RE: [Harp-L] band drinking, minimal harp content

["Bradford Trainham" <bradford.trainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

With weed or booze, drummers seem to drag and in general are harder to
follow.
I don't like it when people get too relaxed and their "stage patter" gets
all slurry/never-ending/Proustian/Brad-Trainhamian.
All that said, some people I've played with smoked and drank quite a lot at
every gig and it didn't seem to matter.
I think it's a personal choice, but I think the band has a right as a
collective to object if it's causing a sloppy performance. 
If I can avoid it though, I generally won't play with someone who uses speed
or cocaine as I've never heard anything good come out of anyone high on
such. 
I generally stick to water as I end up singing a lot and I've never played a
gig where I played harp where I drank alcohol and since I've gotten this
far, I probably won't start now.
Brad (slurry-as-he's-never-ending) Trainham
 

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of pdxharpdog@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 12:20 PM
To: List harp-l
Subject: [Harp-L] band drinking, minimal harp content



I have a question - does your band have any rules on alcohol consumption
before/during a show?  My band recently had a less than optimum performance
that was directly related to alcohol consumption by the bass player and
drummer who were both quite buzzed as we went on stage. This caused the
tempos to be all screwed up, and lead to a new band rule - no drinking
before a show starts.  During the show we still have an occasional drink on
stage if allowed by the venue or as is often the case bought by fans and
brought to the stage.  Our subsequent shows have all been great since this
rule. 



Harp Content:  It takes all of my faculties and focus to play harp sober let
alone buzzed. 



Ross Macdonald
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