Blog post #6: Chaotic Divas (Part 1 of 3)

Over the course of this blog post and the two following posts…

What is a Chaotic Diva? Colin Europe, Fabiola Tantrums and Hugh Jazz each torpedo a gig. Venues and event promoters refuse to hire them and their bands ever again. A Grace Jones look-a-like storms the stage at an open mic night. Hairy Styles’ inappropriate onstage behaviour. Advice on how to deal with Chaotic Divas.

What is a Chaotic Diva?

A Chaotic Diva is a talented but tiresome musician. Usually, he or she is a singer, but the occasional instrumentalist can also qualify as a Chaotic Diva from time-to-time.

The “chaotic” part of their name refers to the fact that these individuals always create a certain amount of havoc around them. If left unchecked, their behaviour can lead to disgruntled band members, wasted rehearsal time, lost gigs and even the total dissolution of the band... as we will see in this post and the following two posts.

The “diva” part of the name refers to the fact that Chaotic Divas consider themselves to be the main event... the star attraction… the most-important person in the band! Annoyingly, they are often correct in this assumption.

Over the course of these three blog posts, I will offer five examples of Chaotic Divas I have personally come across, with the aim of helping you to identify them in the wild. These examples will show the harmful mayhem Chaotic Divas can cause. While reading, keep in mind that despite this mayhem you may still want to keep a Chaotic Diva around, due to their talent. So, in the third blog post in this series, I will share with you my ideas of how to work with Chaotic Divas and how to defend the band against their destructive tendencies. I’ll also suggest when to say enough is enough and remorselessly kick them out of the band.

Chaotic diva #1: Colin Europe

In 2014, I formed a band with some of my music students. We called ourselves The Shiny Exciters. The Shiny Exciters were an unusual band in that we had anywhere between 12 and 18 band members playing at gigs. We would not all play at the same time though. Players rotated on and off stage. A maximum of six players would be on stage at any one time during a gig.

At an average Shiny Exciters gig, the band would consist of two bassists, six guitarists, a saxophonist, a harmonica player, two drummers and four singers. I was the band leader and also one of the drummers. Colin Europe was one of the singers.

Colin was much loved by the landlord of a local pub called Montgomery’s, which hosted bands every Saturday evening. The Shiny Exciters had played at Montgomery’s regularly over the previous two years.”What an entertainer!”, the landlord once exclaimed to me, referring to Colin.

Colin’s act featured the following:

• Dancing around the stage like a mad man.
• Wearing a colourful patterned shirt and a bowler hat.
• Forgetting song lyrics and replacing them with made up gobbledygook.
• Jumping off the stage and disappearing into the audience (courtesy of a very long mic cable and eventually a wireless mic).
• Dancing on tables and sometimes tipping over customers’ drinks.
• Dancing with audience members who, depending on how drunk they were, would either willingly participate or reluctantly do so while looking a bit embarrassed.
• Inviting audience members onstage to dance, much to the annoyance of band members.
• Convincing audience members to follow him in a conga line, which would sometimes, mid-song, snake its way outside the venue, go around the block and end up back inside again in time for the final chorus, having picked up several passers-by en route.

Like the band on the deck of the Titanic, The Shiny Exciters played on regardless of all the chaos going on around them. Colin was surprisingly energetic and athletic for a portly fellow of 50.

The Colin portion of a Shiny Exciters gig had a polarising effect on the public. Some, like the landlord of Montgomery’s, loved Colin. Others disliked his corny antics. A sound guy once referred to his act as “cheap tricks”. I personally thought it was all good harmless fun and made for an entertaining evening. However, I always feared Colin getting a punch in the face due to his habit of accosting people to dance with and refusing them the option of saying no. I must say though, I never once saw anyone get upset with him or threaten him, which I put down to Colin being a non-intimidating, cuddly-looking chap.

As band leader and music teacher to many of the players in The Shiny Exciters, I always insisted on plenty of rehearsals and preparation for every gig. Also, I restricted new songs to a rate the band could easily assimilate. I didn’t want any disasters on stage.

Sometime in 2017 though, my schedule became very full in the run up to a next gig at Montgomery’s. I had to reduce my involvement in the band’s preparation. I was only rehearsing and playing drums with a small group of musicians within the larger Shiny Exciters family. The rest of The Shiny Exciters would have to take care of their end of things on their own.

