what is your best gig so far?

[Matt DeBlass]

Now if we're talking "most lucrative" based on time, I once got paid $75 to play harp for 15 minutes at a wedding. If I could bring in $300 an hour on a more regular basis, I could... um... afford a nicer mandolin.

[barry k]

I have had many fun gigs, a lot of fund raisers for politicians, but the most memorable was 5-6 years ago when we played for Chuck Leavell's (keyboardist for Rolling Stones) daughters wedding rehearsal at his ranch in middle Georgia, and yes, we played straight up bluegrass !!! He and his family and friends were some of the most warm and gracious people I have ever met. Most accomodating and hospitable and he even offered my wife and my stepsons tickets to their then, upcoming concert in Munich. I'll never forget that experience, not because of his super-rocker status, but that they were so very nice and down-to-earth folks.

[JimRichter]

I've been fortunate to have a lot of fun/cool gigs, but here are some of my favorites:

Playing on stage most of the night with David Rawlings and then having Gillian Welch join in for Neil Young tunes

Being Andra Faye's (Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women) acoustic and then electric guitarist for a weekend last year during the Midwest Mando Fest and the Yank Rachell tribute. Andra has such a great voice and her husband is a riot. Great fun.

Doing a live radio duo gig w/ banjo great Butch Robins--just him and me on mandolin doing Ebeneezer Scrooge/Old Dangerfield Medley, 40 Years Late, Grey Eagle, Road to Columbus, My Father's Footsteps, etc.

Playing guitar New Years Eve in Neil Down and the Uncut Diamonds, doing a Neil Diamond tribute. Sounds hokey, but nothing like playing guitar for Sweet Caroline, Cherry Cherry, America, or Cracklin' Rosie and watching a ton of las chicas caliente going nuts dancing.

Playing guitar in a rock power trio with my brother Phil doing Trower, Hendrix, ZZ Top, Nirvana on a flatbed trailer at a midwest biker junkyard bash for several thousand bikers and their scantily clad biker mamas. Played music to the wet t-shirt contest. By the end of the night, I had imbibed too much and fell off the flatbed. Perfect gig for a 22 year old.

[Tim2723]

My 'best' gig is a local Irish association that holds a major fund-raiser every year. It's just a few minutes from home, uses small, light gear, and pays $300 a man for 20 minutes of music. Too bad it doesn't happen every week.

But most of the time I consider a good gig to be one where I get paid and don't break anything.

[D C Blood]

Back in 1975 I was playing with a band called "The Mueller Brothers" ...we opened a show at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM. We were the opened the show for Jim Stafford (of Spiders and Snakes fame) I was homecoming Weekend for the University, and despite them having lost the football game, there was something like ten thousand (might have been more than that) in the arena, and a wonderful, appreciative, and bluegrass loving crowd it was. Cheered wildly for every break, harmony singing and joke we did. After his show, (really great by the way) Jim Stafford commented to us "you fellers sure did warm them up for me".

[mandolirius]

Many years ago I had the opportunity to play bass for a few gigs in a band that included Tony Trischka on banjo, Slavek Hanzlik (guitar), Sally Van Meter (dobro) and Emory Lester on mandolin. We played at the Vancouver Folk Fest. and did some workshops with the Richard Greene band which featured David Grier, Dennis Caplinger and an 11-yr-old Chris Thile! The highlight for me was watching Slavek, Grier, CT and John Reischman jamming backstage. Chris was hanging right in there until one of his friends came up and said they were playing ball. He exchanged his mandolin for a baseball glove and that's the last I saw of him.

[Ivan Kelsall]

It's a long time since i played (Banjo) in a regular band. But back in 1966,my band opened for Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys at the Manchester Sports Guild in Manchester UK. I've played other gigs,done a bit of session work since then (but not for a long time now),but nothing could ever come close to that night. The folly of it was that although i 'knew who Bill Monroe was',i didn't really 'understand who he was'. I wish i could go back now,knowing & understanding what i've learned of the man since then,
Ivan

[farmerjones]

"the next one" is a good answer.

