Whats your memorable "Cuttin Heads" story?

[Robert Burns]

Im going to submit this every few sentences, so it doesnt log me out dammit! I should have this story pretty well polished, since ive typed
it 4 times only to be "Your not logged in".. 15 minutes later..

************** Ok..its 1975, and im 21 years old..we have a pretty slammin band in N.Arizona mainly because we had a singer sax player
who could figure any song out by ear, in 10 minutes, and then i would learn note for note from him. Worked out great, at least for Chicago
War, etc type of songs. We covered some LedZep, Hendrix..Chicago.. "Archie Bell and the Drells"..(for you other old farts!).. stuff like that.
So once we realized that we could sell out a HS Gym and attract 400 to 700 people...we did this about twice a month..
I still get a smile on my face remembering how i would get paid $100 for roughly 4 hours work, and i only made $90 a week! Good times..
So about our 5th or 6th gig, we were taking a break, and this guy who had been to my left just off the stage all night asks me if he can
check out my LP? (Ibby LP pre lawsuit, awesome!) Being the nice guy that i am, i let him go up to my axe on the stand..
Well he goes over, and turns up my Fender Dual Showman Stack, and starts rippin Aminor pentatonics...out the wazzoo~! (Another old
man term!) At first im impressed, and smiling at his wanking fretboard skills...(not playing anything...just rippin pretty fast)
So after about 8 minutes, my singer is giving me the eye..."lets get finished up here"..and so i ask him for my guitar back, and
he says.."Why? They love me"! SO i let him play for another minute or two, and then im getting irked... So i go over and turn]
the volume down on my amp.. Well the crowd starts booing me... he is raising his hands like Rocky Balboa...(but before Rocky came out!
Now i look like the spoiled kid..(and i have to admit, that my face was probably red, from embarssment, over being schooled with
my own equipment) So i shepishly grab back my Ibby..and my singer says.."Lets do "Color my World"...(a slow Chicago piano ballad)
*you death metal guys dont know real music dammit!) Anyway..i tell my singer.."What? After that? With everyone booing me""??
So now i got big time pressure on me, to not suck... somehow redeem myself...or just lose all credibility with this small town
over a dude that doesnt even live here, and ive not seen him before..(or since) So i closed my eyes...and for some reason Al DiMeola
came to mind. I had just gotten his album,and he blew my mind.. (Spanish Gypsy i think?) So i move out to the front of the stage..and
Close my eyes..and im thinking..."What the fuck am i going to play? Now just like Ralph Machio did... (10 years before he did it!)
I went back to something i had learned 8 years before...played it everyday..and it wasnt something you heard in 1975...
Mallegena' !! So i do my best DiMeola impression, and start into this spanish finger picken fretboard workout.. Yeah...thats
got em quiet..and since i just learned about a year before how to mute pretty good, i am chicken muting my ass off thru most of
the quick string skippin... I also learned how to fake that "Flamenco" crazy fingers thing... and i added lots of that into it..
and the crowd went nuts! My First standing O! The dude at the side of the stage, gives me a smile and a nod... and im justified!
Thank god, im back to being the legend in my own mind again! LOL
So after it dies down a bit...i get what distortion i can get from the Dual Showman and start into "Purple Haze"... maybe my best
riffing at that time... All is good.. and my first Cuttin heads moment with 500 people watching is a success... whew.. i would
have been scarred for life, if i hadnt pulled out some Flamenco riffage... just in time..
I always wonder if i had a time machine and could go back to that moment.. and do something i now know how to play..?
That way 4 years later, those people would hear "Eruption" on the radio, and go "Hey, i heard a guy 4 years ago play that!!
EVH just stole it from that guy i guess"... :-)))

So whats your competition story?? I want to hear Matts!

[MartinBarre]

That's not much of a story to be honest. Bit short!

[Cygnus X1]

He's still typing!

Cool one, Robert.

[MartinBarre]

Ah, done! Great story, you musta wanted to kick that guy's ass.

[triplehold]

Robert Burns- That is a classic! We still play "Tighten Up", anything that gets the girls moving around blows away all the guitar show off stuff.

[Robert Burns]

Robert Burns- That is a classic! We still play "Tighten Up", anything that gets the girls moving around blows away all the guitar show off stuff.

******** "were archie bell and the drells...and we can play and dance
just as good as we want"! :-)) Do da tighten up!

[Partial @ Marshall]

Good god... in NorAz of places! Probably playing with some people I know (10 yrs before I got here, though).

[Robert Burns]

Good god... in NorAz of places! Probably playing with some people I know (10 yrs before I got here, though).

