I love hearing about practical jokes that others in our biz lay as well. Back around 1988 I was touring with Steve Winwood. Andy, his guitar tech, would always hand Steve a wireless mic as he walked on stage for his encore set.We would pick him up with a spot and he would talk to the audience.
So around the end of the tour, Andy has an idea. He wants to hand a big fake penis to Steve in place of the mic for the encores. We were in San Francisco, so what better place than to find the proper dildo for this application. Since I spent some part of my life in the bay area I offered to take him shopping down in the seedy Tenderloin section of SF.
W e walk in the first place and Andy's eyes light up. There is a full wall full of various sized "marital aids". So Andy starts groping them and checking out individual weights of each model. To pull the prank off he needs something the same size, texture and weight of a Shure SM 58.
Finally he decides on what would be the perfect model. Next he brings it up to the man at the front desk and he only has one question, "Do you have this in black?" You can imagine the look on his face when Andy says, "Oh never mind, I'll just spray paint it before I use it."
Now I just heard about a new windup that really is the ultimate if you hate someone. There's a new product on the market called "Liquid ass". You can actually find it at www.liquidass.com.
The trick is to put a couple drops of this magical elixer on your victim's cell phone. It takes a few days to wear off and the obvious benefits of this windup are great. There are unlimited uses for this product. Say you're hitting on some chick in the hotel bar and some other tech comes over and starts cock-blocking you. With his back to you it's quite simple to whip out your tiny bottle and drop a couple quick drops on his collar. Besides the obvious fact that he will have to leave the bar as soon as he figures out where the smell is emulating from, the chick will realize it just as soon.
I heard Skip Gildersleeve (production mgr for Steely Dan) has been known to clear punters out of the backstage area at his shows promptly by dispensing a few drops of this evil solution. Non working people in the way of your load out? They won't be there long if Skip is around.
20 years ago I had a beef with a sound tech on a tour. He had pissed off the entire lighting and production crew the day before the last show of the tour. So as a payback, during the last show, 50 pounds of frozen cod fish were distributed inside each amp rack. Limberger cheese was then smeared on the insides of all the W bins (big old fashioned bass speakers). The truck then had 6 days in August to drive from Miami to San Francisco. 6 days for the fish to cook.I heard they opened the truck doors a week later, but nobody could enter the truck for several hours.
