playing with him. |
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Earnest Bovine Member Posts: 4687 |
posted 02 February 2001 12:39 AM
Chris Gaffney has that same animal magnetism with the chicks, but he can sing. |
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Gord Cole Member Posts: 224 |
posted 02 February 2001 04:03 AM
Hey Bob Blair, that sounds like the 'Robin Hood Tavern'??? Joe Vitale and his wife managed the place I think. I played drums there a few times, and I remember one night on break sitting near a couple of fellas who were 'well-on- their-way'. I overheard the one say to the other –"Jimmy you know we could still be sitting here in the same place three years from now BUT DEAD!" |
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Mike Perlowin Member Posts: 6731 |
posted 02 February 2001 06:15 AM
I have that same kind of magnetism for the ladies too, only it's reversed. They take one look at me and run away as fast as possible.  |
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Glenn Suchan Member Posts: 1187 |
posted 02 February 2001 10:39 AM
Mike, That sounds like a Kevin Fowler show. Just last night I autographed four sets of bare breasts, one butt cheek and a bikini line while meeting fans at our merch. stand. And Kevin autographed alot more and varied body parts than me! Bare breasts are norm not the exception at our gigs Keep on pickin'! |
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rayman unregistered Posts: 1187 |
posted 02 February 2001 05:40 PM
Club Utica, Buffalo,N.Y. The Seneca Indians decide to beat up the flower guy who came inside to sell his roses. You see it was one in the morning and the Senecas were a little bored. The flowers were unevenly scattered throughout the atmosphere. The flower guy went out on his can. The band applauded. It was like a cross between a Tolstoy story and a Picasso painting! Country is tough but someones gotta do it. |
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Rich Paton Member Posts: 686 |
posted 03 February 2001 01:28 AM
Right after a remodel job in the local bar, a guitarist plugged his Marshall amp into a receptacle (the cheapo owner had his two carpenters do electrical work too) that they had wired into a 277 volt circuit. The pyrotechnics show that immediately followed was a real howler! |
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Tim Hurst Member Posts: 86 |
posted 03 February 2001 07:25 PM
Several years ago I was playing three nights a week at a motel lounge in Newport, TN. One Friday night we came in to find that earlier that day a tractor-trailer rig had rolled down the hill and had crashed through the outside brick wall of the building. The cab of the truck was sitting on about half of the dance floor, with the remainder of the rig stretching through the hole in the wall and out into the parking lot. We went ahead and played the next two nights with it sitting there. Did a lot of truck driving songs. |
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Ken Lang Member Posts: 2467 |
posted 03 February 2001 08:31 PM
In the early 80's here in Simi at our regular weekend gig there was a lady well into her cups who also had some rather large cups of her own. She wandered on to the bandstand and as I was sitting down and an easy target, she came up behind me and laid one on either shoulder. I've never played in so many keys in one song before or since. A few minutes later she was on the dance floor and pulled her top stuff off. The owner, in his 60's, had to toss her out while she was still trying to dance. His complaint later was he had a hard time grabbing hold of her because he kept getting pistol whipped, that is, slapped in the face with those two 45's. |
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Sleepy John unregistered Posts: 2467 |
posted 04 February 2001 08:12 AM
quote:  Glenn Now you've gone and done it..., Kenny Dail left home(Portsmouth, Virginia) Friday heading for Austin. Never thought much about him muttering something about Hawaiin Women in Moo Moo's Until I read your post. Hope those ladies are big, 400lbs or better, Thats the way ol KD likes them. ------------------ [This message was edited by Sleepy John on 06 February 2001 at 12:51 PM.] |
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Dennis Detweiler Member Posts: 1700 |
posted 04 February 2001 08:37 AM
At a redneck bar...the band takes a break and sits next to an old guy that is grossing everyone out. He has his dentures out and is cleaning them with his snot rag. Then he sets them on the table to go to the restroom. While he's gone the redneck girl singer in the band reaches down her drawers and jerks out a pubic and jams it between the two front teeth of the dentures. The old guy comes back and puts his dentures in his mouth and walks out!! I wondered if he was married? Dennis |
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John Cadeau Member Posts: 355 |
posted 04 February 2001 11:01 PM
My daughter just told me she thinks the funniest thing seen playing in a bar is me. John |
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Joe Casey Member Posts: 3402 |