Ready for this? It was Holbrook !! The hippest hot spot for vegas like
lounge acts for sure! :-)) We only did it for 1 year..then i thankfully
moved to Phx. My biggest moment on stage, was playing in Flagstaff,
that same year for a Moutain Bell Christmas party ! 1500 people, and
we got paid $1200.00 for the evening! (4 guys) I thought i was Ziggy
Stardust! LOL

[blackendvampire]

hmm, well, I think once I went to a local jam session, and the guys for some reason were playing country, a guy had a tele and whatnot, and was doing the whole chicken pickin shit. So they got me up there with the guy, didnt let me do any singing, so I got to just sit in. They didnt play any songs I knew, and the chord progressions were fairly weird jazzy things that took me a few bars to get, but by the time the leads came around, they decided to go to a whole differnet chord progression in another key, not even relative to the key we were in. So I get first lead obviously, typical house guitarist trick, let the new guy go first so you can show him up in the second lead right? So I just play some really simple ass pentatonic blues things in the A major key, which was correct for the key we went to, but I didnt have enough time to think about exactly what I wanted to play, so it was just a few notes. Then the other guitarist walks over to me, and he was about 20 years older than me, and decides to stand in front of me to play to the crowd so I couldnt see what he even played. Very nice. Each song went around like this until at the end of the last song the band decided to do a big ending, all the crashing cymbol junk and whatever, and the leads just flying, and the damn thing was in another major key, so I was like, ok, well, D major huh? after the last note was hit, I started playing the D major arpeggio sweep in the 5th position, sliding up the positions and I went into Serrana by Jason Becker, I play that piece extremely clean I might add. There was absolute silence through the whole thing, and I had such a warm EL84 tone coming out of my little combo. I went through the whole thing, and after I finished it, there was silence for about a minute. The audiance wasnt quite sure what to make of it. I packed up my stuff and left, and the house guitarist just looked devistated.

BTW I was playing my White RR24, I was wearing a Dark Funeral T shirt with a large pentagram on the front and an inverted red cross on the back, I have long hair, and pale as fuck skin, Im 6'2 and underweight. Im pretty sure they thought I was possessed.

[SEEGERMANY]

Hey Robert, I was at a Monday Night Blues Jam and I had been asked to sit in on a bluesy version of Dark Eyed Cajun Woman by The Doobie Bros. I'm no fucking lead player, but I managed to wank my way through the solo. It was good enough to make the bandleader smile or it might have been so bad he was laughing at me. Anyway, we had two more songs before break and then we'd change out musicians. This young kid comes up beside me and asks if he can play the next song. I told him to be patient but he said that his group of friends were leaving and he only had a few minutes.

I handed him my guitar and he said something to the bandleader and they ripped into Red House. This kid had some chops. But he had no discipline and started playing on top of everyone else. Then it turned into a fucking shred fest! He was clearly trying to impress his friends! Granted, he played shit that my fingers couldn't play in a million years (guess I should work on my Nickelodian Scales).

When he finished, he handed me my guitar and I started re-tweaking my controls. I looked up and the whole fucking room was staring at me waiting to see what I was going to do. Well, I did the only thing I could do. I pulled the mike near me and said "Ok, I'd like to do a number that I wrote in prison and it's called Jailbreak!" I turned up the volume and I proceeded to run my pick up and down the E string as if I was filing through steal bars! The place went nuts and we've laughed about that on several occasions.

[Robert Burns]

Funny shit guys! (gotta practice up on my Nickalodeon scales! ha ha..
Keep em coming

[Partial @ Marshall]

Holbrook?....It's the gateway to Winslow!
"Where the men are men and the sheep are nervous"

Now where's my Montana stick?

[SEEGERMANY]

Several years ago, I walked into my favorite music store on a Saturday morning. Back by the amps, there was this cat tuning up and after a minute or two of noodling around, he ripped off some incredible licks. He was a very fluid player and surprisingly tasteful. Several people gathered around as he demonstrated his skills. When he finished, several people clapped, a couple people whistled, and then this came from his mouth "I'm pretty damned good, huh?"

Standing beside me was an oriental kid who I'd say was 15 or 16. He was holding an Ibanez and he asked if he could try that same amp. He tuned up, stretched his alien like fingers, and proceeded to wail like no one I've ever heard. I thought the fucking building was going to implode. This kid had groove, feeling, emotion, and probably knew every chop, lick, riff known to mankind. When he finished, I looked over at the first guy and said "just had bad is your ass puckered right now?"

[FlyingSkull]

SeeGermany:
Your Jailbreak story is beyond awesome.

Robert Burns:
You had me seriously worried there how you were going to get out of that one! Nice!

Blackendvampire:
I would have loved to see that! I bet those cowboys swallowed their tobacco juice.

[Endrik]

I loved the story when Ted Nugent started his stupid cutting heads crap with everyone but one night Frank Marino went Hiroshima on his sorry ass but the funny thing is that Frank was actually way more embarassed because of it