October 29, 2025 • 8 mins
Comedians Mark Bailey and Mike Miller talk funny about the jam session scandal happening in a city near us and why Mark quit and is looking at hiring other band members, how pro musicians do not appreciate the months of practice that once a month jam session amateurs have to practice while working a full time non music job, and how to save 20 hours of practice time a week, how not do jam sessions have less frustration and anal micromanagers while paying at the venue for the privelege.
Brought to you by Nagoyaradio.com, Nagoyacomedy.com, and stand up comic Mark Bailey.
Brought to you by Nagoyaradio.com, Nagoyacomedy.com, and stand up comic Mark Bailey.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Talk Funny, a podcast by Mark Bailey and other
comics from all over.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We ended up in Japan because in space no one
can hear you speak Japanese, but in Japan, no one
gives you space.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The Talk Funny podcast from Nagoya Radio dot Com and
Nigoya Comedy.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Here's Mark Bailey.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome back to Talk Funny, Mark Bailey, Mike Miller.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Good to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
So, Mike, we have gems essing Gate going on right
now in a city near us, not the city that
we're in, and not involving anybody who happens to be
listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Event's portrayed in this podcast. Our fiction basically may not
represent people.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Basically, I'm really bothered by the thing that never happened. Yeah,
because I'm just making all of this.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is a dream you had right the other night.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
It's a dream. So there was this one GEM session.
I love jem sessions, and there was this one where
it was really cool where you could request a song
about a month ahead of time and then in expectation
that you could play that song. You were practicing two
months before that. So you're practicing three months and if
you're not a pro musician. That's how much you need.
You don't want to look like a buffoon on stage,
(01:03):
and you want to know the song. There's no rehearsals
at these sessions, so I'm just gonna call it the
sessions from now on. And so they changed the rule
about ten days before, and I was told by the
guy that runs it, ten days is enough. It's enough
for you to practice a song on a.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Lot, not like you have a job or anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I mean I don't have a full time job or anything. Yeah,
that's enough time. It's like, you know, three months is
not enough time for me. But I realized after they
changed the rules, they said, you can't make requests anymore.
What you do is you show up and then you
get your own bassist Mike, and you get your own guitarist,
and you get your own drummer, you get your own keyboardist.
On the night right nobody's busy, and then you get
(01:41):
your own engineer, and then you get your own stage,
you get your own thing.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
You spend thirty minutes tuning your instruments and practicing.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, and before you play, And well, what if I
told you you'd only have to pay two thousand and
en for this great privilege. I'm a customer. I'm enough
in customer. So I rode back to the guy ran it,
and I said, you're a god and I'm not name
the instrument that he plays. You're a god in that
on your instrument. Yeah, god, And I respect you. But
and that's a fun reality show. But I won't be
(02:09):
playing that, right, Yeah, I'm not gonna be doing that.
And as a result, I realized how much damn time
I spent practicing. Yeah, probably twenty hours a week.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And then there was the song where you got up
and you practiced and no one else in they don't
know their song knew the song, and it was really
I felt bad for you because you put all this
work into it and they were just like kind of
noodling around like it's yeah, I mean it's I guess
a jam session has to be a mix of kind
of improvisation just to spur the moment jamming, but also
like preparation and songs if you want it to be quality,
(02:43):
and not just doing it in your basement like just
you know, if if you just want a noodle around,
you can do that anywhere.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
The good part about this was we never got like
I mean, unfortunately, we never got a full band of
the guys who wanted to play let's let's say, let's
say misfits that we played. So the guy who wanted
it plays guitar and we'll sing it, and he got
a vocalist to help him. And then I said I'll
do drums, and we got a bass player who wanted
(03:08):
to do it, and then we got a keyboard player
who had to fill in. It was one of the
staff he had to fill in. But without the keyboard player,
the song doesn't work. But because we all talked about
it a couple months before we played it, we've all
been practicing and we all practiced the same video, exact
version exactly, so we got it. It's like a rehearsal,
we're rehearsing separately. And anyway, it was a lot of fun.