There's a little country church that has an annual supper. They always have some entertainment after the dinner. Sometimes singers, sometimes a magician. One time, it was us. Just an accoustic trio with some good ringing harmonies. We'd been jamming for three or four hours prior to the show. We moved about eight feet, onto the stage, and just kept jamming.

[Steve L]

Brown Akers, if you're ever in Mass, you chould check this out. It really is fun.

Steve L I am officially jealous - what a great time that sound like. Playing on the deck of a schooner - now, that's alright.

[oldwave maker]

Went on a 4 day rafting trip down the Rio Chama in northern New Mexistan last month, after the second night of pickin around the campfire, the organizers said we weren't paying our share of the equipment, permits, food, and grog expenses since we were providing the 'entertainment'. Dont know when mando mediocrity was ever so well valued!

[GTG]

Heh - just when I thought the cafe was getting a bit stale comes along something to liven it up! bhGreen - your band and sound could probably be the topic of their own thread.

I suspect many around these parts know little of the punk folk scene; perhaps you'd like to tell us about it. (Maybe in the Rock/folk rock/etc. music forum?)

[Jeff Harvey]

I have been very very fortunate playing mando! Too many too list. But highlights would probably be playing shows with.......Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Ricky Skaggs, Del Mcoury. Nickel Creek, The Lonesome River Band and all the gigs I played with Stuart Duncan!

[jramsey]

Some really good gigs here, this is fun. I have been very fortunate, as well, some of my highlights include...

1. Playing in the house band for Ralph Stanley's 80th birthday party as part of the ETSU Pride Band. Got to back up Porter Wagoner that evening along with Ralph, Dan Tyminski, and Alison Krauss.

2. Last minute fill in (literally got the call that day) at the Rifle County, CO fair opening for Night Ranger, yes that's right, 80's rock band Night Ranger. It was a four-piece bluegrass band, completely unrehearsed, didn't sound that great, and we had to drive @ three hours each way, but we made $1000 dollars a man. Easiest money I've ever made.

3. Filling in with my girlfriend's band Spring Creek at the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass festival in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, Canada. This was my first time in Canada, and hands down one of the best festivals I've played or attended. Tiny festival, maybe 400 total attendees, but what great response and hospitality. The first day all the artists were fed salmon that was caught local and cleaned that day. They had fishing guides for the performers, and since it stayed daylight almost 24 hrs a day (it was around 60N latitude), you could finish a set at 11pm and then go out on a guided fishing excursion at midnight.

4. Recording a live album with my band Long Road Home. The band features Pete Wernick from Hot Rize fame, and former Nashville Bluegrass Band bassist Gene Libbea. We did three nights in the new home of Etown with a live audience, and had Pete's old buddy Nick Forster as our MC. Good crowds, great response, really good shows, and we almost made enough money in ticket sales to pay for the recording.

[Martian]

We fronted Monroe once and I got to play bass for Dave Evans once ,but the funniest gig was we told a woman we needed $250 for a 5 piece band to play at her party, which ended up like a party at the Ford mansion, waiters, prime rib, lobster, etc. When we were finished, she said she loved the music, and congatulated everyone one at a time while giving each member $250 ea. As she went from member to member she said how she loved the fiddle, or the dobro or the banjo, and we kept wondering who would speak up first to tell her it was $250 all together. No one said a word!

[bhGreen]

I suspect many around these parts know little of the punk folk scene; perhaps you'd like to tell us about it. (Maybe in the Rock/folk rock/etc. music forum?)

Well, I dont want to derail the thread, but I have a thread here:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=53056

You can go to our myspace, or website which has more stuff.

I cant really explain what folk punk is, my bandmates could :D but they tell me its a new genre. They also tell me, the "leaders" would be fellows like Andrew Jackson Jihad and our band itself was inspired by ghost mice

I would like to think we have something different going on. So far, its a lot of fun.

[catmandu2]

...its a lot of fun.

You kids today...everything's gotta be FUN! It wasn't all fun when Bill played it!

[Chris Rogers]

Best so far is the only one so far. Just a couple weeks ago. Eight songs for no money, but lotsa props. Feh - who needs money?

