Gelatinous Monk

Twirling…Twirling…Twirling Towards Freedom!

2005-02-18T12:09:00.000-05:00

It's been a while... sorry. Things have changed. People have changed. Hair styles have changed. Interest rates fluctuate. So it goes.

A lot has happened since I last wrote in this virtual eco-environment. I use the term eco-environment just for fun, because I've seen it used in the wrong context at least ten times this week (business articles and emails), and I didn't want to miss the anti-contextual train that's leaving the station regarding the English language. Since William Safire retired, maybe I can fill his arrogant shoes.

I quit Overboard. The story is short: I got a new job, and I work longer hours and travel frequently. A few late afternoon Friday calls from the Tampa airport to band members talking about contingency plans in case my plane wouldn’t get me to the gig were all that was needed for me to come to a decision about leaving. I'll miss that band, but they'll move on as every good band does.

In fact, they were so eager to move on that they changed my picture to the new drummer overnight, whereas it took them six months to put my picture up on the website after I joined. So it goes.

The last night I played with Overboard was New Year's Eve and unfortunately, the last month of playing gigs with them was uneventful in terms of memorable bar folk stupidity. Of course, that is with the exception of a woman throwing up at the bar during the second set of New Year's Eve, but I missed the act because I let another drummer sit in for a few songs while the bar was being covered in spew.

So after taking a few weeks off, I talked to Wigjam to see if they'd let me join them on-stage for double drummer antics. If you actually read this blog, then you've heard of this Grateful Dead style tribute band from previous a previous blog entry called, Liberty.

I've already apologized once in this entry, and sadly I must do it again, because the honest truth is that you're probably expecting a full catalog of bar folk stupid-dom, but playing in Wigjam doesn’t afford such opportunities. I'm sorry. I’ll explain why.

I remembered what it means to be a musician by playing with Wigjam again. To clarify what a musician is, here is an example. I know plenty of guitarists, some of them incredible, but most of them are not musicians. There are some who are even incredible and still not musicians. I even know one who always wears a big belt buckle, but he's not a musician.

To be a musician, you have to know how to listen to other musicians. Making music with other people is like a conversation. Making music in a band is like having a conversation with five people in harmony…not like a choir singing in harmony, but like an actual conversation. A perfectly orchestrated volley of words intertwining at perfect rhythmic intervals and intensity.

Playing with Overboard wasn't about the musicianship, because there was really only one other musician in the band, and we both wore a muzzle so big that we weren't allowed to let it flow. The audience listened more to the band than the band members did. I was always looking for something to distract me… to have fun with… because that was more fun than playing the music. Whether it was seeing how many shots I could drink while playing (ie- role playing Ginger Baker), playing one-handed, or watching ridiculous bar behavior

With Wigjam, I know that when I hit the drum, the rhythm is listened to, analyzed and met with a response of equal thought and skill most likely better than mine. Everybody in the band is a musician.

Most of my friends (the ones who are not already musicians) don't like Grateful Dead style music, so it makes it a little more difficult for them to stomach one of my shows nowadays, but the simple fact is that I don't even know they're watching (if they show up). I don't need to find distraction because I'm busy with the conversation I'm having with the rest of the band. It's a constant dialogue and it's completely improvisational.

That's another thing about musicians versus people who play an instrument-- musicians understand that improvisation is not about the language you speak (scales, technique) but about the originality and the fun of the conversation.

So I don’t know if I'll be able to write blog entries on the topic I've been covering since the summer. I may have to switch it to something else that gives equal attention to humor because not only is there less interaction between myself and the audience, there’s also much less drinking on my part.

There is one caveat—people who show up to Wigjam shows (as any jam band) have a tendency to take their shoes off and twirl in front of the stage. I never understood the phenomenon, mostly a female phenomenon, but it’s been happening since the early days of the Grateful Dead. I guess I'll just have to wait until the night where I see some tanked chick start letting go of her veggie burrito after a few too many vodka tonics in a Technicolor concentric swirl.

Until then, I may start to transition the topic of this blog to something else that gives you your dose of sardonic irony.

Greetings from Union, NJ

2004-11-04T09:53:00.000-05:00

Right away it started with a bang. Or should I say a shove? It usually takes about ten minutes to load in all of my equipment. As I shuffle my various bags and cases through the door, I have a sequence that I follow that allows me to setup while I bring in my stuff. The first item to make it through the door is a drummer’s rug.

For those not in The Know, a drummer's rug is not so that we can spread out our toys and play with matchbox cars like we're four-year-olds in a dentist's office. Our drums go on the rug so that when we play, the drums don’t spread out on the floor in different directions during the set. If there’s no rug to keep everything in place, we basically become gymnasts using our splayed limbs like Elastic-man to keep time while the drums try, ever-so-hard, to escape the confines of the stage.

So I walk into the bar, plop down my rug in the stage spot where the drums will go, and the gentleman (Cro-Magnon, funny guy) at the nearest table says to me. “You think that mat is going to show you how to play the drums?”

Ignoring him was the best option, especially at the beginning of the night. There were so many things that could happen for the duration of the gig that could put me in a shitty mood, and I was determined not to let this spark a downward cascade.

As I continued to load-in my equipment, my mind was relentless. I couldn’t stop trying figure out what the fuck that meant. I mean, I got it…in a desperate plea for attention from the band, this guy spewed out the only ounce of wit and shot his load, but what did that question mean? Did he think he was charming the pants off of me? Would I ever be able to repay him for his pithy gratitude?

I wasn’t sure, but on the next trip into the bar, he said it again! Ignoring the hint I was dropping by shunning his verbal jeers, he went for the same line with a little more volume, because he must have realized that I was hard of hearing.

This was the second time I played in Union, NJ where someone greeted me with multiple jeers, but at least this wasn’t in the form of a question like the last guy at Paddy’s Place. That guy kept saying things in the third person, like, “Where does this guy think he is, Madison Square Garden?”

Another hint to the Witmeister came as I looked furiously busy setting up my drumkit. He eventually found something more interesting to do (maybe count his thumbs), and the wit festival subsided. That night was Flipper’s birthday (actually the day after) and I walked over to shake his hand and wish him the nicest gesture that either of us had exchanged to that point in four gigs because of all the political crap that was going on.

The gig had the potential to be a train wreck for Flipper. Anytime it’s someone’s birthday, the band usually goes all out to make sure that the birthday boy needs a new liver by the end of the night. Since we were in a bar where the owner loved us, we figured it would be a no-brainer.

The performance proceeded as planned. Set one began with a mellow rock smattering of Stones and classic rock to ease in the crowd. We were graced with some regulars: the aforementioned funny guy and his wife who inevitably remembers my name when I can’t remember hers; the mollusk (the guy who has a wandering eye and you can never tell who he’s looking at, you or the guy next to you), the bikers, the area people, and some of our friends who came to pay homage to our middle-aged and balding lead singer.

We made a new friend that night. A summer teeth beauty who wouldn’t leave The Admiral alone all night. She hung on him like a Curt Shilling bloody sock. That probably would have been fine if she didn’t open her mouth, but she was a close-talker and was in dire need of breath mints, or maybe a power washer for her remaining molar.

Not realizing that she was hanging on every moment of The Admiral’s precious break time in between sets, she managed to annoy everyone in the immediate vicinity. At one point, after a slurry of shots, Flipper started talking about her in the microphone, replacing as many lyrics with words like, “Halitosis,” and “Breath Monster.” It was not a good scene for the Lady Senator from the Trailer Park.

In a turn for the cool, I had a good conversation with a friend and guitar player who had hand painted a Warner Bros. Gremlin on a patch on his new bomber leather jacket. We had a great conversation about the Gremlin when he explained to me that this was no ordinary leather jacket.

It turns out that he had been following the history of a certain British bombing squadron in World War II that had been responsible for keeping the German V2 Rocket launchers in check. In a nice homage to the squadron, he was recreating all of the patches and designs painted on their jackets, including logos and insignias. Instead of his name on the front chest patch, he had the name of a guy who was actually in the squadron who was the uncle of a keyboard player he played with in a band.

While we laughed about the Bugs Bunny episode that the gremlin patch got its celebrity status from, we pounded tequila and Black & Tans. It was getting to be a good night after all despite the effort s of Funny Guy to bring me down.

A word about the owner of the bar…yes, just one word. Certifiable. He’s certifiably out of his fucking mind. I once saw him chase a bartender out of his bar with a bat because he didn’t like the way he was looking at him. He drinks Fleischman’s with a passion that makes Mike Tyson look like a pussy during an ear-biting boxing match. He’s a Green Bay packers fan who would sooner spray you with a fire extinguisher than let you talk shit about his team.

So I don’t know if I was really surprised of the owner’s next move when he commanded me to play Wipe Out on his head while he was wearing a Green Bay Packers hard hat. This impulsive assertion came during a setbreak before the third set. He had been drinking since 3pm that day and he was all riled up. The Admiral just went with it and told him to come up on stage after the second set and request Wipe Out. Then band would play the song and I’d come from behind the drumkit to the front of the stage and let loose on the owner’s head when the drum solo part came around.

This was a good plan, except for the owner’s poor timing (or lack thereof) as a result of his inebriated disposition. He wound up coming up towards the end of the set while we were climaxing with our series of bad medleys to keep the crowd dancing. It just didn’t work out and it looked as if the Wipe Out moment would have to wait.

But the owner wouldn’t have it. After the show and as we were breaking down our equipment, he brought a chair over to the stage area, slammed it down and said, “Let’s Go!” The Admiral and I took position around him and the ten or so people left in the bar surrounded us. I’m not quite sure what happened next.

For some reason, the owner was confused about something, looking around and holding his finger up to indicate hold on a minute. I think he was looking for a camera, but he just kept calling, “Annie! Annie!” It was a surreal moment, and we just waited it out. Finally, he saddled into the chair with his Packers helmet and I began my descent into Wipe Out hell.

As I played on this guy’s head, the crowd of people started singing the melody to Wipe Out. They made for a great chorus, and the owner’s head sank lower and lower as I droned on through the third chorus. I can only imagine what a full bottle of Fleischman’s and Wipe Out on your head could do for your next morning hangover.

And as always whenever we’re in the vicinity of the big screw, we had to make a trip to The White Castle. This time I took a picture. (I'll post later) Obviously there’s not much light at 2:30 in the morning, so you’ll have to imagine the finer details, but I was able to get my Teva laden foot next to it for a sizing comparison. This screw is truly the 10th Wonder of the World.

The Meaning of Bar Life

2004-10-17T13:57:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday at the Marina Grille, I came to the realization that playing gigs down the shore in October could be considered a colossal waste of time. In this economy with the rising price of gas and the 75-minute commute, playing at the Marina Grille in Brick, NJ is starting to become a burden.

The way to make up the difference is to make each gig worth its salt in either alcohol or fun. From now on, I’m going to start looking for ways to egg on stupid behavior from audience members, or facilitate completely outrageous stage antics. Maybe a gorilla suit would be a good purchase.

I decided to start my Mandate on Fun immediately after my classic impasse with Flipper (discussed in Political Jokes: The Orange Lantern, Part Two) from the previous week. I figure that if I can’t quit the band, I can probably have a shitload of fun looking to get thrown out. If he throws me out, it’ll mean the onus is on him to get a replacement. It’ll also mean that I can kick everything up a notch. (BAM!)

The first order of business was to make sure that the political end of things was set straight for the average audience member watching the band. I was no longer going to stand by and watch Flipper declare unanimous band support for the Bush/Cheney ticket from the stage.

I can’t stop him from wearing homemade I LOVE BUSH t-shirts, or making Republican charged comments during the set, nor would I want to infringe on his free speech rights, but I can sure as hell use the training I received from studying Advertising in college towards the goal of dispelling ill communication. Incidentally, the only reason that I was able to go to school in the first place was from Student Loan support from the Clinton Administration, so I felt an obligation to use my training.

Marshall McCluhan has really only made two significant contributions to the world. The first was coining the phrase, “The medium is the message.” The second was appearing in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall as a cameo and scolding a Media Professor from Columbia for pontificating in a public place using his name.

Thanks to Mr. McCluhan, I remembered that the space on my kick drum was a prime location for advertising my conscience and probably a good way to dispel any Flipper delivered myths about the political beliefs of the band members.

After setting up my equipment and waiting for everyone else to leave the stage area, I calmly took the stage and affixed a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker (which matches my drumset nicely) directly to the kick drum head just above the Overboard logo.

The Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker was set slightly askew to fit the area and drew attention to itself like a pair of women’s panties stuck to the back of a public speaker’s pant leg. I wondered how long it was going to take before Flipper realized it was there, or acknowledged its presence (which could possibly be two different things).

It didn’t take long for the audience to recognize the sticker as several people made mention by yelling “Go Kerry!” during the first set. I don’t believe Flipper saw the bumper sticker till the end of the night as I was packing up. I actually turned the kick drum on its end so it was easy for him to see and left it there as the last item that I packed up. He didn’t acknowledge it, so I’m not really sure if he really did see it that night, but if he did, I’m sure it made a miserable thought for the entire ride home.

What the bumper sticker did for me was acknowledge that I differ from whatever comment comes out from his mouth during the show. It may seem immature, but you really can’t understand what it’s like to sit on stage without a microphone and watch a cro-magnon type caricature of himself espouse political theories into the public domain on your behalf. It’s ruins the gig and harbors resentment. I set it straight with the bumper sticker and now no matter what he says into the mic, my view is broadcast from my kick drum as if to say, “I’m not with Stupid.”

I thought that it was a better solution than kicking the shit out of Flipper or quitting. We’ll let time decide.

So, for most of the night I was feeling good. We had some Liquid Jukebox requests and a half a bottle of Tequila per member of the band. It was starting to get loose and then I saw the dreaded lyric sheet for Separate Ways appear on the audio monitor in front of Flipper.

The Assistant Manager of the Bar who books the bands for this place is a big Journey fan. That’s a problem enough (in and of itself), but the problem extended to us after she mandated our performance of a specific Journey song almost a year ago.

I grew up a Journey fan, and I trust that it’s one of those childhood things that you’ll allow me to admit was a mistake, albeit an adolescent one. I watch kids today grow up listening to Boy Bands like Backstreet Boys, and I’m sure that in twenty years they’ll feel ashamed of their allegiance and waive it off by saying, “I was just a kid.”

I even saw Journey in concert when I was like 8 or 9 at the Brendan Byrne Arena (Bryan Adams opened up). It actually was a great show, mostly because Steve Perry’s voice was real and not studio manufactured. It was also a great show because Steve Smith was (and still is) an incredible drumming monster and Neil Schon was formerly a great guitarist who joined Carlos Santana’s band when he was 16. But those positives are discounted now in this situation.

The Assistant Manager was incessantly whining about how we hadn’t played the song for her in a while, and as she stood by the owner with her glass of scotch, the more she drank, the bitchier she got. Apparently, it was too much for Flipper to deal with and he caved.

I saw the lyric sheet rear its ugly head and I got nervous because I wondered if Dickboy had ever really learned the keyboard part. The last time we played Separate Ways, the intro keyboard part that he played sounded more like a combination of the PacMan and DigDug video game soundtracks than the original song.

Right on cue, Dickboy played something vaguely similar to a Nintendo game and we launched into the worst rendition of the song that we had ever performed, complete with cracking lead vocals and wrong notes. It was a train wreck that ended after the first chorus.

I really can’t describe the feeling of a musician on-stage during a train wreck. It happens every so often, but professionals usually have a knack for knowing how to avoid a potentially disastrous situation. I once saw Kiss at the Meadowlands play a few licks of a song that a kid in the front row was hollering for (NY Groove) and they attempted a few bars and stopped, laughing it off, because they knew that they would screw it up and look bad. We should’ve learned from lessons like those.

Speaking of lessons learned, I need to learn a thing or two about second-hand cigarette smoke. In between sets, I’ve learned that I have a threshold when it comes to cigarette smoke inhalation. I grew up the son of parental smokers. My clothes smelled like smoke all of my childhood and I didn’t realize until I left for college that there was anything wrong with that. Thankfully both my parents quit eventually, but I still have a hard time realizing when I need to breathe.

