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Thread: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/12/12

  1. #1

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    Default Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/12/12

    Fate plays a funny hand sometimes, doesn't it? Just a little over six months ago, my bassist mate Mick tells me to go switch on the the telly...."Like, now!" he said. So I did, and he said that his girlfriend was going on the TV show "The Voice" as an entrant. Well to start off with.....I didn't even know that he had a girlfriend in the first place! So I did, and was quite knocked out. He's dating her??? Come onnnn, stop pulling my leg I told him.

    But it turned out he was indeed telling the truth!



    So some time at the end of August or beginning of September, I get a call from Mick again...."What are you doing next Tuesday? Morning?" Told him I didn't have much going until much later that afternoon with students taking up my time until evening. So he asked if I wanted to meet Viki (as we in the band tend to call her). He then added....."Well, I teach at this secondary school, me, Viki and a couple of others are going to perform a few of her songs but we'd like you to play some drums...you can 'pick up' on songs if I showed you, right?" Said it was no probs if they're straightforward.....after all he and I played as a rhythm section in a couple of other funk bands before. But what Mick had in mind was to show her how I can play percussion as well as kit, as it turned out that he had told her and Chris (the sax player in our band), who was also teaching at the same school, that what I can do with percussion would add a particular flavour to the band. So once I met Viki, straightaway we clicked (I even surprised her with my basic grasp of Russian, which really made her totally relax when we performed for the school). So, after that first get-together (Viki on vocals and acoustic guitar, Mick on bass, Chris on sax, myself on drums and some of the bits of percussion I rustled up from the music room, plus one of the teaching staff on piano), Mick informed me that Chris's twin brother Anthony was going to be the drummer, and asked if I wanted to come in and be focussed on percussion. I asked who was going in on keyboards, and when Mick had mentioned that a friend that we played with before, Tom, was coming in on keyboards, I told them to count me in. This was certainly going to be a good line-up.

    So these past few months we've done a number of gigs. However, a little while back we kind of realised that we needed someone a little more specialised to add to the group, so Mick also pulled in a mate of his, Evan, on guitar, so that Viki could then just concentrate on her vocals. A few weeks back this new seven-piece line-up did it's first performance at UWS (University of Western Sydney) Kingswood Campus - as Tom, Viki and Mick were finishing their music degrees there.....and Evan had graduated the year before. That night went down really well and Evan felt like he was now a member of a band instead of a ring-in. And so now tomorrow night (Wed 5th December here) we'll be playing together, along with two other artists, at The Vanguard in Newtown, Sydney (which is a pretty good gig to score on the scene here in Sydney, as they host a variety of jazz, blues, funk and roots music performers....the who's who of great Sydney artists)....so this will definitely be a 'feather in the ol' cap' for me!
    "...it's the Paradigm Of The Cosmos!" Stewart Copeland on Youtube

    668: The Number Of The Guy Next Door To The Beast.

    "A random act of kindness; it keeps my heart in shape!" - Late8

  2. #2

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Hate to break the news to you bud, but unless your riding shotgun with Doc Brown 5/12/12 already happened.


  3. #3

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Good luck with the gig DD...............btw, that girl is beautiful and can sing.

  4. #4

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Quote Originally Posted by marko138 View Post
    Hate to break the news to you bud, but unless your riding shotgun with Doc Brown 5/12/12 already happened.

    Lol....nice wind up Marko! The foibles of the International Time Line. I should have made it more specific.....5/12/12 Sydney time, 8.00pm.

    Unless Doc has enough room for a drumkit, percussion rig, bass amp etc in his DeLorean...I think we might need it.....Sydney traffic is bloody awful!
    "...it's the Paradigm Of The Cosmos!" Stewart Copeland on Youtube

    668: The Number Of The Guy Next Door To The Beast.

    "A random act of kindness; it keeps my heart in shape!" - Late8

  5. #5

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Congratulations Drumbledore! Viki has a beautiful voice, and she's fortunate that you were able to sign on, with all your percussive experience. Knock 'em dead brother!
    Quoting gonefishin: Just have some bacon with ya when you go pick her up..........youre an instant chick magnet.





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  6. #6

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Great ! Nice catch of a gig.

    And speaking of good-looking Aussie...........
    I always wanted a 3-day weekend with Tina Arena.
    (Without the drums).
    Gretsch USA & Zildjian
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  7. #7

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Quote Originally Posted by Drumbledore View Post
    Lol....nice wind up Marko! The foibles of the International Time Line. I should have made it more specific.....5/12/12 Sydney time, 8.00pm.

    Unless Doc has enough room for a drumkit, percussion rig, bass amp etc in his DeLorean...I think we might need it.....Sydney traffic is bloody awful!
    LOL...any reason I can use to crowbar a BTTF reference.

  8. #8

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Quote Originally Posted by pastor_bob View Post
    Congratulations Drumbledore! Viki has a beautiful voice, and she's fortunate that you were able to sign on, with all your percussive experience. Knock 'em dead brother!
    Thanks PB. Yeah she's certainly a looker, but even better is the fact that she has no pretensions whatsoever. She even introduced me to her folks at one of the earlier gigs we did....we're trying to tee up a dinner evening with them so they can coax more Russian outta me....jeez!
    Quote Originally Posted by Ricardo View Post
    Great ! Nice catch of a gig.

