Remember when?

[CCdrums]

If you were a local musician in the mid seventies and eighties, remember when....
- Your band could play every night but Monday in a club.
- Often times, clubs shut their doors at 10:00 P.M. and they had to turn people away.
- Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were usually packed.
- DJ's were unheard of and never gigged anywhere.
- After the bars closed you could go downtown to the VFW across from the Penn Alto hotel and catch a band playing from 2:00 til 4:30 a.m.
- The PLCB rarely hassled anyone
- You were encouraged to join the music "union" if you were going to play in clubs and get paid.
- Just about every band only used a vocal PA system
- There were twice as many places to play

Boy, do I miss those days. it sure is different now huh?

[DrumAndDestroy]

Boy, do I miss those days. it sure is different now huh?

yup..all the cocaine was snorted up and people started realizing that fleetwood mac and a lot of the rock groups from that time were pretty gay.

lol don't crucify me.

a music union? is that for when bands became...well...businesses not bands? seems pretty retarded. then again, i just play for fun. not for money.

[songsmith]

then again, i just play for fun. not for money.

You'd have played for money then. Bands got approximately the same as they get now, but gas was 70 cents a gallon, and 200 bucks a month got you a nice apartment or even a whole house. What if, you were 19 years old and could pay your bills playing music, and still have some left over for booze and beans? This is why the oldtimers pine for the old days, my friend.
Well, that, and it was the tail-end of the Sexual Revolution. Women were figuring out that they liked casual sex, and the worst diseases could be cured with a shot of penicillin. AIDS was a diet candy, and ugly Altoona women hadn't yet found out how attractive they are to Brooklyn crack dealers.
It was a golden, halcyon time. ------>JMS

[DrumAndDestroy]

then again, i just play for fun. not for money.

You'd have played for money then. Bands got approximately the same as they get now, but gas was 70 cents a gallon, and 200 bucks a month got you a nice apartment or even a whole house. What if, you were 19 years old and could pay your bills playing music, and still have some left over for booze and beans? This is why the oldtimers pine for the old days, my friend.
Well, that, and it was the tail-end of the Sexual Revolution. Women were figuring out that they liked casual sex, and the worst diseases could be cured with a shot of penicillin. AIDS was a diet candy, and ugly Altoona women hadn't yet found out how attractive they are to Brooklyn crack dealers.
It was a golden, halcyon time. ------>JMS

gotcha!

[tonefight]

I caught the very tail end of the good years, I started gigging in '90. There were still jobs Tuesday thru Sunday but we might have been going to Greensburg to play on a Tuesday and Dubois for a Sunday. There were jobs local Wed-Sat. We had a little more than a vocal Pa but it wasn't near what some people now are using now.
When you stop and think about it, it really sucks doesn't it? I didn't even catch the real hay-day.

[bassist_25]

and ugly Altoona women hadn't yet found out how attractive they are to Brooklyn crack dealers.

[floodcitybrass]

If you were a local musician in the mid seventies and eighties, remember when....
- Your band could play every night but Monday in a club.
- Often times, clubs shut their doors at 10:00 P.M. and they had to turn people away.
...
- Boy, do I miss those days. it sure is different now huh?

I think this all went away because of the crack down on drunk driving laws.

[Imperial Aerosol Kid]

I remember all of those things, plus riding in your car to play on Monday nights at the County Line Inn in Mt. Union - quite a few nicknames are associated with those events.

Anyone know what union scale is now? It was $25 - $30/hr in the late 70's.

[bassist_25]

a music union? is that for when bands became...well...businesses not bands? seems pretty retarded. then again, i just play for fun. not for money.

The music union could get you gigs back in the day, though it probably wouldn't have been worth relying on for all of your shows. The union wouldn't do much here, but you may not work in a town like Nashville if you're not a member.

Like all unions, there's good points and bad points to being in the musos union. For a musician in Central PA, the dues money could probably be better spent buying strings or drum heads.

[DirtySanchez]

Remember when a nickel bag cost a nickel?

[moxham123]

Ah, the good old days!

Bands in this area get paid now what bands got paid in the late 70s and early 80s. The price of everything else has gone up except for band wages. There were lots of clubs running bands 4 or 5 nights a week; plus, lots of churches, fire halls, outdoor concerts, and community buildings booked bands for all ages shows as well as all of the middle schools, high schools, and colleges booked bands for events. And, weddings and banquets booked bands and not D.J.s. It was very common to play 2 gigs the same day with an early evening gig and then go play the "S" Club in Johnstown from 2:00 - 4:30 a.m. and then go to work at 7:00 for a day job. When I was a teenager in the 70s, we were playing about 125 to 150 gigs a year and had full time jobs and never drove more than 35 miles to play. We could have played more but it was hard while working. I knew some bands that played 4 or 5 nights a week and made a good living at it.

The poor economy, smaller and older population, PLCB, and many other reasons have been the downfall of live music around here but many of us keep playing because we love to play and know that the glory days are long over.

Boy, how times have changed.

[CCdrums]

Ah, the good old days!