Making our escape to the outside lounge, The Admiral and I relaxed with our lungs as we watched the local crowd shuffle through the front entrances. As we sat and talked and watched these people who we call our “fans” (even though they're not) carry on with their conversations of drunken ridiculousness, I realize that I’d rather be playing a bar than going to a bar to watch another local cover band.

The thought validated my gigging existence temporarily and I thought to myself, you know it could be worse. I could be at home wishing I had a social life or stuck in an office somewhere working on a presentation for championing the removal of a workplace process that no one had used in thirty years.

And then someone barfed on the video game in the back of the bar, prompting a frenzy of support staff to leave their post and take care of business. It was a sobering moment in the perpetual question of the meaning of bar life...

Political Jokes: The Orange Lantern, Part Two

2004-10-10T23:22:00.000-04:00

This past Friday our gig was cancelled. Apparently the club we were supposed to play was slated to be under new ownership and we were to play the first gig of the new club. At least that’s what I was led to believe from the following e-mail that I received from Flipper:

“The new owner did not close on the club so he canceled us this Friday! see ya Sat. at Marina! Lets Go Crazy.
Me”

So as promised, I’ll do another blog flashback to cover the cancelled gig, but this time the flashback isn’t from that long ago. Last Saturday at The Orange Lantern in Paramus, NJ, something happened that hasn’t happened in an extremely long time. Actually, it’s never happened.

I became so frustrated that I came inches from either quitting a band or kicking the shit out of someone on stage. Unfortunately, I’ve never come close to quitting a band while still at the gig and I’m saddened to see that someone had brought me to such a dark place in one fell swoop. In most cases, I would be disappointed in myself for letting a situation get that bad in the first place, but this event heralded a new era for poor judgment and incredibly obtuse behavior from somebody other than myself.

I was in a particularly happy place on Saturday considering the story with the Rush maniac who was found inspecting my drums like he was at a strip club ogling female genitalia (See Blonde Jokes-- The Orange Lantern Part One). I was having fun and had no clue what was around the corner. What was about to happen in the second set of a long night needs some setting up, so bare with the story.

Suffice it to say, for those who don’t know me, I’m not a fan of the current Presidential Administration. While I enjoy the civil liberties that this country affords, I feel that a huge and integral part of those liberties are the rights to openly criticize the government for poor policy or decisions affecting the welfare of all Americans.

To quote Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” I wholeheartedly agree with those words and they are only a mere pittance of why I support any candidate other than the current Presidential incumbent candidate. I also believe that lips are like assholes (you know the rest of the saying) and if you can’t articulate your argument, shut up and vote your conscience without wasting other people’s time.

Special Editor’s Note: To all the FBI, NSA, CIA operatives, Dan Brown and other governmental spooks who are now monitoring this website thanks to my posting of that Ben Franklin quote… hello and welcome! I’m a good guy. I’m on your side. Really. No need to tap my phones. If you have a question, feel free to call me.

I don’t have to list why I feel the way that I do about the President and his Cabinet, especially if you’re like me and do your own reading and interpretation of current events. I watch C-SPAN, read The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Nation and The Onion. I also watch The Daily Show, which has probably been the most comprehensive of the aforementioned list in covering the events that most likely shape our world.

Last year, I lost my internet marketing job in a Fortune 500 company. Maybe not to “outsourcing,” per se, but definitely as a result of the horrific economy with a local New York City area spin. I graduated from college in the bubble era (obviously it wasn’t called that back then) and it was a long period of time after graduation that I could have had at least three job offers a week.

When Clinton was in office, I was able to go to school thanks to student loans that he provided, and when I got out, it was the first time in my lifetime that there wasn’t a federal deficit and yet the promise of economic opportunity at every corner.

I’m bitter that our current President has the balls to lie about the state of economic growth in this country, among other things, that threaten our welfare and security (and our children’s security). I’m upset about the arrogance of this administration that has led to our diminished stature in the world. We were among the League of Extraordinary Nations, and some may say at the top alone, but no longer. I don’t know if we’ll ever retrieve that credibility, but one thing is certain— this election is not about a candidate to me as much as a paradigm shift in democratic beliefs.

No longer is it uncool to talk about political beliefs. In my lifetime, it’s never been acceptable to talk at the water cooler about your beliefs or your stance on issues. At some point in the 1980s I remember that there were brief spouts of people finding their political way and vocalizing an opinion on abortion or arms control, but the discussions were canned platform speeches repeating someone else’s ideas.

In some ways, it’s like that now, and I can’t honestly think of any of my Republican friends (I have many) who aren’t spitting back a Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh quote to try to seal their argument without thinking for themselves, but that’s ok. That’s the spirit of Freedom and Democracy and everyone has the right to speak their mind (or someone elses), and more importantly, vote their conscience. If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch about the political consequences later.

I honestly believe this election is not about my guy versus your guy. They’re both rich guys who were privileged enough to go to Yale. It’s not like it’s a sporting event and the winner is the winner until the next major sporting event. This election has lives at stake in our military. It has livelihoods at stake in our economy. I take it very seriously and I can’t understand those who relegate it to something you watch on Sunday with chips, beer and funny commercials. Although sometimes I wish John Kerry would call Joe Torre for help, but that’s a different story.

At some point in the second of four sets last Saturday, Flipper (our singer for those who are just tuning in now) decided to bring the band down behind him so he could speak. Usually, this is in an effort to address the crowd and get some bar event moving, like a shot special or an announcement about Liquid Jukebox or to announce the band personnel. But this was different, and a surprise.

Unexpectedly, Flipper found it in his infinite wisdom to take an “Overboard Poll” of who was voting for which candidate in the Presidential election.

Now, I was just as surprised as you might be to find out that the center of United States political thought was in Paramus, NJ that night in the bar. I’m also happy that he was gung-ho for the election and for his candidate (who happens to be the opposite of my choice for the Presidency). But no matter who he’s voting for, there are two things that should be unwaveringly clear:

Politics and Bar Music DO NOT mix. Under any circumstances.
Bar polls are not scientific and often incite negative circumstances.

I braced myself for what I had a hunch would play out in a moronic fashion. When Flipper asked the crowd who was voting for Kerry, no one responded. Not surprising, considering that everyone I know who is steadfast in voting for the Democratic candidate was either at home with kids on a Saturday night or in shock in the first place that the poll was being taken at a bar and fearful of a drunk redneck screaming Bushisms in their face while they’re trying to enjoy themselves.

Then Flipper asked who was voting for Bush (and added that Bush was his personal favorite for the election). A grand total of two drunk guys raised their fist and screamed with a whooping yell. I was waiting for the “We’re Number One!” chant, but it never came. Pity.

I was more angered than shocked. I couldn’t believe that he had the balls to breach the entertainment rule of mixing politics with bar music, but was he arrogant enough to think that he was going to sway any undecideds by showing two drunk rednecks were voting for his candidate? Flipper even looked at Dickboy (a voiced Democrat) and pointed at him with a smile after hearing the two rednecks as if to say that my candidate is more popular than yours. Wow. Two drunk rednecks. Three if you include Flipper.

Maybe Flipper was on the fence himself, after watching his candidate have a hard time forming complete sentences in the first Presidential debate and was now looking to others in a social situation to help shape his malleable opinion. I couldn’t tell, but I knew I was pissed that I was still on stage in this situation, looking like I was part of a band that endorsed President Bush in this election.

The crux of the issue for me was really that he had crossed the line a final time. For months he had been throwing little Pro-Bush statements into the microphone, including wearing an “I Love Bush” t-shirt as if to shower a ringing endorsement of the President and his policies. Endorsed by the entire band as it would seem. I had definitely had enough.

The Admiral, who is truly a stand-up guy, got my back by trying to diffuse the situation in a more entertainment-like fashion. “That’s not a poll! Politics and music don’t mix, here’s a real poll: Whose wearing a thong?!”

As if the crowd understood that our singer had a momentary lapse of reason, many women yelled to signify their compliance with the thong poll. It was a diversion to reclaim the entertainment value of the moment, but unfortunately Flipper brought it back to the politics and the Herculean effort by The Admiral to undermine the act of stupidity from Flipper was shot down.

As the set continued, I know that Flipper could feel my icy glare burning a hole through the back of his head as he avoided my eyes for the next two songs. He knew what he had done and was standing behind his actions as if to take a hard stance in defiance of my views. Good for him, but I was pissed off not because of his beliefs, but because he was speaking for me to the crowd. That was more than wrong. I needed to confront him.

At the end of the set, he put his guitar down in its stand next to my drums and launched out with, “Do you really fucking think that was appropriate?!”

A furrowed brow indicated he didn’t expect me to say anything, let alone ask him a simple question.

What?!

What the fuck made you think that doing that was appropriate at a bar?!

Yes, I do think it was appropriate. Hey listen, I’m not here for you, so I don’t try to do things that make you happy. I’m here for them (pointing to the crowd).

Bullshit, you did that for you. That’s bullshit and you know it.

Well if you don’t like it, you could fucking quit.

There it was. The ultimatum. To this moment, I’m more pissed that a guy who is 5 times less my body weight got in my face preparing for a fist fight. I was faced with kicking the shit out of him on stage or quitting. Those were two options I wasn’t going to choose.

There are many reasons why I still play in this band, but I’m not sure what Flipper thinks is the main reason. He could fire me, but that would mean that he would have to find someone as good as me to take my place on a moment’s notice. I know he doesn’t have a suitable replacement, no matter what he would have me or anyone else believe.

He’s said many times that there are people jumping at the chance to take the place of our band members, but I know from the few times I’ve been on vacation that the substitutes couldn’t come close to filling my shoes.

That’s not an ego trip. If I could find someone at this point who had as much attitude as me and could actually play, then I would wholeheartedly lead the transition team to getting that guy in to take my place. Especially after this episode.

I wasn’t going to hit him (he’d have broken bones and a lawsuit) and I almost made a move to start packing up my equipment. I was already quitting right then and there in my mind. And then I noticed The Admiral still on stage waiting to break us up if he had to. I walked off the stage and outside to cool off. I remembered that I was in the band because we all needed the money. If I quit, I’d fuck over the other guys much more than me.

I didn’t touch him and till this moment we still haven’t spoken.

So here we are, at a classic impasse. I don’t want to quit for fear of hurting the two-fifths of the band that matter to me (not including myself), but I wouldn’t have much stopping me from exercising my arm strength right through Flipper’s impending broken nose.

What’s this all about? I’m not sure, but I know that this President certainly isn’t a uniter of people as he said he was going to be in 2000. That’s for sure.

Note to the band members of Wigjam: Yeah, I know…

Blonde Jokes (The Orange Lantern Part One)

2004-10-10T14:04:00.000-04:00

Wow, was The Orange Lantern in Paramus, NJ a smoke-filled bastion of surreal weirdness on Saturday night. It all started with the entrance of what appeared to be a Dungeons & Dragons user group meeting. In walked five or six pimple-covered twentysomethings donning geek attire that made me yearn to watch Revenge of the Nerds for nostalgic comfort.

I took notice, but also took care not to make fun of our friends because they usually have hidden Hit Points and weapons that I can’t even pronounce. It’s good policy to take a cautious approach to people carrying 12-sided dice and a scowl.

I had setup and was quietly conversing with Big Mike and The Admiral’s Wife who together were continuing her birthday festivities through the weekend when I noticed that they were staring at something behind me. Their glances started to motion me to look behind me, but I didn’t want to be obvious since I could tell from their expressions that they were a bit nervous at what lurked to my rear.

I cocked my head slightly to notice one of the pimple-faced D&D clan in front of the stage staring at my drumkit. Macked out in a blue and white striped (mom-picked) polo shirt, jeans, white high-tops and a key chain that dangled from his right hip beltloop to his mid thigh, this guy was looking at my kit like he was about to attack a physics problem on the chalkboard in front of the math team.

I knew that look, and I took great care not to let on that I owned the kit, because getting into a conversation with this guy with at least an hour before the gig could be disastrous for my mood for the night.

Yes… he was a Rush fan. It was a freaky obsession that had briefly passed through my adolescent formative years. I had just a hunch from his uniform and stare about his obsession but soon my hunch was confidently confirmed by the sudden drop to his knees onto the stage looking underneath my kit to check out the behind-the-scenes stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t wear the same kinds of clothes in 1987 as this guy, but I knew what was going through this guy’s head. He’s an aspiring drummer, wearing clothes from the 1980s and looking to see what I’ve got under the hood to assess my playing before I even got back there to play. If he knew I were the drummer, he’d probably start quizzing me and talking shop.

I hate talking shop about drums. I’ve never been up on the latest gear or what drummer from what band is playing what type of cymbal. As soon as someone starts talking shop with me, I look for a way to divert the conversation to something unrelated or a discussion about music, which is intimately more fun.

If I can’t get out of the shoptalk, I look for ways to kill myself by analyzing the rafters for a good place to throw up a noose. It was clear to me that this guy was ready to talk any drummer’s ear off about what drumheads Neil Peart (Rush’s drummer) uses and how to heel-toe a kickdrum part for more speed. I wasn’t biting.

I did however mention to Big Mike and The Admiraless that this guy was definitely a Rush fan. When asked how I knew, I tried to prove it by saying loudly, “Hey, is that Neil Peart in the parking lot?” to see if the guy would get off his knees from under my drumkit and run towards the parking lot. He didn’t bite either, but he soon got up and went to the door to meet more members of the D&D users group who resembled the Columbine Trench Coat Mafia. Among the new entrants was a young lady, with a touch of the homely, who embraced with our young strapping buck of a drummer.

As if with startling clarity to my prognosis of this guy’s Rushmania, she was wearing a Moving Pictures Tour Shirt from Rush’s last tour. I pointed it out to my compatriots with a grin and a feeling of “My Job is Done Here.” But no…my job was only beginning.

You see, as a former Rush fan and drummer, I felt obligated in 1987 to learn every Rush song note-for-note on the drums. It was an accomplishment for a thirteen year-old kid that rivaled Crossing the Rubicon. I realized that I would probably never have an opportunity again to prove the fruits of my adolescent labor to someone who understood from an insider level, short of Neil Peart walking into the bar and challenging me to a drum duel.

I had to show this guy that I knew his pain, and every fucking Rush lick there was. At least up until Counterparts, because everything after Presto really sucked. It would be the focus of my night. I had to let The Admiral in on my quest.

As I recapped the course of events for The Admiral that occurred while he was away from the stage area, he giggled as we practice-pantomimed the complex and unmistakable intro section to Rush’s Spirit of the Radio. The plan was for us to break into Spirit in the intro section of Jessie’s Girl and then back to the regularly scheduled song.

The move would be a master-stroke and would probably send the guy into a climactic frenzy of high-five jumping and air-drumming for all to enjoy. We couldn’t wait. It was the ultimate homage to Rush and this guy’s key-jingling D&D focused allegiance. Maybe if we were lucky, a potion of healing would fall to the floor and heal our battle wounds.

As it turns out, I couldn’t wait for the excitement and our four-set gig that night ensured that we wouldn’t be playing Jessie’s Girl for another few hours. At every chance I could find, I would throw in unmistakable drum fills into every song that I could get away with.

The first set alone I threw in a lick from La Villa Strangiato into Miss You (Rolling Stones), a lick from YYZ into Can’t Get Enough of You (Smashmouth) and various beat turnarounds ala Neil Peart into every song that I could.

Flipper was beginning to get visibly annoyed at my overplaying, but every contrived lick that I forced into our set sent The Admiral and I into a fit of laughter. We could see our young Rush protégé in the next room beginning to catch on. He came over to the lip of the stage, watching with a smile of a kid on Christmas opening presents. He was getting visibly excited…as planned.

In the second set, we were leading to the big climactic Spirit of the Radio moment as I continued subtly throwing Neil Peart drum fills into every song that I could. LSD was ready for the big moment as we had confirmed that he remembered the complex guitar riff, but two things went wrong in the second set that undid the planning.

LSD unfortunately got the cue wrong and forgot which song to enter our planned Coup de Grace. As a result, we couldn’t do that part in unison and it was doubtful that anyone realized what he was playing.
Flipper did something so asinine that my mood was ruined for the rest of the night. Consequently, we dropped the plan when Jessie’s girl did eventually come around.

