Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:54 PM

the point is, some people can pace their drinking, and some can't..I've heard performers who were undoubtably 'enhanced' and more into it by having a drink, but if they start sounding stupid and babbling, then it does no good.

When I attend a sing, I usually have one beer..maybe two, in a 3-4 hour session, and it is just relaxing & convivial. Any more, and my memory, reflexes, and attention are affected too much.....yep, I know there are those (referred to above) who have a MUCH greater tolerance and capacity than I do, but they are also hurting themselves, even if they can 'perform' while legally drunk!

It ain't easy...I love my booze- beer, wine, whisky, rum in moderate amounts....and hate to tell anyone NOT to imbibe, but I am lucky in that I don't like to get drunk and can control it. I have a brother who can't.

Perhaps some of these people would drink even if they weren't singing, and we might as well hear them make such good music as they can, but boy, I wish there were a magic pill to ease the effects!

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 05:34 PM

I keep thinking what a wake-up call this thread must be to some of the people reading it and not posting. I'm having trouble myself believing the articulate and thorough agreement most of us seem to be sharing. It was scary to post as strongly as I did.... and I'm so glad to see this issue discussed.

I don't think most communities are real solid until they confront issues of dysfunctionality-- tiptoeing around the elephants in the living room, and all that.

But I'd like people who are struggling wiht this to know I am thinking of you, too. I bet I am not the only one among those posting, or not posting, who has tried to help in the past. If not you, someone like you. There is help out there. You know where it is, too... I wish you the best life can offer, you know. You can count on me to be in your cheering section if you decide to change your life. I promise... it really can be better. There IS a part of you, however small and hurt, that knows that... and if you let that part of you be in charge, you can really DO IT. You will be surprised how much help there actually is, too, once you get honest with yourself.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Justa Picker
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:21 PM

I once quit a very well known blues band after auditioning for them, and doing a 2 month tour of bars and concerts. Their drug and booze intake was far more than I could handle or was accustomed to, and I sensed a sharp decrease in my life expectancy and musical abilities if I had decided to stay with them. Broke my heart. They made great music and had a great sound (when they were all reasonably sober.)

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 04:16 PM

At the end of your career (or life) do you want to be known for the music you made or for the number of shows you missed, and how much booze you could pour down your throat?

The thread on the late John Fahey is scary and not untypical. One Mudcatter gathered several articles and reviews about John and decided NOT to post them because the thread was already so sad.

Rick

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 03:53 PM

Went to see John Martyn at York Uni once- I got sat in the front row in front of him, he was passing out real good joints, in the end-it didn't sound to us that much was wrong except that he kept mumbling and swaying. The rest of us in the front were as stoned as him, by the end so it was ok. I suppose if your going to get pissed or stoned on stage, get the audience that way aas well and then nobody'l notice or care!!

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:20 PM

I'm pretty careful at bar gigs to drink only pop or water until near the end. The last set I usually have a beer or two.

I remember a Warren Zevon concert I attended where he kept the audience waiting for over a hour, and when he showed up he was absolutely a babbling incoherent drunk. The music was fine, in part because he had a top-flight backup band. Warren's between-song blitherings had the crowd totally baffled, though.

In Tucumcari last summer, I went to a bar where a "One Man Band" was featured. The performer had a guitar, a fiddle and a drum machine, and he sang like Hank Williams. His wife worked as a waitress while he sang. They were a traveling all-purpose bar act I suppose. He drank double-rum and coke all night long, and as he came up to the bar right by me to get his drinks, we carried on a conversation through the night. He was an outwardly cheery fellow, but as the night wore on he told me "I learned fiddle from my brother. I'm nothing compared to what he was. He was murdered three years ago, but he's ok now. He's in a place where everything is so fine we can't imagine it. This world is a shit-hole." He continued the drinking until he was incomprehensible, while his wife helped him to his seat on breaks and sat holding his hand. His performance was flawless though. He played Orange Blossom Special like Bill Monroe, and sang I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry with tears in his eyes. The small crowd was focussed entirely on him, because he laid his soul bare, sad and twisted as it was.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Sarah2
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 02:15 PM

The best musical partner I ever had, with whom I did a duet for over 10 years, was a lush. When we finally broke up, it was because of the booze, and I'll be the first to say that I let it go on way too long, trying to cope and trying to get him to stop drowning whatever it was he drowns. I should have quit playing with him the first time he got too drunk to keep up with the songs, help break down and load the equipment, or drive home. Or at least put my foot down about his ever drinking on the job again.

I myself am not married to strict sobriety at a gig, especially when playing for a room of drinking folks, but I have an hard and fast rule that I take no more than one drink an hour if I'm performing, and I'm going to nurse each one. I usually tell the bartender I want water or ginger ale and, if available, a slice of lemon to clear the throat. And if anyone wants to show they appreciate us, they can put money in the tip jar.

