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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
OT: tell us your harmonica-related weird story
OT: tell us your harmonica-related weird story
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Martic
49 posts
Oct 22, 2013
11:22 AM
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We all know harmonica is not a common instrument. In my personal experience, the harmonica has brought to me a lot of freak stories, all of them hilarious for my friends and bandmates. I'll share one with you:
Last year we were opening a country/rockabilly show out of town, playing a 40-minute set for 50 people in a bar. In the last song, just in the middle of the harmonica solo, a woman from the audience shouted (in spanish) something like: "harmonicker, harmonicate my p**sy!!"
Nobody could delete the zippy expression from my face for a whole week hahahaha...
Let's share stories, I know everybody's got one!
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Frank
3052 posts
Oct 22, 2013
11:39 AM
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Here is a story I wrote and put to song about a great one eyed bass player :)
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JInx
596 posts
Oct 22, 2013
11:43 AM
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That is weird!
The other night I was walking through times square, tooting on my harmonica. One of the comedy barkers comes up and asks me if I can play some old Billy Joel song.... I don't know it, but he insists i give him my harp and he'll play it for me.
Long story short, I'm not letting him play and thus I have broken some harp muso code and he's disappointed with me. Weird, right?
Then, on 39th I see this extreme weirdness...Warning; xxx rated
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Sun, sun, sun
Burn, burn, burn
Soon, soon, soon
Moon, moon, moon
Last Edited by JInx on Oct 22, 2013 11:44 AM
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TheoBurke
496 posts
Oct 22, 2013
11:53 AM
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Some of you have already read this, so my apologies for being redundant. But this is my harmonica story here and I'm sticking it to it! :)
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Ted Burke
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheoBurke?feature=mhee
http://ted-burke.com
tburke4@san.rr.co,
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Rarko
58 posts
Oct 22, 2013
12:49 PM
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In my country accordion is very popular instrument for our folk music. But here people accordion call - harmonica. So when I say that I play harmonica, they think I play like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCrNORbMuR0
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Barley Nectar
144 posts
Oct 22, 2013
5:51 PM
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I had one foot in Dads van, on my way to basic training when my brother Randy says HAY. I turned and he stuck a Hohner Marine Band key of C, in my hand. He said "don't come back till you learn how to play it". OK, I replied. At Lackland AFB my TI took the harp from me cause I was driving him crazy. He said I could have it back on the weekends. But when I leraned the AF theme song, I could keep it. (Up we go into the wild blue younder...) Never could play that song, still can't. The TI gave my harp back when basics was over...Best gift ever...BN
Last Edited by Barley Nectar on Oct 22, 2013 5:54 PM
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hooktool
99 posts
Oct 22, 2013
8:21 PM
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Ted, that is a very good story, thanks for sharing it.
John
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Gnarly
732 posts
Oct 22, 2013
8:22 PM
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Ted, that's pretty heavy!
Let's try to get together next month sometime, I'm in Oklahoma right now . . .
I don't think I have a weird harmonica story--but I do have lots of weirdly tuned harmonicas LOL
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rbeetsme
1400 posts
Oct 23, 2013
6:07 AM
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About 25 years ago I helped out with our church youth group. We took a group of 20 kids to Guatemala to help with a building project. While there, we were scheduled to put on a program at a local school. Everyone was involved, from drama to singers to a few instrumental soloist. I worked together a Charlie mcCoy-esque bluegrass medley. I was introduced, through an interpreter, and proceeded to tell the kids that I was there to play some mountain music from my country. (we were in a mountainous region) Trying to be funny, I explained that I wanted to play the songs on my violin, but since I don't know how to play violin I would play them on this, and I pulled a harp out of my back pocket. Well, it was a big crowd of students, all seated quietly in their chairs, wearing their uniforms, teachers sitting on the ends of the rows. No laughter, from anyone, blank stares, totally missed my joke. Thinking it was a tough crowd I just proceeded to play. Well, all hell broke loose, kids were standing on their chairs, running around, screaming, laughing, pointing at me. The teachers were trying to restore order, without much luck, very embarrased. Not knowing what to do I kept playing. They never really stopped shouting, but I finished, thanked them and quickly sat down. The kids were still pointing to me and laughing. Order was eventually restored and the program continued. Afterwards I was surrounded by kids, all wanting me to join them at recess! Later that evening, during dinner, I mentioned the incident to a local man and he smiled and told me that these kids have never seen a harmonica. He guessed that they didn't notice it when I held it up and probably thought I was making those noises with my hands!
