Hair Of The Dog Stage

Here's what's been on stage in past years. Might be the same stuff this year. If you don't see what you want onstage and believe it may be nearby, feel free to ask. Or bring your own. If you really need a specific sound, you should really bring your own gear.
Guitars: generic fairly decent stratocaster, generic fairly decent humbucker, ES-335 copy, Ovation or Sigma acoustic guitar with pickup. Bass: generic P/J left-handed strung right-handed, Steinberger copy ("Cheeseburger"), Ken Smith 6-string if you ask nice. Keys: Fender-Rhodes "Seventy-Three". Drums: Pearl Masters Export maple, Yamaha brass piccolo snare, generic decent snare, Zildjian and Paiste cymbals, Zildjian custom hat, DW3000 kick pedal. Amps: MESA/Boogie Subway Blues, Fender silverface Deluxe Reverb, Fender Stage Lead, 2 Sun 50w heads, ADA MP-1 preamp to MESA/Baron, Peavey MAX bass head, Roland 50watt, and other random dementia. Mics are SM-57s and SM-58s. Floor monitors are EV-M12Ls. There are extra inputs on the board if you've got needs.

Hair Of The Dog does not encourage pre-recorded music. This includes everything from karaoke to vinyl.
Hair Of The Dog does encourage nontraditional instruments and horn players.

Stage lights, disco ball, a few small pinspots, and a strobe or two also exist. There's even a bigass theatrical fog machine, but we've never found an excuse to turn it on.

About the stage at Hair Of The Dog:

It's all about participation.

We provide everything so you can participate.
Good instruments and good amps are waiting for you.
Participate at HOTD and you get the opportunity to create music (sound art) with people you might not ordinarily get to sit in with.

If you play an instrument, it's your turn on stage next. "Beyond Belief"? If it's not scarycool enough that you're onstage in front of an audience, how do you like knowing that the guy playing *** is in the band ***. No guarantees, of course, but there's usually at least a few pro players sitting in each day.

If you play an instrument well, it's your job to help out. Just play. HOTD has had great luck over the years attracting and keeping some Really Good Musicians for hours and days at a time. We'll feed you drinks if you stick around. You get the opportunity to give back some of the coolness and openness that got you going in music over the years. No attitude, no need for one. If things start going well on stage, there's a good chance other decent players will all of a sudden pop up. You may discover that the blues jam you started morphs into bebop on its way to a reggae rendition of Girl From Ipanema, before settling into 1970s porn soundtrack.

Want to sing? Want to learn to play bass? Want to do Tuvan throat-singing over a punk background? Stop by some sleepy afternoon and get something going.

Got a point to make? Freestyle poetry slam? Want to test out your Marcel Marceau impression on a drunken bar audience? HOTD's stage is your venue. After all, a mime is a terrible thing to waste.

Yeah, Hair Of The Dog has a bar and a lounge space for the audience. But if you're always in the audience, you're not participating much. We're thrilled when the music onstage is kickin', but that's not always the point. If you think the music exists just to passively entertain you, you'll be just as happy if you set up a lounge chair to "listen" to a rave camp: you'll get the same level of participation. Get up and dance. Applaud the stuff you like. Come onstage and do something better than the stuff you don't like.

98% of HOTD's stage time is pickup bands. Musicians who haven't met before. Players of wildly divergent styles. When the participants find something in common, when they strike a common chord, special things happen. Is it happening yet? Either wait for it or do something about it.

If riding in a plane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming. In order to actively experience the environment, you've got to immerse yourself in it. Get on the stage. Participate.

Trey/Ryce says, "Sitting in at Hair Of The Dog the coolest thing is when someone onstage gets effusively thankful to the other players for the opportunity they just experienced."

COMPLAINTS, COMMENTS, AND CORRECTIONS TO: LOTHAR THE LIBRARIAN