No big deal on the LSD part. He wasn’t sure where it was supposed to come in and when the time came for Jessie’s Girl, we kind of lost interest. We had made our point and our friend was glowing and roaming about the bar with wild glory abandon.

At one point, a DIFFERENT guy (probably of the same crowd) cornered the Admiral during one of his wireless roams during the second set and explained how excited he was that the drummer was playing the lick to YYZ. He just started playing drums and he couldn’t believe that we had thrown that in. His name was George and he was REALLY excited. At least two people were happy that night.

I’m not going to say what it was that Flipper did during the second set to piss me off because it’s a long story. I promise that on the next night we have off, I’ll properly chronicle the stupidity with all the contempt of a pitbull, but until then, let’s just say that politics and bar music should not mix.

Suffice it to say, I was pissed off for the rest of the night, so I’ll skip to the end where our story is currently in-progress.

It was the last set of the night, and we had the crowd in the palm of our hand. They were dancing and Flipper was drunk from drinking Tequila for four sets. This was a first for him since he’s a pussy and can’t drink anything but Old Grand Dad. At this point, The Admiral and I are calling the set because after one drink Flipper forgets how to keep a crowd dancing, let alone what planet he’s on.

It’s at this point that the Jessica Simpson Wannabe jumps up on stage to start dancing. We’ve seen her before at this place and she dances as if she’s in front of a mirror practicing to be a bigger tease than her pop star fake-titted idols. I don’t mind when a good looking chick jumps up and takes her clothes off, but there were no clothes coming off and she was just in the business of making a teasing spectacle of herself without the added bonus of nudity.

As is custom with Flipper when this happens, his dick speaks louder than his voice and he starts his little butt-bumping dance on-stage to act cool and associate himself with the better than average looking blonde in tight clothes.

He salivates obviously, but I guess that’s the mark of a 43 year-old balding hasbeen who wishes he were single. The Admiral, who is a class act with wit to spare, finds a lull in the song to diffuse the ridiculousness after the American Idol chick has been dancing on stage for two songs.

Hey, Flip.

Yes, Admiral

The band lowers the volume and vamps in the background during Sweet Caroline

I got a blonde joke for ya…

OK…

The blonde starts grinding more as if to signify that she’s just been recognized on stage

How do you get a blonde to laugh on Wednesday?

How?

A brief pause…wait for it…

Tell her a joke on Monday.

The entire place is roaring with laughter
As if on cue 20 seconds too late, the blonde leans into the microphone and says in a little petit squeal:

That’s not funny!

She does a little hiccup laugh (unscripted) that usually characterizes a bimbo. The Admiral waits a second with a perfectly timed pause…

Umm…yeah, I think it is.

Right on cue, we brought the band back in to the song to illustrate the punchline and the crowd was cracking up. You couldn’t have scripted the episode better and the blonde stayed on-stage.

I’m not sure if she realized what really went on and ignored it, or just failed to recognize the backfiring of her spectacle, but it was a triumphant step forward for the stereotype.

The only thing better would have been if she had square kleenex boxes under her shirt because she forgot to take the tissues out to stuff her bra. I love that old joke.

Sock Puppets and Medleys

2004-10-10T13:09:00.000-04:00

The post-summer Jersey Shore bar scene is a departure from the migrant throngs of Hobokenite ridiculousness. After the dust settles each summer and the “Bennies” leave, as they’ve been called by the year-round shore residents for decades, the NJ Parkway Exit 98 area goes back to a more mellow and rustic atmosphere.

The residents rejoice that they’ll no longer be woken up by sirens and streaking contests at 4am on any given Sunday night. They’re also happy that they can reclaim their bars and restaurants. What they don’t realize is that they provide an equal level of entertainment for their hired entertainment as the Bennies did by falling down drunk and making asses out of themselves in the bar. The only difference is the shame that you can see on their faces as they realize their weakness in-progress. I guess it’s a sign of maturity.

Overboard continues to play shore bars in off-season, and sometimes it makes for an unpleasant 75 minute ride through snow or freezing rain. We started playing this place called Leggett’s a few months ago, a near-beach restaurant turned watering hole for folks living in Manasquan. Brick oven pizza, a decent Italian menu and a bartending staff that knows how to make a drink.

Last Friday night, The Admiral’s wife was celebrating her birthday and decided to come down with Big Mike to kick off the festivities. We had a good time in between set breaks, but that may be because of the drink discount we discovered for band members. Once again, a tip up front to a specific bartender goes a long way, and The Admiral, Big Mike and I drank top shelf scotch all night for a buck a piece.

The crowd was uneventful, but seemed to come alive when we played two new songs that makes three-fifths of the band cringe when we hear the call or see the lyric sheet come up on Flipper’s audio monitor.

1985, (by Bowling for Soup) a provincial attempt at chronicling the complexities of hair metal, pop music and bad clothes from that decade, was requested by Flipper’s wife (at home). So naturally, whether the song sucks or not, we’re going to jump through hoops to learn a shitty song and play it every night on the off chance that she makes it to one of our gigs (hence the Bon Jovi repertoire that we do).

I’ve been playing with this band on and off for three years. I’ve only seen the Wife at three gigs. That’s an average of one gig per year. There are better ways to reconcile a marriage than to force your band to do penance for your guilt for being an absentee husband, especially if the Wife is never fucking there.

We played the song and it sounded like shit. Mostly because everyone in the band has a different idea of what learning a song really means. Dickboy plays every part but his own and ignores the parts that could really be taken care of by a keyboard. Flipper thinks that printing out the lyrics is all he has to do learn a song, so he sounds not only like an idiot when he misreads the words, but also like a white guy trying to sing James Brown without knowing the count.

Admittedly, I didn’t pay attention to some of the stops, mostly because my apathy is overcoming my resolve at this point in my band tenure. I feel bad for The Admiral who in the past week actually went through the pain of learning both 1985 and a quote-unquote Disco Medley of Play That Funky Music/Jungle Boogie/Brickhouse.

I have to give him a lot of credit because he not only schooled the two music teachers of the band who were playing the Disco Medley with the wrong chord structure, but he knew all of the stops and gave me a reference during the set. Kudos to The Admiral, the true Patriot of the band (and non-commissioned officer).

Granted, these problems would not exist if:

We rehearsed new songs.
Had an inherent notion of how to learn a song as a band.
Actually had common sense as a band and exercised it.
Gave a shit.

Three-fifths of the band doesn’t give a shit, we just want our paycheck at the end of the night (cash preferably). The other two-fifths of the band just doesn’t have common sense.

In any given situation like the one I just mentioned, people who have common sense (the band majority in this case) tire easily from explaining common sense concepts to the other two-fifths with sock puppets and diagrams. It makes it more frustrating when the state has licensed these two idiots to teach music to children in the State of New Jersey. Way to go New Jersey…put your best people forward in the fight for education.

The fact that the crowd came alive during our pitiful presentation of these two songs seemed to validate an already skewed criteria of what songs we should play. I guarantee that we’ll stop playing 1985 before the next summer season. The medley will probably last, but only because we’ve become the Medley band as of late.

People were dancing in front of us, and since there is no stage at Leggett’s it was cramped. The band has to set up on a portable and narrow riser that occupies the five feet of space between the wall and the bar. I can’t even fit the drums on it, so I setup on the floor. It makes it kind of cramped for the band members to move around, and although I’m safely protected behind my drumkit, the close-quarters definitely heightens the risk of some drunken whale falling over my equipment and denting or breaking it.

Once at this place, a pint glass full of beer fell off of the wall-ledge behind me (moved from the vibration of the amplifiers) and broke on my wrist. Besides the pain, I was fearful that I had broken my wrist. That night sucked, but was made right by a donation from the bar of a Yankee Poster that had the full 2004 schedule on it.

The Yankee Poster was donated in increments. As we were loading out, it was hanging on the wall near the bar exit. Each time The Admiral and I passed the poster, we accidentally knocked out a push-pin from each of the four corners. Eventually gravity took its course and the poster fell to the floor. We helped keep the bar clean by picking it up and escorting it outside. It ended up on a prominent wall at work to guide us through the entire Yankee season.

With a belly full of Scotch, it was only apropos to lead an expedition of glorious Patriots to the most noble of post-gig establishments. Yes, once again, it was time to go to the Home of The World’s Biggest Screw. The White Castle in Union, NJ— Open 24 hours and always willing to satisfy the crave. I’ve never seen a woman (who wasn’t pregnant) steal and scarf down everyone else’s pickles quite the way The Admiral’s wife did that night. It was an Olympic event and a triumphant denouement to a fun birthday outing for her.

Happy Birthday, M.

Liver Damage and Popcorn

2004-10-06T09:32:00.000-04:00

Let’s get something straight, people. Musicians don’t like it when you throw things at them. Shit…most people in any situation don’t like it if you throw something at them, except at an egg toss, which is truly an amazing human activity. It doesn’t matter if the person throwing things at you is bald, six foot six and the head chef of the restaurant you’re playing that night… it’s just not good policy.

So after I got hit in the head with an ice cube while unloading my drums, I knew the night was going to be magical. Like a pigeon shitting on your head.

I admonished my bald friend with an icy stare to match his ice that hit me in the head. He came up on stage to shake my hand and apologize. As he held out his hand, I made him wait just a click before shaking it to let him know I meant business. There...I showed him. That bastard owes me a steak. Au poivre, medium rare. Speaking of food…

I hadn’t eaten all day and that usually just fuels more stupidity while drinking, so I laid out a careful and calculated plan for the evening. It consisted of one mantra. Don’t Drink.

But that mantra was soon forgotten when Liquid Jukebox kicked in. For those who don’t know what Liquid Jukebox is, please allow me to explain. Liquid Jukebox is the part of the evening (and sometimes the entire evening) where the band no longer has a setlist, nor a liver.

We’ll play anything you like. Name a song, and if we can’t play it, we’ll buy you a drink. But— If we can get through most of the song (like 2 verses and a chorus), you have to buy the whole band a shot. We make it pretty easy for the crowd by offering our drink preferences in advance. Five shots total-- Four tequilas and one Old Grand Dad. And if the request is a well-known song that we already play in our repertoire, just line the shots up in advance on the bar in front of us.

Things were going pretty well in the first set. We were sounding good and playing tight. We got to the last third of the first set when we started getting requests and announcements of birthdays in the crowd. We played a birthday song or two for LSD’s stalker who usually attends our Marina Grille shows. Her handle is “Rain” on the Overboard website and tends to post flattering comments about LSD’s flashy muscles and what she wants to do with his...socks.

She cracks me up because she’ll sit in her car after the bar has closed waiting for us to come out with our equipment. When LSD gets in his car to go, she’ll follow him. One time, LSD and I pulled out of the parking lot together and caused a traffic diversion at a red light so she couldn’t continue the hunt. She was stuck behind me stopped at the traffic light. As it turned green, I ran interference and LSD got away. By now, after 6 months, we realized that she’s harmless but crazy, so we just go with it.

Song requests started to pour in, and without thinking, Flipper continued to honor them without reminding the crowd of our Liquid Jukebox policy. I don’t know if there’s actually a conscience deep down inside me that speaks up when social injustice is anywhere near, but as usual when this happens, I yell out, “Hey, where’s the fucking shots!” over the music in my booming, yet subtle, masculine voice.

That prompted The Admiral to remind the crowd of our Liquid Jukebox policy in the microphone. We anticipated getting at least a round of shots from the guy in the front requesting AC/DC. But as we turned the corner into the intro of Shook Me All Night Long, I noticed that guy shirking his responsibilities and not approaching the bartender. I called The Admiral over while Flipper was going through the first verse of the song. I explained to The Admiral the plan that I was formulating with mouthed words, hand gestures and raised eyebrows (our usual method of non-verbal communication). He agreed and we hoped that Flipper would understand what we were trying to do. With all the hand gestures, I was hoping he wouldn't steal second base in a communication mix up.

The first verse was almost done and The Admiral leaned in to tell Flipper what to do in a few seconds. I watched Flipper bring his hands up in the air as he was singing the last word of the verse, and …cut.

Flipper cut off the band like an orchestra director and since The Admiral and I followed the direction perfectly, it was easy for the other two guys in the band to cut-off with us in unison. Usually they're in another world, but tonight they were sharp.

Through the newly acquired bar silence: “OK people, my drummer is pretty pissed off that there are no shots coming this way, so we’re going to try something new. Until we get those shots up here, we’re going to play some easy listening. Bobby, play Summer Wind.”

As Dickboy tried desperately to figure out how to play Summer Wind, he gave up and started playing a different song of the same genre. It may have been Memories or something, but whatever it was, it did the trick. Within minutes three bartenders were lining up shots in front of us. The gag worked, and we were satisfied with the drink ratio. On a quick nod, we decided to re-enter the song and like a swiss watch we went right back into the chorus of Shook Me, except it was the last chorus before the guitar solo. Noone noticed that we cut out a verse on purpose to save Flipper’s voice for the night, but the double ruse worked.

When all was said and done and the smoke from the bar cleared like a battlefield, there were 25 shots lined up on the bar in front of us. Like martyrs, we did our duty and drank our allotted shots one by one in quick succession. We closed out the first set a few songs later and braced ourselves for a full bottle of tequila to kick in.

Soon after for the rest of the night, we were missing cues and I was getting pissed because my snare drum broke in the middle of the second set, but the bottom line was that the bar owner was VERY happy that night from the bar sales. The shots kept flowing and our livers were baring the brunt of the toxicity.

Forgetting that I hadn’t eaten didn’t make things easier on my altered state and in a hunger panic I went and found the popcorn machine in the back of the bar. As I was eating the stale popcorn, I casually asked the owner (who was also eating out of the same bowl that I brought over) how long this popcorn had been sitting there? He smiled and said the machine hadn’t been turned on since he bought the place last year. We kept eating and we were both happy despite the really disgusting news.

Musicians take note, Liquid Jukebox works in any situation to make a bar owner happy. And stale year-old popcorn works, too.

Drummer Hubris

2004-10-03T04:29:00.000-04:00

As I’ve said before, I love playing new places. There’s something about the newness of things when you’re not quite sure what to expect from the crowd or how the owner of the bar is going to react to the singer jumping up and walking down the bartop.

It’s a totally new experience and there are no negatives in your mind before you arrive at the scene. It’s a calm mental stasis, and the mere fact that you’ve played so many new places before gives you a confident feeling that you can handle anything that comes your way during the course of the evening.

At least that’s what you think up until you’re 30 minutes late and you still can’t find the friggin’ place. Christ, I mean you would think that if you own a bar and you want it to succeed, you should have the bar in a place where people can find it. Take this highway here, make three U-turns there…geez. I drove all over fucking Union, NJ looking for another corner watering hole that has nothing but Annheiser-Busch products and a bar half-full of Marlboro poster children.

I’ve always been paranoid that I’m going to show up late to a new place and piss off the owner and the rest of the band because it usually takes me 40 minutes to setup. I can do it faster, but it makes the rest of the night a jumbled mess trying to play with drums falling down, and the like, because I didn’t setup in the right fashion. I tried to compensate by leaving early, but it seems that whenever I plan on leaving early, it never happens.

Thus was another night in the history of Overboard, a late start for me, a new bar, a new set of rules and a fistful of attitude from the bartenders. A note to bartenders who read this… if the rule is that the first drink is on the house and the rest are slightly discounted, don’t expect the drummer to order a light beer for the free drink. We’re going to order Scotch, preferably Dewar’s Black Label or whatever top shelf we can spy from our lowly posts. I’m guessing the bass player, too…but I’m damn sure about the drummer.

The crowd was pretty much what I’d expected, except it included some regulars from the other dive bar that we play regularly in Union. They followed us. Mind you, the other place was the place where I saw two men over sixty get into a fist-fight where one of them broke a pint glass over the other’s head. Truly the upper echelon of drinking establishments…nothing but the best for Union, NJ.

As we were loading in, there was a middle-aged guy (most likely a fireman judging from his garb) hanging around the front door smoking a cigarette. He was nice enough to hold the door for us and even threw some welcoming comments our way, albeit in the third person.

It’s pretty weird when someone addresses you by talking about you or your bandmate like they’re not there. “Jesus, look at this guy… what’d he get thrown out of the house or something?,” referring to the two-ton bag I was rolling in with drum hardware. “Christ, look at the arms on this guy!,” referring to LSD (our guitar player) who was wearing his usual Everlast bodybuilding sleeveless t-shirt brandishing his guns of steel.

