21 Days/ Day 5

GREAT MOMENTS IN ALCOHOL

I told you about a band I was in in the 80’s for a good while by way of remembering Bo Diddley — in a later incarnation, that same band had grown to 6 pieces, and begun to take on an entirely different aspect. Funkier,  stranger, steering a careful course towards the waterfall and the sharp rocks below.

One Tuesday night, in Tucson, we’d played a killer set before a small but appreciative crowd, and the novice club owner had actually paid us 5oo bucks or something. We were rich.

This particular band almost exclusively toured out west, and we almost exclusively camped out after shows. Weeks went by in that band without seeing a hotel room. It’s hard to express what freaks we really were. These days I see a few “green” bands touring around, and I wonder…

…anyway, we’d experienced a payday, and feeling flush, checked into some low-rent motel by the freeway.

I guess we all drank a little. We were into other things. But one of us drank a lot.

William  Blake was a full-on alcoholic. His maintenence dose would leave him pretty placid, but you could count on it: a few nights on every tour we were going to endure some truly crazy fucking shit. Motherfucker was directly responsible for my beloved Fender getting ripped off, for example — one night, right here in Austin, he so pissed off about 75 drunken fratfucks that I believe to this day I saved him from at least serious harm by hustling him and his guitar shit away from a gig, tout motherfucking suite.

When I came back to get my bass, it was gone. So yeah, it was my fault.

BUT IT WAS HIS FUCKING FAULT, TOO

Sorry.

Anyway, that night in Tuscon, he’d achieved his dose pretty early, and answering whatever demons were calling him that night, he just kept on. We were so…  organic… tribal, even, by then, that we literally communicated with hand signals, and the band organism detected individual failure, and we hustled right outta there.

And ahhhh – into luxurious Days Inn comfort.

All six of us, in one room. It sounds oppressive, maybe, but we’re talking refrigerated air and a shower.

Just sitting here thinking about it, I am amazed. What can I say? — the pull of the music was strong.

So Blake was completely drunk. He was one of those kinda funny, sharp but not mean drunks, uh, Churchill, not Bukowski, if you get my drift. By the time we got checked and snuck in, he was just as pliant as a rag doll (and as capable of caring for himself), so by drunken default he got one of the beds. I don’t remember who got the other bed — we all were so used to rolling out our bags that it really didn’t matter —  but before long, by maybe 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, we were all asleep. We had to get up  soon, and drive  some impossibly long ways.

Sometime later — it was still dark — I woke up to a blood-curdling shriek. We couldn’t find a light, and in the heavy-curtained motel darkness we could hear a counterpoint of animal growling and confused muttering. Finally one of us found the light switch, and there was  William Blake, dick in hand, standing over Yorgi, who was zipped up in his sleeping bag, still wearing a sleep mask  and earplugs as was his wont, unable , in his rage, to escape his confines and rip drunken Blake’s throat out.

For Blake had gotten up in the middle of the night, probably staggered the route to his bathroom at home in Austin, and relieved himself of a couple of six packs of beer.

All over Yorgi in his sleeping bag.

(I just got home from a bike ride. On my way across an airport tarmac in 100 degree heat, I was experiencing a pretty strong feeling for beer, and for the first time since I started these 21 days I experienced something very like a jonesin. Not a gee that would be tasty thing, more like a taste, smell, feel thing. I was glad to feel it, happy to dig in, push hard on my bike, feel the texture of the Texas heat envelope me, and ride it out.)

Hey, hey, Bo Diddley/Road tale #5

Amid all the “big” news today, I just noticed something sad, and important: Bo Diddley died. The AP story was accurate enough, I suppose – except they had his given name wrong, calling him “Ellis McDaniel” – it was “Elias McDaniel,” as every musician knows, or ought to.

It’s hard to imagine rocknroll without him. Not as central, perhaps, as Chuck Berry or Little Richard (I’d put Louis Jordan way up there, too), he still had a profound and lasting influence on the way we play that I’d say actually eclipses those giants. His signature rhythm, chunkchunkchunk aCHUNKchunk, has been used by everyone from Buddy Holly to George Thorogood, the Beatles to the Stones to, yes, lest we forget, Bow Wow Wow, hahaha.

Somewhere, right now, right here in Austin, Texas, someone is playing that groove.

Beyond that unique chop, though, was the idea of playing electric guitar percussively on the bass strings. These days – and by “these days” I mean stretching from this morning back 40 years – this defines as much as anything does what we mean when we say ‘rock’ – and we can thank Bo Diddley for it even as we curse the power chords rattling our windows while our neighbor’s band practices.

