T/F: You have been the person in the corner of the party with a guitar

I aspire to be this person

ha, i was just about to link to this in your thread! ;)

i recommend that you make awkward eye contact with whoever is willing to look at you directly.

No but I saw somebody borrow this guy's guitar, cut the strings, and hand it back one time.

looooool

did the two exchange eye contact after the strings were cut?

don't ask why i'm obsessed with the eye contact thing but i am

Point:

http://arrogantass.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/sayanything-04.jpg

Counterpoint:

http://beenalongtime.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/national_lampoons_animal_house_03.jpg

guitar guy was sitting on the stairs and the cutter just walked off back into the front room, don't believe eye contact was maintained but clearly the guitar guy was a lover not a fighter

just think how much more salubrious british popular culture would be if more ppl carried scissors

have been tempted to do the Belushi thing with buskers on several occasions

hate people with guitars at parties

tho not encountered this since i was about 17

What if the party is a "hootenanny," what then?

haven't been to a student house party in 20 years so i've avoided it too

i bet nowadays it's some guy with a ukelele

damn, Train gets around

Garda, i'm sure i have been in a room with you at a party where this happened!

two of the guys i went to atp with brought guitars (out of a group of twelve) -- i was v close to reevaluating my friendship choices.

i'm this guy upon invite only, and when the gutar is being passed around only

i bet nowadays it's some guy with a ukelele
Seriously wanted to pants a uke dude on the street a few months ago.

oh oh oh yesterday I saw a guy on the high street busking with the full one-man-band gear on.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/OneManBand-MarcDobson.jpg/220px-OneManBand-MarcDobson.jpg
Except he was also dressed as a clown.

when I was 18 I was at a party in which the host had a guitar and I spent like an hour drunkenly playing Gordon Lightfoot songs (pretty much the only songs I knew) which worked out pretty well since I live in Wisconsin and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is such a big song here.

imo this poll's results will be inconclusive w/o seperate options for "i play guitar and am that guy" and "i play guitar and am not that guy" and "i play a different instrument and trust me this does not work as well with a clarinet"

What about a keytar?

*Sheepishly admits that he was 'that' guy in college*

I am this guy with singing, I realize

I mean only probably in my first couple years. The thing is (1) I was a guitar student so I was probably at least better than the typical redemption song-playing dude and (2) I was rather awkward and shy, so the guitar gave me something to hide behind, and

Closest Ive been to this is a friend at a party I had grabbed one of our acoustics, and after strumming a few random things, somehow got everyone into a rousingly loud rendition of "sit on my face".

a rousing

This person is often playing Wonderwall.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-mellow-show/1178424

do girls who hold court in the middle of the room performing all 65 songs she wrote about Joe count?

never, and many of my career choices have a lot to do with horror of being perceived as this guy

Doesn't count if you were playing as part of a show

then no

for a few months in high school there never seemed to be a party that didn't reach the point where two of my friends picked up guitars and started playing the nirvana version of "in the pines," slowly drawing everyone in for a huge & endless sing-a-long, also eventually playing "twist and shout" for like twenty minutes

tbf, it's a requirement to close out every fun gathering with twist and shout

http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefone.com/media/2009/02/shakeitupferris-(2).jpg

really a drag on the annual municipal budget though

I have been that guy.

Three songs, applause at the end, all good.

That was the last time.

First time, four songs, everyone joined in, ice broken, all good.

Oh, and all were 'originals'.

So, ner.

I have done this, but wouldn't do it now.

Really hate guitars at parties - where are the decks motherfuckers?

oh no way do u play originals at a party cmon

This was back in the day, and all the songs were 'hits' round the doors.

I wouldn't/don't do it now, obv.

Unsolicited guitarists >>> unsolicited bongo players (scum)

I've been at parties where a guitar has been passed around and have played on it but usually I've been too drunk to remember how to play anything, so my tenure has been mercifully brief.

Always did hate when that happened tbh.

I guess that doesn't count cos none of us were strangers.

well i took for granted it wasn't a 'strangers' party i mean ugh why party with strangers

Really hate guitars at parties - where are the decks motherfuckers?

The new version of the guitar guy is the guy who hijacks the decks and starts playing lumpen drum and bass. Dreadlocks optional but (un?)desirable.

I was at a party where Bobby Valentino (of the Bluebells) turned up. Thankfully, he did not pick up a violin.

-xpost-

Brostep surely?

Bongos much worse than all these options.

I threw two guys out of a house party for doing this (not that it is so egregious itself, but they kept turning off the music to do so, and I repeatedly told them to cut it out).

Oh man, when I think back to my late teens, I was ALWAYS this guy. Everyone was too polite to tell me to STFU so they just moved to the other side of the room/garden/house/street.

Done it. And probably would do it again after enough booze. Just be grateful pianos are rarer at parties than guitars.

We have a harmonium and a piano in our kitchen, neither of which are as annoying as guy strumming guitar in the corner.

Harmonium? Sweet! I'd be all over that!

YEs, I'm this guy. It's very hard for me not to want to pick up a guitar if I see it propped forlornly in the corner. Obviously wouldn't start "jamming" over the new Orbital album as one c**t did at a party I attended some years back. Nor would I start making up songs about other people at the party whom I haven't met before (seriously nearly punched that guy).

Yeah - speaking of harmoniums, I want one of those smaller ones that look like accordions with legs. Where can I get one for not too much money I wonder?

or maybe without legs - maaybe just a tabletop one.

An Indian harmonium? I think that's what it is.

It's very hard for me not to want to pick up a guitar if I see it propped forlornly in the corner

Ditto. Did it over Xmas, tho I did them a favour by tuning it properly.

Yeah, I think you're right - a portable one, not one of those great big things. If only to do my Ivor Cutler impression.