Bands in this area get paid now what bands got paid in the late 70s and early 80s. The price of everything else has gone up except for band wages. There were lots of clubs running bands 4 or 5 nights a week; plus, lots of churches, fire halls, outdoor concerts, and community buildings booked bands for all ages shows as well as all of the middle schools, high schools, and colleges booked bands for events. And, weddings and banquets booked bands and not D.J.s. It was very common to play 2 gigs the same day with an early evening gig and then go play the "S" Club in Johnstown from 2:00 - 4:30 a.m. and then go to work at 7:00 for a day job. When I was a teenager in the 70s, we were playing about 125 to 150 gigs a year and had full time jobs and never drove more than 35 miles to play. We could have played more but it was hard while working. I knew some bands that played 4 or 5 nights a week and made a good living at it.

The poor economy, smaller and older population, PLCB, and many other reasons have been the downfall of live music around here but many of us keep playing because we love to play and know that the glory days are long over.

Boy, how times have changed.

Right on brother!

[PanzerFaust]

Fighting with Claudio, Aldo or worse Greg Morris, over how many free pitchers of beer I'd already had...

Then having the balls to ask for a 12 pack to GO.... hehe...

[jangel]

ya those were the good old days....One band I was in played 6 nights a week
sometimes the old doubleheader on Saturdays....wedding reception and then a club. On several occassions we actually played 3 gigs in one day....Started with a wedding reception one place packed up and went to a club played another reception and then at that club played for the club dance.

We did a number of jobs at the "S" club after another job....ballbusters of a night.
But we had fun!

[RamRod 1]

After the bars closed you could go downtown to the VFW across from the Penn Alto hotel

Hey Clint, wasn't that the Altoona Legion down there? They called it the "ZOO". We used to do a bar gig until 1 AM and then play down there from 2 to 5. Two gigs in one night. Sometimes on Saturday a wedding in the afternoon and a bar gig at night. A couple of times 2 weddings and a bar gig in one day.

From "74" to "79" I was in Local Union 564 Altoona, was single with my own appartment, had a Van, lots of musical equipment and a few bucks in the bank. We did that Federated Home and Morgage Holiday Inn Chain that a lot of Altoona bands were doing back then. We might go out on the road for 3 or 4 months and then come back home and hustle gigs around here. The Union was important for the road gigs although most people still carried union cards around here. I was making around 10 thousand bucks a year. Don't laugh, that wasn't bad back then. Mininum wage people were making about 6 grand a year. I was happy.

[CCdrums]

After the bars closed you could go downtown to the VFW across from the Penn Alto hotel

Hey Clint, wasn't that the Altoona Legion down there? They called it the "ZOO". We used to do a bar gig until 1 AM and then play down there from 2 to 5. Two gigs in one night. Sometimes on Saturday a wedding in the afternoon and a bar gig at night. A couple of times 2 weddings and a bar gig in one day.

From "74" to "79" I was in Local Union 564 Altoona, was single with my own appartment, had a Van, lots of musical equipment and a few bucks in the bank. We did that Federated Home and Morgage Holiday Inn Chain that a lot of Altoona bands were doing back then. We might go out on the road for 3 or 4 months and then come back home and hustle gigs around here. The Union was important for the road gigs although most people still carried union cards around here. I was making around 10 thousand bucks a year. Don't laugh, that wasn't bad back then. Mininum wage people were making about 6 grand a year. I was happy.

Hey Andy,
Yes that was the Legion or "zoo" as you referred to it. My bad, not a VFW. Sounds like you were living the high musician life back in the day. In our run when I was in a band called "The toyz" and then "The Front", we played 6 nights a week every week for almost a year straight. I was bringing home between $500 to $600 a week back then, tax free. Pretty sweet. That'll never happen now, especially when you didn't have to travel more than 50 miles.

[MoonManTom]

Remember When it was cool to Play ( In Huntingdon Co. ) The William Penn Inn and the Hill Valley Hotel!

Ok Stop laughing now!

[BDR]

Remember When it was cool to Play ( In Huntingdon Co. ) The William Penn Inn and the Hill Valley Hotel!

Ok Stop laughing now!

As Archie Bunker would say, "Those were the days ..."

r:>)

[moxham123]

Oh, yes. The William Penn was quite an interesting place. I played there several times in the late 80's with the band, The Alternative. The owner, Turk, was quite a character. The only bar owner who used to keep saying, "TURN IT UP!" One of my memorable gigs there was when Turk wanted us to play after a male stripper show for the local ladies. When we showed up, the place was packed with horny women and they all turned to check us three guys out. We had to walk through the crowd and wait by the ladies room for the strippers to finish their show. The women were grabbing at us when we walked past and while we were standing there. They did not open the bar to the local guys until we were ready to play. Some of the local guys told me they liked when The William Penn had the male strippers because their wives and girlfriends would go there and get all hot and bothered and they would have fun with them later. There were women after us all night. Not a bad thing at all except that some of them were bahoofas. You have to take the good with the bad.

[DrumAndDestroy]

bahoofas

hahaha

[DirtySanchez]

bahoofas.

LOL! Is that a real word in another language? It sounds yiddish.

[DirtySanchez]

That was weird, Justin.

[DrumAndDestroy]

That was weird, Justin.

yeah that creeped me out...does that mean we are gay?

[DirtySanchez]

We should make out to be sure.