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MP
2970 posts
Oct 23, 2013
11:22 AM
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No one has commented on Jinx 'Warning;xxx rated' link.
That's pretty weird. I couldn't believe how wacked the woman, the people, the whole damn video is.
we live in a strange world. (sigh)
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i still have a little Hohner stock for reed replacement in three common keys.
when these are gone i'm out of the biz.
click MP for my e-mail address and more info.
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chromaticblues
1487 posts
Oct 23, 2013
11:27 AM
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@ Jinx
ah well ah yeah that's wierd.
She looked friendly though!
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MP
2971 posts
Oct 23, 2013
11:55 AM
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From what i've read, she is a porn star named Laurie Vargas. The video is of her having a meltdown in Times Square. She says she has no recollection of the incident and i believe her.
It is easy to mistake a person w/ a borderline personality disorder losing it with a drug freakout.
i would imagine that being in that line of work one would have to have emotional/mental problems.
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i still have a little Hohner stock for reed replacement in three common keys.
when these are gone i'm out of the biz.
click MP for my e-mail address and more info.
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Goldbrick
275 posts
Oct 23, 2013
1:24 PM
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me puse -roughly translates to " I got it " if she was speaking Spanish.
so she was shouting I got Harmonica
But your version is better
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wolfkristiansen
218 posts
Oct 23, 2013
9:22 PM
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Like Theo Burke, my stories are repeats of stories I've posted here before. They are both swear-on-the bible true. For those of you who have only been around this site for the last couple of years:
Story Number One
A long time ago, I joined my first blues band. I was the harmonica player. Our very first gig was backing up strippers in a seedy little night club on Granville Street in Vancouver, B.C. Six nights a week.
Most of us drank our weekly wages by way of the ubiquitous bar tab offered by club owners back then.
After a week of playing, I got to be (platonic) friends with the strippers. We were all in the entertainment business, one way or another.
The youngest one came up to me one night. She pointed to my Shure ball microphone and said (this is the absolute truth),
"I just love how you play that thing, what do you do, squeeze it?"
I resisted the urge to fall down laughing. I could hear the sincerity in her voice and see it in her eyes. Instead, I told her that all the wonderful sound she was hearing came from this small 4 inch object hidden in my hands: a harmonica.
She had never seen one, or, apparently, heard one. Her name was Angie. Angie are you still out there?
Story Number Two
Let me take you back... to the early 1990s. Two year gig at one club, every weekend, in our small town. Bass, piano, guitar, drum machine, and me on harp. Enthusiastic dancers every night, the kind of gig I love. A dancing audience beats a listening audience every time. But, I digress.
Here's what happened one Saturday night.
The dance floor was packed. We played on a small stage, two feet above the dancers, barely room for us and the equipment.
I was taking a solo. As I usually did when I got a solo, I stood on the lip of the stage, head back, eyes closed; getting into it. Suddenly something grabbed that valuable portion of my anatomy above my knees and below my belly button. An unplanned note flew out of my harp. I opened my eyes and found a woman's hand where it shouldn't be. Its owner continued dancing and looking at her dance partner; quite the trick.
I slapped her hand away and continued my solo. She noticed neither the grab nor the release, or, if she did, wasn't letting on. Did I mention this club served alcohol?
The guitarist and bass player couldn't stop laughing. The piano player did his best to get through the song; he had to, he was the singer. It was towards the end of the set; we ended quickly, took our break and joked about what happened, as musicians do when everything is going well.
Later, I thought about the inescapable differences between males and females in matters like this. The whole incident was a lark to me. But turn the actors around (female harp player, overenthusiastic male fan) and that fan would quickly be carted off to jail, facing a charge of sexual assault. I understand that. But I hadn't the slightest intention of charging this drunk fan. Truth be told, I was proud I had inspired her to show her appreciation of my music in such a dramatic fashion. If only my wife were as understanding.