And I won't stay and be polite about performers who get soused or stoned and expect me to join in their "fun." I'm outta there, and asking for my money back on the way out the door. I don't think it's doing them any kind of favor to be polite about having spent my dollars to see a sloppy show.

Sarah

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: GUEST,pmharty
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:48 PM

I remember seeing Jack Elliot so drunk that he did the same set twice. I was annoyed that he did not have enough respect for his audience to exercise some self control. Another time Ian Tyson became belligerent to the audience for no reason that I could discern.

However, I also find that performing music at its best (to me, at least) is an "ecstatic" experience, not a "thinking" one, kind of "in the zone".

It seems that many performers drug and drink to get to that state. Unfortunately, drugging and drinking is an inexact science and "taking the edge off" may leave you unable to tune or to communicate with band members or the audience. And it is compounded when more than one indvidual is under the influence. If you are in doubt, tape your performance, tape recorders don't lie.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:40 PM

That is probably a very valid point Roger. I don't want to name names here, but there is a world renowned Scottish/Irish band two of whose members used to perform regularly in a state of total intoxication, and you would never have known it. I have heard since that they have both gone dry, but my point is that they were still brilliant even when they were drunk. Maybe they are even better now, I don't know, haven't seen them in years.

Me, two beers and I start fouling up. Undoubtedly, for the vast majority, the rule is, stay sober.

Murray

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 01:17 PM

Can't say I've ever enjoyed watching someone get drunk on stage.

For those who think they play better high, I offer a word of caution. Alcohol affects reaction time and motor skills. Alcohol also loosens inhibitions. That's how the concept of "liquid courage" came to be. If you had some stage fright, some alcohol could disinhibit you and allow you to go on stage.

The references to artists who perform well under the influence have perhaps moved into addiction and developed "tolerance" to alcohol as ~S~ mentions. My experience from watching others is that some people who do well despite their drinking do even better when they become alcohol free. They can move from good to great. It's just that no one had ever seen them sober before.

Rogerin Baltimore

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 12:53 PM

There is also the fact that in the advanced stages of alcoholism, you can drink like a fish and seem nearly normal, because you are drinking now not to get high but just to fly straight and stave off the shakes. At that point one's main caloric source also is the alcohol-- food has ceased to be part of the daily routine. So yes, at that point, you might need to sip all evening to play at all, but that does not mean the drinking has anything to do with the playing. It has more to do with the person's ability to keep from crashing due to lack of food and their need to earn a buck for the next fix.

The mystique that gets attached to legendary drinkers usually is a smokescreen people agree to subscribe to during that short period in the drinker's life, just before they bottom out, when it seemed like they might actually be someone you could deal with in mutual responsibility. But it's just a smokescreen. It's just the behavior that the drinker and others surrounding them agree to pretend is OK, so that the status quo need not change and the drinking can continue.

By the time one needs to drink to do anything, one has passed the line of truth long since. It doesn't help them any to agree with the view that alcohol "helps" anything. Alcohol has one job-- to impair some part of us. Some people enjoy the result of that as a recreation, but that's all it really does. It's our agreement to let alcohol and its use stand for other things that make for the messes in dealing with it. That's what destroys the lives around the drinker-- the illusions passed off as truth.

~S~

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Naemanson
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:56 AM

Back in the '70's I saw a double bill at POGO (the Portland-Gorham Campus of the University Of Maine) consisting of Tom Waits and Maria Muldaur. Tom made a point of looking like he was half sloshed and, at that point in his career, may have been (but I doubt it). Maria kept nipping from a bottle of Southern Comfort. The crowd loved it.

But, as Jeri has pointed out, that was then and this is now. Our culture has changed and this is no longer considered appropriate behavior. And the myth that you can do anything better with a few belts is just that, a myth.

Stay sober, enjoy moderation, and enjoy a long life.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: jofield
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:44 AM

I agree with nearly every word here. But then we have certain wonderful exceptions. I am thinking if Lightnin' Hopkins, who ran on artistry and Fleischman's gin. He never, ever seemed drunk -- but trying to keep up with his nipping was not a good idea. And what a singer!...God, he was good.

A similar situation is that of Jimmie Reed, who was usually so pickled that his wife had to sit behind him at recording sessions to whisper the words in his ear. (You can hear her on some of his cuts.) But Mike Bloomfield had a theory that you could not get Reed's totally unique harmonica sound without being wa-aay under the influence.

But to get back to the original point -- with some very special exceptions, which I can safely guess nobody here is, it never helps. Even when I was drinking, I knew this and held off until the end of the evening. I'm sure our closing sets stunk as a consequence.

