Keeping Up Appearances

I have a lot of sadly funny little gig stories, stories I am often afraid to share because I figure it both shows what a small shot I am and potentially burns a bridge with some crappy, abusive venue, booker or audience I might need to re-woo in the future. On the other hand, despite being a relatively unimportant musician, I know for a fact that even rather important musicians do bad gigs with astonishing frequency. One day it's Carnegie Hall, next it's an Elk's Lodge, next it's a funeral, next it's a world tour with an egomaniac who stiffs you on the last month's pay, next it's a cavernous auto dealership without air conditioning and a single customer wearing prominent hearing aids.

On some level, if I ever do get a bit more successful, all my stories will add up to your usual struggle to "make it" -- and by "make it" I merely mean make as much money musically as I did as a magazine editor.

But I do find so much joy being on stage that it usually wipes out the negatives, at least temporarily. And when you overcome a particular challenge -- sound being run by crack-addicted chimps, or surly transvestite audience members, or a passive-aggressive pianist -- during the gig, you feel triumphant. It's those times you had 'em in the palm of your hand but then lost 'em that hurts more, I think.

The more you play, however, the more you put the bad behind you and realize that most gigs won't be great, or even very good. I recently read something in runner's world: The more you race, the less emotionally fraught each race becomes. That echoes what a music teacher once said to me: The more you gig, the less potentially traumatic each gig becomes. The bad stuff gets filed in your litany of bad gig situations. Musicians love to share their horror stories (see "Bad Gigs" by Tuck Andress).

Then there are audiences. We play to ethnic groups of all kinds. You never know when you might make some politically incorrect blunder, such as asking a Mormon about his secret garment or offering pork jerkey to a Nation of Islam adherent. Some audiences are prim. Others are wild, drunk, drugged, demanding -- you name it. "Tough crowd," really does sum it up sometimes. Maybe Miles Davis was on to something, playing with his back to the audience.

Case in point: Recently I played latin jazz for a Peruvian event which involved the national masters soccer team, in town for a tournament. While the show wasn't awful, it was a case of being told one thing but finding the reality of the gig to be quite different. I had not come prepared to do a salsa show, and had been contracted to do background latin jazz. We did our first set and received polite applause. I stepped off stage and was introduced to the various soccer players, all in their matching track suits. One of them looked at me with a hungry gleam in his eye. I figured this wasn't a lost cause.

We began the second set, and things got a little harder. After a few songs, someone yelled "Queremos salsa!" from the bar. Another singer was present, and he got up to pinch hit some old salsa favorites. Good naturedly, I announced before getting off stage that I'd love to dance with someone. I stepped down and swayed expectantly. No one approached. A nice looking guy sauntered by me; suavely, I caught his eye. "Want to dance?" I murmured in Spanish. "No, I'm working," he replied, scurrying away like a crab.

In a move that probably looked exactly like my tipsy mother working a cocktail party, I sashayed towards the event host, who had flirted with me earlier. "Care to dance?" I asked. He, too, had demanded salsa. Now no one was dancing. He looked at me, then looked at the retired soccer players sitting nearby on barstools. "Does anyone want to dance with her?" he asked. I felt like a defective mail-order bride. The man who had surveyed me favorably earlier glared at me with what now seemed like unadulterated malevolence. He remained silent. After an awkward pause, the host began to dance with me until the song ended.

Despite the interruptions, we played a few more songs, until I was asked to let a young man get up and rap to some tracks he had. In hindsight, I should have said, sure, we'll play our last song and then he can get onstage. Instead, ever accommodating, I relinquished the stage without so much as a goodbye.

The rapper was good, but once he had the mic in hand he became drunk with power. Two songs, then three went by. I didn't mind the break, but I began to realize that this had not ended well -- and it's nice to end a gig well. Leave 'em wanting more, but at least make it clear that you finished on your own terms, with a crowd-pleaser. By the time the rapper was done -- six tracks later -- my band mates were done as well. Unfortunately there was no rousing closer -- nor, really, could there have been a good way to follow the rapper's energetic, patriotic set, which was faithfully documented by his buddy on video camera and involved artful draping of the Peruvian flag.

As I loaded my gear out, the sound man approached me and mentioned an interest in having me sing on some hip hop tracks. I told him my fee. He smiled and sipped a beer as we spoke. He also frequently rested his eyes on my chest, leading me to wonder if the recording project was indeed his primary motivation for chit-chat. On the way home I shared a postmortem with my percussionist and thought about lessons learned.

But I want to end this post with a bang, not a whimper -- and make it clear that I'm not complaining, truly I'm not. Would I do it all over again? Absolutely! Viva Peru!