Funny/Scary Audition Horror Stories
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Printed Date: November 26 2024 at 02:51
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Topic: Funny/Scary Audition Horror Stories
Posted By: The Owl
Subject: Funny/Scary Audition Horror Stories
Date Posted: March 23 2005 at 17:33
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To all the musicians on PA, we've all had 'em, audtions or us auditioning people that were just too weird, funny, bizarre or sometimes scary. What are yours? I'll lead off with: 1) How about an awkward pre-audition? Took place this past week: Well, I re-posted an ad I was running a while ago for other musicians (keys and drums now, think I found me bassist). Anyway, this keyboardist from Lithuania and currently living in US contacts me, saying I am close to what he's wanting. Right away (after talking on phone with him), I got this really strong vibe of "I MUST BE IN CONTROL AT ALL COSTS". Not only that, but he starts trying to pump me for information about contacts for a SECOND keyboard player to play his music. Hmmmmmmmm. We actually exchanged CD's via mail, and he e-mailed me an mp3 of one of his tunes which I burned to CD. Now get this, he claims to be influenced by Mahavishnu Orchestra, ELP and Chick Corea. Well, his two CD's revealed the influence of YAWNni and John Tesh far more than anything, simply put, some of the WORST snooze-inducing New Age/Smooth Jazz cheese-wiz I've ever heard. And even before I got the discs, he would persistently phone me (not a good sign in this case). And even more hilarious, he listened to mine and said I was copying Mahavishnu Orchestra! Dang, I even asked afew folks who heard my disc about that, everyone said, NO, you don't sound even remotely like MO. Well, yesterday I wrote him a polite, diplomatic and detailed "Thanks but no thanks" e-mail. Wonder if he has KGB following me  2) I can think of a number of instances when I lived in LA (1980's) where I wasn't the one auditioning but was auditioning others, and MAN, the hacks were coming out of the woodwork, so many with deusions of grandeur and a rather serious disconect from the actual state of their own ability (or lack therof). One involved travelling to a drummer's place near Pasadena, and he had this bulldog that gave me the willies (bad sign right there). His playing definitely didn't mesh with the rest of the band I was in (we were called Insect Affect), so no big loss (and a good source of jokes afterwards). Had one guy who really tried but his chops just weren't quite there, and another who was really into the electronic stuff but couldn't play very well (nice try though). Finally, we found our man just a half-mile up the street from where I lived at the time (in Venice). Another band I was in, we auditioned a few keyboard players (in the 80's the era of the one-fingered keyboardist  ), this one punk came in playing this wimpy gurly synth-pop stuff (we had more teeth than that) and made all these boneheaded comments like you don't need guitar (meaning yours truly) and other ignorant Hollywood fashion victim nonsense. We almost threw a party after he left. We had another keyboard guy come in who had this weird tendency to play this funeral-dirge/march type stuff in real slow tempos . Finally, we threw out the idea of keyboards altogether after this parade of losers!  Your turn--------------------- ------------- People are puzzled why I don't dig the Stones, well, I listened to the Stones, I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and--I Can't Get No Satisfaction! www.myspace.com/theowlsmusic |
Replies:
Posted By: kingofbizzare
Date Posted: March 24 2005 at 18:13
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Here are a couple of stories from my High School band chair auditions a few years back: 1. The first thing you need to know is our band teacher has students who were the only ones in their section record the auditions onto tape (so as not to play favorites). I was playing some scales and I spaced out and completely messed up my F natural scale (a very easy one to play on trombone). I was so scared that I got last chair, but I didnt. 2. When one of my friends was auditioning, the school janitor turned on a very loud vaccuum cleaner right near us. You couldn't even hear him on the last half of the tape. 3. All the audions are done in small practice rooms in the hallway with ceiling high glass windows about two feet accross. During one audition, another guy went up to the window and started humping and licking it, causing the other guy to stand up and swear very loudly at him. |
Posted By: Syndromet
Date Posted: September 24 2005 at 17:48
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About 3 uears ago, my band auditioned for a second guitarist. He came in with his rig, two racks of effects, eq's, compressors and amps and two 4*12 marshall cabinetts. He rigged it all up, conected his Gibson Les Paul Custom, and spent 30 minutes on programming his equipment before he ended up with the worst sounding distortion i'we ever heard. he then told us he was ready to begin, and played Smoke on the water on one string.... -------------  It is said to be the first Test-pressing of the corean release??
http://www.freewebs.com/ligyrophobia/ |
Posted By: Lindsay Lohan
Date Posted: September 26 2005 at 03:40
that did my day and having a Gibson lp custom and all ye can do is yarn out is smoke on the water on one string is unfair I WANT A LP custom ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Fjuffe/?chartstyle=sideRed - [IMG - http://imagegen.last.fm/sideRed/recenttracks/Fjuffe.gif - |
Syndromet wrote:
Posted By: Tiresias
Date Posted: November 26 2005 at 19:49
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I played in an art rock band with a very untalented lead singer, an aloof keyboardist, a punk/blues guitarist and an incompetent drummer. I hated it. First, our keyboard player quit after we got booed offstage. Then, the rest of the group decided to stage a breakup to trick our lead singer into never coming back to practices. We were sooooo fed up. He couldn't carry a tune in a barrel, he wrote sh*tty lyrics and was a complete spaz onstage. He started air-humping our guitarist during a solo. My guitarist had no idea what was going on. Funny. Now I am in a large band, about 12 people. we have: One bassist (me) three guitarists three saxophonists two trumpets Keyboards trombone drums viola
we play Zappa-style jazz freakouts. ------------- Wh'ghal ng'fth mglw'y Ry'leh, Cthulhu fhtagn... 
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Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: December 09 2005 at 08:35
That reminds me of a guy who once played in a support band at one of my band's gigs. He had two pedal boards with about 25 effects pedals and associated mains adaptors. When I plugged in my one plug for my amp, it overloaded the circuit and all the power in the hall cut out. And he had the nerve to blame me! |