posted 05 February 2001 05:25 AM
I don't know if this will qualify as most embarassing or funny,to me they were both..I had a pedal steel player in my band that wore a "Hank Snow type" hairpiece.A young lady decided to tell him how good he was and at the same time she rubbed his head..Well you know what happened next,she almost rubbed it off  .He did a little maintenance and continued the set with it side-ways..It was funny to us but I guess he didn't apreciate it..2: another night we had a bass player who loved to eat chicken and beans.One night he was sharing his "silent but deadly flatuence "and the whole band walked off the stage while he was singing. Those of us who could continue played from the dance floor as it had given us plenty of room for obvious reasons..The guy kept singing and smiling with his red face...We never had to evacuate again.I almost forgot we were doing a live recording that night and you could hear "doc" Peters yelling in the back ground who S**T his F#####n pants.It was left on the tape.------------------ [This message was edited by Joe Casey on 05 February 2001 at 11:46 AM.] |
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John Borchard Member Posts: 224 |
posted 06 February 2001 11:51 AM
This actually happened after the gig but thought I'd share anyway. We were playing in Killeen, TX in the early '80s and when we got back to the motel the parking lot was full of "working girls" (it was payday on the army base, Ft. Hood). The bass player and I were sharing a room and he had gone in, leaving the door open for me. As I was getting my guitars out of the van, one of the ladies asked if I needed a date. I said, "No thanks." She asked if my friend needed one and I told her she'd have to ask him. So she walked into the room ahead of me to find my roomie in the bathroom getting rid of the beer he'd consumed at the gig. She asked, "Do you need some help?" To which he replied without skipping a beat, "Why? Are you a psychiatrist?" Ah, the glamorous side of show-biz! JB |
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John Rickard Member Posts: 839 |
posted 06 February 2001 12:52 PM
This event was funny and painful. We had a packed house full of crazies. We hit the first four notes of Sweet Home Alabama and this guy practically exploded out of his seat jumping over his table and caught his foot on the railing around the dance floor in mid flight crashing to the floor with a loud "CRACK" breaking his leg. He said it was his favorite song. I took a photo, click here http://208.44.243.182/imgdir/981466891-8937.jpg (Notice the angle of the foot) JR ------------------ [This message was edited by John Rickard on 06 February 2001 at 12:53 PM.] [This message was edited by John Rickard on 06 February 2001 at 12:55 PM.] |
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forrest klott Member Posts: 419 |
posted 06 February 2001 06:43 PM
OUCH!!!!! |
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Mark van Allen Member Posts: 2458 |
posted 07 February 2001 08:43 AM
Late 70's and we're playing the "Sunday Talent Show" at an ancient Theatre in Waxhaw, North Carolina- I'm backing up somebody singing "Rocky Top", and I notice two very pretty gals in the front row just staring and pointing at me...I'm thinking they're really digging the steel sound...the more we played, the bigger their eyes got, when right in the middle of my solo, the coolest noise I've ever heard made me turn to look at my amp, which was on fire, thick smoke everywhere and 6 inch green flames coming out of the Power supply caps...the band called me "Smoky" for months...and I did get a date with one of the girls...and a new Webb! ------------------ |
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Dave A. Burley Member Posts: 170 |
posted 07 February 2001 04:38 PM
One night back in the seventies after playing a gig south of Grand Rapids................... Elmer Fudpucker, Sr. and I went back to the motel, the Chez Ami south of GR. As was usual in 73, we drank all night long and left our door open. Two girls came in about 3a.m. and started to dance and strip. They put on quite a good show. Stripping everything off and then headed towards Fudpucker to help him enjoy the evening. Just as Fudpucker was starting to really enjoy himself, a guy knocked on the side of the door. I invited him in.......He looked at the two girls and asked them what they were doing in our room. True story.....They had gotten the wrong room. What a great show and it didn't cost me and Fud a penny. Dave Burley |
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Dave A. Burley Member Posts: 170 |
posted 08 February 2001 09:00 AM