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garry
455 posts
Oct 24, 2013
9:00 PM
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So it's late one weekend night. A friend's band is playing, and they've invited me to sit in. Second set goes well, but it's getting late; most people leave at break. By the time we start the third set, there're only a few people left at the bar. Among them, at the far end, are some late arrivals, a striking looking young blonde woman and this big scary biker looking dude. They're having a drink, talking, enjoying the music.
Well, she is, anyway. Enjoying it a lot. After a while she gets up, walks up the aisle to the band and starts dancing. That's cool. Always nice when people dance. Then she starts *dancing*. Whoa. A little distracting. This goes on for a bit, while we try to remember what song we're playing, alternating between watching her and wondering when her boyfriend's going to come over and stomp us into the ground.
But no, he's just watching. He seems amused by the whole thing. After a bit, she heads back to her seat, but only briefly. After rummaging around her purse, she comes back with a fistful of dollar bills. She continues to dance, but weaves in and around the band stuffing bills in our clothing. When she runs out, she goes back to her purse and comes back with more. More dancing, more clothing adjustments, more bills stuffed in shirts or thrown at us. This goes on for 3 or 4 rounds. All told, she dropped around $50 in singles. It was crazy. Who has that many singles?
I'll tell you who. Strippers*. Turns out her name was Tiffany, and she'd just gotten off her shift at a nearby "gentlemen's club". The scary biker dude was her best customer, not her boyfriend, which explains why we're all still alive. She explained that she was mad at her husband for being jealous (I wonder why?), so she kicked him out of the house and was hanging with this guy to piss him off.
Crazy night. First time I ever had a stripper throw money at me. And sadly, probably the last.
* Well, waitresses too, I'm told. But she didn't seem like a waitress.
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SteamrollinStan
73 posts
Oct 25, 2013
7:02 AM
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Got a hankering for a low C Ten hole. Weird or what?
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tjtaylor
27 posts
Oct 25, 2013
10:21 AM
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Some years back I was doing an afternoon gig in Old Orchard Beach,Maine. The gig was out doors on the boardwalk and there was no covering over us, summer time and hot as hell. Anyway I had one of those Fender tweed harp cases. I took the insert that holds the harps out and had it sitting on top of my amp. Inbetween tunes I turned to switch harps and a sea gull had flown over and took a big dump all over my harmonicas! Now you may wonder what I did, well the show must go on! No actually I had enough spares in my case to get me through, but I learned an expensive lesson that day!
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harmonicanick
2069 posts
Oct 25, 2013
2:53 PM
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@garry
wow what a yarn..
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Frank
3098 posts
Oct 25, 2013
3:59 PM
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Q: What do you call a harmonica player in a brand new suit?
A: Dearly departed.
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Gnarly
743 posts
Oct 25, 2013
4:12 PM
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Actually, Frank, that's "the defendant"
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nacoran
7255 posts
Oct 25, 2013
8:36 PM
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I'm not much on the bar scene, but we were playing an open mic one night, and after we walked off stage a gorgeous young lady said, 'I really like your sound.' I said thank you. She said, 'No, I mean I REALLY like your sound' with her voice going down all suggestively. I said thanks again. I told her we had a show nearby next week and smiled. I left.
About half way home I realize that maybe she was hitting on me. I do tend to be a little oblivious.
I have a couple weird non-harmonica, but music stories too. Back in highschool I was in choir for all four years. We were a good choir. We had a few weird things happen during tapings though.
Once, me and this other kid, who always wore a Megadeth Tee shirt, the two guys in the choir who looked like we might be up to no good (I had a gorgeous coif back then, long hair that would reach my belt if I tipped my head back just a bit- sadly gone now), but at this show we were a couple angels. At least on the video. I don't know what exactly was up with the lighting, but we were standing there in our choir robes, front and center, and when you watch the video, we both have halos floating there over our head. We were the only two out of a choir of over 100 people.
The other time, our choir had been picked to be on the local PBS Christmas special along with a couple other good local choirs. That was my first experience with the magic of TV editing. Our school hadn't sprung for new choir robes in years. We had functional, but very warm, wool robes that went nearly down to our ankles. They had us at the local UU church, up on our risers, with full TV lights beaming down on us in our wool robes, doing, I think 3 takes for each song. The idea was that they would splice the best together, both audio and visual-wise and then put it on TV.