It just so happens that as the owner came up to us to introduce himself, I thought he was LSD’s older brother. He was wearing the same Everlast bodybuilding outfit and had the same gym swagger as he waddled towards us with knuckles touching the floor in a Magilla Gorilla stride. Ben was a nice guy, and explained that he didn’t like cursing and that we should leave a path through our stuff so that people could get to the bathroom and the cigarette machine.

For most bands, this would have been a deal breaker, but I certainly welcomed the opportunity to heckle or elevate the stage status of anyone on their way to the ladies room directly to the left of, or the cigarette machine behind, the “stage.” (Editor’s Note: Stage in this circumstance was a small area of tiled floor cordoned off between the pinball machine, cigarette machine and ladies’ bathroom.)

The Mollusk, our friend from the Liberty Tavern with a wandering eye, showed up to see us. He greeted us with hand slaps, thirteen “What’s up’s” and five “What’s going on’s” as we setup our equipment. He’s a pretty funny guy in general as long as you’re not engaged in conversation. Wind him up and let him go.., fun for the whole family.

Three sets flew by and with the Yankee game on television versus the Red Sox, there wasn’t much attention thrown towards the band, except the owner who kept standing in front of the band with an eyeful of thought. At first I couldn’t figure out if he was pissed at us for not starting on time or something, but I finally started to get it when I watched where his glances were falling. Flipper (our singer) confirmed my suspicion after the first set.

The owner was a musician, in this case a drummer, and his band members were in the audience. I’m guessing he didn’t have a tough time booking gigs at his own place and I wondered how long it would be before Flipper would ask me if I would let the owner play my drumkit to kiss the guy’s ass.

The beginning of the second set, I was pleasantly engaged in conversation with Big Mike over a glass of Scotch. As the rest of the band filtered back towards the ”stage”, I tried to muster up the gumption to join my compatriots, but I just couldn’t get a handle on that elusive enthusiasm. I had to think fast to stall my return so I yelled out, “Play Dave Matthews!!” a few times in a false deep masculine voice.

Now…Flipper was a drummer in another lifetime. From time to time, he feels the need to prove something to himself (much more than the audience) and get behind the drumkit on stage. There are typically two songs that he’ll play, Ants Marching by Dave Matthews, or Angry Young Man by Billy Joel. He chose both because they have flashy drum parts to make him look stunning as if wind should be blowing through his hair with sticks blazing fire as they twirl through his fingers. As he forces his way through the drum charts destroying every fill that he can with unpracticed and un-nuanced banging, I cower in the corner far away trying to act like it doesn’t bother me that this guy is ruining my heads with his percussive drivel.

As I yelled for Dave Matthews, a puzzled and mischievous look came over his face. He didn’t see me at the drum kit, and he certainly didn’t know it was me yelling for the song, so he decided this was his opportunity. He jumped behind the kit and The Admiral quickly spoke into the microphone, “Mike’s the one yelling for Dave Matthews, you dick!”

No matter, The Admiral was the only person not fooled as the band started the song and I had two more songs to finish my Scotch. Big Mike and I enjoyed the rest of our conversation, which centered on something esoteric and witty. As usual with witty and esoteric I can’t remember what it was about. It could have possibly been about Buckminster Fuller or Killer Bees.

Almost two hours later, the beginning of the third set sort of started like the second set when finally the owner joined the band on the drumkit. His cohort bass player joined them as well. As luck would have it, the guy looked just like Ron Jeremy, forming a very surreal picture and historic moment.

Now, I’m not one to criticize other drummers on how they play. I realize that there are different skill sets and levels of talent. I especially realize that there is always somebody better at something than you are… but this was truly painful. I spent the next three songs listening to my drums cry in pain from the torture they suffered. I thought about how I would have to coddle them and hold them later until they loved me again, because I had betrayed their trust by letting someone without certification or license to drum get behind the kit.

As the night wound down, the owner was happy and we got paid. Stupid things were said by a host of people that night, including a statement from Flipper accusing someone in the bar of still having their baby teeth (whatever the fuck that means).

I didn’t realize he was such a dental hygiene nut. I was just grateful he didn’t dock my pay for not flossing. I hate flossing, but I hate not getting paid more.

Always Time for Cripples

2004-09-27T08:37:00.000-04:00

I honestly believe that there are no stupid people in the world, just lazy people. Everyday I meet or witness people who do stupid things, but I don’t think it’s because they’re stupid, but rather too lazy to find a better way, or more to the point, an admirable way to conduct action.

That theory was seriously challenged on Saturday. But first, a note about the day.

For those who were in the metro NY area, you know about the fallout of Hurricane Ivan and the gusting windy rain that heralded the early morning. I woke up around 5:30am when branches were hitting the roof above my head in the bedroom and scared the shit out of me.

We had a double scheduled that day, but it wasn’t too far-fetched that our one-set gig at the HarvestFest at noon would be cancelled. The Bloomfield police postponed the event and I welcomed the reprieve.

I’m not keen on setting up in a tropical storm for 45 minutes of playing to noone at an outdoor flea market for a Benjamin. I know that other members of the band wouldn’t feel that way, but they didn’t have to lug a ton of drum gear with a slipped disc.

Our second. yet non-cancelled gig, was a private party in Piscataway, not too far from the Rutgers Campus. A backyard lawn venue with a tent and picnic-like atmosphere wasn’t the most tropical storm friendly place to play a gig, but the weather was dying down a bit.

Back to stupid people and stupid acts.

If you’re a father of two small children, the first rule that you should have explained to you when you’re bringing home your children from the hospital is that from time to time, fathers need to make decisions that garner the title, “Father.”

The title Patriarch is a little too stuffy, but in the very least you shouldn’t do things after you become a father. For instance, when you’re at a party with your kids and a lot of other kids, you shouldn’t wear a t-shirt that brandishes an American flag and accompanying slogan that says, “You Fucked With The Wrong Country.” That’s the first lesson of fatherhood…act like a daddy and a role model to all kids. That's the least you should do. The next thing you should learn is how to change diapers, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

To make a long story short, I usually don’t agree with the judgment of our singer on most occasions, but this one was tops. During his momentary lapse of fatherhood sensibility, he managed to not only wear the aforementioned t-shirt to our second scheduled gig of the day, but made sure to walk around and play with all of the eleven-year olds at the party. Way to go, dad. Teach them profanity and hate in one fell swoop.

As we played and the afternoon turned to evening, the storm wind made it very clear that the usual amount of people who showed up to this annual party (lovingly referred to as Ronstock in honor of the host) would be much less than anticipated. The great thing about this party is that Ron always catered enough roast pig, live lobster and beer to feed Washington’s army. We gorged ourselves on lobster, pork and various picnic necessities. The liquor was flowing and soon, the real meat of the stupidity would begin.

Depending on how you look at it, private parties could be hilariously funny, or a nightmare for the hired musicians. The last big wedding we played, the groom was a former DJ and “knew” the intricacies of wedding arrangements from a professional point of view. He was also a stubborn, hot-tempered and nasty person. For his own wedding, he hired three different bands that were slated to intertwine sets: a 15-piece orchestra wedding ensemble, a latino DJ from Jersey City and us. Oh yeah, and a piano player for cocktail hour, but that didn't count.

After the wedding and before the party, DJ Dave (the groom) spent most of the afternoon yelling at everyone and even melodramatically ripped up a check to the sound company who hadn’t provided "adequate" resources for three different stage setups. It looked like a nightmare waiting to unfold, but as the night progressed, everything was fine. When the groom got drunk enough, he decided he wanted to play drums. He came over to me in the middle of the set, screamed, “get the fuck up,” and then paused for a second of thought to add, “hold my drink!”

I just laughed and got up because it meant that as long as he was on my kit, I would be the highest paid member of the band. The formula is: Band pay ratio= amount of time spent setting up and playing divided by the amount of money paid for the night.

I went to the bar and ordered myself a few drinks while the drunk DJ groom made a bigger ass of himself slobbering away on my sticks and trying to count to four on a bad Lynard Skynard song.

Anyway…flash forward to yesterday. DJ Dave was actually at the Ronstock party, so I knew he would be chasing me around to try and get on the drumset again. At one point, I mused about the “Get the Fuck Up” story to our singer.

You’d think that you could joke about something like that in confidence to your bandmates who lived the moment with you…but NO, Stupid Act #1, the singer tells DJ Dave about his act of assholity from the previous year. Stupid Act#2, DJ Dave tries confront me about it because he didn’t remember doing it.

Boy, what an awkward conversation that went nowhere. It ended with me looking at my drumset across the field and saying, “What in the world could that be?!” and walking away. Stupid Act#3 (he actually bought it).

The evening got darker and drunker and that’s when the temporary crippled guy (broken leg) comes hobbling up to dance in front of the band with all of the surburbanite moms and their fake breasts. He decided that he was going to dance without his crutches.

Years ago, I broke both my ankles (one per year for two consecutive years). I had a cast and I was on crutches. The crippled manual usually explicitly delineates that dancing is not part of the package when you get a cast on your leg, but that didn’t stop El Moron.

Stupid Acts number four through seven: crippled guy falls onto to his face four times in a matter of 15 minutes. One time he actually falls face first into the band monitor. Had I been more attuned to the situation, I would have placed my bet on this guy to fall way before I saw him dancing.

A big shout out to Big Mike (an old friend of the band) who managed to get a cripple chant going in the crowd. I don't know how he did it, but I swear that guy says the funniest things in every situation.

There were too many stupid acts to spin yarn about, but suffice it to say, DJ Dave made another appearance behind my drumkit for the same Lynard Skynard song. When he got up he asked me if I had any drumsticks that weren’t chewed up..to wehich I replied that I could run to the car and get some for him…and would he like any coffee while I'm out? He didn't get the joke.

Another guy who was standing on stage behind the drumkit all night was drunk enough to approach me during the last set. As is customary in these predicaments, I needed a distraction to keep the drunk guy away from the drumkit while I was playing.

While still playing the song with one arm, I quickly reached out and gave him a drumstick and motioned to get him started on the cowbell. He figured it out and started hitting the cowbell with wild reckless abandon. It was a sight to see.

As the cowbell hardware on the stand began to give way because of a wingnut that was loose, he contorted his drunken body first into an awkward crouched position, then onto his knees to continue playing the cowbell in this new angled state.

I saw he was in trouble (felt bad for his back and knees), so I took the cowbell off of the stand and handed it to him where he continued to play the thing on his knees. I motioned to him that he could stand up and then the look had taken hold of him.

You know the look. The moment when you realize you’re doing something so stupid that you could only be…ummm… shitfaced? That was the moment. He had realized he was so drunk that he was playing cowbell on his knees on stage in front of his wife, kids and friends.

Carpe Diem… he seized the day. He got off his knees and turned bright red. It was the end of his cowbell playing career. Bruce Dickinson and the band members of Blue Oyster Cult would be so disappointed.

Humans Typically Have 32 Adult Teeth

2004-09-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

I’m finding that I don’t like the places that we play anymore. I guess that just comes from playing the same places over and over again. But I’ve also noticed that when I don’t drink actively, as was the case at Kites last night, my disdain grows for the venue from every obstacle that the band or the drummer faces during the course of the night.

Maybe the title of this blog should be called Reasons For Hating The Places We Play. I’m not sure, but I know that getting my negativity out on this blog is a lot better than taking it out on my Sig-Ot or hamster. One thing was definitely for sure last night, The Admiral was in a great mood for the first time at a gig in a LONG time because Dickboy wasn’t playing with us, but that’s another story.

One of the reasons I hate playing Kites is the fact that it ALWAYS rains when we play there. It’s almost as sure as the Farmer’s Almanac for predicting weather. Plus, it’s in the middle of nowhere in Vernon, NJ, or more commonly known as The Land of No Teeth, and trekking through the mountains in pouring rain on winding roads is not my idea of a fun ride at dusk.

For drummers like me who unload their drums using the convertible method, the constant rain at Kites presents a pain in the ass scenario. For those who have never seen the ritual, I’m sure it looks quite funny. I pull up to the venue as close to a stage entrance as possible in a white 1997 Toyota Celica Convertible GT coupe. Not the size of a vehicle you would expect from a guy with almost the most equipment in the band.

There’s usually people around the outside of the club who get to see me pop the roof, and start to unload drums and hardware at a frenzied pace and then retract the roof to its original position. In the summer when there’s good weather, the roof is down for the whole trip so there’s less ritual time needed.

People stare, point and laugh, but the simple fact is that I hate SUV’s and I know how to utilize every ounce of car space that I can to achieve my goals. Kind of like a covertible-drum-Tetris game. They can laugh all they want, but I get the last laugh watching them on the dance floor make complete asses out of themselves as they fall and request Pearl Jam, sometimes simultaneously.

After finally getting my equipment in the building, up to the second floor restaurant/club and set up, I had cause to celebrate because I was to play two feet away from a large screen television with the Yankee game tuned in.

Most other people watch sporting events with a bowl of chips, some beer and a group of friends. I find that pounding the drums is a good release when you’re pissed that Mo is giving up walks in the ninth to let the Red Sox come from behind to win the game, not to mention Lofton showing his worth by dropping a game winning out. That’s the kind of thing that turns a light song like Laid (by James) into a heavier and spirited epic with errant cymbal crashes and banging at every repetition.

I spend most of my weekends watching good sporting events while on-stage. Some club owners see me watching the game and they get upset or bust my balls by purposely by putting on a Mets game instead of the Yankee game. It’s not hard to recognize my team affiliation since I usually wear a Yankee batting practice jersey when I play on stage, or a Syracuse shirt during college hoops season (my two favorite sports).

The top five obstacles in my path that turned my mood lackluster last night:

The pouring rain and scary drive.
The two-floor hike to load-in and out with broken wheels on my hardware bag. (My back hates me already)
The Yankees losing in the ninth. (‘Nuff said)
Managers who make the band do “announcements.”
Stupid people.

The last two items on the list really made me laugh. We’ll start with the Manager of the bar, a zealous and overachieving kid who probably got the job because he was hell bent on being the best damn busboy he could possibly be, and subsequently rose all the way up the ladder. By gum, he’s a hard working kid.

He wears an oversized navy blazer with a nameplate in the way that screams hospitality employee. It’s clearly his first time in a position of authority and it reminds of the scene in This Is Spinal Tap where Fred Willard is the Air Force Colonel who scheduled the band to play the dance without understanding the complexity of booking a band.

When he handed our singer two handwritten pages of announcements in the middle of the first set, I was already annoyed because I was going to have to concentrate (albeit, mildly) on something other than the Yankee game to my direct left. As we brought the band volume down to give way to the announcements, they seemed to go on forever, droning in the way that an eleventh grade English class sounds when your teacher reads Ethan Frome to you, or more to the point, at you.

The manager stood close to the singer as he read, as if to indicate he was forcing him to go on with the notification of every special night on the calendar for the next two months, including the grand re-opening of Kites as a new bar called, “Cornucopia.”

Hmmm… I couldn’t figure out what was more stupid, the fact that they were changing the bar’s name to a five syllable word (five syllable words and Tequila don’t mix), or that the manager was actually pointing and motioning our singer to read the back of the page after already reading 4 minutes of announcements.

As our singer turned the page and exclaimed, “Holy Shit,” into the microphone at the sight of another page of announcements, I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore. I let a belly buster out louder than the band’s stage volume (and it felt good).

Cornucopia?! They named the fucking bar, Cornucopia?! Maybe they should have named the bar Umbrellas because it always fucking rains there when we play. Either way, it was going to be a tough spell for their patrons who had succeeded in showing off their 1980s fashion sense of pumps, bad gunt jeans and layered hair. This place is a meat market for women who idolized Madonna in 1986 but still wear big white grandma underwear. They dance with wild abandon for class and at times, wear clothes not meant for women of their..umm...girth.

The positive highlight of the evening was an older gentleman who got up and sang Stevie Ray Vaughn’s Pride and Joy with poise and pastiche. He had the ass shake, a little two step dance and a great voice. Hats off to George for kicking my ass and being a really nice guy with a great stage presence at 65.