[re simmers]

Chris,
Things must be gettin' better out in CA. That's a good gig. We usually have to pay to play, plus bring a covered dish.

Bob

[Chris Rogers]

Definitely better, Bob. We'll play the farmer's market this weekend, and see if we can earn the makin's for a nice covered dish.

[Mandoviol]

Jammin with my dorm mates...I know that's not a gig, but we recorded something awesome literally a day after we had all met each other.

Complete spontaneity = genius.

[jim simpson]

Like Ivan Kelsall, my favorite gig was opening for Bill Monroe and being a bluegrass boy for one song as Bill joined us onstage singing along on a gospel song. The show was recorded so I guess I can say I recorded with Bill Monroe!
My group joined the late Bob Paisley and the Southern Grass for a couple of songs at a show's finale. That was a thrill for me too.
I was fortunate to do pick up work when I was still in PA and got to play with some bluegrassers that I used to pay to go see. It was again a thrill to play with peers that I would have been scared to play with earlier.
I now live back in WV and got to sit in at a gig with a couple of local legends (2 former members of the Hutchison Bros.). I remember following this band in the 70's so it was especially fun for me! John Hutchison wrote songs that Tim O'Brien/Hot Rize recorded.
I've been doing pick-up work with some other local players that I grew up listening to so the fun continues.

[Jim]

My rock band played a great gig New Years Y2K in a tiny Colorado town ( Penrose). Everyone there wanted to have a good time & did. Other than that my best gig was as a sound man in a small acoustic music club where I was able to run sound for some truly Great players. That job was a real education and made me a better musician for seeing how the pros do it.

[journeybear]

OK, I've been threatening to share this story for some time. Believe it or not, this is a short version.

Once upon a time I played in a jug band in Connecticut, Washboard Slim & the Blue Lights. This was not something I'd planned to do, but I do love to play the blues, and Peter Menta, the fearless leader of the band (washboard, harmonica, and drums), whose first jug band had broken up, wanted to start up a new one and I was his first choice. Honored, I accepted, and enjoyed the music and camaraderie for the better part of a decade. I even hung that name on him, and Blue Lights of course came from the song "The House Of Blue Lights." The basic premise of the band was to do old blues jug band style, getting as close to the source as possible. For instance, our version of "Hound Dog" was taken from Big Mama Thornton's down and dirty version, not Elvis'. This was a great learning experience as well as a lot of fun. You might think playing jug band music in modern-day New England would have been a hard row to hoe, but we got plenty of gigs - some pretty goofy ones, for sure, in some pretty rustic settings, as you could well imagine - but we had a corner on the market. If you wanted a jug band (yeah, yeah, if) you pretty much had to call us. Even after I took off and made my first stab at Key West in 1988, when I showed up back in town the next year I was welcomed back, my style being more suitable than my replacement's.

Sometime soon after my return, Fearless Leader learned that Eric Von Schmidt, folk and blues musician from the Great Folk Music Scare of the late 50s/early 60s lived in CT, was in the phone book, and called him up to see if he would come out of semi-retirement and play some gigs with us. This lead to an enjoyable and mutually rewarding association, which extended far beyond the realm of music into a true friendship. Because of this, I got to meet a bunch of great musicians from the 1960s that I never would have back then (being but a teenager) and jam at lots of his pickin' parties - which are other stories.

Eric managed to wangle us an invite to play at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1991. This was my first glimpse into the big time - we were flown out, put up in a hotel in town, rode a school bus shuttle an hour to the festival site, driven around the site in golf carts everyone called "schleppers," plus got paid, and in the process got to meet all kinds of people. Twice we got to ride out in the morning with the original Four Bitchin' Babes - Patty Larkin, Christine Lavin, Sally Fingerett, and Megon McDonough - and I got to watch Patty's amazing hair transform from its just-washed nearly straight form to its natural superwavy state as it dried. Also, with the help of our own fabulous singer Deirdre Menchaca, I gave them all the words to their set-ending showstopper "These Boots Are Made For Walkin`" to which they had only known the first verse, and saw them immediately add that to their show. Ah, the oral tradition. My other favorite backstage anecdote from this festival concerns bumping into Uncle Bonsai while walking from one stage to another, and being stopped mid-gush by Andrew Ratshin, who was pissed that some unknown jug band from CT could get to play on the main stage on their first time to the festival, when they, who had a track record (they had three albums out - well worth checking out, if you like clever funny songs with fine three-part harmonies) and had been there twice before, kept getting put on the side stages. I shut up, and basked in the glow of envy for a bit, while I resumed my original mission (making goo-goo eyes at Ashley and Arni), and wandered off soon after. They broke up less than a year later; I hope we didn't have anything to do with that.