(03:31):
But I must have spent twenty hours or more a
week practicing on these songs not to look bad. Yeah,
and now I got twenty hours to like find a
job or something, you know, like do something.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Do something moneymaking.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So I paid two thousand Yeah, well that was a
hobby that but you paid two thousand and yen for it. Anyway,
good luck to those guys.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
People.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A lot of musicians walked out on it. And the
funny thing was I tried to reason with the guy
and say, you know, we practice this for months and
months and we expect that we could get our request approved.
And that's how it's worked for over a year. And
he said, how much do you know about jam sessions?
And they said, what difference is made? I know, I
(04:15):
don't know how to run a jam session. I'm not
running one. What I know is how much people practice.
What you don't know is how much people are practicing
for this that you're unaware of because they're not practicing
at the venue. They're practicing at their house. And I
know because he's guitarists and bassists. They send me videos
and they're like, do you can you find a tab
for this? And they're working. It's like a twenty hour
(04:36):
a week job to prepare for this for one song,
for one song that you cannot rehearse on stage with
those guys. So it's a lot of trust.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Sounds like you need to get a band together.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Wow, I've only had a Japanese keyboardist and a disgruntled
female vocalist. Two disgruntled female vocalists. And if only I
had a disgruntled guitarist check check check check check check
check check check shift singing in check yeah, singing the
check yeah, check check check, and I might have a
male vocalist sitting near many. So all I got to
(05:08):
learn is how to run one of those sessions. But
it's a lot of work, it is, and it's an
unfortunate decision, and I understand to be the devil's I
understand it's a lot of work on it's basically three staff.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
People, and they really don't get paid anything for it.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
They have real jobs. Yeah, probably they involve music, but
still it's a lot of work on them. And it
was fun. It was a great system, but it's probably
not sustainable.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I think. The thing is we used to have a set. Well,
there used to be a session in that other city
where they would do it once a week and it
was really good. And I used to go to that
other city a lot every every week. It was, like,
I think, on a Monday night, because Monday night's a
dead night at a bar, you know, there's nothing going on.
So I would go there and you would have amazing
(05:53):
performances and you'd have just people for the first time,
and it was very obvious. But because it was every week,
everybody got a chance to kind of get up on
stage and you didn't have to go every week, right,
But this other one in this other city is only
once a month, so people are practicing and putting everything
into it, and there's not a lot of time. There's
not a lot of stage time to be had. So
(06:15):
I understand how like it becomes a bit of a
pain when you're not able to get up there and
do what you want.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Another point with this system that has changed and musicians
walked over it, walk out over it is this guy said, well,
on the night, just the guy who runs it said,
on the night, you know, we do have a list,
so it's picked from that list, he said. But you know,
over the last year, I've made seventeen requests from that
list on the night, and I got one approved the
(06:41):
night you weren't here. Let's say we both play the tambourine.
Mm hm. He likes to play the tambourine. He always
does tambourine. So when I asked him, can I do tambourine,
he goes, it's covered. Somebody else wants to do it.
Guess who's somebody else's it's Aaron, it's Erin. And to
be fair, let's say, you know, when we do a
(07:02):
comedy show and we have open mic, and we made
a stupid rule that we thought would be popular, it
would be popular, and we're not going to do it.
You can do open mic and it's what four minutes
and whatever props you need. If you need a water hose,
we'll provide it. If you need like Groucho Marx mustache,
we'll provide that. If you need like shields in the art,
(07:25):
we'll provide anything available. Yeah, we'll provide that. If you
want to smash a watermelon, we'll provide the watermelon and
the mallet. That's stupid fast to provide all that watermelon.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That's your whole as, all your revenue for one show,
just for one watermelon in Japan.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So if we if we started that trend, it would
be very popular. Yes, So we would go out of business. Yes,
So I understand it's untenable for them. They worked really hard.