It was my privilege to play with the man years ago, for a two night stand, at Club West in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was in a roots rock outfit called ____________ – we considered it our joyous duty to know the sources of our music: rock, blues, rhythm and blues, and country — and knowing Bo was absolutely critical. When we got the call to be his backup band (it was common practice in those days for old school rock and blues guys to save money by playing with pickup bands), we were ecstatic, and of course we dug out every record we could lay our hands on and delved deep into the repertoire, basically learning every song.

We left Austin at 3 in the morning so we could make our 5 PM soundcheck/rehearsal with Bo with no problems. You don’t want to be late for a legend! The entire drive up we were listening to his music on cassettes (I told you this was a while back), and Jersey, our drummer, was especially excited – playing that cool rhythm all night long, bashing away on tom toms – with The Man!

We got to Club West way early, but Bo was waiting for us anyway. Some of the old guys we’d met along the way were — how shall I put it — a mite testy at times, so we were prepared for a LIVING ROCK LEGEND to be a little impatient with a bunch of eager, fresh-faced dorks. We figured our combination of dorky charm, knowing all of his songs – words and all – AND being really a very good band would surely win him over.

Well, it turned out he was as gracious and generous and funny as could be, and put us at complete ease within minutes. After we set up, Jersey the drummer couldn’t restrain himself (drummers are funny that way), and began playing that well-known tattoo, chunkchunkchunk aCHUNKchunk – and Bo waved him off, saying, “Bo don’t play that beat no mo.”

Poor Jersey was crestfallen, but Bo (I kept wanting to call him Mr. Diddley) looked over at me, and from under his flat rimmed hat, from behind his rectangular glasses, tipped me a big wink.

Rehearsal was about half a song long – once Bo figured out we could play, and play “in the style,” he took off for his hotel room.

That night (we were playing with him Friday and Saturday night) we opened the show with our own set, naturally avoiding our own epic rendition of “Who Do You Love,” one of Bo’s best-known songs. We finished our 45 minute-set – and not a minute too soon, the audience wanted Bo Diddley! – and out came Bo. Oh, we were so excited! Except Jersey, that is to say, who’d been mostly silent all day long.

Bo picked up his boxey, homemade guitar –

– and started playing chunkchunkchunk aCHUNKchunk, key of ‘E’, let’s go, boys. Jersey was beaming, and we played a magical set. Bo was clearly having a great time (pickup bands can be an incredibly iffy proposition, as you might imagine), and after about an hour, we took a break. Bo was of course immediately swamped by fans, many clutching records they’d had for years and years, and we were of course pretty much invisible, so we faded into the dressing room.

So there we were, in the dressing room — with Bo Diddley’s guitar! That guitar is a rock and roll artifact of the highest order. Bo built it himself. Everyone has seen it, whether they know it or not. That guitar had been on hit records, used on countless recordings since the ‘50s. We were archeologists in the Tomb of Tut, we were biologists looking at a living mastodon, we were European peasants cringing at an eclipse, hahaha.

After the initial awe started to wear off, one of our guitarists, William Blake, had the brilliant idea he’d do the master the service of tuning his guitar for him, what with him being so busy and all. We all said, uh, Blake, man, I dunno, I mean that’s not really a good idea, maybe…

But Blake was determined – I think he just wanted to touch the thing, you know? – he had that crazed sort of must-touch-holy-relic expression on his face, so he picked it up, gingerly, respectfully, and tuned it with an electronic tuner.

Now, Bo used an open tuning, which means: if you strum the strings open, it’ll make a particular chord. Slide players use open tunings a lot, as do Keith Richards (always) and Joni Mitchell. Blake, no fool, (well, maybe ½ fool) knew that, and tuned it to the right chord. Perfect. The legendary guitar, tweaked to digital tuner perfection.

The break ended, we got back up, Bo strapped on his guitar, strummed a big chord –

and turned around to us,

“Who the HELL messed with my guitar?”

Of course we all immediately pointed at Blake, hahaha, and Bo gave him a withering stare as he tuned his guitar back to whatever natural, music-of-the-spheres sound Bo Diddley carried in his head – maybe it wasn’t digitally in tune, but it was in tune, if you take my meaning.

After that bit of awkwardness, though, our second set was even better than the first, and Bo even took the trouble to go over to Blake during a solo and mime cooling his fingers off, putting him (and all of us) completely back in the game. What a gentleman.

