August 2, 2007

Billy's Little Trip · Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:19 pm

Another day in pair of dice
Rolling sevens in our cubical lives

Agenda for the day
This, that and the other

Question Of The Day:
Do you get stage fright? If so, what methods do you use to deal with it?

I personally have anxieties that I deal with everyday. You would never know it to talk to me because I'm outgoing and I keep it all inside. I've never liked being the front man in a band, yet I always end up the singer. I love to write and play music, so I always wished I could just play guitar behind the amps somewhere, or the ultimate thing, I'd love to be a studio band selling records, like Steely Dan did for years.
This lead to self medication when ever we played a show. We played 3 or 4 shows a week, and as time went on, I needed to get the substance abuse in check, so I tried numerous relaxation methods, such as meditation and aroma therapy. But nothing worked like taking valium and a few shots of Jack, but like most drugs, this just lead to more and stronger. But I later found that the problem was only getting on stage, and as soon as we're playing the first song, the anxieties would start to subside. So I'd just power through it with my back to the audience, and try to look like I'm trying to get in the groove with Gary (drummer) while Edgar does the intros. By the time I turn around and hit the mic, people are ready to rock, and so am I.
Ok, now you know I'm a freak, what's your story?

EmbersOfAutumn · Post by **EmbersOfAutumn** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:37 pm

QotD: I don't have a lot of live music experience, a few local shows at coffee shops and whatnot. However, when I was in High School, I was in a number of plays in drama, and would occassionally get some stage fright from that. It was slightly different, because I shared this fear with an ensemble of at least a dozen people, and wasn't on the stage more than 20% of the show, if that. However, I used to tell myself that these people came here to be entertained, and that doing a good job will make them happy, and really, even if something were to happen that would be a mistake, 1) it wouldn't be the first time, and 2) you can make up for it--Just so long as you don't mess up during the very final part.

I was horribly nervous the first time I played in front of strangers. My friends, I was a little scared, but in front of total strangers, I was terrified, mostly because of my inability to sing good. But the one thing that helped me even to PERFORM then was seeing my lovely wife's smiling face encouraging me from, well, i guess you'd call it the front row. It was a coffee shop as I mentioned, and it was just a bunch of people sitting at tables. But it really helped me get going into the set, albeit a short one.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:46 pm

The CDs are here! And they came out all right. They're available for order on my web site.

Tonight I'm hosting an open mic in Waterville Valley. It's an outdoor thing, in a gazebo in their Town Square. Should be fun.

QotD: I play out a lot these days. And in some instances, I do still get pretty nervous. Not as much (or as often) as I used to, but it does happen. I suspect I'll be pretty jittery next Friday on the Second Stage at the Weird Al Yankovic show. That's a big one for me.

This was like one long plug. I feel dirty.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:35 pm

when i did quiz bowl in high school, i totally did. i thought i would for my live shows, but it wasn't too bad. i did have a couple beers before the ambientlive concert, but the songfight one i was totally sober. and it went ok!
-bill

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:13 pm

By the way, break a leg this Friday Jim. You're a true showman, so you're going to do great.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:27 pm

<b>Billy</b> fix the title of this thread.

qotd: No stage fright what so ever. I can't even remember having any. Ever. I forget lyrics though. Every single time. I don't know why either. I can know a song back to front and still flub the lyrics. Listen for my confident flasllas llsallass on key and in rhythm coming over the PA.

Busy morning, slow afternoon... re-arranged my bedroom and I'm off-line because of it. On-call with a DSL company tonight and I'm off-line...perfect.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:27 pm

jimtyrrell wrote:I suspect I'll be pretty jittery next Friday on the Second Stage at the Weird Al Yankovic show. That's a big one for me.

Wow! Well done, Jim. I'm a pretty big Weird Al fan. If you get any pictures with him, post them for us to see!

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:35 pm

Second-to-last day at amazon. now everyone's taking me out to lunch and coffee and reminiscing about good and bad times and blah blah blah. The only people who haven't are the people who actually need to hear my gripes, but at least I know I'm not alone in perception of the reasons why I'm leaving.

re qotd: I used to have terrible stage fright, which I think played a big part in me getting sick at SFLive Santa Cruz. Since then I started doing karaoke regularly, which very quickly cured me of it since I found that when you're not expected to do good it's easy to get comfortable with being in front of a lot of people, and now I can get in front of a lot of people and do good. At least by karaoke standards. I don't know if that helps with gigs though.

One time I brought my guitar to karaoke and did my acoustic rendition of Toxic and I felt just as nervous and scared as I did the first time I did normal karaoke (even though - or maybe especially because - the only people in the audience were friends who had never heard me perform "for reals" before), so there's clearly something different about that. On the other hand I didn't have any stage fright during the SF West Coast Tour (which was after I'd been karaokeing for a few months) so I think it does definitely help anyway.

