So I'm back in the Old Country for the holidays (small college town in Missouri) and on X-mas eve some buddies and I go out for drinks. As soon as we arrive the jukebox is blaring an onslought of Cookie Monster-sung Nu-Metal. This goes on for about an hour and I want to leave, but it's the only bar that's open. Finally, I throw a few dollars in the jukebox and I'm pleased to find some Curtis Mayfield, Black Sabbath, some indie, ect. Well, three hours pass and my songs never play. We're getting pretty drunk by this point and then about a half hour before last call they finally come on. The opening bars of "Hand of Doom" begin and I'm estatic. (Mind you - we had been listening to NOTHING but nu-metal for the past several hours). And then all of the sudden the song stops and my next song begins. And then again - same thing. That's when I notice that the bartender has a button behind the counter that he's hitting to forward to the next track.
I can't fucking believe it!
So on my fourth song "Superfly" starts up, he reaches for the button, and I freak out. I stand up (we're sitting at a table a good 20 feet from the bar) and scream "NO YOU FUCKING DON'T - THAT'S SUPERFLY AND YOU'RE FUCKING PLAYING IT!!!!"
Well, he quit skipping songs at that point. Although I felt a slight measure of shame for making a spectacle, I was pleased.
So how about you? Am I the only person that this has happened to? Anyone have other small town Christmas music-related horror stories?
― darin (darin), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:29 (twenty years ago)
― Ganbare Goemon (ex machina), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:36 (twenty years ago)
― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:37 (twenty years ago)
― dave225 (Dave225), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:37 (twenty years ago)
― phil-two (phil-two), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:43 (twenty years ago)
the bartender actually let 13 minutes of "Sister Ray" go by before skipping the song.. then the bartender skipped the 3 minute Stone Roses' "She Bangs The Drums" after 30 seconds. Fuckers. Never been back there since.
― donut christ (donut), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:49 (twenty years ago)
― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 19:53 (twenty years ago)
― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:03 (twenty years ago)
― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:03 (twenty years ago)
In the downstairs, yes. The upstairs is more of a trad bar. Way too much Liza in the jukebox, but at least they've got obscuro disco trash classics and decent Brooooce representation.
― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:10 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 20:26 (twenty years ago)
― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 3 January 2005 21:28 (twenty years ago)
― miccio (miccio), Monday, 3 January 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)
xpost:Surely they could all have audiscrobble hookups and you could then go to any bar without leaving the comforting womb of ILM.
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 22:49 (twenty years ago)
― Allyzay Needs Legs More (allyzay), Monday, 3 January 2005 22:54 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 22:57 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 22:58 (twenty years ago)
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:06 (twenty years ago)
― darin (darin), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:07 (twenty years ago)
― blount, Monday, 3 January 2005 23:10 (twenty years ago)
― blount, Monday, 3 January 2005 23:13 (twenty years ago)
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:15 (twenty years ago)
And they don't like loud, vulgar skits either.
― Carl Winslow is WHAT!?!? (deangulberry), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:20 (twenty years ago)
― darin (darin), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:23 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:27 (twenty years ago)
Apparently the vinyl on his bulletin board was a fragment of "Baby Got Back."
― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:28 (twenty years ago)
― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:29 (twenty years ago)
It was cruel, but it was preferable to the mix of Dave Mathews and Pat Green that made up the rest of the jukebox.
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:40 (twenty years ago)
― blount, Monday, 3 January 2005 23:42 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 3 January 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 00:20 (twenty years ago)
― rat, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 23:04 (twenty years ago)
OTM.
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 23:32 (twenty years ago)
I had a bartender respond to my playing "Fairytale of New York" by UNPLUGGING the juke.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 15:53 (seventeen years ago)
So that's where Adam Ant's gone!
― Mark G, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 15:55 (seventeen years ago)
Hasn't happened to yet, but this reminded me of the time I went into a takeout joint to grab an order of fish and chips. Everyone in the place looked sooooo sour, so I went to the jukebox and ordered 10 plays (only a dime each at the time) of "Jingle Bells" by the Singing Dogs. I bolted the place before I heard the barking.
― Jazzbo, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 16:05 (seventeen years ago)
I did something similar at a bar that had a free jukebox; I put on "Revolution 9" 10 times and split.
― Sara Sara Sara, Tuesday, 13 November 2007 16:06 (seventeen years ago)
"NO YOU FUCKING DON'T - THAT'S SUPERFLY AND YOU'RE FUCKING PLAYING IT!!!!"
I'm getting that on a t-shirt.
that hasn't happened to me before (although I must say it's asking to get an ass whoopin' pulling crap like that, especially if you paid to hear the songs)....
...but I do remember on one occasion bringing our (my bro and I's) boombox backstage to the dressing room of a theatrical show I was in only to have some doofus hijack it to play his EVERCLEAR cds for the next hour...then I put in my copy of The Haunted's self-titled album and by TRACK #2 the dude complains that he feels like he's been listening to 'hardcore' music for the last hour and a half.
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Wednesday, 14 November 2007 03:40 (seventeen years ago)
haha - yeah an old mate of mine from university claims he used to do this everytime he was about to leave (some bar in Glasgow). the thought of it still cracks me up.
― sam500, Wednesday, 14 November 2007 06:43 (seventeen years ago)
you shoulda peed on the floor!-- blount
-- blount
In college one time the bartender at the frat bar in town (who am I kidding, they were ALL frat bars) nixed "Folsom Prison Blues" when my friend and I put it on (and Walk the Line had come out and everything, so we thought it was a fairly political choice). When we gave him a WTF his reasoning was, and I can still hear him say this, "it killed the mood." And he wouldn't give me us our money back. So my friend stormed off into the bathroom and hosed the place down. He came back to our table grinning like an idiot and went "Maybe we should move on to another bar."
― adamj, Wednesday, 14 November 2007 09:46 (seventeen years ago)
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/bartender-rock-extended-playlist/
― sockless in moccasins (jaymc), Saturday, 21 April 2012 15:15 (thirteen years ago)
^The thing is, I kind of get this as an amorphous "genre" but I don't know that I would ever have thought to call it "bartender rock," even though I can think of a couple bars with jukeboxes filled with stuff exactly like this.
Actually, it's also kind of lit-rock, isn't it? Like this is all music that Nick Hornby and Jonathan Lethem and Sarah Vowell are into. When I went to an anniversary party for The Believer a few years ago, the special guest was Jonathan Richman.
― sockless in moccasins (jaymc), Saturday, 21 April 2012 15:37 (thirteen years ago)