Saturday night was even better. For one thing, we didn’t touch the guitar, for another, we had a night’s experience with the repertoire under our belts. At the end of Saturday night’s show, I remember, Bo was telling the audience to be careful going home, and we launched into this beautiful 3 part harmony thing, acapella, composed on the moment:

If you drink, don’t drive,

An’ if you drive,

Don’t drink

(repeat many times. audience, feel free to join in)

That’s it, that’s my Elias McDaniel story. Rest in Peace, Father.

Who Do You Love

Bo Diddley

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let’s take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Arlene took me by the hand,
And said oooh eeeh daddy I understand.
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.
The night was black and the night was blue,
And around the corner an ice wagon flew.
A bump was a hittin’ lord and somebody screamed,
You should have heard just what I seen.
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Arleen took me by my hand, she said Ooo-ee Bo you know I understand
I got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind,
I lived long enough and I ain’t scared of dying.

Who do you love

Road tale #4

A Parking Lot is a Temple

Beloved Nefertiti,

Sunday night in OKC we had two opening bands. I called you during soundcheck that afternoon, waiting for the second band to finish their interminably long and pointless soundcheck; when we returned at around 10:00 that night, the second band was still playing. Did they ever stop? Even from the parking lot, where they were barely audible, I could tell they were awful. Dervish and Sugar Bear bravely went in, but I decided to stay outside ’til they were done. Years (and yearsnyearsnyears) of gigging have taught me to mostly avoid listening to terrible opening bands — I’m sometimes susceptible to bad playing cooties, a dreadful infection that causes everything you play to suck.

So I decided to sit down on the back bumper of the van (we knocked the original one off in a turnpike accident driving to Rochester one time — the only replacement we could find was this huge, shin-devouring pickup truck bumper. Nice and roomy, though) and enjoy the beautiful night. It was clear, warm, and windy. The air was creamy, tangible. The parking lot behind the club was built on a gradual incline, surrounded by a hurricane fence, full of cars. As I sat, legs draped over the rear bumper, I noticed a plastic water bottle lodged in a crack in the asphalt up the hill from me. Just then the wind gusted slightly and the bottle rolled out of the seam and down the hill. There was a little bit of water still in it; it was rolling in a wide erratic circle away from me. The wind gusted again, enough to push it backwards some. As the breeze died down some, it resumed its slow descent down the hill, then another gust would push it back, erasing most — but not all — of its gains. At some point I became sorta hypnotized by the thing’s progress, the slow back and forth, the wind stirring and lifting my consciousness as it pushed the bottle in a gentle battle with gravity. A much stronger wind made the bottle spin completely around, and I gradually realized: its white cap was always pointing at me, and somehow it was working its way across the wide parking lot towards me. The uneven weight from the water, the angle of the incline, and the prevailing wind all wanted to guide the thing away from me, but the random surges of wind, the irregularities of the surface, and (or so it seemed) my awareness of it, drew it inexorably to me. I began to think if I wanted it to come to me — if I invested my ego in it — it would simply fade back to being a bit of trash in a parking lot and roll away from me.

And this serenity settled over me. All the noise of consciousness stopped (I couldn’t even hear the band anymore) – it was just me (not me), the bottle, the wind, and the night. Finally (maybe 20 minutes?) after dozens of slight turns had changed the path of its arcs, it rolled under my feet and disappeared beneath the van. As though waking up, I heard the band making mincemeat of the last few bars of “Voodoo Child” and holler thankyouandgoodnight.

I wanted to look under the van, see where the bottle was, but I felt I shouldn’t…

…but I did, anyway, and to my inexplicable relief, I couldn’t see it anywhere.

And so I went into the club, picked up my bass, flipped on my amp, and glowing with complete calm I think I played about as well as I can – every note seemed preordained, every space an infinite breath

We took a break. While the house system cranked out wretched classic rock and whiteboy guitar crap, I spent some time with fans, shouting over the din, signing CDs, and then, as quickly as I gracefully could, I went back outside and into the night. I kinda screwed up my back a little a coupla weeks ago in Eureka Springs snatching an 80 lb. road case from disaster, so I went to the fence enclosing the lot and laced my fingers through it to take some pressure and weight off my back. As I stood there, more or less hanging from the fence, feet spread apart, a strong gust of wind kicked up –

