GUEST ARTISTES TO BE SHUNNED OR WELCOMED ?

[shanless]

I think that most of the responses to shy's post are coming from keyboard players...who can include bass and drum beats to accompany 'guest' singers....as a guitar player I find it 'empty' when accompanying a singer...but I try my best...I recently had a girl wanting to sing From A Distance....( yeah I know the joke...ok then, sing in the carpark)...and for her second song she wanted to sing The Wind Beneath My Wings....2 songs that I don't think sound that great with just acoustic guitar.....My hat goes off to Larryc who plays a tuesday night gig in Dublin and gets a 'host' of singers up to sing....and I had the pleasure of singing with him

[shyamwestwind]

Jazzcat, you are really a warm hearted person and I'm so happy you feel the way I do.

[Rocky]

Our group is so frickin awesome that if someone wants to do a number with us they are either very good or very drunk and think they are good. I am glad that we are able to excite and entertain. That is what it is all about..right, right?

We actually picked up a additional vocalist that we were not able to find through other sources as a guest.

The only down side is when you get someone up for a couple of numbers and they don't know when to step down. Usually they are guitar players and not used to staying in the mix.

I corrected this problem with a direct box to my mixer for our guitar player. I control the mix and the effects. No circle of noise making effects boxes. If he uses a box I require him to wire everything with high end and expensive Monster Cables.
I only supply these and the direct box. Any additional effects and wire are on his dollar. That cuts it down to a minimum and in our case, because our guitar player is a working musician with no other resources, thus no $80.00 to $100.00 cables for addition boxes and gadgets. Whatever happened to players that could play without all of gadget bullnuts?

Rocky, Jazz, Blues and Diamonds

[weegeo]

Good topic this first i`d like to apologise for not being here lately both health and holidays came at the same time sorry now what was i gonna say aaw yes lol lol it`s good to know your band is so hot rocky the mind boggles lol lol as for letting folks up i only back known artist`s and i never let anyone from the audience just come up without knowing A his/her key and B what their gonna sing as the lovely Cat said they may be paying your next gig lol i think a little dose off `give and take`applies here

weegeo news at ten Belfast lol

[pdiroma]

My partner and I have been playing in the same place for about 6 years (good house gig)
I have found that most of the people that want to sing, don't know the key of the song they
want to sing. AND most have no range...I use total midi ( I play keys & guitar) and most of the time I can pull it off and make 'em sound good. However, when they don't know the words
past the 1st verse or so, then they go all over the place trying to keep up. I just roll with it
and try to keep the fool from doing too badly...I look at it this way, I do what I do very well and if someone is good, that's great, but they ain't me or my partner....Enough said....
Patrick

[mickyb]

I love backing singers even the punters,but it's so much more enjoyable when the singers know what their doing,and are able to keep in time,thers nothing worse than trying to back someone when they struggle to keep time.

[a.j.]

I missed this thread earlier - it is certainly a hotly debated issue. This is my humble opinion...

Occasionally, we go to watch various friends working at gigs (it's a very small circle here), and often, there will be people there that know that we work semi-professionally, and suggest that we ask if we can do a guest spot (we do work with midi, but we can also just work with guitar and voice, or join in and jam).

Our response is that we NEVER ask, and ONLY EVER get up on stage if we are invited by the band who'se gig it is. People do invite us up, and a good time is had by all, but there are others that never do. I feel strongly that it is their gig, and totally their choice - we are happy to go with whatever they decide. It's not fair to put someone in a uncomfortable situation where they feel that they cannot say no to you.

If we are in the same situation, it depends on who is asking, and where we are working. You have to consider the views of the people that are paying good money for you to deliver a professional service. If your guest knows what they're doing, more power to them - I love sharing a stage with good musicians - we're all in this together. But there are others that can be insistent and arrogant, as though it is their right to crash your gig. In my experience these are usually the ones that are rubbish anyway - do you let them make a fool of themselves and the expense of your own reputation?

We saw this happen to a blues band once (in a full venue), where an autistic teenager came in with his parents, most of his family, an SRV strat and a valve amp. The band was told by the owner that this guy is a guitar phenom, and that he is going to jam with them. He got up, and yes, he did have a very good command of the instrument and a nice bluesy style, and would have sounded great, if he hadn't played the entire solo one fret too high. His family though it was great. The band were horrified. We lost interest after that.

We ended up with an odd situation at our own wedding a couple of years ago. The band that we hired were two of our friends who have a highly successful function band (it was also the only way we could get them to find a gap in their schedule to come to our wedding). In addition, a lot of the guests were musicians who all know each other (we're so fortunate that we have such great friends). We and the band were both expecting that most of them would want to get up and do their thing, which was not a problem - bring it on! As the evening wore on, this was great fun, and resulted in some really good quality entertainment for our other guests. But eventually, there was that one person who just didn't know when to sit down - this was uncomfortable for everyone, and definitely detratcted from the great job that our hired band had done.