As The Admiral and I laid bets on who was going to be the fall victim of the night, we had our pick of the litter. There was definitely competition since Vernon regulars tend to be frequenters of the Big and Tall shops of the area as well as heavy drinkers.

There was a guy in a bandana that only yelled and whooped…no words. During the set breaks, he tried desperately to perpetuate a conversation of whooping and yelling with every member of the group. We couldn’t escape him. It was like Jerry Lewis was on acid and following us.

There were a lot of nice people, too, and a few who bought us drinks. It was a weird mix of people, but the absence of teeth was noticeable. More importantly, the absence of DICKBOY was definitely a positive!

That’s right, no keyboard player. No screeching out of tune saxophone. No smarmy womanizing from the stage right den of iniquity. No feedback in the speakers. And most importantly, no fucking Billy Joel. It was a good night after all.

Liberty

2004-09-12T09:25:00.000-04:00

Saturday, September 11, 2004. The third anniversary of a pretty shitty day in anyone’s book. To mark this occasion, I had a double gig arranged for my drumming pleasure. First a gig with Wigjam at an outdoor tribute festival in River Edge, NJ, and then later on with Overboard at Pub 46 in Clifton, NJ.

I love playing in Grateful Dead cover bands, and I was excited for this gig because it was the first time in years that I was to be part of a double-drummer setup. I even hesitate saying cover band because I got my head chewed off by a guitarist in The Homel-Alaniz Band for once describing the band as a Grateful Dead cover band. (We played six originals)

The truth is, it’s really not a cover band. Bands that never play the same set and usually have a jam that defines the song rather than a chorus can’t really be covered in a true sense. Your own jam defines the song, so there’s no rehearsal involved for the improvisation that drives the character of the song.

Well, now that I think about it, that point is not really valid…you’re still covering the song and singing the words, but you still don’t call Joshua Redman’s band a cover band when he plays standards, do you? Humor me…I got yelled at once.

The day was already falling into that Drummers Always Get the Shit End of the Stick kind of theme that usually accompanies a double-drummer setup. In any gig situation, there are three things that the drummer NEVER gets:

Laid (from audience girls at least)
A clear path to their drumset or enough room on-stage because of a maze of moronic amplifier placement and obstacles
A decent monitor setup where they can hear themselves or anyone else on stage.

The first item may seem like the most important one, but it’s truly the latter two that can ruin an evening or kill your entire performance.

Oh, and if you don’t believe the first part about getting laid, ask any drummer if he gets some ass from being a drummer. For some reason, chicks can’t get past the guitar player. That’s why keyboard players (as Frank Zappa has said) wear those stupid dork-ass keyboard/guitar things from the Duran Duran Mesozoic era. My girlfriend has at least some comfort in understanding this law of nature for drummers. If she were dating a guitar player, she might worry. By the way, we didn’t meet at a gig, if you’re wondering.

The second problem for drummers, as I alluded above, is the moronic propensity for people on-stage to set up their amplifiers (usually towering six feet in the air) in front of the drummer in a line extending to the right and left of the kit, leaving just enough room to see the drummer’s face from a direct straight line in the audience.

This, of course, means that the drummer can’t make eye contact with anyone on-stage, nor transit to and from his kit without crawling and becoming a contortion artist. More importantly, it also means that it is impossible to hear anything without a drum monitor. Which leads nicely to the last and final mother of all problems for drummers on-stage.

The Drummer ALWAYS Gets Fucked When It Comes to Monitors.

I could explain this all day, but the point is that when you’re playing in a band, you need to hear everybody, including yourself. Without a monitor and being BEHIND the amplifiers (the direction not necessarily designed for listening to a speaker) makes it difficult to perform as a drummer unless you’ve mastered the art of reading guitar players’ fingers (which I have) or can listen faintly to the sounds of other stage monitors far off in the distance (which I learned from playing in a drumline in the Carrier Dome with a two second delay).

The practice of reading fingers and mastering echo chambers is not acceptable for singing and hearing yourself in a professional setting. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t attempt to sing on-stage in rock bands, because I know that no matter how much I practice, when I get to the gig I won’t be able to hear myself from a lack of monitors, so why sell everyone short? I just say, “Nope. I don’t sing.”

So, for the Wigjam gig with the other drummer, we were relying on the sound company to have a competent setup and enough microphones for two drummers. I know from experience that this NEVER works out, but the band was hopeful. Since I had another gig later in the evening, I had asked that the sound company provide a kit for me, and the other drummer was going to bring his.

The stage had a kit available-- a red and peeling 1970 Rogers kit with the original heads from Muscara Music Drum and Cymbal Annex in Belleville, NJ, where I had purchased my blue sparkle kit in 1981 when I was seven. There were no monitors for the drums and very little microphones. What made this worse was that the other drummer sang, so he definitely needed a monitor. I’m always determined to be professional and prepared to dig in to make the best of the situation.

We got through the gig as best we could. There was some hissy-fit throwing on-stage about the setup (which made me feel uncomfortable) and some swapping of drum mics and it worked out. The overall experience of the gig was not as fun as it should have been because of these sound unpleasantries and the fact that I couldn’t hear anyone at all, including myself. I ghosted it, as I’ve been known to do to get through the gig with a professional attitude.

As it approached 8:30, I scooted off the stage during the last Wigjam song as the second drummer carried the torch. This was planned because everyone in the band knew my double gig situation. I jumped in my car with my drums still loaded from earlier in the day, jetted to the second gig and quickly setup in a cramped space at Pub 46, where the drummer is actually forced to use a stage exit door like an escape hatch because of the latter two points in my list of things Drummers Never Get.

You know it’s a stupid gig when every time you finish a set you get carded for ID to get back into the club because the bouncers don’t believe that you just exited the building from an emergency hatch stagedoor and re-entered from the front entrance. This is a pretty funny ritual and usually I show them drumsticks or something musician-like to remind them that their stage sucks ass and that I just came from inside the club.

The Pub 46 gig was uneventful, kind of leaving a feeling that I didn’t break even on the day at all. I was tired and the only saving grace is that we had to be off-stage by 1:30AM for town noise ordinances. Yay! That’s an early night if we get paid fast (which never happens).

But as we were ending the last song for the second time (Pub 46 crowds have a habit of chanting, “One More Song!” for sport at the end of a night), the singer wished a quick and tasteful, “God Bless America” to everyone to remember what the day should have been about.

I don’t think his intention was to force everyone into a pensive 911 grief stare, nor did people actually do that at 1:30AM in a bar in Clifton, but it made me think as I was packing up that maybe it was good that I had distractions all day forcing me not to think about the crap that happened three years ago.

It was then that I remembered earlier in the day at the Wigjam gig that we had played a special request. There is a song called Liberty that the Grateful Dead didn’t play very often, and one kid in the audience years ago used to ask for it all the time. The kid had died and his friends asked us to play it as a tribute. We planned and played it for the first time that day and there were people in the front row crying... obviously friends of the guy. It had finally occurred to me at 2AM that the guy was probably killed three years ago in the towers.

I hope he heard the song the way his friends did. It was the best thing that we did that day.

The Man Who Rhymed Too Much

2004-09-11T14:32:00.000-04:00

As promised…whenever I don’t have a gig scheduled (very rare for a weekend), I’ll play a previous episode. There are lots of stories to draw from, and if you have requests, please send them my way. I’d be happy to oblige. Or if you’d like, just comment after the stories. I enjoy hearing what you have to say.

And now…back to our regularly scheduled re-run.

The Liquid Lounge in 1990s Hoboken, NJ.

It’s tough to describe the ambiance of a now-defunct bar that was once my playground but has gone the way of the Dodo, pull-tab soda cans and The Great Space Coaster. Every once in a while I have a craving for that artistic and expressive atmosphere that forged a few stories and memories. I even remember it being a first-date for a few people in our inner circle of friends.

It wasn’t so much the metal lunchboxes and 1970s memorabilia lining the wallshelves, nor the ability for their bartenders to make great Red Devils, which is a rare find. What hit the spot about this place (now called The Goldhawk) were the regulars who showed up each night.

The majority of regulars at the Liquid Lounge were the last vestige of Hoboken natives who grew up in the economically depressed birthplace of Frank Sinatra during the early 1980s. They were witnessing their town's economic rebound from an influx of yuppies and NYC commuters in the 1990s. They watched with a bitter and angry resentment.

Musicians like Mike Ill and Rivka showed up for open mic jams on Tuesday nights as well as a variety of poetry hounds and amateur lounge acts. There was little of the Hobokenite drunk mating scene at this bar that typically migrates to shore bars during the summer and Vermont ski houses in the winter. This migratory behavior is referenced in many other stories…so keep reading the blog for examples.

While I was struggling to find a band to call home in the late 1990s. I wandered the streets of open mic’s in search of a few talented musicians to start a project where I could be happy and expressive. I soon realized that the non-national music scene in the greater Metropolitan NY area was (and still is) a vast wilderness of polar opposites…either cover bands playing Creed, or original bands playing drivel.

After regrouping with some displaced Syracuse musicians in NJ/NY, we began a little musical collective called The Fred Mertz Situation. FMS’s only goal was to play out and explore new venues. We didn’t really have a setlist…it was more of a jam band weaving in and out of standards. That’s how we ended up being the house band for a month at the Liquid Lounge’s Open Mic Tuesdays, hosted by legendary Mike Latch.

The etymology of The Fred Mertz Situation:
Thanks in part to Steven Wright and LGIII…it’s the feeling that you get when you’re leaning back on your chair and you’re just about to fall, but you catch yourself at the last minute and bring the chair back to secure status.

That’s a Fred Mertz Situation.

We also thought it was funny because anyone at a gig who knew the character Fred Mertzfrom I Love Lucy would immediately be welcome to a conversation. Those who didn’t know the identity of the naughty neighbor downstairs were treated like infidels at a guarded gate. It was kind of a secret password.

The host of the open mic, Mike Latch, was a tall and lanky guy who spoke a little in rhyme and a little in insults. He was a charmer with a deep, and at times, nasal voice that crooned ladies and poked fun at any male with a dim wit in the immediate vicinity. He ran the open mic with a genuine interest in artistic expression and spent a good deal of enthusiasm in easing people out of their poetry or musical fears and getting them up onstage. He had the best introduction for a band:

And now…the musical stylings of …The… Fred… Mertz… Situation.

I wish I had that introduction sampled, because his nasal and low voice was the single most defining characteristic of those nights. Acts would be interspersed throughout a few of our jams to keep things moving. Mike did his best to keep the night lively and had a good idea of who would show up during the course of the evening so he’d give us the high sign to keep playing or would jump up on stage and work with us to coax people up there.

There were some acts that needed no coaxing. Confidence truly was their middle name. There were guys like Michigan Jackson, who was a retired gym teacher that rode a bike from his Hoboken apartment to the bar each Tuesday and would belt out his poetic tales of driving a cab in New York City during the day to meet and experience interesting people.

There was Michelle the amateur lounge act, who looked like a larger version of the short paranormal psychic in Poltergeist who tells Carol Ann to go into the light. (Wasn’t she referred to as the Magic Munchkin by Craig T. Nelson?) Michelle would get up every open mic night and sing Moondance (Van the Man), but she slurred her words to the extreme. It sounded like what would happen if Roseanne Bar tried to sing the National Anthem again, this time on a regiment of ludes and Bourbon.

By the way, as an FYI, they don’t make Quaaludes anymore and it’s not called Bourbon if it ain’t made in Kentucky (then it’s just sour mash).

Then… there was Alexander the Poet.

If you’ve seen Alexander the Poet, you know that there is ABSOLUTELY no fucking way to explain both…HIM…and the effect that he has on his audience. The lights go a little dim and the crowd hushes as Mike Latch begins to stare at the audience to ease them into silence. This setup is the ultimate contrast for what comes next.

A tape begins to play over the bar speakers. At first, you’re not quite sure what this low moaning may be. Is it a woman moaning? Maybe it’s a …

While you’re trying to figure out what the hell is coming through the speakers, Alexander emerges. He arrives in a black tuxedo jacket, tight leather pants, an open chest white ruffled blouse exposing grease marks, and brandishing a rose. Long brown hair slightly curly (and a touch sweaty) is in his face as he eyes his audience like prey. He looks for the woman he will bestow the guts and joy of his poetry on, and finally he locks in on an unsuspecting and often very accompanied hottie.

The poetry begins as he leads up to the offering of the rose. Here’s an excerpt of an actual set of stanzas taken from Alexander the Poet’s website:

When a hot girl bends over,
She knows just what to expect
She looks over her shoulder,
And sees a cock so erect!

She then prepares to be hurt,
She then prepares for the pain
In the end, the cock will squirt
Hence this much, I can explain!

It is that moment that you realize, the sound on the speakers is of whales making love. It’s also the moment that you start looking around the room to see the abject shock on everyone’s face. Except, of course for Mike Latch, whose smile is beaming. He never laughs, just muses to himself through a smile.

All kinds of people got up to jam with the band during our month-long tenure. There was a big older bouncer who looked just like Jim Davis (hat and all) who would get up and play a mean guitar. He loved jamming on Fly like An Eagle (Steve Miller or Seal, take your pick).

A few of those nights we had a guest violinist who thought it was appropriate get riled up on valium and lots of liquor and screech at the top of his lungs. That was a crowd pleaser.

There was also Emilio, an incredible guitar player who had just gotten out of the joint and would rip Hot for Teacher. He told us stories of jail life and how he learned to play guitar there. There were some piano player debutantes, and all sorts of karaoke flies looking for a backup band.

The mystique of the Liquid Lounge Open Mic Tuesdays were great, but ended too soon one August night when Mike Latch announced that he was “going away” and had to spend time somewhere where he didn’t want to go.

We could only imagine where it was that he was going. New Orleans, as he had talked about many times? Jail, maybe? I once walked into the bathroom to find him and one of the other regulars inspecting some olfactory powder with reckless abandon, so a possession charge wouldn’t be out of the question.

It didn’t matter where he was going… it was the end of an era. The famed bar would soon transform into a wasteland of Hoboken yuppy overgrowth and be sold to less progressive owners in the next year. There was never any good parking anyway…

The last thing I remember about Mike Latch was his scolding of the audience very late in the evening at his going-away party Tuesday Open Mic:

“Alright, I’m really fucking pissed off. Who’s the douchebag who shit in the fucking sink, man. That’s fucking low, man.”

Veil of Anonymity

2004-09-06T13:50:00.000-04:00

Surreal events tend to creep up on people, especially those who are unsuspecting a surreal State-of-the-Rod-Serling event . For instance, sometimes you just don’t expect people to behave the way that they will (myself included) when they've had a few drinks or are acting like they’ve had too many.

As an aside, the Drunk Act thing is really funny. Once in college, we had a party with two kegs of beer. The keg in the front room was of O’Douls non-alcoholic beer and the secret keg on the back porch was of Killian’s or something else alcoholic.

All of the males at the party drank from the secret keg and all of the ladies (unsuspecting) drank from the O’Douls without knowing the brand or sterility of the beverage. It was amazing how many drunk ladies were at the party that night, acting exactly the same as if they had been drinking a case of Coronas or a fifth of vodka. Placebo Beer-Goggling is the funniest because it verifies the dark side of human nature for both sexes.

Anyway, you can't be in someone’s head all of the time and predict how they’re going to react when they’ve been drinking. As a musician performing on-stage, the ubiquitous gig offers a unique perspective that couldn’t be rivaled if you had a thousand cameras, Big Brother style, monitoring every corner of the bar to find the surrealist of moments.

Years ago, I came up with a theory called the Veil of Anonymity. It works for many different situations regarding human behavior, but I figured it out while playing a dive bar in Binghamton, NY called, New Cheers.

According to one guy I know, Binghamton is the incest capital of the Northeast. I haven’t verified the truth to that claim, but the real crux of the story is that I was playing New Cheers one night when a couple who was at the lip of the stage in front of the crowd began to…well… get it on.

I’ve previously mentioned my stomach girth. I have the ability to avoid being grossed out by most things, but this was something that scarred my memory and possibly mental development for life. There were two things that I couldn’t figure out about the incident:

If this couple was brother and sister...
If they really thought that the band wasn’t directly in front of them watching as the guy was unbuttoning her pants and doing the diddle-deed.