–and the bottle rolled between my feet

and I knew – I knew – life is beautiful, love is everything, all is as it’s meant to be:

what need have I for this what need have I for that

I am dancing at the feet of my lord all is bliss all is bliss

hahaha

I don’t remember anything about the second set.

love,

7

Road tale #3

Labor Day 2003

Dear ______,

We got up and left Atlanta at 9:00 this morning. Because of the remnants of Tropical Storm Grace and all the beach and casino traffic sure to slow Labor Day traffic on I-10 to a crawl, I decided to drive us home via I-20, take Texas 31 from Tyler to I-35 in Waco, and so forth…

I’d gotten us the 1000± miles to Atlanta from Austin the I-10 way Thursday in 14 hours (why I drove all but 400 miles of this weekend’s 3000 miles is another story), so I wanted to at least equal that mark to justify my executive decision (the I-20 route is marginally longer). Driving 1000 miles in 14 hours…well, you gotta concentrate, that’s a 70 m.p.h. average WITH pitstops, not easy to do: you gotta haul ass and dodge all the Labor Day constables and insane amateurs…hey, I’m not braggin (okay, I’m bragging a LITTLE), but I’d tell the kids: don’t even try try it. Pro is pro, you know?

So I’m leaning into the task, dig, and we’re on this side of Shreveport when we hit the first big t-storm tendril of Grace, I mean rain is comin down in BUCKETS. Traffic’s tight, but my lane’s moving about 70, 75. Southerners drive fast. I’ve opened the 2 second rule to 3 ‘cuz the road’s slick, visibility’s poor…make that awful…

…and here comes this SUV flying straight across the median from the EASTBOUND lane! My mind creates a little film short for the Certain Death Film Festival:

he’s lost it hydroplaning sideways at full speed in his panic he’s locked down on the accelerator I can see his back tires digging in the median kicking up spray of mud and grass and water and he’s going to shoot straight into our side of the freeway packed with cars going real fast Sugar Bear sits up lips moving but no sound is coming out trying to come up with driving advice and in that split second I accelerate slightly

…and we’re past it, near certain death a half second behind us…

…and all the cars behind us are gone. I don’t know what happened, but I know no one behind me kept going, and it was miles and miles before the freeway started to look normal in my rearview mirror again…

…and I thought of all the things that could have slowed us down since we got up this morning in Georgia…a half second, I’ve got an SUV in my lap. A full second, we’re plowing into HIM…2 seconds, a pileup…

I’ve always felt touched somehow (the peanut gallery shouts, “Yep, yer a mite tetched, alrighty!”), that destiny has a hand on my shoulder, you know? Not special, you understand, just sorta…reserved…for something…so I wasn’t that shaken up, or even adrenalized – zip, it was over, God I hope no one was hurt or killed – but I thought,

“One second.”

And right now seems like a good time to say it is good to be alive. It’s a real short gig in this club.

Anyway, I went back to work. And I got us home in THIRTEEN HOURS and FORTY-FIVE MINUTES.

shoot, I’m braggin like a motherfucker

So I get home, lug my stuff in, say goodnight to the boys, and about midnight I decided to jump on my bike and shoot over to Magnolia for some breakfast tacos. I’m on Mary at the last traffic circle before 1st Street and I hear a car behind me, stereo cranked, a hip hop groove booming out. I get out of the way, and as this jacked up red truck drives by I realize he’s listening to our hip hoppish arrangement of _____’s “________________” on our new album! I catch up to him at the light at 1st St. and I try to gesture “That’s me!” but he obviously thinks I’m a lunatic, turns the music up even louder, and speeds away. I’m thinkin’, “That’s my boy, you drive all over town playin that CD!”

Hoping the incredibly high regard in which I hold you is neither a burden nor a drag, I remain, as always, yours very truly,
7

“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Snow

Cars litter the side of the road
like so much shiny trash
snow rushes out of darkness
to die on my windshield
the man beside me rocks back and forth
after two bags he’s capped off
his Peg reunion with a dose of ‘done
and right now his body doesn’t like him very much
my wheels whirr in slush looking for purchase
I float past a jackknife
in a halo of red and blue

the man behind me was with me
another night
another highway
another truck
our blood was painted on the snow
as we

(me and the man beside me)

left in one ambulance
as men in thick parkas plumes of breath
like word balloons in cartoons tried to free
(the man behind me)
from twisted metal in a strobe
of garish red and blue

for no reason I can see the man in front of me veers suddenly
from his lane and just like that he’s out of this game of
beat the ice and get home
he’ll be hours now and whatever might have happened
is changed forever because of this snow
this endless snow

Road tale #2

When I get to the gig in Houston – well, really, Humble, actually I guess Kingwood – I’m pretty hungry, so I quickly set up my stuff and order some good ole bar food. When the waitress brings my quesadilllas up to the stage for me, I sit down at this little table set up for the band in the corner back by the restrooms and dig in.