It was hot. About half way through, the first girl fainted. I know sometimes fainting can be a hysterical reaction, and maybe it was suggestion, or maybe it was really the heat. (Come to think of it, they didn't give us any water, even after the first casualties.) By the end, somewhere between half-a-dozen and a dozen young ladies had fainted and been felled.
Kids are mean. We wouldn't have made fun of the girls for fainting... but, well, kids are mean. The one guy who fainted, well, he never lived that down. (He was a JV football player at that.)
The best part (since everyone, eventually, was okay) was the spliced video that made it to TV would pan back and forth, and people would suddenly disappear, and even more magically, reappear, as the song went on, without the music ever stopping.
They did eventually replace the choir robes a couple years later.
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Nate
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Frank
3113 posts
Oct 26, 2013
4:09 AM
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I'm sitting at the bar watching Jason do his magic, blowing some mind bending harp - it was the the last set and the show was going to be ending soon...
A knock out- insanely attractive woman walks in the bar and very seductively sits down at the tiny bar. Her attention is instantly engrossed by Jasons playing and stage presence and she begins to show very overt signs that she is hot to trot for him and wanted everyone in the bar to know it -
I left and went home to my beautiful wife, but was always curious how that night ended for Jason :)
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nacoran
7261 posts
Oct 26, 2013
4:34 PM
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Tjtaylor, I missed yours the first time I scrolled down! I had something wet hit me in the back of the neck once. I reached up and it seems the birds were eating some blue colored berries! (I wasn't playing harp at the time though, so I guess it's OT.)
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Nate
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Fingers
232 posts
Oct 27, 2013
8:27 AM
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Back in the day I was playing a solo when I was hit in the face by something wet!! it was a pair of tiny lace panties I think they had been dipped in lager, well I sucked the 'moisture' out of them and blew the young lady a kiss!! the singer wore them on his head for he rest of the gig!!! ahh those were the days lol :-)
Last Edited by Fingers on Oct 27, 2013 8:28 AM
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Barley Nectar
150 posts
Oct 27, 2013
5:01 PM
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OK, one more. I was at a gig in a small bar. Durring the break a very pretty young lady walked up an said. "Mister, I don't know what your doing to me but you are makeing me wet". I laughed and looked at her boyfriend, he was giving me a thumbs up. Lucky guy...BN
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STME58
568 posts
Oct 27, 2013
7:12 PM
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Sorry I don't have a sexually charged story like some of those posted above, but this just happened today.
I was sitting in Balboa Park playing classical and folk music on a 10 hole harp when a couple of Chinese gentlemen approached. One of them put his hands to his mouth is if her were playing a harp. I finished what I was playing and greeted them and it became obvious they spoke very little English (I speak very little Chinese). I know that blues harps are rare in China but that many are taught music as kids using a 24 hole tremolo. I thought these gentleman were trying to make a comment about the instrument I was playing but I soon realized they were saying "blues", meaning they would like to hear some. I played a few bars of a second position blues shuffle and got thumbs up and big smiles.
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Gnarly
747 posts
Oct 27, 2013
8:24 PM
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@STME58 Let me know when you are going to be playing, I live a mile away--at the "Trader Joe's condos", the site of the old Sears building.
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nacoran
7266 posts
Oct 27, 2013
11:50 PM
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Balboa Park is beautiful. We don't have anything quite like it near here.
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Nate
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S-harp
186 posts
Oct 28, 2013
4:31 AM
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Bar gig. I had a terrible cold with a runny nose and fever. The snot was the kind that is slimey and sticky ...
Women like harp players ... as you know .... so I had my share coming up closer to dig and check things out.
We were smoking hot ...
Eye contact ... smiles ... more eye contact ... dancing ... more smiles
A nice "bubble" to be in ...
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Then during an exhale I blow a gigantic snot bubble from one of my nostrils ... I'm not talking about a small little "pop" ... I mean the kind that doesn't burst but just keeps on going and growing ... I mean the kind that shines in colours from the spot lights ... I mean the kind that covers half of my face ...
The snot bubble wasn't the only bubble that burst that night ...
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The tone, the tone ... and the Tone
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Rarko
59 posts
Oct 28, 2013
7:16 AM
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S-harp, I needed to check what snort bubble is, so I went to google images... there goes my lunch... cant eat right now...
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