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Hey, lots of us forumites used to gig or still do -- for J&B it's "used to." Let's share some.
Here's a couple of us in 1998...Janice on guitar and 'stache Bud on lefty bass. Some day I'll scan the old Tri-X negatives and have some shots of my early 70's band.





I like to see other people's gig photos... but I don't have any for the same reason that I don't dance. I was always on stage, not in the audience taking pictures.
No doubt there are plenty of such photos floating around in the collections of friends, but I wouldn't know who to ask.

Cool topic though.. .can't wait to see how many people respond with photos!
This is an interesting thread! I don't have pictures I can think of of me performing for the same reason Pat mentioned above. I'd love to see some nice pictures of fellow forum users performing though smile
I might have some glass negative daguerreotype shots from my performances as a youth ... I'll dig something out.
That's pretty funny Matt! You must be a whole older than I thought!

Jeff
Probably not much different in age from most folks on here, but I started playing for money at age 11. This photo is about four years later, from 1966. I'm playing in a rock band with my older brother (pictured). Even with a mic and monitors, we two trumpet players could not hear ourselves over the din coming from the rest of the band. Why my hearing is still OK, I'll never understand.

www.mattfinley.com/promos/Matt1966.jpg
Ha! The Blues Brothers before anyone had heard of the Blues Brothers! Love them shades.
Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Probably not much different in age from most folks on here, but I started playing for money at age 11. This photo is about four years later, from 1966. I'm playing in a rock band with my older brother (pictured). Even with a mike and monitors, we two trumpet players could not hear ourselves over the din coming from the rest of the band. Why my hearing is still OK, I'll never understand.

www.mattfinley.com/promos/Matt1966.jpg


Great photo...Cool cats!

I’m about 5 years older than you and I worked with rock bands through the early sixties and my ears didn’t survive. I have tinnitus and am shot above 2K or so. But a great PhD audiologist turned my life around with some high end hearing aids including a program for mixing smile

Bud
Janice looks like she hasn't aged.

Bud, to me, you look younger now!

Matt, you looked like you have aged...which is a good thing. Wouldn't want to look THAT young forever. lol. Looking good in both pics I've seen of you. Had it going on early my friend.

These are about 13 years old.

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Best I have is this. The old pic was taken in Aug 1987 in Bradford Ontario. The new one was from Nov 2015 here in Ohio at a reunion show for a band that I am no longer involved with.

And there's Bud, standing on the wrong side of the bass!!!
Eddie-You look like a stud in both pics. You wear glasses well.

So...this shows how little I actually know about all of you. Eddie, I had NO idea you played sax. I thought you were a guitarist.
Originally Posted By: HearToLearn
Eddie-You look like a stud in both pics. You wear glasses well.

So...this shows how little I actually know about all of you. Eddie, I had NO idea you played sax. I thought you were a guitarist.


Keyboard 1st, sax 2nd, guitar 3rd.
Originally Posted By: eddie1261


Keyboard 1st, sax 2nd, guitar 3rd.


Wow! Talented guy! I really had no idea that you played other than guitar, so this surprises me. Very cool, of course.
Here's one from the same show.


And Eddie sold me a cornet.

The cornet is a beater but it plays. And I could use it to demolish a car if I were to run over it.
Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
And Eddie sold me a cornet.


And I was quite happy to see it go into the hands of someone who plays it. I am in the group that doesn't think instruments are museum pieces and are supposed to be played rather than viewed.
Originally Posted By: HearToLearn

Wow! Talented guy! I really had no idea that you played other than guitar, so this surprises me. Very cool, of course.


Well, keep in mind I never said I play them WELL.....

It's mainly a thing of longevity. In mid-April it will be 63 years since I started music lessons. I started at 4 yrs 10 months of age. If you do something long enough you can get good at it. Music, cooking, welding, woodworking, plumbing, whatever..... if you do it and pay the dues that come with learning, you will get to a point where you are proficient.
Comparing the two pics it looks like your sax shrank over the years. wink
Originally Posted By: rharv
Comparing the two pics it looks like your sax shrank over the years. wink


It was colder for the second picture. It happens. shocked
You wanted 'old' gig photos? No problems. The bible was still an 8-page pamphlet when these were taken grin


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"The bible was still an 8-page pamphlet when these were taken grin"