So as I’m sitting there, happily munching away, another waitress approaches me at a fast pace, trying to escape into the bathroom from this slightly tight middle-aged guy intent on talking her up. He’s babbling away about something — I’m not really paying attention — but instead of going into the bathroom, she stops next to me, puts her arm around my chair in a sort of proprietary way (I don’t know her), interposing me between her and this predatory fool. I know the strategy, no problem. I give the guy a mild, neutral smile, as if to say, yessir, she’s surely pretty, but she’s with me, alas — and he says, “Oh, you’re in the band, huh,” a little sarcastic edge in his voice.

“Yes, sir,” I reply. Friendly, noncommittal. I just want to eat my meal.

“Are you any good?” he asks. I shrug, always the existentialist — what is good?

“Probably not,” he says, dismissing me — big deal — but then he adds, gesturing at the waitress (whose name I don’t even know), an honest to god sneer on his face, “SHE obviously doesn’t have much in the way of standards.”

I say, “Security!” It’s a little joke I have with myself, a sort of rock star fantasy where some huge bald guy shows up and carries nitwits away from my regal presence. The waitress gets it immediately and quietly giggles. Waitresses, like musicians, are incessantly pestered by drunks; shoot, she probably has a similar fantasy.

Our unpleasant friend senses he’s being laughed at, and yells (in a white-guy-used-to-bossing-people-around voice), “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

Something snaps in me, not a big snap where he’s in peril, but a little break – and in a nanosecond this flashes through my brain:

I’m just trying to eat my dinner and here’s this fat cat honky lord of whatever putrescent shit heap he rules bothering women and treating me like a second class citizen I am not a second class citizen in fact I am a member of a proud and noble profession I have traveled millions of miles at the service of my muse I have laid my heart and soul at the feet of the multitude out of the purest sort of love I am no better than anyone else but I and this young woman standing next to me deserve to be treated with dignity and respect

I speak up. ” ‘I said, ‘SECURITY!‘ ” The waitress is laughing out loud now, but I’m no longer trying to be funny.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he says.

“It means I’m trying to eat, and you’re bothering me, so fuck off.”

“Oh, shit,” the waitress says. I’ve made her day.

“Do you know who I am?” the guy says, his voice trembling, at once incredulous and enraged, “nobody talks to me like that!”

I take another bite of my quesadilla. Infinite calm has settled over me. This situation can go anywhere, but this motherfucker is going down.

“I don’t care who you are, this is my space, you’re in it, fuck off and go away. Now.”

His voice is higher now. “I’m Jim So and So, I own the bar across the street, nobody talks to me like that!”

“Well, Jim, I’m sure you’re the king of Kingwood, but I don’t give a shit. Depart. Split. Scram. Fuck the fuck off, you detestable fuck.” Another bite. The waitress slides away, giving my shoulder a squeeze. This isn’t what she had in mind, but hey, he’s not thinking about her anymore.

Jim is hissing with rage. As I chew I wonder if he’s going to have a stroke. I hope not. I just want to enjoy my little repast. He ducks into the men’s room, where I’m pretty sure he hopes to find some sort of weapon. Maybe he’ll attack me with a towel dispenser. I glide a tortilla through some guacamole. Seconds later he’s back out again, so mad he’s got tears in his eyes. He leans hard against the high round table I’m sitting at, beyond sentences:

“Cocksucker! …I’m…business…man…you can’t…kill you…fucker…”

I’ve got him now. Little bits of fat are breaking away from vein walls and racing towards his heart. Delicate cranial capllaries are swollen like carnival balloons.

Part of me knows I’m behaving badly, but a cold wind is blowing through me.

Jim is my bitch.

“See this, Jim?” I show him the little card on the table. “It says, ‘Band Table.’ That means right now you’re in my little corner of the universe, and I want you out of it immediately. Go the fuck away, Jimmy my boy.”

A little salsa on this bite. This is the greatest quesadilla I’ve ever tasted.

Jim squeals — his voice literally goes up 3 octaves, like he just sucked on helium. He grips my table. He wants to push it over, but he’s just a woman-bothering coward, and we both know it, so he stops short. Out of some desperate well of machismo he says, “You want a piece of me?” I wince. Who writes this crap? “Take your best shot!”