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:38 pm

QotD: it pretty much depends on what I'm doing - if I'm singing songs that I know or leading the worship service at church or something like that, I'm fine. I do get very anxious if I'm doing a song in church and I'm not sure how it's going to be accepted... like when we whipped together "Mama Tried" for Mothers' Day this year. Back when I was at Motorola, once a year we were supposed to present "technical ladder" papers, and I would always freak out over those - I always felt like the things I was doing were a lot less "technical" than most of the people were doing. At SFL in Santa Cruz, it wasn't "stage fright," but I do remember being very concerned about all the people in the pickup band who hadn't had a whole lot of practice on the songs, and I was concentrating on that enough that I left out about half of one of the songs...

Another pool & lunch with mom day, so not a whole lot of my own stuff done today. Very unlikely I'll come up with anything for this week's title, but there is a Lou Reed coverfight a-brewin' over in Sidefights & Highlights, and I couldn't miss that. I'm kinda havin' a day of it, I think I'll just go read for a little while, try to destress...

Charles (KA)

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:47 pm

Hoblit wrote:<b>Billy</b> fix the title of this thread.

qotd: No stage fright what so ever. I can't even remember having any. Ever. I forget lyrics though.

I have the opposite problem. I can never remember my lyrics if I'm asked about a line in a song, or whatever. But when I get on stage and start playing, they flow like water.

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:53 pm

I just need a wank and a shower and I'm ready to go. Remembering my lyrics works too. But yeah, there was a time I would throw up before doing anything in front of people. Doctor says I have chronic depression and anxiety disorder and minor tourette's, so that might have something to do with it.

My day has been going very well. I had some pizza and now I am finally getting around to listening to Alice Donut and reading Our Band Could Be Your Life.

NatchDan · Post by **NatchDan** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 4:30 pm

I'd just like to say that every response in this thread has been incredibly helpful to me for my first gig next week.

Heather. Redmon. · Post by **Heather. Redmon.** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:39 pm

Hi everybody,

Today was very surreal. All anyone could talk about was the bridge falling down. We found out this morning that one of the Enrollment Directors at my work is one of the missing. He called his wife about 15 minutes before the bridge collapsed to tell her he was on the way home. He never made it. She still hasn't heard from him. It's just so sad.

This morning everyone was watching the footage of the bridge actually collapsing. It just went straight down.

Anyway, yeah, the few times I've been on stage, I had stage fright, but managed to relax about halfway through the show.

Blah blah blah.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 6:50 pm

Wow Heather, that's really sad. I hadn't seen the footage until I checked out the link you posted. Unbelievable.

JR & BLT: Thanks for the well-wishery. The show is Friday, August 10, and I'm scrambling to get ready for it. I play from 6:30 to 8 on the Second Stage, and at 8 Al starts up on the main stage. I'm hoping to get audio/video/pics of my set, and if I get to somehow meet Weird Al, that'd be awesome. But really, I'm just happy to be there.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:09 pm

I went to the Aquarium today (Konichiwa, fishes!).

sausage boy · Post by **sausage boy** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:21 pm

I know its a tragedy, and my sympathies do go out to all those effected by the bridge thing, but every time I see footage of the bridge collapsed in the river this comes to mind.

Billy's Little Trip · Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:29 pm

sausage boy wrote:I know its a tragedy, and my sympathies do go out to all those effected by the bridge thing, but every time I see footage of the bridge collapsed in the river this comes to mind.

But how would boats get under? I personally think of Caravan Ray. He's what the world needs more of.

Bjam · Post by **Bjam** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:07 am

QOTD: I don't really get stage fright. *shrug* I never knew that I should have stage fright until in my 8th grade musical my friend(who was a lead with me) started completely freaking out right before we had to go on for the first night. She was all "WHY ARE YOU NOT NERVOUS?" and I just replied with, "Well, uh, why would we be nervous? We're great." She gave me such a withering look

I just get really excited before shows/concerts. The one time I got stage fright was because the author(who is super famous/Tony nominated) was in the audience, and we were doing his show(a show he doesn't care much for as we later found out). Most of the stuff in the play hadn't been changed at all, but my character was originally a guy that we turned into a girl. Talk about pressure, geez.

Nothing much happened during the day today, but I did go and see Bourne Ultimatum at midnight. Pretty solid movie. Matt Damon is dreamy. I just impulse-brought a dress online at 3:30am. I'm planning on embroidering/beading/generally making it funkier and then wearing it to an event in October. I've never brought anything on an impulse before. Let alone at 3:30am... Let's hope that wasn't a terrible idea

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:58 am

Impulse purchases tend to be better than ones that you overthink.

That includes impulse purchases that you end up overthinking after-the-fact.

Rabid Garfunkel · Post by **Rabid Garfunkel** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:53 am

QOTD: The day before a show I get the "fright". Dunno why that is. Gets it out of the way so I can get on with being wide-eyed johnny psycho onstage.

Afterthought: doing the two shows in two days on the SF Tour, only had the fright the day before the first show... though getting fuck-all lost and being late to the Seattle show might've helped in distracting me from that, heh.

Had a good band practice thursday night. It's starting to gel nicely. Wife-to-be (21 days & counting) couldn't figure out who was singing Plastic Rose, heh. Guess the more growl/less Lou Reed works for the song.

anti-m · Post by **anti-m** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:56 am

Niveous wrote:(Konichiwa, fishes!).

I just wanted to say that I loved this!