OF course you do.
Where was it?
What do you remember about it?

My cherry was popped at The Blue Note in Columbia, MO in the spring of 1991.
The band was called Brave New World and it featured Mr. onebrownjeff on bass!

It was a "Battle of the Bands" and my frat. brothers stuffed the ballot boxes to make sure that we won. (We really didn't deserve it.) I remember playing bass on "Head Like a Hole" and having Jeff take my hat off in the middle of the show to reveal the worst haircut in the history of the world.

It was also the debut of the first song that I ever wrote. I had to sing it, which was not a good idea.

Still, a BIG rush. The whole night.

It was 2005 at one of those coffee house things that college organizations put on. When I got there I learned that not only was there no sound system, but the other three acts cancelled and I was the ONLY one on the bill (there was a vicious flu going around)!

I ended up playing every song I knew at the time, and had to play and sing loud enough so everyone could hear. It went alright I guess, but I ended up hoarse for a week afterwards. I've certainly played worse gigs since.

A friend's living room, for his Moving Away party, when I was in 8th grade I think. Bloor was there.

Mayday 1998 at the University of South Dakota. That was the first time I publicly sang with any sort of band/musicians.
I was a member of the Student Musicians Council at the time and we decided to seek funding for an all-day festival after the University Program Council booked Cherry Poppin Daddies for the Spring Semester show.
One of my friend's had organized a yearly punk rock show on Mayday, so we decided to expand on that since it fell on a Saturday that year.

I performed acoustic covers with another of my friends while they backlined gear for the next band.

i think my first non-paid thing was playing the backyard of my friends high school graduation party. I played drums and did most of the “singing.â€

when I was 16 I played at the Moreland Avenue Tavern for a bunch of drugged out gay dudes. I asked the band if we needed to practice and they said to just show up with all my pedals and play loud.

one of the guys had on a clown costume and the other one had on a leotard and there was some girl on stage who rolled a microphone around in a box of beans.

we played 20 minutes of full on noise, I don't know why I did it, it was kinda fun I guess.

crazy people came up to me afterwards and asked "heyyyy mannnn, diddd you wriiiite that mannnnnn" fucking weird night.

I did a solo gig at the Pronto Pub in Coconut Grove, that went over well 'cause friends and family came to drink. I was 20. I was invited back, but I said I would have an accompanying guitarist and 2x as many friends next time. Sure enough. It became a bit of a regular thing.

Todd your next thread should be "Musicians: worst gig?" I'll bet there are some good stories rattling around in here.

Start it up.

Cafe Kismet in Waukegan, IL in high school.

We made seventy five bucks or so and blew it at denny's afterwards.

I was. Totally forgot about that. I think I got up and performed "The TV Song" with you guys at the Amphitheater for my first gig. First full gig was I believe at the Glenloch Recreation Center.

That band was Opus Fairgrounds.

Edit: I think all this happened in 1992.

And the reason I still remember you being there is that you brought the Sankyo 2 track and 2 mics to record that mess. "SATAN IS IN THIS TAPE."

yorktown high school cafeteria, senior year

i think it was after a pep rally

our band was called catbutt (we didn't know about subpop then) and we played hits we wrote such as "sexy drugged up girl" and "water on the ceiling" as well as covers by the beastie boys and they might be giants

What gear did you play through?


I believe I was rockin a japanese tele into an Ibanez Fat Cat distortion pedal through a peavy Renown 400 2x12 combo with the reverb set to "stun.". Pure fuzzy solid state mud.

i played a borrowed pearl export drumkit and our guitarist was, and is still, an ibanez player. amps, i think, were peaveys...metalzone distortion.

pretty funnily wretched

and our singer played a selmer trumpet

my first gig was a band called "pigmint"
we played at an ice cream social/fundraiser for band & choir at the highschool.

two songs
1. offspring - come out and play
2. joan jett - i love rock and roll

lots of elderly people were there. we were put in between a jazz quintet and the choir.

we were the first "band" to come out of the school in ten years so we were pretty cool even though we were terrible.

i played a samick guitar and a 15 watt peavey amp

14 year old me had picked strawberries all summer... getting paid 25 cents a quart...and saved up $100 to buy that rig. it was $115 but my dad felt bad and chipped in fifteen bucks.

Ibanez Talman, DOD FX-7, Yardbox, Boss Metal Zone, 70s EH Memory Man, into a huge peavey keyboard Amp...

100 + points

heh heh, I found pics of some of the shit I used to have.






I wish I had that peavey for pedal steel now...

And I can't find the exact one I had somehow, but I had this sparkle blue Kustom PA cabinet that had 4 8" speakers in it, and nothing else. It was almost as tall as me. I think I paid $50 for it because it looked cool. This is close (just the vertical cab)...

Speaking of using peaveys and ibanez's, there was this preppy kid at my highschool who used to have a Peavey Rage 8" combo that he LOVED. He had immacualtely combed / hair sprayed hair, was fond of turtle neck undershirts, and could play any Metallica riff on his ibanez, pretty well. His last name was even McCool. But this amp, he used to get really defensive about it, always saying "it's my SOUND" and shit, so they always had to mic him at gigs.

So one day his band somehow got a gig at the Variety Playhouse in little 5 points, I think they had a promoter friend who hooked that up or something. I went with them when they loaded in in the afternoon, and the soundman's reaction was priceless. The bass player had a little keyboard amp I think, and the soundman was like "yeah that's not gonna cut it - here let me get you something decent" and went backstage to get a beat up old Ampeg SVT head and 8x10 cab. Then he turns to McCool and sees him setting up this little thing on a stool (which he also brought from home)



and was like "I've got a marshall backstage, let me get it for you" but he refused. "It's my SOUND."

Heh, heh. Good stories.

I don't remember the first gig, but I remember auditioning for the band I played it with. It was a three-piece country band. I showed up at the bass player's house w/ my whole drum kit, and would up playing so softly, that I couldn't even hit the hi-hat- it was just too loud. I just hit my leg with the stick & cross-sticked the snare.

You may laugh (at country music), but it was a perfect first band for me- I had been practicing in a spare room at the house & had gotten used to playing really loud to old Journey (when they were "prog rock" before Perry), Tom Petty and Frankie Miller- the Doodle Song was a favorite. Playing with Bob in Cross Country taught me dynamics that I never would have learned playing with rock guys.

A bad gig was when we were up on a riser on a football field playing to a crowd. A leg on my drum throne chose that moment to separate from the rest of the throne, and I almost fell backwards off the riser. I caught myself, and missed a couple of beats, to say the least. I got a couple of WTF looks on that one from the guitarists, they didn't know what had happened.

The worst gig was when I got lost on the way, and showed up about the time we were supposed to go on. It didn't help that the guy who rode with me & I got drunk and did speedy substances on the way. That gig sucked and I played like shit, for some reason.

And the worst gig I never did was loading my cymbal stands into the trunk of the car, wearing sandals. One of the stands slipped, fell on my big toe and split the nail pretty much down the center. I had to call the guitarist & tell him I couldn't make the gig because I was going to Emergency. I can still feel the doc pulling that nail piece out to this day.

Dude at this point I've almost played more country than anything else.

Are you like me- like playing it a shitload more than listening to it?