I would imagine that they thought that no one behind them in the crowd could see what was going on, but I’ve come to understand that people discount the band on-stage when they’re drunk. Almost as if they’re watching a movie on a screen directly in front of them and the stage is not real but a suspension of their disbelief. In classic Homel-Alaniz Band fashion, nobody said anything about the incident after the show (they hadn’t spoken to each other in 15 years), but I was visibly freaked.

That was my first encounter with the Veil of Anonymity.

Flash forward to last night at the Tropical Pub. We closed out our Labor Day weekend extravaganza at the Trop (my favorite gig to loathe, for those who don’t remember) and it was a last ditch attempt for beer-goggling idiots to get drunk, get stupid and hookup with someone they didn’t remember hooking up with two weeks before.

There were the usual Trop Flop women dancing on-stage, and stupidity by Dickboy. He managed to turn his monitor up so loud that we couldn’t hear either of the two lead guitarists (both playing at top volume) over his keyboard. To make things worse, during I Believe in a Thing Called Love (The Darkness) he managed to turn his microphone directly into the Front-of-House (FOH) speakers sending feedback through the spine of everyone in a 2-mile radius.

As the night drew to a close, I caught a glimpse of the Veil of Anonymity starting to take effect…almost like someone was lowering the curtain in front of us so that people couldn’t see the band and started to feel each other up.

I spied a husky girl getting her ass felt up by a guy as she was lowered onto the subwoofers on-stage. As it turns out, she was wearing a black thong that he was tugging at, and I was laughing hysterically as The Admiral (bass player) was stuck with this display of Darwinism right in front of him. He couldn’t escape it and I couldn’t help but laugh at him as he winced in pain from both the mating frenzy and the Bon Jovi song we were forced to play.

That’s when it happened.

Right at the front of the stage, a dancing couple moved into position at the lip of the stage. I recognized the all-too familiar look of The Veil when nothing else exists around them. They started kissing and groping each other and stumbling. Carnal things began to happen in front of the band and I chuckled for a second wondering if they would remember the incident later because of their extreme drunkenness. I even mused for a second that this short petite woman might be a candidate for the drunken fall of the night when it struck me.

This woman looked familiar. Too familiar. Nah. Can’t be. Holy Shit. No fucking way!

In late 2000, I left a job as a Production Manager to start another job at different company. I realized that this was the woman who had worked as my peer on the team and had worked very closely on projects and budgeting. She eventually took my place as Manager of the department that I had led. I was in shock. No, actually not really, but I had no one to share this revelatory moment with, so shock was a good substitute.

It took me a while to shatter all of those professional images I had remembered about her and the work we had accomplished while on the same team, but a few seconds later after the memories had faded, she had demonstrated through more grotesque behavior that this was a caricature of that professional person that I knew. Wow, this was funny and priceless.

She started scanning the stage with her eyes… really getting into the music (I believe it was Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations). I wondered how long it would take her to realize who I was and what her reaction would be.

The moment was close. I stared at her while playing the song with a grin that says, “Boy, do I know something you don’t know!” She continued to look at LSD, then Dickboy, then the singer. It was only a matter of time before she came across my overt stare and grin. Wait for it… wait for it….

WHAM! Our eyes locked. The head tilted slightly. The furrowed brow, and then the words, “Oh my god!” were coming out of her inaudible lips. There was one faint second of doubt in her mind, and that’s when I hit her with it…hard.

I just started smiling and nodding at her until she realized not only was she right, but I knew also.

It was the tip of the sword acknowledging the situation.

The moment had landed. The jig was up. I had caught her moments after she was hooking up with a perfect stranger on a dance floor at 2AM in a bar far far away from her professional desk, her professional phone, her professional e-mail, and her professional Ann Taylor suitpants.

Yup. Caught.

The epilogue to this moment was anti-climactic. At the end of the night (ten minutes later and ten minutes too long), she stumbled on-stage as we were breaking down our equipment and started a conversation that consisted of six rounds of “What’s Up” and “How’ve you Been’s.” The only difference between her speech and mine was that I used verbs and didn’t slur like I’d been in a pool of vodka for three hours.

Way to go, kid. Way to shine.

Friends of AM Radio

2004-09-06T13:16:00.000-04:00

It takes a lot to gross me out. I can stomach watching Fear Factor, although I wouldn’t want to be a contestant. I can handle various bouts of refrigerator experiments, and the sight of “exotic” canned goods like pig’s feet and coconut balls. I can even handle a picture of Oprah Winfrey in spandex (as I once saw years ago in high school and prominently taped to the window of a hotel that we were frequenting for a class trip). But I sincerely can’t cope with watching our Dickboy keyboard player hookup on stage with unsuspecting drunk women who think he’s cute.

It happens all of the time and I really can’t understand what these poor women see in him. Is it the jiggling overweight stomach when he dances to his own goofy piano lines? Is it the allure of his eye contact as he scans each “broad” in the audience from the waist up until he meets their eyes? Maybe the magic happens when he puts that special Geekman Deluxe sax strap on his neck and starts to puff out his fat cheeks like a blowfish. I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I just feel pity for the women who have to live with themselves after they…talk to him.

The best way to describe the way Dickboy looks is to take one of those big white pear-shaped Shmoo dolls that kids used to use as a punchdoll in psychology experiments and pin a shoulder length brown-hair pony tail to its head. Oh, don’t forget to throw a green camouflage mesh tank top over the pear-shaped belly and a really big watch on its arm and you’ve got yourself a Dickboy. Make sure that the watch is big enough so that either Flavor Flav would get an erection or you could launch a NASA rocket off of it.

(Editor’s Note for the 1980s impaired- Flavor Flav was the guy from Public Enemy who wore a gold chain clock around his neck…remember?)

One other characteristic to describe Dickboy (as I’ve mentioned before but no one believes that the word exists) is Smarmy. Definition:

Smarmy
adj : unpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; "buttery praise"; "gave him a fulsome introduction"; "an oily sycophantic press agent"; "oleaginous hypocrisy"; "smarmy self-importance"; "the unctuous Uriah Heep"

Wow, I like all of those words to describe Dickboy…and there’s even a band name in there. Bonus.

So anyway, Saturday at Marina Grille was a continuation of the previous night’s stupidity at the same venue. It was all part of the Labor Day weekend extravaganza for “Summer 2004.”

(Another Editor’s Note, whenever the word Summer followed by a year is uttered out loud in a microphone in a NJ shore bar, you immediately have to imagine kettle drums and an orchestra doing a regal flourish to celebrate the awesomeness of the shore scene…at least according to our singer.)

Highlights of the previous night (besides the magic of Musical Sign Language and my blacking out during the 3rd set) included:

A coaching speech from a guy named Ken behind me while I was playing Panama who offered a pitcher of Scotch and motivational screams
A Welcome Back to the Earth Party for a couple whose been holed up in their house since their last daughter was born 4 years ago
and the arrival of all of Dickboy’s Summer 2004 overnight conquests at the bar all at the same time.

Boy, it was a sight to see. Not only was his high school sweetheart there (the girlfriend we all really liked but he treated like ass and “sort of” broke up with for the summer), but also the two fuck buddies that he commiserated with over the summer. An interesting thing about the two fuck buddies—they had a threesome with him one night a few months ago and didn’t acknowledge each other’s presence in the bar. That alone was priceless. Dickboy was sweating but he tried not to show it. I loved every second of it.

One thing I can say about Dickboy is that he is an equal opportunity womanizer. He has no discretion and it wouldn’t matter if you had leprosy or were missing a nose, he would still try to get into your pants and ignore you the next day. If you were missing a nose, he’d chalk it up to charity because who else would do the deed with a noseless woman? Call in Dickboy, to the rescue.

The two fuck buddies were not the most attractive of human beings. I guess the only requirement for Dickboy is to have something in common with his women, a deep infatuation with…Dickboy.

I don’t usually eat out after gigs, but the night of the fateful Gathering, I accompanied the three of them and LSD (guitar player) to a Diner after the gig to watch the encounter unfold. They were both pursuing him that night as they jockeyed and groped him under the table. I was curious to see which portly and disgusting woman he would choose at the end of the night. He couldn’t decide, so he took them both home.

The total weight of that encounter must have taxed the support frames of both the condemned house they were shacking up in and the poor bed, which probably didn’t last the night.

The rest of that Saturday at Marina Grille was upbeat and fun. A typical gig with little of the extraordinary occurrences that have marked this summer. No naked women, no falling. Oh wait, yeah... there was falling.

At Marina Grille the stage is setup where you really can’t fall on to the stage from the audience unless you try very hard. A drunk guy stood at the stage entrance towards the end of the night watching the band and leaned against the support column. He was harmless, at least until he passed out and fell onto the mixing board. The cat like reflexes of the bouncer right next to him were stunning as he watched the whole thing unfold and looked at me until 20 seconds later I said, “Umm…he’s not in the band, can you get him off the stage, please?”

I didn’t really say that… but that was the polite gist. It really sounded like, “whoa whoa whoa WHOA! HEY! What the fuck?!”

The ride home that night was a pleasant change from the typical tired 3AM retreat to a home that is neither smoky, nor loud. My girlfriend was with me as we chatted and giggled and I introduced her to my friends of AM radio. Adam on The Fan who is a Syracuse graduate and Yankee fan (two plusses), Art Bell and his alien conspiracies on WABC, and the choreographed broadcasts of 1010 WINS to stay up to the minute on traffic 70 miles away. Thanks to those friends, I’m able to stay awake and make the long journey home every night after a gig. A big shout out to my friends! Without them, I wouldn't have a homing beacon.

Musical Sign Language

2004-09-05T17:15:00.000-04:00

There’s a lot of shit that happens on when you’re on-stage. I’m not entirely sure how much of it is picked up by the audience. But I know that there’s a bond between musicians through unspoken and non-verbal communication (yes, the two are mutually exclusive).

For instance, when I used to go see Phish a lot in between 1991-5, I was one of the few who wouldn’t smoke up or take part in the mind altering elements wandering the parking lot in dreadlock receptacles. The reason I stayed relatively unaltered was so that I could see the impromptu communication on-stage between the musicians and analyze how they would be able to perform with such spontaneity and musical fluidity without using words to communicate next steps or ideas. They used signals, motions, nods and facial expressions (Non-Verbal Communication). Over the years, I’ve encountered this style in most of the bands I’ve played.

I enjoyed my first real lesson in unspoken communication through playing with The Homel-Alaniz Band, who truly pioneered the art by not actually speaking to each other for 15 years. There was no set list planned and they consistently used to fight over the next song by playing licks and changing keys during the current song to set up and initiate the next song.

Non-verbal and unspoken communication on-stage are two of the biggest reasons that I enjoy collaborating on-stage so much. You never know what the other musicians are going to interpret from a wink, a nod, an eyebrow movement or getting hit in the head with my Teva. Sometimes, the alcohol from the night can catch up to you and you can easily be misunderstood while trying to communicate. Or worse, you could forget that you’re not communicating at all and just go someplace at the befuddlement of the bass player.

Friday night at the Marina Grille was the first of a two-night gig. Usually for an extended weekend like Memorial Day Weekend or Labor Day weekend, we play two nights in one shore bar, and Sunday night nearby at another bar. This Labor Day Weekend, we had two nights at Marina Grille and one at The Trop Flop.

As Friday’s set got under way, there was not much out of the ordinary going on. We arrived, set up on a cramped and poorly designed stage, and promptly made fun of the owner’s taste in ridiculous plaid polo shirts. He’s a good sport who usually tries to get us back by busting our balls about our so-called, “long breaks.”

My girlfriend was in attendance that night (which was fun) and since we weren’t driving home that night (motel across the street), I had no limit set on my liver. For good measure, she parked her car across the street and we were pedestrian-bound. The sky was the limit and I had only my increasing torpor to stop me from making a drunken ass of myself.

By the third set, I was a mess. I started to daydream about Ginger Baker and the board they used to strap him to when he played drums for Cream in a state of intoxication envied by Churchill and Hemingway. Beats were missed, sticks went flying at Dickboy, but most importantly, I was in control of my decisions…so I proved.

Unprecedented in the history of my playing in bar bands, the band I was playing in decided to play Freebird at the behest of a screaming Dirty White Hat (DWH) in the audience. I decided to strategically head off the incident with a, dare I say, smart move. I was going to skip ahead to the fast double-time part of the song at the end… this would accomplish two things:

Decrease the amount of torture for everyone on-stage by skipping ahead and keeping the song shorter, and
Keep the song up-tempo and give everyone a reason not to leave.

It was a good plan, except for the fact that I forgot to tell everyone in the band with my finely honed non-verbal communication skills. I guess the Johnny Walker Black got in the way and as The Admiral and our singer were motioning for me to play half-time, I kept on pounding double time while glaring a look of disgust at them both for not just going to the latter half of the song. I was pissed at them and they knew it. Eventually, I gave in, but boy did I show them… those assholes.

I later remembered what I did during my slumber that night and actually woke up laughing and hoping they would understand my mistake. I can't imagine what was going through their heads as I played the wrong tempo and glared at them like they were Martians or, worse yet, Mormons. Lesson learned: drink more scotch and play everything slower.

Let's Make A Deal

2004-09-05T15:58:00.001-04:00

The first rule in playing in a band is don’t crap your pants while you’re on stage. It’s not the toughest rule to adhere to, but every now and then you come dangerously close to breaking that rule…especially when you’ve just arrived back in the states from visiting Mexico for more than a week.

The second rule is don’t expect people to show up at a gig that you can’t find yourself.

Such was the case last Saturday for our first gig at Capers, a lounge inside the Holiday Inn on Route 46 East in Wayne, NJ. Our Dickhead agent set us up yet again. He's built a reputation in our hearts over two years as the jerk who cons us into bad nights and less money. This night was no exception, at least, that's what I thought up front.

So, a Holiday Inn on State Route 46 sounds easy enough to get to, right? Wrong. The hotel is on a service road that is only accessible if you have:

carefully crafted directions
Global Positioning Devices
one of those talking dashboard computers that sounds like HAL 3000’s girlfriend
and a burning desire to get to fucking Capers.

All of which, I certainly did not have.

After playing Lewis and Clark and driving around U-turn after U-turn, I finally arrived where everyone was just as pissed off as I was. Quickly, I realized that if I couldn’t find the place, who the hell else was going to be there? We loaded to an empty bar where the huge sub-woofers on stage were BLASTING bad dance music.

Now, I like dance music. In fact, I like a lot of dance music. I think it’s the mark of a good drummer to recognize the power of dance music and bring out a dance beat when you have to get the crowd going. But this was bad stuff crushing our ears as we trudged through setting up the stage. I kept getting the feeling that I was either stuck in a hell-like virtual tour of Greece with accompanying soundtrack or exiled to an Amsterdam shoe store for penance.

More curiously after I finished setting up and tried to perform Upward Dog yoga to improve the pain in my lower back, I watched our singer go through his annual ritual of scrubbing down all of his wires and cables with rubbing alcohol. I’ll write about that ridiculousness another time, but for now just laugh with me.

The room stayed empty until around 10. Whenever a room is that empty, that late, it’s a pretty good indication that the gig is going to be a rough night for the bar, and subsequently for the band. More to the point, the owner is most likely going to throw a fit at the end of the night because we didn’t “bring” anyone. Here’s the typical end-of-night conversation between the bar owner and band leader when the room is empty:

Bandleader: We’re all packed up.
Bar Owner: Yep. Not a great night tonight.
Bandleader: Well, maybe next time we can get some more word out. Do you guys advertise at all?
Bar Owner: Next time?! You didn’t bring anyone this time. The place was dead. Pat Roddy always brings people!
Bandleader: Well, these things happen on first nights. Our crowd eases into a new place.
Bar Owner: Well, we didn’t make enough to cover the night so I can only pay you $100.
Bandleader: That’s not what we agreed… I can’t leave here without $500.
Bar Owner: OK… Just make sure to lock up when you leave. Here’s your 100 bucks.

I’m sure that if you ask anyone who leads a band, they’ve been through a variation of the aforementioned dialogue. It’s not fun and it happens consistently to bands trying to break into a new market when the word is not out. In an effort to avoid such conversations, experienced bandleaders force the question before the night has begun.

