Diddy

I almost don’t want to write about this because it was written about so much before hand, during and afterwards.  I figured I’d write about it for a few reasons.  One we were talking about it last night, two for posterity, and three the band’s perspective wasn’t really covered. 

I’ve played bass or guitar in the house band for the Chris Gethard Show from the beginning of the show’s run.  At one point Chris got the idea to try to land a celebrity by using twitter.  His first choice was Al Roker but after the former weatherman turned him down, Chris went bigger.  Diddy became the target and Chris went after him like a big game hunter.  The hashtag #diddygethard was all over the place and after a year of trying to lock down a date it came down January 14^th, 2011. 

Now the band was going through some problems because of people moving or quitting and finding people to play with us each month was proving harder than you’d think.  For all intents and purposes the band was James’s band and we were along for the ride.  In July 2010 James took a terrific job in Canada and we continued with out him basically reshuffling and having Kelly sing and play drums.  With James leaving, I took it upon myself to take over and start dealing with everything.  After the August show, Kelly couldn’t do the show anymore so we were out both a singer and a drummer.  We cobbled together line-ups for the next few shows by calling in some favors and getting creative.  Once we got the word the Diddy seemed to be a realty, we discussed what we should do and decided to keep small by only adding another drummer who could sing a bit so we called Mikey. 

Diddy obviously has forayed into so many different businesses and different lines of business but he’s known for getting his start in the music business.  We were a bunch of punk rockers whose subgenre is constantly criticized for being full of people who can’t play their instruments and it’s basically looked down upon.  With all of that in mind, I didn’t want us to sound good, I wanted us to sound as professional as possible, for my pride but also for validation for all of us musicians and everyone involved with the show.  I always loved playing the show but crowds were never really into us.  It felt like they politely tolerated us when we played and I understand where they were coming from.  They were there for a comedy show, not a rock show.

To complicate matters for everyone involved with the show, we were getting ready to do a two week cross country tour and with that we didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse for the Diddy show.  We had one practice with Mikey to learn 4 songs, which isn’t too tough to do but given that half of them were hip hop and not our usual style and the given the high stakes of the circumstance.  If we fucked up to kick off the show it would be bad news for everyone.  It would make us look bad, but the show look bad, and Chris look bad while the entire music and comedy worlds had their eyes focused on us.  So yes the stakes were high. 

We intro’d Gethard with Pray for Rain by the Ergs and then when Diddy came out we switched to Bad Boy for Life.  It was 15 of the most stressful seconds of my life but we were tight.  I felt satisfied and relieved.  Then as the raucous applause started to dip Diddy says something that I’ll never forget.  “Give it up for the band!  They are playing their asses off tonight!”