I lean around my table very slowly and take all of him in, from his expensive loafers to his Docker pants to the woven belt around his fat stomach to his Gap shirt filled with big soft man titties, finally up to his blotchy, alchoholic face. I look deep into his eyes.

“Nossir,” I say, a big smile on my face (I never knew I could be this cruel), “I don’t think you want me to do that.”

He raises his fist as if to strike me – I’m calmly waiting for his decision, but I already know, in this strange zone I’m in, what it’ll be – and then he turns on his heels and stalks away. As I slowly, almost luxuriously finish my meal in blessed solitude, he stands clear across the large room glowering at me, arms folded across his chest. Exaggeratedly savoring the last bites of my bar grub with the relish I’d enjoyed the swirl of chocolate and vintage port on my tongue a couple of nights before, I watch him complaining to the club owner, red faced, gesticulating in my direction. I’m pretty sure our friend Jim isn’t particularly beloved in this neighborhood, and I’ll bet he’s pestered every waitress that works here at one time or another, but I don’t care; I’m just glad to finish eating in peace. The club owner shrugs and walks away, so Jim turns to face me again, just as I’m delicately dabbling my mouth with a napkin. Very slowly I get up and walk towards him, and as I get closer I slowly remove my glasses – god, what a mean bastard I’ve become! – I want him to know he can slug me if he wants to, but I’m driving home tonight after the gig, I don’t want my glasses broken. As I walk directly towards him he takes a step backwards, and I reach around him and put my trash in the can right behind him. It’s all I can do resist giving him a big kiss on his cheek — in his present state it might kill him.

That’s the last I see of Jim. Driving home I keep telling myself I should’ve handled the situation in a different way, I was wrong to humiliate this blowhard, just because he was a mean little prick doesn’t mean I have to set him straight — who am I to take that responsibility? Beyond that, pushing anyone that hard is dangerous, but a coward might do anything. You can bet he’s got a compensatory large gun collection at home and a sports car to get to it in. No matter what he does, he’s still a loser, yes, but what if my actions got some innocent bystander hurt? The waitress hadn’t asked me to castrate the guy, but some cold hard reptile part of my brain just took over.

I want to feel regret, but I don’t. This guy believes he can insult anybody he wants to and that his money and position in the little pond he swims in makes it okay. I don’t expect he’ll go to church Sunday and ask God to show him a better way, but I’ll bet I induced in him a Pavlovian aversion to bothering women at that club, and perhaps in general.

Maybe evil is the accumulation of a billion uncontested injustices. Maybe if we resist them, one at a time, we can weaken the hold of tyranny.

Or maybe I was just punking ofay swine.

Road tale #1

20 YEARS AGO

One time we were playing a festival in Kalamazoo or Battle Creek or some dern place. Michigan, for sure. We’d driven all night and all day to make the gig, and even so were a little late arriving. We came screaming in, all frazzled, threw our stuff on the stage — and realized, shoot, there’s another band up before us, time to spare –

we’re very tough, we’re very bad

So we wandered over to the hospitality tent. Buddy Guy and Big Daddy Kinsey were sitting there, chewing the fat. They squinted at us, and Mr. Kinsey said, “You boys runnin’ a little late, ain’tcha?” I explained we’d come all the way from Tahoe or Montreal or where ever the hell it was we’d been, driving all night and all day, 85 mph the whole time to get there when we did.

The Masters snorted, and Mr. Guy said, “20 YEARS AGO, I’d drive three days straight to play for $5.00,” or something like that, and Big Daddy came back with his own tale, and we stood there grinning while these fabulous musicians began one-upping one another, very like the old Monty Python skit:

“20 YEARS AGO, I’d walk for 19 weeks, stop at the hardware store and buy BARBED WIRE for guitar strings, PAY the club owner $50.00 to beat me up, play for 3 days straight, and if I took a break they’d KILL me…”

_

The thing about their stories, though: they might’ve been str-e-e-e-e-e-tched just a little, but they were basically true. I mean, these guys actually did gauge out guitar strings from wire at the hardware store. No kidding. And the really bad stuff, the stuff you can’t even imagine? — man, these amazing musicians wouldn’t even talk about those memories. Not with us. They’d wanna spare us that stuff.

Ever since then, anytime I’m contemplating a rough patch of road, I’ll just think, “20 YEARS AGO,” have a respectful and rueful chuckle and get down to it…