Cool pix and that pamphlet one liner made me laugh out loud! grin
How old do you want?
1965 good enough? lol.
Second iteration of a band called "The GraveDiggers", which - er - died a death.
Re-named "The Sugar-Beats" as seen here in January 1965. I'm in the middle with the Harmony 75. We are playing, so I am told by the guy on Stage Right with the leftie Epi Casino (still mates after all these years), "Johnny B. Good".
Note for the eagle-eyed - the drummer Dave Johnson (where are you now?) hadn't got round to changing the name on the drum skin.
The Gig was also personally famous for being where I proposed to my girlfriend, the present Mrs Sixchannel. Wonder what I'd have done if she'd said "no"?
Cheers
Ian


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All these old photos are great! Very cool thread Bud.

Here I am feeling it on stage in 1980 at a long gone place called The Pub in Patchogue, NY... LOL!





Here's the last one I have. Same show, same shirt....

Of course there was the Halloween party when I went dressed as an Eddie Bear.

Wow,
I remember being a little tyke and watching my parents perform in the 60's.
I'm just not that old yet I guess.
What I'm finding scary is even the most recent one I can find is from more than a few years back (top).
Earliest one I can find is when I was almost an adult, but not quite .. 1980 I think, college jazz band.
I'm the long hair on the right.

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Great pics all,

And when someone gets famous all the photographers follow you around just like they did with the Beatles and you get whole books of unreleased photos decades later.

Was just thinking as I was typing that the Beatles must have been the most photographed groups of all time, maybe even the superstars nowadays have a lot more privacy.
Originally Posted By: rharv
Comparing the two pics it looks like your sax shrank over the years. wink


I prefer to think that the sax shrank when the only other option is that I grew...

I looked closer and it appears that I was even playing the same note!!
If that pic was college jazz band, how old were the 2 trumpet players on the left side of the brass row, or the female sax player? They look like they were 30 THEN!
"I prefer to think that the sax shrank when the only other option is that I grew...

I looked closer and it appears that I was even playing the same note!!"
……………………………………………………………………………..

That brought to mind this old comedy show

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1009121/Playing-wrong-notes-iconic-Morecambe-Wise-sketch.html
I want to share the story of that sax. The one in the old picture was a Buescher. It was like one rung above a student rental, and in fact it may have been a retired student rental knowing where I got it. The one in 2015 though....

I was looking around Craigslist for a specific horn and saw that horn listed by a guy in New York. It was a listed as a "King". I asked him for the serial number. When I got it I called the company that King became and asked them if they could run the serial and pin down the manufacture date, they said they could get it down to 1st or 2nd half of a year. They ran the number and it was built in the 1st half of 1964. I will digress and come back to this point.

I emailed the guy in New York and worked out a price. With shipping, it came to me for less than $100!!When it arrived I blew air through it and one key leaked. I took it to my shop and the horn guy there looked at it and said he'd call me. 3 days later he called and said "All that was wrong was one key up top was bent. It doesn't even need pads or cork." The bill was $27. That guy's name is Tom Ianni. I have known him since we were little kids.

So, both Tom's father and my father, both long since deceased, worked at King back before it became King. It was originally called H. (Henderson) N. White. The plant was in Cleveland, on E 52nd St. I grew up on E 61st St. That horn, as I could date it, would have been worked on by both my dad and Tom's dad.

Back to the phone call. When they told me "1st half of 1964" I said "Great. That means my father would have worked on this horn." They asked who he was and when I told them, the woman on the phone said "Oh my god." and told the other woman in the office that she had the son of my dad (Names redacted) on the phone. And they both got on the call and went on and on telling me how nice my dad was and he was always greeting them when they walked through the plant. And I laughed as I said "Well, you didn't live with him. He could be stern."

So, morale of the story is that I played those last few years of reunion shows with an H.N. White horn that was worked on during assembly by my father, and it is maintained by another H.N. White worker's father. And I got to buy that legacy and memory horn for about $125!!!

When Henderson White died, he had a brother who thought he would walk in and take over the business. Henderson's wife, Edna, said nay nay. She read the will and found that SHE was the sole heir to the business. She quickly lawyered up and on some random day, her lawyer and police came in and escorted Henderson's brother out of the place. The court later assigned a payout value to that silent partner that was the brother, and he just rode off into the sunset for what I later learned was a meager inheritance. He was a very minor partner and Edna took over. Bless her heart for not being pushed around!
That's me on the Guitar with the Jazz Band. Everyone gets 15 minutes of fame in a lifetime, this was mine.