Once I was out of the picture and the guard rails were removed, Colin immediately introduced three new songs: his own compositions. He also drafted in The Shiny Exciters’ first ever keyboard player to play on these three songs. It was his teenage daughter, Valerie. Sadly, as it would turn out, Valerie could not even really play the keyboards, at least not in a band setting.

So, the combination of the following ingredients created a recipe for disaster:

• Too many new songs.
• Not enough rehearsal time.
• An inexperienced new player.
• The introduction of a new instrument that was surplus to requirements.
• Band members who could not say no to an enthusiastic and insistent Colin.
• A touch of hubris gained from recent successful gigs.

The gig

When the Montgomery’s gig finally rolled around, I asked Colin if everything was in hand and whether his faction of The Shiny Exciters were fully rehearsed. He confidently assured me yes, they were ready.

The first two songs Colin and Co. played were plain bad. They were far below the band’s usual standard. Perhaps Colin’s compositions were fine, but it was impossible to tell due to the terrible execution by the band. Valerie was playing block chords AND bass notes as if she was the only instrument playing, an approach which meant she was stepping on the toes of both the guitarist and the bassist at the same time. The sound was a horrible muddy mess. On top of this, there were a lot of errors in timing and in note choice. However, the worst was yet to come...

Colin introduced their third and final song. It was a three-chord wonder. An easy song. The best I can say about Valerie’s playing on this song is that she used the correct three chords. No mistakes in that regard. However, she was pretty much 100% successful in playing the wrong chord at the wrong time for the entire song, which was an impressive feat! For example, when the band were playing the chord E major, Valerie would be confidently standing there bashing out an A major chord with a big smile on her face. She was seemingly oblivious to the dissonance. As soon as the band moved to A major, she would then perversely choose to play E major. This resulted in an amorphous sound, somewhat resembling a song. The guitarist and bassist were thrown into a state of panic and acute embarrassment. Colin could not sing in tune due to the cacophony behind him. It was close to impossible for him to pitch his voice correctly. The Shiny Exciters’ ship was now listing severely towards starboard and was in danger of capsizing.

The sound guy and I exchanged a glance. His face said it all. The audience were now audibly groaning. At a moment, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I made for the door. Once outside, with the band still audible, I heard them completely fall off the beat, collapse and come to a stuttering premature stop… The ship had capsized and sunk.

I was devastated that The Shiny Exciters had sunk so low. And yet, at the same time, I must admit to feeling a certain amount of smugness. It was now clear to some in the band that my role had been an important one in hindsight. I had previously tempered Colin’s destructive tenancies.

Epilogue

An epilogue to this sad story: The band subsequently struggled to get a response from the landlord of Montgomery’s about a date for a next gig. Several emails had been sent and no reply had been received. I decided, one afternoon, to visit the landlord in person, but when I got to Montgomery’s, it was closed. I put my face to the window and peered into the darkness within. I could make out the stage where I had played many times before and where the Colin/Valerie debacle had occurred. Suddenly, a ghostly face appeared three inches away from my own face on the other side of the glass! I jumped back, startled. The owner of the face, a young guy with a mop in his hand, unlocked the front door and asked, “What do you want?” I told him I wanted to speak to the landlord about a next booking for my band, The Shiny Exciters. He misunderstood me and thought I was asking when the band would play next. Maybe he thought I was a fan. Believing I was not a band member, he didn’t hold his punches. He told me the landlord had decided not to hire The Shiny Exciters any more. Apparently, the landlord’s reasoning was “They’re a mixed bag: sometimes great; sometimes f**king terrible.”

And so, it had only taken Colin and his daughter three songs to torpedo a regular gig. The landlord had gone from being Colin’s biggest fan to sacking him (and us all) in a short amount of time. Probably the decision was made within 12 minutes: the time it took to play Colin’s three new songs.

In the next two instalments…

• More examples of Chaotic Diva behaviour.
  
• The actions of Fabiola Tantrums and Hugh Jazz result in lost bookings and a band break-up.
  
• Foxy California storms the stage at an open mic night and causes panic.
  
• Hairy Styles’ announces the death of a beloved famous musician. A sombre pall falls over the audience. The deceased musician turns out to still be very much alive.
  
• Advice on how to deal with Chaotic Divas.
  

(Some musician and band names were changes in this article to protect identities.)




Mark Baxter (c) 2024