I guess there's no easy answer.

[860tombarry]

I myself have always enjoyed guest performers as long as they have some experience performing. Once in a while a really talented musician or singer is found and I will encourage them to perform a few more songs.

[shyamwestwind]

Yes tombarry, its great to have experienced musicians perform with you and its even nicer to discover talent among the ones who "dared" to join in..
I agree with a.j. the L.P. artistes (Long Playing) can be painful.

[stivsky]

Hi Shyam,
Over the last twenty years or so I've worked with unknown pro & semi pro muso's and a few famous ones. I've found most of the semi-pro people who I've invited onto stage to be not only the best musicians (I play guitar on stage) but also the ones who will have a try at anything you perform and make a pretty decent job of it even if they've never played the song before. They tend to have the best "ear" for the music. There are a lot of excellent closet musicians out there who really know their stuff, but don't want the career.
I've found a lot of the pro musicians are lost if you want to perform a song they're unsure of & tend to just vamp chords out very lightly, if at all on the guitar. Get them on their own stuff and their fantastic. The trouble is thats all they ever do. Their own act. Most of the pro's also tend to have their heads up their behinds as well. Don't get me wrong I have met and played with some fantastic people but the bad outweigh the good unfortunately in my experience. Try and get them to do a solo on the guit and they backdown. Mostly because they haven't truly mastered their instrument and they don't know how to jam or "wing it" as we say up north. The only part they learn is straight from the sheet music and if they hear you wandering off somewhere (as I tend to get carried away a bit sometimes) in the solo of a song they are lost as to when they come back in. I find it hard to play a long solo without doing my own thing, because after you've played the song a thousand times it tends to get a little tedious and starts to put you off performing it. So a little impro goes a long way not only with the audience but also keeps the song vibrant, alive and in your set list!!!.
I have never ever done anything to embarrass someone whilst they've been on stage with me but I must admit to tweaking the volume down on the desk a few times. After all, a bad musician on stage not only makes your performance look better, but also shows them in their true light.
The worst people I've invited up and still invite on stage now are ex- stars in their eyes and x factor "nearlies". Ninety nine percent of them haven't got a clue what to do but yet are out there earning more money than the true professionals. Probably because thats all they want out of it.
The famous peeps I've invited up tend to be true pro's and don't wait to be told the key. I am nearly always told what key they're going to sing or play it in. I've found once they get on stage you can "feel" the stage prescence and they always deliver the goods regardless.

At the end of the day wether they are good or bad you have never to forget that 99.99% of Joe public would never get on stage and perform in front of a crowd so you have to respect anyone that has a go regardless as to how good or bad they are and they deserve applause just for that alone.

Regards
Stivsky

p.s. My tried and tested means of eradicating "prats" (drunken / drugged) off the stage is: If they grab the mic are in tune and just finish the song, I go with the flow as they tend to give the mic back after it's finished. For the ones who shout 'n bawl to the mates and generally mess about, I just turn everything down except them. (I never approach them to take the mic) This brings the doormen, landlord or manger over and usually they are thrown out of the venue or told one more outburst and thats it. It's never failed me yet and it stops confrontation.

[knimmo]

quite a varied view,I,ve known many bands,duo,s and solo players that will never entertain the idea of anyone being allowed to get up and sing,I my self have never had a problem letting anyone have a go,especially professionals,and fellow players.just be prepared for the drunken idiot trying to impress his mates.

[shyamwestwind]

Nice to see this thread is alive and kicking !
I've had quite a few guests singing with us, in the interim, and though one of them wanted me to sing the cue, it was fun trying to put musical sense and pattern to the mauled song ! The song got a new mix, the crowd loved it and the lady thanked us foi "letting" her sing.
I guess it all depends on the mood we are in when we permit such talent trials. If it can make someone happy, why not ? You would have made his or her day by letting them sing and you would have made your day by the SMILE on their faces and the LOVE in their hearts !!!

[john90]

my point in this topic is we used to have jam sessions and had a great time and at that time we did not use midi files everthing was live but what used to get my goat was when you had guest artist's who were payed a lot more money than us came in with there backing tracks and wanted to use our gear to play there music through

[weegeo]

Aaaaaa ww the old cabaret act scenario this really does make me angry. I recently was at an equity meeting [well sometime ago now that i think on it lol]and 1 of the cabaret singers stood up and said that in his view all cabaret acts should start at 100:00 pounds for their 30 minute spot. I like ALL the musicians there told him where to go he was quite upset and went on to tell us that we the backing bands were only as good as the cabaret made them sound lol lol lol lol . Now if we look at this logically he would use MY pa and WE would be supplying his backing sounds so i sat for all of 1 minute and told him 2 bugger off lol lol Since that meeting i know of 4 bands that refuse to back him i won`t mention his name i`m sure a lot of the ppl from here will know him,but this is a brilliant topic John

weegeo