To paraphrase Florence Foster Jenkins "You may say I could not play, but you can't say I did not play."

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Originally Posted By: MusicStudent
That's me on the Guitar with the Jazz Band. Everyone gets 15 minutes of fame in a lifetime, this was mine.

To paraphrase Florence Foster Jenkins "You may say I could not play, but you can't say I did not play."


Cool quote!
Back during the disco/funk days. Money was great during that period.

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very first band, all the members were in the same freshman high school class. I'm the guitar player on the far left with the Peter Tork haircut and no-name guitar. We were terrible, but we played all the time because the bass player's dad took an interest in the band and managed/booked us.

It didn't matter that we sucked because we were too young to join the musician's union, so the only venues open to us were places where other very young and inexperienced bands played.

The fact that we played all the time made a difference, and by the time we were 16 and could join the union, we already had an established local reputation (as being one of the better bad bands. Hey, you gotta start somewhere)

Note the 45's hanging from the ceiling. This particular venue was in a church basement. That's how church ladies thought a hip place should be decorated. I'm pretty sure there were also black light posters. ;-)

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Originally Posted By: eddie1261
If that pic was college jazz band, how old were the 2 trumpet players on the left side of the brass row, or the female sax player? They look like they were 30 THEN!


They were (maybe more).
I've always been lucky and placed well above my abilities .. which always helped me learn more faster.
One of those trumpet players had a doctorate and the sax player had her masters .. like I said, I been lucky,

At the time I thought it was funny that the instructor had a Master degree and the guy he was teaching was a Doctor.
Me; I was fresh out of high school. But I made the band and they actually performed one of my compositions .. just one of the many ways I've been blessed throughout my life.
I call it Luck of the Bob
Is that a Kustom PA system, with the padded cabinets?
Here's a pic from the old days



Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
Here's a pic from the old days





Whoa! That has GOT to be one of the highest crash cymbals I have ever seen! shocked
Eddie, no shirt on while on stage? You were way ahead of your time! grin
Originally Posted By: MusicStudent
Eddie, no shirt on while on stage? You were way ahead of your time! grin

Eddie or Herb? I think it's the Guitarhacker photo being referred to?
Originally Posted By: eddie1261
Is that a Kustom PA system, with the padded cabinets?


Good eye, Eddie. Wrong, but very close.

What you're seeing in the photo is a Kustom combo organ. Same company, different product. Its the only one I ever saw.

Back in the day all the local bands had Kustom PAs and even a few amps, because the only local music store was a Kustom distributor, and they filled the store with that stuff. In spite of the exposure, I never saw a combo organ in the store.

Side note: Local guitar players loved to use a Fender piggyback tube top as a preamp to the Kustom head, which gave them all the great tube sound with the power of a solid state amp. (This is before tube amps made a comeback. At that time the solid state amps were louder so guitar players were shelving their old fender amps to get more volume. )
Originally Posted By: MusicStudent
Eddie, no shirt on while on stage? You were way ahead of your time!


Believe me, bro. Women signed a petition that prohibits me from ever being shirtless. I even wear a shirt in the shower....
Originally Posted By: eddie1261
Originally Posted By: MusicStudent
Eddie, no shirt on while on stage? You were way ahead of your time!


Believe me, bro. Women signed a petition that prohibits me from ever being shirtless. I even wear a shirt in the shower....


Here is why I don't go shirtless anymore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOgd9hitEAE
I've really enjoyed everyone's photos, thanks for sharing!

Circa 2000 - No biggie here. We played dive bars in our small town to crowds of at least 10 to 20 people..... smile


Thanks to all who joined in. Janice and I really enjoyed viewing them several times. Fun!

J&B
Yes, it's really the highest crash cymbals!
Originally Posted By: sslechta


Dude! How tall are you??? You look to be 6'3" behind those keyboards.
Haha..... almost, 6'1". Can I give you my birthdate and SS# too? Please?
Originally Posted By: sslechta
Can I give you my birthdate and SS# too? Please?


I already have each of those of my own!!!
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