???? Your Best Gigs Are Forgotten? The Harsh Truth About Live Music! #guitar
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Are your best live performances just dust in the wind? In this raw and honest video, I take a deep dive into the life of a gigging musician, especially during the days before everyone had a smartphone ready to capture every note. Back then, getting good quality footage of your shows was nearly impossible, leaving many magical moments lost to time.
But that’s not all—I’m sharing the story of my most embarrassing studio session ever. ???? It’s a cautionary tale about the unexpected challenges musicians face, both on stage and in the studio.
If you’re a live player, a session musician, or just love music, this is a must-watch! ????
???? Don’t miss:
✔ The struggles of preserving your live work
✔ How technology has changed the game for musicians
✔ A behind-the-scenes look at the real musician’s life
???? Hit Subscribe for more stories, lessons, and gear talk!
#Gigs #Forgotten #Harsh #Truth #Live #Music #guitar
Originally posted by UC99nZNhFmY145rvHw2NAZew at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXHk9nzx1k
That’s some heavy dust.
This one hit home hard. The Dust in thr wind years, clunky video cams 100%
G outta went to some honky tonk open mic jam.
I could literally feel your dread and embarrassment.
Guitar in case, grab amp and get out the door fast, hoping nobody remembers you..Great story..
I resemble that! ????????✌️
You played music before it became stale and repetitive..today every metal band sounds exactly alike
Good stuff there….
My best were the Hatorade bar gigs cause we looked like truckers, fitters and mechanics(we were). Approached it like the`78 Raiders vs Chargers Holy Roller game( I was there!) every time….
Worst…It was the belligerent drunk frontwoman in our band who took my `62 reissue strat and pancaked the bassist.
(We were and still are wannabe noise slingers)Always will be….. Dust in the wind
You’re quite a talented guitarist.
Bookmark this video for ten years from now Brad. Might prove interesting. Let's start with the fact that you will likely see the stage again despite your current affinity with your channel. You now understand good health and its importance as a family man. Your history with the instrument has become an asset. Recording video and audio is now easier than ever. I'm older than you (although I'm amateur) and I believe my best days on the instrument and in production are in the future with some 150 relatively low quality recordings currently on my channel. Your spirit of continuous improvement can put you back at the level of yesteryear. This is not a tennis court. It is guitar playing.
My band opened for twisted sister in 85 and megadeth in 91 plus several others here in new zealand…wish we had some footage of those gigs…didn't even think about recording it back then…it would be fantastic to see us in our prime….loving the channel bro….peace.????
Guitar God John Sykes has passed away. (July, 29 1959 –January 20, 2025) Tygers of Pan Tang Thin Lizzy, Blue Murder and Whitesnake, still reeling at the news of his passing and just what a short visit we have on this earth , the beauty, the heartbreak and most importantly the journey in between, when i was young i never dreamed there would come a day i would say it, but 65 is just too young , sorry if this is off topic but damn this one hurts ????
I only play live, i feel ike my lplaying only lives in peoples memories soundtrack.
Wow. Entertaining and Funny story,
What a crazy situation.
That's why the Van Halen show from New Haven Connecticut was sooo huge because it had up close detail exposure to the entire band the guys who edited or was in charge of filming this show was a genius because before then there was no really good footage of Eddie live anywhere to be seen
I recorded audio of almost every live performance for decades, more for review (sometimes you think stuff was great in the moment and a relisten can show you something to work on and snippets than can become songs) than posterity. I'm so glad to have so much of it around. I got into that habit early on in high school for practices. Most of that unfortunately, got recorded over after a while simply for not being able to afford new tape. Glad to have the bits that survived. With digital, you can archive many hours of audio and video on a cheap little thumb drive. Recording your live performances is an invaluable learning tool, not just a way to be able to look back on your life.
Brad, your honesty and compassion are true superpowers — thanks for spreading it around.
I laugh every time I'm talking to a younger player, and I say yeah I played that Venue in the 90's and their response is "cool any video of it?". Love your videos.
playing with the Wooten Brothers is a major thing!
Steve Jobs said one key element to being successful is being able to ask people to help you. That could be asking for a chance. Asking for a job. Yeah being pro-active is most likely going to open more doors of opportunity than just playing hoping opportunity comes to you.
You can practice alchemy in the garage, but you may not want to sell your heart of gold 😉
>> Oh gawd, a thousand thank-you’s badbrad for articulating this out;
I don’t mean to sound silly but this vid really put a lump in throat.
I’ve always told people that the best jams/riffs/sessions are rarely ever heard by more than a handful of people, and then poof it’s gone.
Les Paul:
“I had come across Jimi sometime before at a roadhouse spot in New Jersey called the Allegro. I know the year was 1965 for two reasons: the Gibson Guitar Corporation and I were in the middle of what I call our divorce, and second, Simon and Garfunkel had a hit on the radio, “The Sounds of Silence.” I came up playing with the best of the best jazz and pop musicians in the 30’s and 40’s, and I believe if you want to stay at the top of anything, you’ve got to remain curious. That’s why I dropped by places like the Allegro. Right now I’m trying my damnedest to keep up with the latest computerized recording equipment.
The afternoon I first saw Jimi, he was playing a Les Paul Black Beauty, left-handed. Man, was he all over that thing! Black was the second color I asked Gibson to make when they went into production on the first Les Paul model solid-body electric guitars in 1952. I’ve found that people hear as much with their eyes as with their ears, and visually, a black guitar really accentuates the movements of a guitarist’s fingers. Jimi was auditioning that day. My son had been helping me distribute some of my records, so he was waiting in the car. But when I walked in and heard this guy wailing — he had that guitar wide open — I decided to stick around for a while. It was the afternoon; the place was pretty empty, so the bartender was watering down the drinks. I never got Jimi’s name. I asked — the bartender didn’t know. Then I realized my son’s still in the car! I go out there and tell him that we’re going to swing back after we finish dropping off records. When we got back to the Allegro, Jimi was gone. I said to the bartender, “Where is that guy? . . . Did he get the gig?”