And the musical landscape is littered with very gifted musicians who lost the respect of their fellow professionals and finally their audience because it gets to the point where putting up with it just ain't worth it.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 11:25 AM

This is my own opinion, perhaps most strongly influenced by my own generation and culture. I do drink, but not a lot. I was one of the lucky ones who boozed it up when I was younger, managed to escape addiction and just sort of grew out of wanting to be drunk.

Back to the 70's, when I got into folk music, drinking was part of the culture. We stayed up all night and consumed mass quantities of alcoholic beverages, got stupid-drunk and laughed a lot. There are stories of musicians passing out mid-tune and regaining conciousness to pick up where they left off. These are recounted with respect and a bit of awe.

Flash forward to now. We see how the drinking was fun right up to the point where we realized that we could "grow up" and stop and some of our friends couldn't. We see the people who maintained this lifestyle, the ones who haven't died of alcohol related problems, as physical and mental wrecks. We talk of them and say "It's a shame...had so much potential..." We hear stories on the news of kids dying from acute alcohol poisoning and think how similar their story is to the one about the guy who passed out in the middle of the tune, the only difference being he woke up and they didn't. We see the drunks on stage now as people to be pitied, because they don't have enough self control to make it through a gig - a job -without getting plastered.

Maybe it's the wisdom of age, or just hindsight. Maybe it's because when we're young, we're immortal. We don't worry about picking up habits that will one day make us miserable and perhaps kill us, because it will happen to someone else - not us. Or maybe it's because society really has changed, and getting loaded is no longer seen as acceptable fun. Whatever has happened to make our views change, we look at a drunk musician on a stage, and see all sorts of things besides a drunk musician on a stage. Sometimes we're just embarrassed for them. Sometimes we can see the ghosts of people we've known who were killed by drunk drivers or drinking. Sometimes we can see someone who's pretty far down the road to their own hell, if not already in it, and it's just hard to simply put that aside and just enjoy the music.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 10:36 AM

Bonnie I think what is more to the point is that it affected your enjoyment of the performace. Whether they were performing well is another matter, some can get away with it, others (most people) can't.

I tend to judge with my ears and am not really worried about how much drink or other drugs a band may have had - that is their life and as long as they entertain me, I'm happy.

Jon

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Willie-O
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 10:33 AM

Wow--that's pretty bizarre bill/sables! (Sounds like legally challengeable discrimination by association, or something, depending what country you're in).

I think there are considerable parallels between drinking and driving, and drinking and performing. (I used to do both, now do neither.) Not meaning this as a judgmental thing, because I am not an absolutist on either issue. I think both drivers and professional or amateur performing musicians should act like mature adults not reckless teenagers on their first taste of pushing boundaries.

See if this sounds like something you've heard: "I can play (drive) better when I've had a few beers than most people can, I'm a professional."

That might even be true, but few would argue that you're at your best. I've come to believe that if you're serious about the music, or staying alive on the highway, you want to be at your best, not merely better than some other people of dubious talents. Largely because music, like driving, is NOT a competitive activity--it's a spiritual communication between you and your muse, and the audience if there is one.

I used to have strategies, back in the drinking days, to do the best I could under the circumstances. One was not to start on the booze till later in the evening, or alternate with near-beer or ginger ale. If I wanted to play the fiddle, or sing "Rocky Road to Dublin", I should do it early in the evening because later on as I got more of a buzz on, fiddle intonation would elude me more and more, as would the lyrics of the latter. After awhile, it occurred to me that if I couldn't play fiddle worth a shit when shit-faced, my other instruments were probably not getting what they deserved out of me either.

I've noticed that at a decent Celtic session, the real players generally drink just enough to wet their whistles, and not necessarily alcohol, despite the availability of sometimes-free Guinness. It's a demanding musical form and cultural myths to the contrary, great Celtic ensembles are close to or at classical level of technique, which does not come without sacrificing self-indulgence. You don't see a symphony orchestra drinking onstage.

