The Holiday Party Gig
A few horrors I faced as a musician
By Stuart Smith
The period that extends from a few days before Christmas to New Year’s Eve is a time when musicians can make a lot of money. Demand for live music increases sharply, so bands can ask to be paid much more than usual for a gig. In one week in the late 1950’s I made over $200 as a pianist for a band, which was a lot for a kid back then.
This same period is also a time when alcohol flows freely and many social norms are relaxed or ignored. One of the first lessons I learned about this time of year is that many people are already drunk before they even get to a party.
Dangers of the road
I had two hair-raising experiences while driving to a gig at a New Year’s Eve party. The first occurred as I was driving on NJ Route 4 approaching the interchange with NJ Route 17. 17 was then known as “Butcher Boulevard” because of the large number of fatalities among teenagers returning from bars across the state line in New York, where the legal age for drinking was 18.
That night, a drunk driver ahead of me suddenly turned left across the concrete median barrier. He then crossed oncoming traffic and proceeded up the exit ramp coming down from Route 17. I don’t know what happened after that, but at the top of the exit ramp, he would have emerged going against traffic coming toward him.
Later the same evening, I was — I admit it — tailgating the car ahead of me, impatient to get to my band job. Since I was now on a narrow, poorly lit back road, there was no possibility of safely passing. An intoxicated person suddenly appeared out of nowhere and staggered in front of my car. With the short distance between the two cars, I hadn’t expected anything to come in front of me, but there he was. I slammed on the brakes and somehow missed hitting the guy. I was momentarily shaken. When I recovered my composure, he was nowhere to be found.
More danger
Alcohol played a different role in a holiday party I played with one of my students, an outstanding bass player, and a drummer friend of his. I was enjoying the music we were making and was feeling really good about it when we took our first break. I sat down to have a chat with my bass player about our next set, while my drummer drifted off to where a noisy group of partiers had gathered.
After a few moments, I heard raised voices and some loud laughter. I looked over and saw a clearly inebriated young woman sitting in my drummer’s lap. The two of them were making out. I had expected a fight to break out, but my bass player went over to the couple and apparently got the situation straightened out.
The drummer returned to his drum set. His bass drum bore his professional name, “Joe Beats,” as well as a picture of two red beets that looked like testicles. Fortunately, the rest of the gig was uneventful.
The worst gig ever
Another holiday gig was my worst ever. My band arrived to play for a big party at a restaurant on Route 4. I had a bad cold and wished I could have just stayed home in bed. Before we could set up, the man who had organized the party collapsed and died of a heart attack right in front of us.
Someone else in his organization sent us off without paying us. I was about to pick up and go home when our singer said “Come over to my house. We’re having a party.” I tried to beg off, but my bandmates persuaded me to go. I was miserable there and don’t remember much else about the party except that our singer’s kid brother shot me in the neck with a toy suction-dart gun.
Gigs I shouldn’t have taken
There were a few gigs I should have known not to take. The first, an adult New Year's Eve party, took place very early in my gigging days when my bandmates and I were only 12 or 13 years old. We played the full three hours we had expected to play, but the partiers wanted to pass the hat to collect money so we would play later. Our parents stepped in and said no. This was unpleasant. I thought our parents could have warned us of this possibility since, as I then found out, they had been at parties where passing the hat was a routine occurrence.
Another one I shouldn’t have taken
Another gig I should have known not to take was a holiday party at my uncle’s church. I knew that I had to cut my arrival time there pretty close and, in fact, I was late. The band leader had told the other musicians to wait for me to arrive and not to play, even though they could have. I was angry with him and embarrassed to have let my uncle down. We played the rest of the gig and offered to play later, but the partiers declined.
This gig was memorable for a strange conversation we had during a break with one of the partygoers, the Director of Religious Education at the church. He regaled us with stories about pornography he had seen, mainly pictures of teenage boys exposing themselves. He seemed quite amused by this.
And yet another one
During a holiday dance that season at an exclusive girls prep school the same band leader caused another uncomfortable situation. He kept arguing with us and the people running the dance about what tunes we should play. It was all pointless since we could play anything the dancers wanted.
I had been leery about doing this gig because I had been the date of one of the students at the same dance a year earlier. I was intimidated by the posh school environment and by the fact that most of the girls had dates from foreign embassies and tall, handsome military cadets in full dress uniforms. This was clearly a high-society event. What was an average middle-middle class kid like me doing there?
The final straw
The worst of all the holiday gigs that I shouldn’t have taken occurred after I’d gone away to college in Massachusetts. I should have stopped playing gigs back home in New Jersey then, but my old bandmates kept calling me to play during vacations. This time I once again cut my arrival time too close and got to the gig late.
The New Haven train I had taken from Boston had been delayed by long waits at each station along the route that I hadn’t anticipated. College girls returning home for the holidays took many minutes getting off the train with their multiple suitcases. I was late and, even worse, I was out of shape because I hadn’t played piano much in over a year.
The hall where we were to play was dimly lit with blue lights. I didn’t have a stand light for the piano and could barely see my music. The result was the sloppiest I’d ever played. I never performed with any of those guys again.
An amusing interlude
One other holiday party I should mention didn’t involve either booze or me playing with a band. A girl from a wealthy family in town invited a bunch of kids from our high school class to her house for a party. When I entered the main room, I immediately noticed a beautiful Steinway grand piano in the far corner. The cover was down and a large rubber plant was sitting on top of it. I asked our hostess if I could play a bit on it and she said “Sure.”
So, trembling with anticipation of the gorgeous sound I expected to hear, I lifted the key cover and began to play. Nothing came out but a dull thudding sound each time I hit a key. I asked the girl about this and she told me that they had had a “piano technician” come a few years ago to “fix” the piano.
It was obvious that the technician had stolen the action stack (which contains the mechanism that actually strikes the piano strings) and left my friends with just the keys. Apparently, no one in the family was a pianist, so they didn’t notice the theft. This beautiful instrument had just been sitting there for years as the base for a house plant.
The holiday season now
The usual New Year’s Eve for me now is quiet and relaxed. I stay home and watch the ball come down, and then I’m off to bed. Now that I’m of advanced age I often retire for the night before the ball comes down.
Postscript
In retirement, 45 years after what I had thought was the end of my gigging days, I formed a piano trio with two other guys my age. We played purely for the enjoyment of making music, although we didn’t turn down half a dozen or so paying gigs we were offered. While this experience lasted it was like reliving a part of my youth but with musicians who were adults.
But inevitably this experience ended. My drummer retired and moved out to New Mexico. My bass player became seriously ill and had to quit. One of my former students replaced him, but after a year or so he became certified as a Macintosh computer technician and moved away.
I have no regrets about this. I’m just happy I had the opportunity to play with some great musicians at a time when friends began passing away or settling into an uneventful retirement.