Another problem I have with it is I tried to
keep telling them, maybe make this for two months from now,
maybe change the policy in two months. We've been practicing
these songs for three months. Yeah, and even the songs
(08:00):
we were going to do in December, we've already practiced.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, So now you've got to set up your own concert.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
All right, Enough about what I'm angry.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
About, let's say all right
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Mark Bailey, Mike nember Talks Found It
It's Talk Funny, a podcast by Mark Bailey and other
comics from all over.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We ended up in Japan because in space no one
can hear you speak Japanese, but in Japan, no one
gives you space.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
The Talk Funny podcast from Nagoya Radio dot Com and
Nigoya Comedy.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Here's Mark Bailey.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome back to Talk Funny, Mark Bailey, Mike Miller.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Good to be back.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
So, Mike, we have gems essing Gate going on right
now in a city near us, not the city that
we're in, and not involving anybody who happens to be
listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Event's portrayed in this podcast. Our fiction basically may not
represent people.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Basically, I'm really bothered by the thing that never happened. Yeah,
because I'm just making all of this.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is a dream you had right the other night.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
It's a dream. So there was this one GEM session.
I love jem sessions, and there was this one where
it was really cool where you could request a song
about a month ahead of time and then in expectation
that you could play that song. You were practicing two
months before that. So you're practicing three months and if
you're not a pro musician. That's how much you need.
You don't want to look like a buffoon on stage,
(01:03):
and you want to know the song. There's no rehearsals
at these sessions, so I'm just gonna call it the
sessions from now on. And so they changed the rule
about ten days before, and I was told by the
guy that runs it, ten days is enough. It's enough
for you to practice a song on a.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Lot, not like you have a job or anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I mean I don't have a full time job or anything. Yeah,
that's enough time. It's like, you know, three months is
not enough time for me. But I realized after they
changed the rules, they said, you can't make requests anymore.
What you do is you show up and then you
get your own bassist Mike, and you get your own guitarist,
and you get your own drummer, you get your own keyboardist.
On the night right nobody's busy, and then you get
(01:41):
your own engineer, and then you get your own stage,
you get your own thing.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
You spend thirty minutes tuning your instruments and practicing.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, and before you play, And well, what if I
told you you'd only have to pay two thousand and
en for this great privilege. I'm a customer. I'm enough
in customer. So I rode back to the guy ran it,
and I said, you're a god and I'm not name
the instrument that he plays. You're a god in that
on your instrument. Yeah, god, And I respect you. But
and that's a fun reality show. But I won't be
(02:09):
playing that, right, Yeah, I'm not gonna be doing that.
And as a result, I realized how much damn time
I spent practicing. Yeah, probably twenty hours a week.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And then there was the song where you got up
and you practiced and no one else in they don't
know their song knew the song, and it was really
I felt bad for you because you put all this
work into it and they were just like kind of
noodling around like it's yeah, I mean it's I guess
a jam session has to be a mix of kind
of improvisation just to spur the moment jamming, but also
like preparation and songs if you want it to be quality,
(02:43):
and not just doing it in your basement like just
you know, if if you just want a noodle around,
you can do that anywhere.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
The good part about this was we never got like
I mean, unfortunately, we never got a full band of
the guys who wanted to play let's let's say, let's
say misfits that we played. So the guy who wanted
it plays guitar and we'll sing it, and he got
a vocalist to help him. And then I said I'll
do drums, and we got a bass player who wanted
(03:08):
to do it, and then we got a keyboard player
who had to fill in. It was one of the
staff he had to fill in. But without the keyboard player,
the song doesn't work. But because we all talked about
it a couple months before we played it, we've all
been practicing and we all practiced the same video, exact
version exactly, so we got it. It's like a rehearsal,
we're rehearsing separately. And anyway, it was a lot of fun.
(03:31):
But I must have spent twenty hours or more a
week practicing on these songs not to look bad. Yeah,
and now I got twenty hours to like find a
job or something, you know, like do something.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Do something moneymaking.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So I paid two thousand Yeah, well that was a
hobby that but you paid two thousand and yen for it. Anyway,
good luck to those guys.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
People.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A lot of musicians walked out on it. And the
funny thing was I tried to reason with the guy
and say, you know, we practice this for months and
months and we expect that we could get our request approved.