Smoking pot, although fun, is a problem too. Singers who can't remember lyrics are not highly sought after.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: bill\sables
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 10:04 AM

I dont drink alcohol at all but I am unfortunatly classed as an alchoholic by motor insurance companies in the UK. When I was insured as a musician I was loaded up to four times on premiums because they said that as a musician I must be a drinker, or that I was in the habit of carrying "Superstars" around in my car.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: GUEST,Gern, who regrets loss of cookie
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 09:47 AM

I know I'm not the only one to be embarrassed by the drinking of fellow bandmembers. It's tough to be the only one sober, and to know that you too are assumed to be trashed. Some have told me they need a few to overcome stage fright, to "loosen up" and to help the crowd achieve that mood which heightens audience enthusiasm (lowering standards in the process.) I've wished I had a bag over my head when singers have slurred, staggered or worse. I don't intend any self-righteousness here -- I've done things I regretted too. But I've never seen a performance enhanced by alcohol, and have seen and shared plenty that were ruined by excess. This is how we musicians earned our tacky reputations.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: MARINER
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 09:26 AM

Last year I saw a world famous folk singer in concert. He had tied a few on before the gig and downed a few quarter bottles of wine during it.It didn't effect his performance in the least.But he is the only exception to the rule I've ever seen in over thirty years of gig going.Anyone else I've ever seen in that condition make a mess of their performance.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 09:17 AM

Lovely thing is, it's your choice in the audience. Someone may tell you they are perfectly fine-- how many times have you heard that? But you get to vote with your feet and your seat.

Reminds me of the time Hardi and I watched Emeril tank up during a cooking show. We loved that show, watched it every night, laughed our asses off. And we loved Emeril. Until the night he did a show on "cooking with spirits" and sampled quite a bit of each item as it went into the recipes. You could see it all go past the point of acceptable fun right before your eyes.

We don't like it anymore-- it wasn't that he got loaded, heck-- we have a time or two. But it's not OK with me that he had that show aired, after seeing it all edited, sober. It's not OK with me that the producers expected viewers and the children in the live audience to laugh along with the funny, funny man. It's not OK with me that a kind, funny, talented man was marketed and then a mean, stupid-sounding man was put up in his place as though nothing was different. It was the craziness factor, not that he was having a few.

It was that we were expected to endorse what should have been regretted. Because we had not signed up to get loaded together at a party. We had signed up to learn some recipes, and maybe let our mouths water a bit with anticipated good tastes.

Whatever someone tells you about the shape they are in-- it's your OWN gut you need to hear loudest, even if you or someone else thinks you are being completely silly.

Women in particular are conditioned by our society (by mom's and other women's expectations as much as dad's and other men's), to ignore that uh-oh feeling, to stay in a situation to figure it out, go along until you can HELP of FIX what seems off. Don't ignore it. It's what your body was designed to be guided by. It's what keeps you as safe as you can be in dark city streets, what keeps you from getting into a drunk-driven car, what keeps you from hooking up with the worst nightmare of your life.

It's what keeps you from letting someone enter your heart through the powerful force of music and then leave you with a bad taste all through your soul.

Do you want that bad taste associated in your mind with, of all things, music? I don't.

~S~

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Big Phil
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 08:47 AM

Every one to their own.a little of what you fancy will not harm you, too much probably will.... Pleasantly happy..... Phil

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 08:41 AM

WYSIWYG is right on ! The equation is simple. You won't affend anyone by not boozing, but you almost certainly will offend some of the crowd if you do. If you get dry throat like I do ( even when it's just some new people in the kitchen ), water is best. AND, if I had actually paid to attend, I would have felt slighted by the arrogance and rudeness of the performers.

A trick - if you play a pub and you think the mood and the crowd and the client warrant a bit of "let's get things going", tell the bartend prior to the gig that you want ginger ale in the glass or water in the beer bottle and that it's "our little secret", even when someone in the crowd buys the band a round.

gnu

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Callie
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 08:41 AM

A musician to whom I am very close insists that when he gets drunk or stoned he makes much better music. Sounds better to him maybe, but not to the audience! I think he would also be a lot more popular with gig organisers if his musical talent was matched with a commitment to staying sober for the performance and the audience.

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 08:34 AM

Stick to orange juice and soda water!! That's all I do, Can't say it makes me sound any better, but it can't make me sound worse. There's nothing worse than some one with a skin full or high trying to believe they are The Superstar!

Soberly.

Eric

Subject: RE: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 07:31 AM

Bonnie, start trusting your gut more! YES it affected their music-- see what you wrote.

Unfortunately there is not much you can do about dysfunctional behavior, except remember not to go back to pay to hear people who are heading down that spiral.

~S~

Subject: Performers Excess Drinking at Their Gig
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 11 Mar 01 - 06:58 AM

Recently I attended an evening of music where I watched the performers drink a bundle. You could see they had quite a 'buzz going'. It kind of bothered me to see them drink so much. I was adviced when performing best to keep the celebrating to after I was finished. Okay, maybe a glass of wine or a beer to take the edge off but I was told it is wise to stop after that.
Did the alcohol affect their performance? I'm not too sure. Yet I would have much preferred listening to these folks play with out so much booze involved. Seems there music was fine but I did not find them present with the audience.

Maybe it is just me. I'm not much of a drinker although I love a glass of wine (or two).

Bonnie