The typical scenario is the bandleader approaches the bar owner and sells a "Vested Interest" speech. The band leader convinces the owner that if after one set no one is in the bar, let’s make a deal, get paid for half the night and get out of there early. This way the band breaks even (unless you’re the drummer who has the most equipment) and gets an early night.

It was approaching Let’s Make a Deal time when a gaggle of bride’s maids and a few other unassociated groups of people walked into the bar. The total was about 15, which put us on the fence about whether to make a deal, or play Stump the Band.

Between 15-25 people is about enough to play Stump the Band, where our set consists of direct conversation with the audience. We con them into playing the game, and for every song they request that the band can play at least one chorus and verse, they have to buy the band a round of shots.

Fortunately, the band (especially The Admiral and I) can fake a decent repertoire of songs, so we usually build the bar tab up to a reasonable level and the gig is saved due to an unprecedented Liquor Buying Bubble (kind of like the Tech Bubble of the 1990s) from 20+ people.

This scenario for us is standard for slow crowd nights, but the night was going to get weird because a group of people were there to celebrate LSD’s birthday (our guitar player). LSD is a quiet guy and I had no idea it was his birthday, so when it was announced, the shots began to flow. And so did our sobriety.

As the Tequila began to flow, so did our sense of timing and our sense of inner monologue. The microphone became amplifier to our thoughts and other ideas which centered on making fun of Dickboy (our keyboard player) and anything that wandered in our way.

LSD was transformed into a dynamo of entertainment. Surreptitiously kicking over microphone stands and adding Eddie Van Halen licks to everything from Margaritaville to Mambo #5 (Yes, someone actually fucking requested that song). It was like David Banister had become The Hulk in a quiet to boisterous kind of analogy.

At one point, the bar owner picked up an empty bottle of Cuervo and stared in disbelief. It was like the first time a kid sees a $100 bill for the first time. He didn’t know whether to shit or wind his watch.

It was a triumphant night for two reasons: LSD’s birthday saved the gig and I managed to get at least a dozen Cuervo-dripping shot glasses into the singer’s Jets bag right on top of all the wires he just cleaned. I imagined the sugar from the Cuervo would negate his furious cleaning process earlier and a great prank was in play. How long would it take for him to realize it was me? How much longer would it take for him to realize his wires were no longer “sanitized” for our protection?

So we packed up after the night ended. I think the Bar Owner did actually shit himself as he paid us gleefully and tried to rebook us. We took LSD’s keys early in the night ( he must have had 2/3 of a Tequila bottle himself), but the bigger problem was that The Admiral and I really couldn’t drive. We came back into the hotel and talked with the bartenders and tried to figure out how to use the coffee machine that had directions written by Kierkegaard.

We wandered outside into the parking lot with our coffee and practiced Rule #3 for two hours, which is: If you can’t drive, fall down and laugh for a while in front of your car…it works until you sober up.

Yet Another in a Series of Falling Women

2004-09-02T09:01:00.000-04:00

As much as I like dislike playing the Tropical Pub and a rash of other places, I love playing. Playing the drums as part of a band is a release for me, kind of a like a meditation. Some people garden, others read books… I lose myself in playing music.

It’s not just banging drums that gives me a sense of calming meditation, it’s the feeling I get from playing with other musicians. It’s a collaborative effort and although we’re playing songs we’ve played a thousand times before, each time you play the song it’s different. What makes it really special are the crowd reactions, the small mistakes here and there that are funny, the ability to play while severely inebriated or just the sheer hilarity of drunk women falling.

When I’m walking down a street and I see someone fall, I don’t think it’s funny and I don’t laugh. If I’m in close proximity, I’m the first to help that person up and comfort them, because I genuinely care if they’re ok. Eight times out of ten, they’re embarrassed and are more worried about what people thought of the fall than if they’ve just skinned their knee. When I fall (as we all do on occasion, right Dana?), I laugh to myself, get back up and keep going. Occasionally, I see someone do the trip-jog. That makes me laugh uncontrollably because of the fraud perpetrated, but not because of the trip.

The rules change somehow when I’m behind the drums while playing at a bar. I feel that I’m absolved from the obligations of caring about someone’s falling welfare when they’ve had too many Margaritas. Especially if they’re doing something hideously stupid in the process of drinking Margaritas.

At least once every weekend (and usually more frequently), one woman will fall with a drunken splash that either makes you laugh uncontrollably or fear for her life. Occasionally, it’s a guy, but they’re less stealthy. You can see a drunk guy’s fall coming a mile away. If you see it and you’re on stage, you immediately start to move your microphone stand, or your sound monitor, or your beer so that the Beer Back-rolling Contest may begin without harm to your most precious stage possessions.

Women are inconspicuous when they fall at a gig. Before you know it, they’ve entered the immediate stage area and start their descent. LSD (our guitar player) has to put his spare guitar behind my drum set for sanctuary and even sometimes that doesn’t stop a drunken little jap from knocking it over.

Sometimes it happens in total slow motion, such as the time at Marina Grille when a trailer park princess almost brought down the PA speaker as she was falling. It was almost as if someone had hit the Mute button on the sound from the band. You could actually hear her say, “Help Me!” in slow motion before the bouncer arrived to escort up and out.

Last weekend at The Headliner (outside on the patio from 6-11pm) was no different than any other falling weekend. As soon as we took the stage to setup our equipment, I forecasted the layout with The Admiral and made my mark. I could smell it in the sea air… there was going to be a whopper of a fall that night and I was damned if I wasn’t going to make my usual dollar bet on the chick in the red dress who was already flopping around.

Mayhem ensued. Right before the first set, The Admiral and I found the back patio bar where the bartender had a name as stupid as his memory for drink pricing. As I pulled out a twenty and asked for a Black Label on the rocks, our friend filled the glass to the top and asked for $2. That’s when The Admiral said, “Ya know, I think I’ll have one also…”

Two sets later, I had a hard time remembering what instrument I was playing. Right about the time I was thinking about counting my thumbs to make sure they were still there… a woman was taunted onto the stage by our singer during Panama (Van Halen).

As usual, he convinced her to show her breasts to the band and I thought the incident was over, but she gave me a look like I was her prey and decided to come back to my set. She wanted a drumstick and was not going to give up until she had one to play my set. This went on for 10 minutes.

Dancing and jiggling her rolls behind me, I was actually starting to get grossed out by her sweaty demeanor and glares. Thank god for one of our friends in the audience who took it upon herself to declare her my girlfriend and force her off the stage with reckless abandon and catfight guile. Man, she was gross…

Once the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald exited the stage area, I remembered that my friend in the red dress hadn’t made her way to the floor, yet. Just when I thought my bet was lost…BOOM.

The “boom” is the same “boom” every time it happens. It’s a loud thud that seems to always usurp the sound of the PA speakers. When adults fall, no matter what weight, it always makes a ground splat that even perks up the ears of the deaf. It was friend in the red dress and the bet was won.

Normally, I don’t gloat… a nice grin to LSD or The Admiral is appropriate for acknowledgement of said incident, but the Dewars was kicking up a storm in me, so while playing, I stood up and screamed, “I want my fucking dollar!” I’m sure it was an appropriate and congenial thing to hear from the ground when you’ve just fallen in a drunken stupor.

The Chronic and Characteristic Misuse of Reggae

2004-08-29T14:50:00.000-04:00

There’s a peculiar phenomenon that I’ve noticed occurs with incredible consistency and regularity during the summer months at NJ bars. I simply can’t understand why it hasn’t been outlawed or at least discussed. Why is it that whenever a bar or a restaurant or some theme-like promotion makes mention of being on an island (any island, Manhattan or Rikers, included), they go for the cheap use of REGGAE as a vehicle to conjure island images in the heads of drunk, dancing people? I just don’t get it.

Say, for example, when someone throws a backyard luau in some East Coast town, why is it that immediately they’re throwing Bob Marley on the old jukebox for ambiance and aural imagery of island tomfoolery and fun? I mean there’s really only one small problem with playing Marley at a Hawaian luau. The Wailers were from Jamaica, an island nonetheless, but in a different ocean far, FAR away. There’s nothing at all Hawaian or Polynesian about One Love, Buffalo Soldier or No Woman, No Cry. Maybe people on the East Coast should be banned from having luaus. (Wait, isn’t that already in the Patriot Act?)

The reason I bring this up is because The Tropical Pub (you might remember it as The Trop Flop) is one of the biggest offenders of The Chronic and Characteristic Misuse of Reggae. Every time they throw a beach party with surfboards and palm trees laden with Bud Light posters and logos, they throw on an overplayed Bob Marley song and say things like, “Hang Loose” (more of a Pacific Ocean phrase), or “Dude.” For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard a Jamaican say “Dude.” But I digress…

I’ve taken it upon myself to test this theory and see if I can throw a reggae lick or groove into the most unsuspecting of places during the set list and see if it anyone goes Island Crazy, as it were. Last Saturday at the Trop, I turned Brown Sugar (Stones), Laid (by James) and Come On Eileen into reggae songs at the moment of climax.

This act clearly confused the fuck out of our singer, but more importantly, brought a frenzy of white people to try to dance in a way that made an epileptic look comfortable in front of a strobe light. Probably similar in some way to the way that Elaine from Seinfeld would occasionally be seen dancing. Although, my personal favorite was our transition of reggae in Crazy Train (Yes, Ozzy) at the end of the night.

Confusing drunk people with reggae in the middle of a Randy Rhoads classic in Belmar is not to be considered a feat by any standards, but we made it look like Art, the way that Ali made boxing into a choreographed ballet of pummel, or Paul O’Neil made a team-sized Gatorade cooler the stress reliever of a failing World Series game.

This made for an interesting evening alongside the normal happenings at the Trop-- my favorite shore gig to loathe. The highlight of which included a parade of nipples on stage. All sizes, all shapes. It seems that Panama (Van Halen) has become a staple for underwear and flashing contests on stage.

I do not understand why this event happens regularly at our shows. Suffice it to say, the whole shore “scene” is really incredibly surreal and I just watch with an amusement similar to that of aliens watching our planet and laughing at the really inexplicably stupid behavior that we humans exhibit.

Here’s a list of 5 consistent stupidity displays at our shows:

Drunk Women Falling on The Dance Floor
Drunk Women Flashing on Stage
Drunk Men Getting on Stage to Show Testosterone but being Escorted Off Stage
Drunk Women Knocking Over LSD’s Guitars (both of them)
Drunk Women Hooking Up with Our Fat and Smarmy Keyboard Player On Stage

But the occurrence of most interest to me that night was an incident that proved our keyboard and sax player’s absolute refusal to acknowledge reality or modesty. This is especially evident when playing the Trop-- a rathole of a bar that allures the “shallow of mind” into thinking it’s an elevated shrine dedicated to the sport of hooking up. He’s just that shallow and thinks of it like the Madison Square Garden of the bar scene.

Dickboy (just one of the many names associated with…him) took it upon himself to play his sax solos over everyone else’s lines. This is a normal occurrence that has irritated everyone in the band for years, except for the singer who never really paid attention to the problem, despite our cries for help.

Well… that night, Dickboy, played a sax solo right over the singer’s vocal lines, consequently upstaging the leader of the band. It was inevitable, and set the stage for an incident that night.

After the gig, across the street from the Trop at a rental house that our keyboard player, our singer and other friends of theirs rent every year (a rental is one description of the place, others would call it “condemned squathole”) our singer talked to Dickboy about the incident. Not getting through the thick layer of stubbornness, the singer promptly turned to his henchman friend to exact revenge and make sure the incident didn’t happen again.

Ten minutes later (sometime around 4am), a stink bomb was tossed into Dickboy’s room. It was the kind that inflates over the course of 20 seconds like a balloon being blown up to the point of popping and spreads a sulfur smell all around the room. Most people would either run from such a thing or try to throw a towel over it to contain the smell when it pops.

But, Dickboy proved his ascension from Cro-Magnon by picking it up and holding it in his hands. He was heard to exclaim, “What’s this?” just before it popped.

In an act of stinky fury, Dickboy decided to try to ram the door of our singer and henchman’s room that was locked with a deadbolt and padlock from the inside where they laughed until they fell asleep. Dickboy left a garbage can outside of their door, just to let them know he meant business.

Somewhere, a Bob Marley tune was playing…

Are cheeseburger delinquency and inebriation mutually exclusive?

2004-08-27T01:27:00.000-04:00

I’ve had trouble recalling my thoughts about this past weekend’s gig. It’s not that my mind isn’t clear, although what else would you expect after eating 15 Jalapeno White Castle “cheeseburgers?”

This past weekend was a tribute to the ridiculous bad taste of the frequenters of Belmar, NJ bars. It takes a brave soul who dares to experience the Tropical Pub, or as a Manhattanite stranger 60 miles away recalled from his youth the aptly nicknamed, “Trop Flop,” because of the girls who get so drunk they flop around until they make it to a beergoggling champion’s bed. I think an Olympic Event is in order, because Belmar has some gold winners.

This is the Friday night story of a bar that stood above the rest. A true mold-breaker and pinnacle of bad taste, where patrons mostly in their late 20s and early 30s would get so drunk that the mere sound of songs like Come On Eileen and Pour Some Sugar On Me would send them into hysteria (no pun intended).

But what would any decent story be without a homecoming? Last week, an old friend and mentor showed up. A guitar player who stood the front line like a hero and who could drink more than a mortal guitar player should be able to tolerate. But that was another time, when I hadn’t officially joined the band yet and was a little nervous about playing with Overboard.

My memories of Joe the Guitar Player stemmed from his uncanny ability to bite my cymbal without getting his teeth knocked out from a drumstick, and stealthily abscond with other people’s drinks (and once, a full cheeseburger) while they weren’t looking. He’s a real card, and when he got up on stage on Friday, I was excited to see a comrade come back to the stage to egg on unsuspecting first time stage strippers (of the female persuasion) and drink buyers.

Anyway, besides Joe joining us for most of the 2nd and 3rd sets, not much went on at the Tropical Pub that night. Usually, it can go either way…a really horrible night or a really good night. My first night ever playing the Trop, a drunkard (that makes him a citizen of the world) dropped a full bottle of Budweiser on my Teva laden foot while falling asleep at the bar spot next to me during a set break.

I woke him up to yell at him, and he promptly apologized, bought another beer, and waited 30 seconds before falling asleep again and dropping a new bottle of Budweiser onto my foot again in the same spot. Shame on me for letting it happen twice.

Anyway, I was happy to see Joe and the night was uneventful, except... The Admiral and I did decide to make it to White Castle in Union on Route 22 so I could start the tradition of purchasing a Crave Case for weekend consumption when we play the Trop. Was it inebriation that drove us to this foregone event? Or just manly pride that we could ingest multiple unspeakably horrible substances that taste so great in one night?

We left with a belly full of burgers, and I’m really not sure if my next day hangover was from bad tequila (made from sugar cane…that much I learned from a great Mexican friend) or from the Jalapeno cheeseburgers. Oh, and we found the world's largest screw in the parking lot. The next time I'm there, I'll be sure to get a snapshot of it.

The Northeast Tour

2004-08-10T15:17:00.000-04:00

Today, for therapy, I’ve been listening to Gaucho by Steely Dan. This album grew on me over the years and it reminds me of a band trip to Maine and the subsequent Northeast Tour That Never Was, Since I’m not playing this weekend and I’ve already promised two stories a week, I should at least make good on my promise and write another. Here’s the second flashback for the week.

Flashback: 1995 or 1996 in Syracuse, NY. It all started when I bought a “brick” of drumsticks for an upcoming tour for a band called, “Nebraska.” Normally, buying a brick shouldn’t be of any concern for a drummer, since a brick is not really a drug term, but rather 12 pairs of drumsticks in a package (sold just over cost in bulk). I was in my senior year at Syracuse University and had been playing in Nebraska, a creation of Larson Sutton that played what he called, “movie music.”

Movie music was Larson’s description of instrumental music (obviously sans lyrics) that had lots of changes to reflect an imaginary movie. The project was kind of a reverse Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz concept without a real film to accompany the music. We had about a dozen songs for an hour+ plus set and we had played in bars in Syracuse. Larson was determined to take it on the road and decided to setup a quick weeklong northeast tour starting in Maine and ending up in NYC.

