Many years ago the bush band I played in was asked to do an afternoon gig at a pub in The Rocks, Sydney. We were surprised because this pub had a reputation of being "Rock Music Only" and we weren't even at the rock-folk end of the spectrum. Apparently the pub had had a bush band (much more rock than folk) the month before and thought we'd continue in the same line.

During the afternoon we turned the foldback speakers off as the sound levels from the house speakers were more than adequate. Later, the bar staff turned the house speakers right up and we couldn't hear ourselves, so we asked one of the staff to turn them down to levels we regarded as adequate; he did so. 20 minutes later the speakers were turned up full again. When we sked the bar manager to turn them down he refused, saying that the more volume they pumped out, the harder it was for the customers to have any conversation without shouting. The more they shouted, the hoarser they got. the hoarser they got the more they had to drink. He wanted to sell beer so he wanted the music loud!

It wasn't a session, by any means, but I think we were the last bush band to play there for quite a while.

In the town where I now live we used to have a great session on Sunday afternoons; the bar staff showed us which buttons muted (to "Off") the speakers in our area and were quite happy to let us get on with it. During renovation of that area we were moved out to another, which was acoustically much brighter and with more background noise. We coped until we found a guitarist setting up a sound system about 3 metres from us and then testing it over the top of our playing. Apparently the landlord had booked him and neglected to tell us. We walked!

The guitarist played (and sang) very undistinguished cuntry music in a very undistinguished manor and it came as no surprise that he lasted only a month or so, after which the owner of the pub was declared bankrupt and the whole shebang was closed.

Sorry about the spelling.

Cheers, Rowan