Ivor had a big 'un tho

I am helpless at preventing myself from picking up a guitar at a party, strumming a few stray chords, and hoping a cute girl wiil sing along. If so, i'll look her in the eye. I'm pretty sure that's the main reason i learned to play guitar.

I haven't even seen a harmonium in about 15 years, but the last one i saw i played. Ever since, i've dreamed i was playing one whenever i'm on the StairMaster.

I am not this guy, but my old roommate was this guy in the most annoying way. He would bring his guitar to parties (slung over his back by the strap, without a case (also, in the summer, he did not wear shoes)) just so he could sit in the corner and play it and make eye contact with people.

I don't mind people playing instruments at parties as long as they can play something beyond G -- C -- D -- G over and over. It's kind of nice, actually.

But not if you turn off the music without asking first. That's just rude.

yeah it's not about the music, really, the essence of awfulness here is unsolicited public performance

I voted "no", but the more I think about it, the more buried memories and regret begin to surface.

Sometimes I just play my guitar out into the black night on my porch and hope someone walking by will like it.

i've never been this, or even seen this at a party. however i have been to quite a few parties where everyone got stoned and formed a drum circle in someone's bedroom

I have in fact picked up a guitar to play along with a drum circle in someone's bedroom.

What is a drum circle?

Tuom D

Well I can guess what it is but...

it's what you think except generally with bongos not tympani

I didn't know it was a "thing"

Are bongos that commonplace?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_circle

i haven't seen one for a couple of years maybe but time was, at the first hint of sunshine in the year, our local park wd contain at least one group of fucking students sat in a circle giving it some bongo "magic"

Right, Americans and Hull

i am in favour of spontaneous and joyful jamming btw but for some reason it is easily mistaken for attention ho-ery

you guys are truly going to awful, awful parties

sb on all 'yes' voters

our local park wd contain at least one group of fucking students sat in a circle giving it some

That wouldn't have worked in local parks of my experience, the Neds would have annihilated them - not with violence but with their preferred weapon, sarcasm

drunken jams late in a party can be really fun if a few of the people involved actually know how to play

not sure this is any worse than the institutionalized attention-whoredom of DJ's

Nothing is worse than bongos ... oh, there's one thing, a didgeridoo

no instrument is inherently bad imo

Oh god drum circles... scourge of my 20s. Only thing worse than the barefoot guy coming to the party with the caseless guitar across his back is the ding dong with the jimbe.

So glad, through luck or judgement or accident of birth, I've managed to avoid hippies for most of my life

I love drums of all ilk. I love percussion. I love rhythm. I have not yet played in a drum circle where the resulting music was interesting or listenable.

I confess that aged 15 I once picked up a guitar at a party, couldn't think of anything to play, stumbled quietly through a riff neither of the 2 people within earshot recognised, and was asked "do you actually know how to play" ;_;

so I guess I should thank my audience because if I had received some kind of polite compliment or even total non-acknowledgement perhaps I would have decided to be that person again

(no, I don't actually know how to play, but at that point I probably still thought I was getting there, slowly)

I voted "no", but the more I think about it, the more buried memories and regret begin to surface.

i lol'd at this, and then i remembered that in 8th grade i held a big party at my house - no alcohol - and ended up playing a really big drum solo that climaxed with a massive 2-measure machine-gun fill across all 8 (!) of my toms) and then throwing one of my sticks way up into the air like a baton, catching it 4 beats later, in time, and simultaneously striking both crash cymbals. and acting like i hadn't practiced that a million times earlier that day. the playing was solicited, iirc, but the whole as i thought back through the evening during high school the memory became so painful that i think i just repressed the whole fucking thing.

and now it's back again. great thread!

ilx: unearthing repressed memories of high school since 2000

for a brief time i was roommates with this woman who would have her friends over every night to do coke and just generally "party". there was this one guy who was a regular fixture who didn't drink or partake in any drugs and would invariably pick up one of her guitars and begin to play upon request, like any song you could possibly think of... he was just one of those people who can do that. anyway, he usually ended up playing all these beatles songs, and everyone would sing along, and so what on paper should have been this decadent evening always seemed to turn into this wholesome-ish campfire sing-along.

This usually happens, more often when it's an informal party, but I'm not really one for socializing so sometimes I find myself sitting around going through the songs I've memorized. Syd Barrett, Leonard Cohen, and Hank Williams, mostly. I like playing some Jimmie Rodgers too, it's nice and calming.

The new version of the guitar guy is the guy who hijacks the decks and starts playing lumpen drum and bass. Dreadlocks optional but (un?)desirable.

ikr ;_;

the emergence of this type of dude = the sign to leave and continue the party elsewhere

acoustic guitars are banned from my houses

just in case, you understand

lexwithguitar.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

49 guitarless or lying motherfuckers

^

it's gotta beat guy with a harmonica, i mean...

The new version of the guitar guy is the guy who hijacks the decks and starts playing lumpen drum and bass. Dreadlocks optional but (un?)desirable.

This dude at Occupy Baltimore did this aaallll the tiiiiime except it was a MacBook (that wasn't his) and brostep youtubes. Really awful dreads too. Would do it over, like, workshops we held to deal w sexual harassment and the like at camp and he'd get really pissy and indignant when we asked him to turn it down.

also

acoustic guitars are banned from my houses

jeez how many houses do you have?

https://vine.co/v/ezMVqK2jTXF

I was that guy a lot in my first year or two of college -- 95% of the motivation was social anxiety, especially when I was always the young kid at all the parties. I'm really a pretty good guitarist though!

Dude at my departure gate in Newark tonight was playing unsolicited flamenco - shocked myself by not wanting to kabong him immediately.

tom petty is totally this guy in the second verse of the video for "here comes my girl"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4nPa35CZPI