As to the actual gig, we opened the main stage show on Friday night (the lineup included Guy Clark & Townes Van Zandt, Syd Straw & Eric Ambel, and David Lindley with his enormous chest of strange instruments. Also there this weekend were John Prine, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and some young ingenue from Nova Scotia named Sarah McLachlan. I didn't know who she was till a few years later, though I sure wish I had at the time. Saturday was an off day for us, apart from jug and washboard workshops, so we got to check out some other performances, including Prine, and the Electric Bonsai Band. Steve Earle was a no-show.

But the big day for us was Sunday. We did a workshop on the second stage with The Jug Band - everyone from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band except Kweskin ( and Mel Lyman), who had long ago renounced the devil's music and was a carpenter to the stars in LA. So that means Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Fritz Richmond, Bill Keith, Eric Weissberg as utility man, one or two others. We played a set, they played a set, then we did a few songs together. Geoff does not or did not travel with a mandolin (either doesn't own one or only uses it on one or two songs), so he borrowed my banjolin to play "Minglewood Blues." When it came time to play together, I picked it up and found it in some strange open tuning - even the E strings were tuned in a third! Whatever it was, the old G-strum-quick-check produced a very strange sound, and surely a strange look on my face. Eric Weissberg said, "Oh, that's his Minglewood tuning. Here, I'll tune it back for you." He took all of 30 seconds to put it in perfect tuning, by ear. I didn't even want to play it, and ruin his good work. I figured if it had been tuned by Eric Weissberg, I might never have to tune it again! But this was just an indescribable thrill, and not just for me. Our jug/washtub player, Howard H. Horn, being our best male vocalist, got to share a mike with Maria Muldaur, which was surely one of the high points of his career. Somewhere in the archives is a tape of this, which I would love to hear again. I remember being a good bit nervous, wanting to be at my very best, and finding it was easier than I had thought it would be - just had to concentrate. It was probably a glorious cacaphony, full of good spirits and slightly compromised musicianship. I mean, if there's a baker's dozen of people on stage banging around on all manner of noisemakers, some rollicking riot will ensue.

The promoter of the Mariposa Festival was there and offered us a spot at that year's event, but we were already booked at a local state fair, which Fearless Leader insisted we do - and ended up playing to nobody but a couple of our girlfriends on a Sunday morning just before the pig races - back to reality. That was eighteen years ago this month, and much has changed since then. Eric and Fritz have died, as has Townes, only half of the original Blue Lights are still in the band, Uncle Bonsai is back together in some form, Sarah McLachlan has had enormous success, and me ... I'm still struggling along, keeping ready for the next massive wave of popular interest in the mandolin.But this was a great glimpse into what could be, and even if it never happens again, at least there was this glorious moment.

[Mike Bunting]

Jbear, great memories. Similar for me was when we played the Edmonton Folk Festival in '95. Hanging around with saffire for a few hours, jamming at the hotel with Jim Rooney, Kenny Kosek, and Eric Weisberg and rocking at the party with Los lobos and crazy John Hammond and Amos Garrett. Thanks for recalling those kinds of times.

[journeybear]

You know, all the nineteen years I volunteered at the Philadelphia Folk Festival I never went back to the hotel - always had plenty of fun hanging around with my friends and picking in the campgrounds. Wish I had, once or twice. Rooney was a very good friend of EVS, and I've met him a few times. Our band opened for John Hammond once. He broke a string in the middle of a song and kept the rhythm going while he changed it and tuned up, in less than a minute. Amazing. Oh, and don't mention Amos Garrett when Mike Bromley can see ... Oops! Too late.

It's all good ...