Robert J

When I first started out gigging at age 17, I was playing solo piano at a chinese restaurant. There was a dixie band on Saturdays, so the venue's not so strange. It's a strip club now. I got $20 for three hours, plus beer and a plate of reheated chinese food leftovers. Awesome! Mostly old timers who were there 14 hours, handing over their pension scheques to the barmaid. I did get to learn some tunes like "Sentimental Journey" "Melancholy Baby" etc When I was 15 I actually played organ at my Catholic church. They needed a sub and I was too old to continue as the altar boy, and since the priest liked me .... I think I made $12.50 per mass. One day I brought in a Moog Prodigy, a little synth, and laid it on top of the orgfan. I used it for string pads. Sounded good. However, at the end of one mass I overheard an old lady berate the priest: "I've seen one of those things before [the keyboard] at the mall, and this woman was playing it nicely. But this guy [me] is ABSOLUTELY AWFUL". It could have been my long hair. I was asked to keep the Moog at home. Too many other stupid freebies to mention.

I'd love to master or just get started on the B3. However it is hard to lost those years of playing like a pianist. We have the new keyboard by Technics at work, the KN 7000 (Oscar Peterson just bought one from us). There's some awesome organ sounds and even a digital drawbar. I can sound like an organist a bit on this. But I still have to learn to pad, be more economical, and solo differently. BTW - what the heck do you do with your left hand? Pour a drink? B)

I made $300 US playing solo piano for a Chrysler executive party in *** (help me B3-er, a rich area in the NW suburbs of Detroit; it was a nice hotel). I had no car so I took a $30 cab ride back to the Canada/US border (I actually took several busses to get there!). THe cab was a luxury, but the exchange rate covered it. No female peelers, but I feasted like a king and there was a full glass of scotch on my grand piano. Those were the days!