I promptly went out to procure some supplies for the tour, which I'd be carting equipment in my year old ’94 Toyota Corolla. Pork rinds, vodka, Doritos, stolen rolls of industrial sized toilet paper from Shaw Hall, a few drumheads and a brick of drumsticks. Right there… that’s what did it. The brick of drumsticks pushed our luck over the proverbial edge, as I would later be told by Larson.

Larson’s last band, Sons of Papaya, had embarked on a southern east coast tour trying to make its way from the Carolinas to Atlanta. I don’t know how far they made it, but I think the band lost its lifesteam after their drummer (Chris Provenzano) bought a brick of drumsticks. So you see…BRICK = DEATH was the equation for Larson’s bands, or at least their touring schedules.

We made out for Portland, Maine, the keyboard player and me. With our equipment, our supplies and $30 between us, we trucked out for 9 hours surviving on stupid stories and live Phish tapes. Along the way, we coined the phrase, “Fuckstick,” and used it to describe everything and everyone.

The tour that was planned (by Larson) was a kick-off in Maine at a popular rock club, then somewhere called The Call in Providence, RI (near Larson’s parents house) then somewhere in Connecticut (I think…can’t remember) and then a final show in NYC at the Knitting Factory (I think). It sounded pretty good for a week from a band with no album, right?

We arrived in Portland about three hours before show time. I had called some old friends a few days before who had graduated the previous year and lived in the Portland area. Zach Atwell and Dave Something (Christ, I can’t remember Dave’s last name... Dave used to live with a girl named Taryn and we used to collectively call them Darvyn because they used the same brain to make decisions).

After looking in downtown Portland for an hour, we finally found the club, which had an entrance down a dark set of stairs embedded in a brick alley. We walked down with some of our equipment to find a basement (complete with puddles), a few string light fixtures hanging from the low pipe-laden ceiling, a “stage” with one hanging lightbulb for its stage show and a vintage 1950s PA with wires hanging out of the top.

We confirmed with the club owner that we were going to play there and setup our equipment, waiting for Larson, or a flood, whichever came first. Showtime and the lights went down. Well, not really... you couldn’t turn the stage light off because the place would be too dark to see the bar or holes in the floor, so we played 45 minutes to no one in white bulb light, until Zach and Dave showed up.

Thanks to the kindness of Zach and Dave and their purchase of a beer a piece, we got paid $5 each. We packed up and decided if it was worth it to continue to Rhode Island that night. Larson wanted to drive to his parents (3-4 hours away) but Zach offered us a place to stay. Mike (keyboard player) and I took him up on the offer and promptly went out drinking with him and Dave and the new security of having a roof over our heads that night. Portland was a fun town that night. Laid back, beer drinking and lots of women to converse with in the language of Maine. Larson drove with the bass player and wound up sleeping on the side of the road for a little while because they were tired. I still tell him that he should have stayed that night and had a few beers with us.

The next day after staying at Zach’s place, Zach drove us around town to breakfast in his huge Chevy Impala Convertible playing Gaucho in the 8 track player. I’ll never forget that morning and everytime I hear "Glamour Profession," I think of that car and a really cool time.

The Call in Providence was the next night. Mike and I made our way to the bar and I had made a call to my friend Matt and his girlfriend who lived in Worcester, MA who met us at the bar. We found out that the bar was owned by the sound company for the Grateful Dead (Electric Blue, I think) and while the sound was great, we wound up opening for a hardska band that drew an unsympathetic crowd and little pay for the evening. We regrouped at Larson’s parents’ house after the gig.

I love Larson, like a brother. And to anyone who doesn’t know him, this will sound as weird as it did to me at the time, but that morning we found out that the only shower on the farm property was outside and without heated water. I started to look around for Rod Serling, but found an Alpaca eating grass, took my shower and came inside for a little band meeting.

The week was turning into Spinal Tap, except we didn’t have groupies or spandex. Larson told us that our other two gigs (CT and NYC) had been cancelled. This was the Northeast Tour That Never Was and we figured it was best to cut our losses and head back to Syracuse via the Mass pike.

Matt and Karen lived in Worcester and were nice enough to let us stay at their place that night and loan us $20 to get back because we had run out of money and gas. (Thanks, Matt)

I’ve been banned from buying bricks of drumsticks, forever more.

Mind Left Body

2004-08-10T10:48:00.000-04:00

I’m traveling the weekend of Aug 13th, so there’ll be no new stories from this weekend, but here’s one from the days of yore, replete with drugs and rock and roll (sadly, no sex).

Flashback: December, 1996 on a cold snowy Thursday evening in Syracuse, NY at Hungry Charlie’s (affectionately called Chuck’s by the Syracuse University intelligencia). With a light powder already on the ground, and little chance of a huge bar crowd, I was braving the elements to play a gig with the Homel-Alaniz Band. The H-A Band was (and probably still is) a Grateful Dead type of band that never professed to being a “cover band” but never did any of their two dozen or so original songs, just Dead and Allman with a smattering of The Band. It was a shame that they rarely played their original stuff because they were great. A seasoned team of twenty-year veterans, they had toured and settled down with families in their native Central New York. Dave Homel was the lead guitarist, and Dave Alaniz (nicknamed Esse) was the bass player. Both had played with each other since the late 1960s.

I loved this band for lots of reasons. They funny thing is that they never talked to each other back stage except to exchange smoking implements or argue about something. It was the most artistic form of non-communication I had ever been a part of, and being the young strapping buck in the band (22 at the time) I had a lot to learn about how to not communicate with people.

They saved all of their tension and passion for the stage and would frequently argue with their instruments. There were no setlists, two drummers, two guitarists, a bassist and a keyboard player. I was happy to be the 2nd drummer because at that point my repertoire of Grateful Dead was limited (being more a Phish and blues type of drummer). The guitarists were great, everyone sang well and the sets were always different from the previous performances.

Frequently, on stage, I would be in the middle of a musical argument where the lead guitarist (Homel) would try to lead in to a song that he liked (he hated playing Bertha) by playing a segue lick or melody from his chosen song. It would be countered with a melody from Tracy (a guy), the rhythm guitar player who would almost always want to play a different song. This was a musical phenomenon that I’ve only found possible with great players who can communicate without words on stage.

The tension was great and I always enjoyed the drama as it unfolded. Considering I didn’t know half the songs, I was just along for the ride anyway. I had no vested interest or level of personal gratification tied to what we played. As far as I was concerned, it was ALL fun to play. My only motivation was to avoid 12-minute silent set breaks on stage where everyone would light up a cigarette and tune their guitars. (God, I hated that!)

Anyway, back to that night in December. Almost everyone in the band had cancelled because of the snow. Dave Homel found a way to get a substitute bassist, a substitute keyboard player, a substitute second guitar player and me shoring up my first solo effort on drums. This was a big step for me because I had only played a few gigs with band and I wasn’t confident I could handle all of the odd time changes and other particulars. The other musicians were good, but nobody had ever played with each other on stage before. The only familiar face in the band was Dave, and right before the first set he unveiled his secret potion for the night for both of us: pure liquid acid.

This was a new one for me. I had never done anything so strong before and I’m by no means the peer pressure type, but there was something appealing to the thought that this might open me up to the world of the Merry Pranksters and deliver me to the roots of the Grateful Dead. Dave asked the immortal question, “Do you want a man sized dose?”

Advice of the Day: When a 45 year old experienced and weathered Deadhead offers you a man sized dose of liquid acid, you say no.

I didn’t have that advice then, so I said yes.

The first set began and soon I was concentrating hard on trying to play with this hodgepodge of musicians and a set list where some of the songs I had been way too young to have ever heard, let alone know the changes. We got through it and from what I remember it sounded pretty good, comparatively. The only noticeable train wrecks were coming from Jamie Notarthomas, a local primadonna acoustic singer/songwriter who had never really played with a full band before. He was ignoring the other guys and just trying to do his own thing. We got through the first set and headed into the back room where the band always had a tub of bottled beer and limited privacy (this band had a rider). The crowd outside had actually started to get bigger and there was a full house. Snow brings out the best in college students.

I had forgotten about the acid until the end of the set break. I was talking to a woman (I think her name was Joanne) and she started staring at me. She smiled with a big shit-ass grin and said, “Are you ok?” I looked down and unbeknownst to me I had crossed my legs while standing and had crossed my arms with a tense (almost shaky) feeling in my muscles. At that moment, I remembered what had happened an hour ago, and I realized that the train was leaving the station. That’s when Dave flashed me a smile and said, “OK, second set!” I guess it kicked in with him, too.

This is where the fun began. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Low and behold, something happened that I never expected and have never been able to recreate artificially. As we were playing (I think we opened with Scarlet Begonias), the music began to slow down like someone had slowly pressed their finger on the record as it was playing on the turntable. The voices and the music were getting slower and lower in pitch. But I was following everybody with my eyes and their speed hadn’t changed. I decided that the only way I was going to get through this was to keep it together and play by sight rather than sound.

The side effects and physical damage to your stomach withstanding, acid really is truly an amazing hallucinogenic. I was able to completely understand everything that was happening to me, yet at the same time, things were starting to pop up all over the place. It was better than Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey or Thomas Wolfe’s descriptions (Hunter Thompson was the closest). I kept playing, keeping tempo by watching the fingers of the other players and praying nothing crazy tried to eat or obfuscate me while on stage.

Dave was already way-gone and started making shrieking noises into his amplifier. Apparently, him and I were the only ones marching in the parade and he just kept looking at me and laughing. The other guys were giving him dirty looks, but they were professional and just kept going. I was keeping it together, but I was close to teetering over the edge. That’s when it happened.

Jamie Notarthomas decided to spontaneously play a medley of songs in the key of C. Since he had never really played in a full band before, he didn’t know how to communicate and had the expectation that everyone in the fledgling hodgepodge band could follow him on the drop of a dime when he switched to new songs as part of this spontaneous medley. He started playing “In Your Eyes” (Peter Gabriel) and after the first chorus, went into “Feelin’ Alright” (Joe Cocker) and then “One Love” by Bob Marley without giving any warning.

That’s when the bass player started to lose it because he didn’t know where to go and the keyboard player started stepping all over everyone because he didn’t know where the changes were. Dave was on stage but his mind had left his body, so he couldn’t lead the band back into a Dead song and I was just following along with a look of horror. At least that’s what everyone thought.

In my mind, I didn’t know that this was a medley. I honestly believed that I was blacking out and coming to in the middle of a new song. Was I playing the whole time? Where was I? What was going on? Can I handle this? I’m ruining the gig! I’ve got to get out of here! I’ve got to get out of here!

It was at that point that my body had left my mind. In the middle of this confounded medley, I stood up (sticks in hand), screamed, and ran off the stage, through the crowd and around the inside of the bar. With my hands and sticks in the air, and yelling, I ran around the bar perimeter twice and actually got some of the patrons to run behind me Rocky style.

I was a hit. The crowd started chanting my name, and I felt better. They coaxed me back on to the stage where the band was still playing and had now borne a look of horror of their own. Can you imagine playing a fill-in gig like this where the only two members of the group are so out-of-it that there’s a complete meltdown.

Lucky for us all, that was toward the end of the night. I got back in the saddle and we played Going Down the Road Feeling Bad in triple time (mucho gusto). We got off the stage and the crowd was cheering and chanting for us to do an encore. And here I thought I lost the gig…

We came out and played Not Fade Away. After the equipment load out and journey home (both were rough), I had an evening of spiritual awakening, the likes of which I will never forget. But that’s another story.

The First Installment Too Late

2004-08-09T14:06:00.001-04:00

Friday was a banner event for me. It was the first time I had ever seen a fist fight between two gentlemen over the age of 65 in a bar, let alone hearing the antagonizing question from a Vietnam veteran, "How many Jewish corpmen do you know?!" It's also not often that I get to see an elder statesman (aforementioned) get a pint glass slammed over his head at 3am. Wow, what a night and what a gig at the Liberty Tavern in Union, NJ.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a hired drum. When I'm not busy working on my MBA in e-Business or looking for a new day gig as an Internet Manager, I'm playing in bar bands to satisfy monetary and meditative necessities. Last week, I was filling in for a band called, "If 6 Was 9." I guess that's clever wordplay, poor grammar withstanding.

So I learned 30 new (but overplayed) songs for this one-off gig, but the fun of it was knowing that the gig was at my favorite dive bar in the world. The first time I walked into this bar to play a few years ago, the only patrons were two guys in a wheelchair and the president of the local Elks lodge listening to Herman's Hermits on the jukebox. I thought I was in the wrong place, but after 10pm, the joint got jumping with local bikers, local drunks of all ages, and a slew of trash that gave the movie Mask a run for its money.

Getting through the gig was a little more taxing than usual, considering we had only gotten together once before for two hours to go over three sets and we needed some serious concentration to adjust for deficiencies. But we persevered through shots of tequila, some decent stage experience between us and the promise of a White Castle run after the gig. Everything else was normal. A drunk guy fell on the “stage” knocking over speakers and sending us jumping… drunk girls were jumping on the bar and dancing like strippers collecting dollar bills from drunker people. At one point during a set break, I showed my balls to someone to get them to stop talking to me. All was good. The bar owner was as crazy as usual, but not until the 10th inning stretch.

The 10th inning stretch is the period of time after breakdown and the loading of my equipment into my car and the time we get paid and can get out of there. At most clubs, there isn’t a 10th inning, and I’m on the road by 2-2:15am, but at the Liberty, the inning can go on for as long as the owner wants it to continue, or depending on how much more he wants to drink. That night’s drink of choice (for him) was Fleischman’s and for us it was Don Julio. But that was after the last call and closing which sounds like a fire alarm at 1:45 with resounding screams of, “Get the fuck out!” and “You people gotta go!” I swear those words will make it to my epitaph.

At first after loading out, I waited outside for a while with some friends who had originally arrived and were now departing in a stretch limo (which in Union, NJ at a corner bar in a residential neighborhood is funny enough). Finally, I went back into the bar around 3am to plead with the owner to release us from whatever penance he wanted us to partake. At the bar sat our bassist (The Admiral) and his wife, and our singer and his wife. The Admiral and I have played together in other bands for a few years, but this was the first time we played with this singer and he was handling (albeit, not too well) the payout.

Mumbling to his wife, looking at his watch and glassy-eyed, the singer looked on as the owner was chatting up The Admiral and his wife, setting up shots and calling me over to join them. Considering I didn’t want to ruin the chance of another gig for the singer, I humored the owner (and my already taxed liver) and saddled up to the bar. “Go Fuck Yourself,” was a term of endearment to patrons of this bar, and the owner talked with us for at least 45 minutes, peppering the conversation with his patented catch phrase, other curses and jeers. We were the only ones left in the bar besides two mop guys, the bartendress, the owner and our guitarist who was in and out from hanging out outside. Oh yeah, and the two old guys who were friends of the owner.

In between the last few rounds of shots, and teetering on the edge of sanity for our singer, the owner finally said, “Who’s getting paid?” To which the pissed off singer yelled, “Me!” from a foot away. They walked away to the cash register while The Admiral, his wife and myself continued to converse, noticing a heated debate brewing across the bar from the two old guys. I kept one ear pointed toward them with mild interest in sociological experiments and one on The Admiraless who was telling me about how she wanted a night of massage from my girlfriend.

The Admiraless was more entertaining for the moment, but gradually the two older gentlemen across the bar turned a simple conversation about Bill Clinton being a draft dodger escalating to, “Fuck you, you never served and I did, you piece of shit.” Anti-semitism and comments about draft dodging followed while the bar owner distributed money to the singer. The singer moved quickly to pay us and got out of there, mumbling the whole way. Meanwhile, the owner told us to pour more shots while he tried to get those old assholes to shut up.

Next thing I knew, the owner was back drinking with us and the fistfight and glass breaking broke out. We just kind of watched as the whole melee shifted to a back room where glass and metal sounds were clanging like the Mei Kong Delta.

Two minutes later, everyone came out hugging each other, we did our last shots and ended up at the White Castle drive-thru. The 10th inning stretch lasted a little longer than normal. Maybe if we didn’t have Jeff Weaver pitching, we would have won the game sooner, but it was an unruly amount of time to spend nursing the iniquities of inebriation.