Viewing Thread:
"The Death of Dr Monkey?"

Snuggly, we gonna rock this town tonight or wot!! I mean turn it up to 11 and shout 'hello Cleveland'! We'll make sure that when the bell of death tolls for Dr Monkey, he'll go out with a roar, not a whimper!

Dear Goatboy,
As a fellow ex drummer I thought I'd share some of the highs of my musical career with you. Er there weren't any. My Dad is a professional percussionist and my brother and sister both excellent musicians. Guess the musical genes had just got spread a bit thin by the time it got to me.
Anyway this didn't put my Dad off convinced that I was going to be the next female version of Buddy Rich/Cosy Powell or whatever drumer he was into then.
So years of music lessons and I was still tone deaf, couldn't sight read without pointing at the score and the silly rhymes "all good boys deserve food" for ASDF etc. All this done with the style and grace of Cletus the Slack jawed yokel.
My humiliations were many - third percussionist in the school orchestra with monstrous solo's on the triangle, tambourine, whistle etc whilst my brother posed as rock god on the kit.
So aged 14 the pinnacle of my musicianship I played in a the London Practice Orchestra. As the name says its a practice orchestra for professional classical musicians. Talk about out of my depth.
During rehearsals I was forced to perfect my tambourine roll (wet thumb then run it round the edge of a tambourine in a smooth motion to get a roll effect). Needless to say I couldn't manage this feat of musical dexterirty. My other instrument was the crash cymbals. Yup the big buggers that you wallop as the crescendo hits.
Except being totally unable to count in I missed my entry, did a godalmighty wallop when the orchestra had gone silent after a huge crescendo completely ruining the carefully crafted mood of 80 other musicians.
To make matters worse I did the total amateurs mistake of crashing my cymbals into my music stand. The sheet music went flying on a huge gust of wind and I spent the rest of the piece crawling around the legs of the violins trying to get my sheet music back. Whilst counting in for my next entry 1234, 2234 etc.
That was the end of musical career. Haven't been near the drums or any other instrument since then. Having said all that I still got a huge vicarious rush when any of my family perform. I have the urge to let everyone in the audiance know that I'm with the drummer - even if it is my Dad. It is impressive and cool. Just not for me.
So good luck with your gig. Don't supposed you want to hear all the hackneyed cliched jokes about drummers?

We played Army & Navy about 5 months ago, supported a band called Electrolane.

3 women and a bloke, no lyrics just arty-music and a slide-show.
They were arrogant as hell, but warmed up once our singer drunkenly tried to chat-them up.

And I've heard them on the radio now and then.

*fingers crossed for Haven support*

I'm getting an electric guitar for Christmas ( Yay! ). Rock on guys! Will you be going to Chelmsford?

loki wrote:
We taped our first gig,
> in a fuction room upstairs at our local pub. It was packed and we
> got carried away and played for hours.


Didn't it make you feel 100ft tall though?
Doesn't matter if, looking back now, you think "Jesus what was I doing?", at the time you ruled the world.
Same with the band I played in at college.
Played The Square, all my mates came and we were gods for the evening. Even with dodgy Faith No More covers.
Ok, so it fell apart shortly after when, strangely, we weren't playing Sheperds Bush Empire, but at least we did it.
Same with you guys, you can honestly say you performed to people and loved it.

Tonight's gig? My god it was grim.

loki wrote:
> Are you playing anywhere in London (or indeed Harlow) in the near
> future?

Hope & Anchor, Islington in October.
Played there before, sold it out.
Small, cramped stage but Black Flag, Rollins Band and other luminaries played there when they started

Not too sure of the date..14th? I'll find out, if anyone fancies it, we organise a coach from round these parts, although Islington is a doddle to get to.

Goatboy wrote:
> Most definately.

I've got a video of the 1st band I played in,
> aged 16 at The Square.
We thought we would rule the world, but we
> sucked.

Still proud as hell about it though, 289 people came to
> see us.

We taped our first gig, in a fuction room upstairs at our local pub. It was packed and we got carried away and played for hours. One person there said it was the most exciting thing he'd ever experienced (he didn't get out much). He also said it was like watching a young Rolling Stones but he was genuinely quite isane and last time I heard, he was training to become a catholic priest. Scary.

Are you playing anywhere in London (or indeed Harlow) in the near future?

Most definately.

I've got a video of the 1st band I played in, aged 16 at The Square.
We thought we would rule the world, but we sucked.

Still proud as hell about it though, 289 people came to see us.

*sigh*

And tonight I go to play in Chinneries in Southend to primates that want Limp Bizkit

I'll look forward to it.

I wish we'd taped more stuff in our old band. We did a couple of demos and someone took a camcorder to a gig once but there are loads of songs that never made it.

It doesn't matter much as it turned out that we weren't all that impressive, but it would be good for a laugh now.

loki wrote:
> Put your session on MP3 for us. Ali refuses to bring it > in!

No, Ali's right - it really is poo. I'll try and get the decent stuff we did though and sort it out.