    And speaking of good-looking Aussie...........
    I always wanted a 3-day weekend with Tina Arena.
    (Without the drums).
    Did you know Virgil Donati at one time got hired by Tina Arena? A mate of mine had a job at the Sydney Entertainment centre at one time, helping to rig up the lighting for a Tina Arena show and spotted Virgil doing all this mind-bending stuff behind the kit as a warm-up....then the funniest thing was Tina's music director going up to him (this was before Virgil was becoming really well-known in the States) and then saying "Uh Virgil.....can you just do 1 & 3 on the kick and 2 & 4 on the snare?" or something like that. Meanwhile, according to my mate, he saw Tina going around being a bit of a starlet, air-kissing everyone on the stage, but she probably had no idea of Virgil's reputation amongst drummers. But I do concur......Tina Arena is a good-looking sort!

    Quote Originally Posted by marko138 View Post
    LOL...any reason I can use to crowbar a BTTF reference.
    Lol....yeah, and I bet ya typed that with a straight poker-face too....nice one! BTTF rules!
    Last edited by Drumbledore; 12-04-2012 at 10:11 AM.
    "...it's the Paradigm Of The Cosmos!" Stewart Copeland on Youtube

    668: The Number Of The Guy Next Door To The Beast.

    "A random act of kindness; it keeps my heart in shape!" - Late8

  9. #9

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Congrats man!!! Viki has a great voice!

  10. #10

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    congrats and best of luck.... and most of all , have fun ... good going bud...
    Tamaholic

  11. #11

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Best of luck, and I am sure you will be excellent.

  12. #12

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Good work son. Go get 'em tiger!!!
    Tama Rockstar & Paiste User and Abuser......

  13. #13

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    its breaks like this can help you not only with a feather in your cap but wings to fly up in the music world! good luck mate.
    Enjoy the Music!

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  14. #14

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    heres a good shot for you Drumbledore.

    dont forget us if you get a few phonecalls.
    eat a plate of pasta the night before, doubt you'll eat the day of the gig and dont drink too much fluids until you go on.
    dont want to have to hit the head whilst playing. HAAAA!

    congrats!
    Last edited by kyle102565; 12-04-2012 at 06:18 PM.

  15. #15

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Nice! Congrats!

  16. #16

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Congrats, good news, good luck!!

  17. #17

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Congratulations DD! Awesome news! All the BEST!

  18. #18

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    Awesome DD. Congrats on the opportunity.
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  19. #19

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    That is awesome. congrats.. .. btw ... how did it go?
    We Have nothing to fear but Reefs and Pirates

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  20. #20

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    Default Re: Wish me luck, I'm going to be playing The Vanguard in Sydney with this chick, 5/1

    Quote Originally Posted by Tin Toad View Post
    That is awesome. congrats.. .. btw ... how did it go?
    Oh it went pretty well. We sold out The Vanguard that's for sure. Lots of little minor stories (like the sound guy giving me a bit of a runaround letting me know of things at the last minute, ie: what I'd call "being a right helpful sod", being hassled by a parking cop whilst trying to find a parking spot to load into the venue....but I'll regale you lot with these at another time, lol). The main thing is that we wowed a lot of people out, which in turn has now allowed us play at another gig, this time at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney, the 20th of this month. There's a number of bands and artists sharing the bill, but we're one of the main drawcards. We've also been hard at it with rehearsals, writing and come this Sunday the 13th, we're doing some recording of a couple of tracks. Anyhoooo, will update this space as the ball keeps rolling.
    "...it's the Paradigm Of The Cosmos!" Stewart Copeland on Youtube

    668: The Number Of The Guy Next Door To The Beast.

    "A random act of kindness; it keeps my heart in shape!" - Late8

  21. #21

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    Nice work bud. Sounds like it went pretty well. Those sound guys are a totally different breed huh.
    How long was your set and how many songs did u have to learn mate?
    Please enlighten us with the stories of your day brother.....
    Tama Rockstar & Paiste User and Abuser......

  22. #22

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    Yeah Spes, I'd say some sound guys seem to be a different breed....I hesitate to lump them all in the same category as I'm mates with a few, and those guys are fine attitude wise. But we always seem to remember the less-than-happie-chappies somehow.

    As for how many songs I had to learn, about ten, which, if you're doing percussion instead of drumkit, some tunes are dead easy, others test you a little bit more physically than anything, especially with playing congas. Amongst the songs we did that night was "Love Foolosophy" by Jamiroquai. When we had first jammed it at an earlier rehearsal.....if you know the song
    "...it's the Paradigm Of The Cosmos!" Stewart Copeland on Youtube

    668: The Number Of The Guy Next Door To The Beast.

    "A random act of kindness; it keeps my heart in shape!" - Late8

  23. #23

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    Yeah that's a great track for percussion. It would've sounded great man.
    A few years ago my bro decided to give me about 2 weeks to learn 8 of his originals (of which I didn't really know) on kit for a gig at the Gov Hindmarsh. I thought, ok, that's do-able if I pull my finger out. Then his mate decided he was going to share the stage to showcase some of his originals for the same gig. So I had another 8 tracks to learn (of which I had never heard before). Needless to say I think I did pretty well considering. Pressure does strange things for a man sometimes lol.
    Tama Rockstar & Paiste User and Abuser......

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