“Are you kidding?” the bartender said. “He was too loud. We threw him out.” Luckily the guy had snapped a picture, probably because I was interested. I have the photo on the wall. It took me years to come across him again.
Great channel brother!
If you get a chance can you do an episode on rhythm sections.
Maybe different drummers in bass players do you have played with. Things you look for and things you don't like.
Keep up the great work!!
Hey, yer that dude on YouTube.
Now you are famous.
Back when I was starting in the 90's my bandmates used to always wonder why I was more into recording than playing out. This is exactly why. I always try to document as much of my material and live shows as possible. I take advantage of the FB Live feature and always save all the videos afterwards.
It’s the age we lived in. Probably thankful for w after parties lol. Pre cell phone dates or later poor quality video shot by someone I don’t know
Welllllll…….I can remember the last concert I played. I guess because I walked away with my head held up. But of all the rest of the countless gigs, I seem to remember
the ones the most that were far from good and some down right embarrassing. For all kinds of reasons. But strange: The audience ever seemed to care!!!
In the 80's most video cameras were rare or outright bad quality (sound & image). By then, 'video companies' were expensive to book ( in the 80's),
it was not as common as today. Sometimes kids ask me if there's something on YT they can watch, I tell them, 'In the 80's there was no YT !', they struggle to believe it.
Most of us were lucky if we had a 'My Space ' page (remember those?). As a guitar guy (rocker), didn't get into computers (reluctantly) until the early 90's ,when I understood that I could have a 'studio at home'! My Japanese friend, Toshi Hiraoka, was already way more acquainted with such tools (Greg Koch plays in some of his tracks from Expensive Dogs!).
We were making 'electro' before it was a thing (a mix of electronica and rock), sending tapes back and forth, and Rockers would look down on us!
There were people around, recording videos with Hi8mm video cameras or portable audio recorders but people usually had no platform to publish them, so as you say 'Dust in the wind'…
The memories remain, and maybe it's better that way, they live inside us and the people who were there, in the moment. It was not as common as today. In a way, exciting times we live in !
As usual, sorry for the long comment .
Take care Stay Human !
AnalogMan is the best…..
He modded an old Ross compresser for me……!!!
Why are we whispering?
music exists in the moment. recordings are for your ego. i don't miss anything. onstage with willie, i remember. i don't care if anyone else does. i play for me. if other people enjoy it that's nice.
Bar Room Banter, when peoples blood alcohol content is at the perfect level and every note they hear or have heard seems to fall in line with and mix perfectly in their brain and they believe that perfect feeling of musical sound is because of you. They will tell you about big plans of future events and happy times all related to what you have just done. Next day maybe not so much.
All we. Are is Dust in the wind brother. A few hundred years from now we are all forgotton ,even elvis will be forgotten, i think "G" is most likely buried somewhere.
So true, currently playing out most weekends, people ALWAYS come up and want a card saying they want you for a private party,they know the booker of a venue you’d be perfect for, a wedding, even can you give my son a guitar lesson or two, we’ll be at your next gig. Almost never does anything come from it.
I was thinking of writing a comment and then you said it! Camcorders in the 80s were definitely nowhere near the standard of camera phones today. I've got a VHS of our first gig, sadly the light sensor in the camcorder wasn't good enough to be able to pick up any images of the stage lit gig and the microphone wasn't made for gig recording so the sound is comprised solely of distortion. I've tried with a friend who is a professional videographer to extract something from the taps to no avail ????. We also found out after the event that an audience member recorded an early gig on cassette, "allegedly" the sound quality was great and it got distributed on tape sharing newsletter networks. It goes without saying that I've never seen or heard a copy of it ????
I freaking love this guy
sick opening man – as good to the ear as any shredder out there
Sorry to hear about that rough experience—G’s issues and attitude weren’t a recipe for success. More on topic, though, that lick you played at the start was absolutely sick! Any chance you could slow it down and show us how you played it? It’s far too good to become 'dust in the wind.' If other players can learn from it or even incorporate parts into their own style, that lick could live on and inspire for years to come.
Man this topic is hitting a lot of memories for me. Nights when you’re killing on stage, people getting your number for sessions and rarely does anything come out of it. The other thing ( for me) that was always weird are the nights when your playing in a different universe and hardly get any response simply because the band wasn’t a big name act. Go to an Arena and hear playing like that and the crowd is on its feet. So much of performance is perception. It’s like people see someone in a club kicking butt and think ( these are just club musicians) and it can’t be that great. It’s a strange place to be in for the players on stage.
these days. i write and record music for myself. its an outlet and a hobby. i put it out there on the net as what i call a historical record so when im dead my kids and thier kids can know about it. otherwise i dont play for the public anymore, the music scene has kinda died but the love of playing is still in me.. cheers..
Hi Brad. I suppose the best gigs from yesteryear are only in your memory. If you can remember them. LOL. I didn't have any music career but one thing I learned early on about people coming up to you and saying I love your band, I love your playing. That's not what they really mean. They love how you made them feel when they were stoned/drunk. Period. Those people will rarely buy your records.
Why don’t skeletons play the blues?
LSD strikes again! Unfortunately
It’s much better to be a has been, than a never was. ???? I totally understand. I really enjoy your channel and stories. Keep on keeping on.????????
You only remember the bad ones.
Thanks!