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Testify! I started playing harmonica the summer after 6th grade. Amazing how it invokes solitude.

Wife HATES it, so the last 30 years have seen very little playing. I (serruptitiously) kept a Hohner in the car for my commute, but XM Radio stopped that (finally, something interesting to listen to).

They've gotten incredibly expensive. A Marine Band cost me $3. I went back a couple weeks later for a Blues Harp, which sold at a $0.25 premium. That was 1976-ish.

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Isn't that the truth. Harmonica players have gotten a bad rap but it is earned. Of all the instruments out there, the harmonica seems to attract the largest quantity of idiots with no clue how to properly play in a band setting. 

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On 3/20/2020 at 10:14 AM, shankyboy said:

Isn't that the truth. Harmonica players have gotten a bad rap but it is earned. Of all the instruments out there, the harmonica seems to attract the largest quantity of idiots with no clue how to properly play in a band setting. 

Spot on.  If I had a dollar for every time some guy at a gig showed up with a harmonica either off to the side "jamming along" (usually inaudibly), then invariably gets the nerve up to ask to sit in - OR - who sits in with somebody else's band (as it's always been a hard 'no' from me) and can't stop playing for even one quarter rest during any song...well, I'd have enough money to commission a sign that reads "NO HARMONICAS".

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18 hours ago, aliparla said:

I guess it all depends on if you know how to play 😉

 

Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of great Harmonica players out there and I have had the pleasure of playing with a few of the best. Even they recognize that the Harmonica is idiot bait. 

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8 hours ago, cmatthes said:

Spot on.  If I had a dollar for every time some guy at a gig showed up with a harmonica either off to the side "jamming along" (usually inaudibly), then invariably gets the nerve up to ask to sit in - OR - who sits in with somebody else's band (as it's always been a hard 'no' from me) and can't stop playing for even one quarter rest during any song...well, I'd have enough money to commission a sign that reads "NO HARMONICAS".

We have a guy that occasionally shows up to our gigs with one of those Harmonica belts on loaded with Harmonicas. He never asks to sit in but he walks up to throw a tip in the jar and looks up at me like, "I'm here if you need me". It hasn't worked yet but maybe one day he will toss in a bill large enough to justify the risk for 1 song. Lol. 

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On 3/23/2020 at 8:49 AM, shankyboy said:

We have a guy that occasionally shows up to our gigs with one of those Harmonica belts on loaded with Harmonicas. He never asks to sit in but he walks up to throw a tip in the jar and looks up at me like, "I'm here if you need me". It hasn't worked yet but maybe one day he will toss in a bill large enough to justify the risk for 1 song. Lol. 

I noticed you've had some interaction on FB with a certain local "harmonica stylist" with the initials TZ. Oh man. Whatever you do, don't open that door.

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38 minutes ago, Dana_V said:

I noticed you've had some interaction on FB with a certain local "harmonica stylist" with the initials TZ. Oh man. Whatever you do, don't open that door.

Dude, I just about fell off of my chair from laughing when I saw this. You got that right. 

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51 minutes ago, Dana_V said:

I noticed you've had some interaction on FB with a certain local "harmonica stylist" with the initials TZ. Oh man. Whatever you do, don't open that door.

 

8 minutes ago, shankyboy said:

Dude, I just about fell off of my chair from laughing when I saw this. You got that right. 

We've made the mistake of letting him sit in a few times over the years.

In 2015 he decided to add "singing" to his oeuvre and wanted to make his big debut with us. I said okay, but you have to pick a song and come to a rehearsal first to see if it's going to work.

He chose Charlie Musselwhite's "The Blues Overtook Me" - a straightforward medium-tempo shuffle 12-bar in G.

He showed up to the rehearsal and announced, "I've practiced this song 97 times!"

Now, our drummer, Bill, is quite the character himself. Sixty-seven years old, diabetic, been smoking cigarettes since he was a kid and "fully experienced" the 1960s. Deep gravely voice, white hair, white Wilford Brimley-style mustache. Zero filter between brain and mouth. He can be pretty intimidating. (But I've known him 24 years and love him like a brother. Plus he can play a shuffle like nobody's business.)

Anyway, TZ arrives and we start into the song.

He used up all the words of the first verse (notice I didn't say "sang") before we even got to the first chord change.

Bill stopped the song and addressed TZ: "Man, what are you DOIN'? YOU NEED TO CALM THE F*CK DOWN!"

It scared him so bad we didn't hear from him for two years.

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My last band had a harmonica playing front man, so he only played when he wasn't singing. I got introduced to a lot of traditional blues music in that band that I never paid much attention to before. For some unexplained reason, the harp player never bothered to get a case with a rack for all the harps, and he never bothered to put any large-enough-to-read-in-low-light labels on them. As a result , he often had the wrong harp for the key of the song we just started playing. And he would occasionally start playing the harp upside down. This went on for the entire 10 years of gigs we played together. Some folks never learn. He was a pretty good player, otherwise.

Now THIS is a serious social distancing device:

 

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