Musicians have a mix of good gig and bad gigs. Some have quite a few weird gigs. Boston saxophonist Dave Birkin recently shared one of his weird gig experiences. Birkin, of Dave B And The Hot Shots, had once opened for a circus comedy like show at the Middle East in Cambridge that featured public nudity.
“It started with an ad on Craigslist that I answered,” Birkin said. “Some organization was looking for a ‘local jazz group’ for a gig at the Middle East downstairs.” So the sax man answered the ad with his usual web page videos and info sheet. Someone from New York got back to him.
The gig didn’t offer much money, but it was only a one hour gig on a Monday night, so Birkin took the job. His keyboard player couldn’t make the ride out from Worcester to Cambridge on a Monday night and his upright bass player bowed out to care for an ailing wife.
Birkin tapped Berklee College Of Music bass professor, Bruce Gertz, a high profile bassist on the jazz scene who he had been gigging with. Gertz told Birkin that it “sounds like a pretty weird gig, but I like weird gigs. Count me in.” Birkin figured they’d play the gig without a chord instrument, only sax, bass and drums, so there would d be a minimum of harmonic clash.
When Birkin heard from the New York agent for the second time, he found out he would be playing this local show as an opener for some local and Los Angeles comedians, jugglers, and a YouTube spawned superstar named Eric Andre also from LA .
“There was pre-recorded music that was chosen by the acts and we were to play along with the recordings in the show and they wanted just a three piece,” Birkin said “It turned out, it didn’t matter. They didn’t want to hear what we were playing, just be able to see us doing it! They would have been just as happy with actors playing inflatable balloons that looked like sax, bass and drums, but for some reason they wanted real musicians pretending to play real instruments. They asked me for a headshot and band promo. No mic for sax and drums, no amp for the acoustic bass.”
The slot for Birkin’s trio was to run from 9:30 to 10:30, doors opening to the public at 8:00 with a rehearsal at 5:30.
“I told my guys 7:30. They said ok,” Birkin related. “There was one lick they(the organizers) wanted my drummer, Richard Malcolm, to play and aside from that, they didn’t want to actually hear what we were playing, just pantomime.”
The star of the show, Eric Andre, was a young guy who had actually attended Berklee five years earlier as a bass major, and he knew Bruce Gertz, who has been at Berklee for many years. Eric Andre, the YouTube sensation, was to have two comics warm up the crowd then make an entrance destroying everything on the set, squirting the audience with those pump water soakers, throwing 50 McDonalds hamburgers at the crowd and doing this completely naked with only a piece of duct tape on his lower abdomen.
“We got there at 7:30, listened to a couple of tracks that we were to play with,” Birkin recounted “They taught Richard the lick they wanted him to play, and when it was to be played, gave us those bracelets you’re supposed to wear at rock concerts that allow us to have alcoholic beverages. We left out the back door and went out to Starbucks to kill some time.”
When the Birkin trio returned at 9:00, there was a line of 20 somethings standing in line all around the block on a Monday night waiting to pay admission to see Andre.
“Bruce and I had a couple of drinks at the bar. He told me, ‘I play every week with one of the best jazz sax players in the world, the music is incredible, but there’s nothing to talk about. A gig like this is a story to tell.’”
Gertz captured some iof the show with his I-Phone. The event went pretty much as planned with Andre walking through the audience squirting his big water gun, tossing burgers in his birthday suit.
“Then the set was put back together and Eric sat at a desk as a talk show host and interviewed guests and had videos projected on the back wall of the stage,” Birkin said.
“At the end, 20 or so people from the audience stormed the stage, and the director and a DJ carried out a DJ table and some hip hop was played at an ear splitting volume and that was it.”
Birkin paid his guys but then had to wait around for someone from an upstairs office to pay the director of the show. When 11 o’clock rolled around Birkin had run out of patience. He told the office lady, “look, I’ve already paid my guys and I haven’t eaten dinner yet. Will you kindly pay me so I can go home and have dinner with my wife.”
The women went into a dressing room and emerged with some cash, something she could have done several minutes earlier. And that is the story of how well-respected saxophonist Dave Birkin and his well-respected musician friends got to open for what was really a strip show at the Middle East in Cambridge.
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