Couple other things......While playing a one night gig in HEbor City in Tampa, Florida, the bandstand was 6 feet off of the dance floor and surrounded by chicken wire. It had a door and a lock on it. We were served our beer through a little hole in the wall as the band stand was right next to the bar. This Sunday performance showed me how ugly a situation can get. After enduring the bottles and other things being thrown at the band while performing, we were shocked to watch a man get stabbed to death right in front of our eyes on the dance floor. Boy were we glad when the police arriveed. One other........While performing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a club right on the edge of the colored district called Snow's. A riot broke out on the outside. Some of the rioting people walked into this bar that was patronized by a bunch of Kentuckians. All hell broke out. Butcher knives....Bullets popping little bumps on the inside of the big steel door that was right in front of the band stand. The police arrived.....We were escorted out and discovered that our cars had been trashed. I had a 1966 Plymouth with a 426 Hemi in it and they had knocked out every window except one. My favorite car all tore up. Fires all over. Middle of the winter driving 100 miles home to Muskegon with no windshield. Wayne Roberts, the singer, sticking his nose up close to the window to see not knowing there was a big hole in the window, now covered by snow. He turned the wipers on and they almost tore off his nose. It sounds runny now but it sure wasn't back then. Both Ron Lawrence, our steel player, and I trying to find a way to flush ourselves down the toilet to excape. What a night, but, thank the Lord. We emerged from all of it still alive. Dave Burley |
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Bob Blair Member Posts: 1002 |
posted 08 February 2001 09:51 AM
In late 81 or early 82 I was playing at the Edgewater in Toronto - not one of the better joints in town. I was chatting with the guitar in a break player when he looked over and saw a not entirely unattractive woman walking alone up to the bar. He allowed as how it had been awhile since he'd enjoyed female company, and decided to head over and introduce himself. She seemed happy that he had joined her. He chatted with her for a couple of minutes, then she opened her purse and pointed something out in it. He backed away from the bar, giving a perfunctory wave goodbye and with a ****eating grin on his face just liked he was in a video on rewind - fastest I've ever seen anyone walk backwards I bet. Turns out she was showing him her gun, which she said she had with her in case her ex turned up. |
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PLAYSTEEL9 Member Posts: 689 |
posted 08 February 2001 10:19 AM
i have one to top you john, saturday night we had one of our birthday girls on the dance floor to recieve her free drink,( i should fill you in first, our band buys a shot, usuall a blo&%#@job, for the ladys on their birthday and they must drink it from between the legs of their male of choise with out using their hands, I.E. picking the shot up with their mouth only.) any way, our young lady saturday failed in her attempt to pick up the shot and dropped it in the lap of her young man and all over the dance floor, well, yes she did lick it off the young mans lap, but worse then that she then licked the remainder off the dance floor. what some people will do for a free drink wayne ------------------ |
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John Paul Jones Member Posts: 305 |
posted 10 February 2001 12:07 PM
Cicero, Illinois. 1960. The steel player was set up next to the steps leading up to the bandstand. As I got on the bandstand after a break the steel player was standing next to the steps talking to a guy who was dressed like a typical Hollywood movie gangster -- white suit, black shirt, white tie, white hat, black hatband. The steel player told me the guy wanted to hear the Steel Guitar Rag. I acknowledged the request over the mic and said we would do it after the 1st song. I kicked off the 1st song and started singing. Into about the 3rd line the steel player abruptly started playing Steel Guitar Rag while I'm singing this song. I immediately looked at the steel player. The gangster-type guy was pointing a gun at the steel players head. Of course, we all fell in with the steel player and finished Steel Guitar Rag. True story. John Paul Jones |
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Tom Hodgin Member Posts: 175 |
posted 12 February 2001 01:21 PM
Two different new years eve parties...a intoxicated lady, trying to unzip her dress while dancing alone in front of the bandstand. just could not get it done, and they wouldn't let the steelman help..but the next new years party..four young ladies took off their tops and charged into the band.. I JUST LOVE NEW YEARS EVE PARTIES.....tom |
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bill ramsey Member Posts: 249 |
posted 12 February 2001 02:30 PM
hey tom. call me for the next one. take care my friend. ------------------ |
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) there was a good lookin' young lady dancing in a halter top and "Spandex" biker pants. The dance floor is very small and was crowded. During one of the songs she pulled her pants down to her knees and kept on dancing only to pull them back up a minute or so later. She did this several times during the song without any response from her partner or anyone else in the place. What's that all about!?! 