And that's how it's worked for over a year. And
he said, how much do you know about jam sessions?
And they said, what difference is made? I know, I
(04:15):
don't know how to run a jam session. I'm not
running one. What I know is how much people practice.
What you don't know is how much people are practicing
for this that you're unaware of because they're not practicing
at the venue. They're practicing at their house. And I
know because he's guitarists and bassists. They send me videos
and they're like, do you can you find a tab
for this? And they're working. It's like a twenty hour
(04:36):
a week job to prepare for this for one song,
for one song that you cannot rehearse on stage with
those guys. So it's a lot of trust.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Sounds like you need to get a band together.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Wow, I've only had a Japanese keyboardist and a disgruntled
female vocalist. Two disgruntled female vocalists. And if only I
had a disgruntled guitarist check check check check check check
check check check shift singing in check yeah, singing the
check yeah, check check check, and I might have a
male vocalist sitting near many. So all I got to
(05:08):
learn is how to run one of those sessions. But
it's a lot of work, it is, and it's an
unfortunate decision, and I understand to be the devil's I
understand it's a lot of work on it's basically three staff.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
People, and they really don't get paid anything for it.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
They have real jobs. Yeah, probably they involve music, but
still it's a lot of work on them. And it
was fun. It was a great system, but it's probably
not sustainable.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I think. The thing is we used to have a set. Well,
there used to be a session in that other city
where they would do it once a week and it
was really good. And I used to go to that
other city a lot every every week. It was, like,
I think, on a Monday night, because Monday night's a
dead night at a bar, you know, there's nothing going on.
So I would go there and you would have amazing
(05:53):
performances and you'd have just people for the first time,
and it was very obvious. But because it was every week,
everybody got a chance to kind of get up on
stage and you didn't have to go every week, right,
But this other one in this other city is only
once a month, so people are practicing and putting everything
into it, and there's not a lot of time. There's
not a lot of stage time to be had. So
(06:15):
I understand how like it becomes a bit of a
pain when you're not able to get up there and
do what you want.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Another point with this system that has changed and musicians
walked over it, walk out over it is this guy said, well,
on the night, just the guy who runs it said,
on the night, you know, we do have a list,
so it's picked from that list, he said. But you know,
over the last year, I've made seventeen requests from that
list on the night, and I got one approved the
(06:41):
night you weren't here. Let's say we both play the tambourine.
Mm hm. He likes to play the tambourine. He always
does tambourine. So when I asked him, can I do tambourine,
he goes, it's covered. Somebody else wants to do it.
Guess who's somebody else's it's Aaron, it's Erin. And to
be fair, let's say, you know, when we do a
(07:02):
comedy show and we have open mic, and we made
a stupid rule that we thought would be popular, it
would be popular, and we're not going to do it.
You can do open mic and it's what four minutes
and whatever props you need. If you need a water hose,
we'll provide it. If you need like Groucho Marx mustache,
we'll provide that. If you need like shields in the art,
(07:25):
we'll provide anything available. Yeah, we'll provide that. If you
want to smash a watermelon, we'll provide the watermelon and
the mallet. That's stupid fast to provide all that watermelon.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
That's your whole as, all your revenue for one show,
just for one watermelon in Japan.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So if we if we started that trend, it would
be very popular. Yes, So we would go out of business. Yes,
So I understand it's untenable for them. They worked really hard.
Another problem I have with it is I tried to
keep telling them, maybe make this for two months from now,
maybe change the policy in two months. We've been practicing
these songs for three months. Yeah, and even the songs
(08:00):
we were going to do in December, we've already practiced.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, So now you've got to set up your own concert.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
All right, Enough about what I'm angry.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
About, let's say all right
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Mark Bailey, Mike nember Talks Found It
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