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Strange Stage Stories from San Diego Musicians: Chris Warner (Jet West), Bill Ray (Ike Turner), Nena Anderson and more...

Chris Warner of Jet West, Nena Anderson, Bill Ray of Ike Turner's Band, Drew Douglass aka Grandpadrew and Bob Sale of Rockola etc., relate odd and interesting moments that have happened while performing...

Nena Anderson - “At a show with Cash'd Out in Aspen, CO, I had a bottle of whiskey sitting on top of my amp and the band also had a pitcher of beer on the stage. A man got on stage and tried to take the booze 3 times before security got him. He was so drunk, he ran in-between the players and kept saying that he was going to drink it because we weren't!”

Bob Sale / Rockola etc.– “During one of the few times I played The Navajo Inn, earlier in the evening I'd had a friend over for dinner and we were having a good time and I said I didn't want to leave to go to work, and my friend said I should call in sick, and I said no, I don't do that. So I went to work, and about two minutes before downbeat I started to feel nauseous. I went up on stage, began to play, and started feeling worse, and when my background vocal part came around, I opened my mouth to sing and just hurled all over the floor next to my drums. It was weird because nobody noticed - including the band. I guess it's because I just basically barfed on all the old barf that had accumulated for years -it was the Navajo, after all.”

Drew Douglass / Grandpadrew – “I often perform as a duo with a cellist. So we aren’t exactly blowing out the house speakers. I have a song called Ian Curtis, and it’s about a musician crying out for help, asking anybody to hear his voice, while nobody around him seems to notice. Ian Curtis was the singer for Joy Division and he killed himself at the height of their popularity. So it’s a heavy song and not particularly upbeat. Right as we started to play it, two girls hopped on stage about three feet away from me and started having a loud conversation about some absurd and trivial drama in their lives. I turned my microphone to face them, took another step closer, and sang directly at them for the entire song. They were wholly oblivious, as I literally sang the lyrics “The more I sing, the less you seem to care, as I throw all this shit out in the air”. All this, just a few feet from their faces, on stage in front of a room full of people. It was surreal and almost felt like performance art. It fueled my performance as I was filled with equal parts frustration and delight at the irony of it all. I considered hiring them for future gigs, but they didn’t seem like the most reliable performers.”

Bill Ray / Ike Turner etc.: “We were doing a weeklong stint at Ronnie Scott's in London with Ike; every night there was someone else famous in the audience; I had this atrocious case of food poisoning and had been going back to the hotel in between sets nightly to recuperate (there was a band that played in between our sets) so I missed out on a few of them. So the night I finally began to feel more like a human I was on my way into the club; the road manager asked "Have you seen Paul yet?" And I was thinking of Paul (Smith), the keyboard player for our band. "Paul?" I asked... "Yeah, PAUL, the bassist from that little band called the Beatles". When he said that, I have no idea what compelled me to do this but I immediately went out the door to the corner market, threw down a 20 pound note and grabbed the disposable camera. I don't care if it was 5 or 50 pounds, I just did what I did. So I approach the table where he's sitting and immediately start yammering something. He stopped me, told me to relax and proceeded to say some of the nicest things "We're all the same here, Bill." And with that I asked if I could have a photo with him. His ex Heather Mills took the pic. Here it is.” http://billraydrums.com/image/bill_paul.jpg

Chris Warner/ Jet West : "We played a show on 8/31/12 at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale, AZ. Half way through the set a girl helped herself up on stage to dance with various members of our band. When she came over to my side, she started taking some of her clothes off and dancing all over me and giving me little kisses while we were jamming out. Her boyfriend was front row trying to get her down, though that was not going to happen. I felt very awkward at the end of our show when he was congratulating me on a great set".

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/nov/30/36266/

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Nena Anderson - “At a show with Cash'd Out in Aspen, CO, I had a bottle of whiskey sitting on top of my amp and the band also had a pitcher of beer on the stage. A man got on stage and tried to take the booze 3 times before security got him. He was so drunk, he ran in-between the players and kept saying that he was going to drink it because we weren't!”

Bob Sale / Rockola etc.– “During one of the few times I played The Navajo Inn, earlier in the evening I'd had a friend over for dinner and we were having a good time and I said I didn't want to leave to go to work, and my friend said I should call in sick, and I said no, I don't do that. So I went to work, and about two minutes before downbeat I started to feel nauseous. I went up on stage, began to play, and started feeling worse, and when my background vocal part came around, I opened my mouth to sing and just hurled all over the floor next to my drums. It was weird because nobody noticed - including the band. I guess it's because I just basically barfed on all the old barf that had accumulated for years -it was the Navajo, after all.”

Drew Douglass / Grandpadrew – “I often perform as a duo with a cellist. So we aren’t exactly blowing out the house speakers. I have a song called Ian Curtis, and it’s about a musician crying out for help, asking anybody to hear his voice, while nobody around him seems to notice. Ian Curtis was the singer for Joy Division and he killed himself at the height of their popularity. So it’s a heavy song and not particularly upbeat. Right as we started to play it, two girls hopped on stage about three feet away from me and started having a loud conversation about some absurd and trivial drama in their lives. I turned my microphone to face them, took another step closer, and sang directly at them for the entire song. They were wholly oblivious, as I literally sang the lyrics “The more I sing, the less you seem to care, as I throw all this shit out in the air”. All this, just a few feet from their faces, on stage in front of a room full of people. It was surreal and almost felt like performance art. It fueled my performance as I was filled with equal parts frustration and delight at the irony of it all. I considered hiring them for future gigs, but they didn’t seem like the most reliable performers.”

Bill Ray / Ike Turner etc.: “We were doing a weeklong stint at Ronnie Scott's in London with Ike; every night there was someone else famous in the audience; I had this atrocious case of food poisoning and had been going back to the hotel in between sets nightly to recuperate (there was a band that played in between our sets) so I missed out on a few of them. So the night I finally began to feel more like a human I was on my way into the club; the road manager asked "Have you seen Paul yet?" And I was thinking of Paul (Smith), the keyboard player for our band. "Paul?" I asked... "Yeah, PAUL, the bassist from that little band called the Beatles". When he said that, I have no idea what compelled me to do this but I immediately went out the door to the corner market, threw down a 20 pound note and grabbed the disposable camera. I don't care if it was 5 or 50 pounds, I just did what I did. So I approach the table where he's sitting and immediately start yammering something. He stopped me, told me to relax and proceeded to say some of the nicest things "We're all the same here, Bill." And with that I asked if I could have a photo with him. His ex Heather Mills took the pic. Here it is.” http://billraydrums.com/image/bill_paul.jpg

Chris Warner/ Jet West : "We played a show on 8/31/12 at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale, AZ. Half way through the set a girl helped herself up on stage to dance with various members of our band. When she came over to my side, she started taking some of her clothes off and dancing all over me and giving me little kisses while we were jamming out. Her boyfriend was front row trying to get her down, though that was not going to happen. I felt very awkward at the end of our show when he was congratulating me on a great set".

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/nov/30/36266/

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