continued…

I spent the rest of the year playing more backyard and basement parties.  Some times we had as many as 15 people playing at the same time.  Most people of course played guitar so we had to take turns playing bass.  There was always a drummer or two.  And of course there was always at least one person that wanted to be included but couldn’t play any musical instrument.  This person was labeled ‘the singer’ and quickly introduced to the microphone.  The microphone was a high-z Radio Shack $12 special that usually worked plugged into a PA system consisting of a converted garage sale stereo system with the turntable ripped off the top for easy access to the input jacks which were soldered directly to the shredded wire ends of the microphone.  The whole thing was fed to five mismatched speaker cabinets and a couple of cracked and ripped speakers that had no cabinets in which to reside.  These were usually placed around the ‘stage area’ at random and served as ‘monitors’.  All the rest of the neighborhood kids would sit and watch or try to sneak into their parent’s liquor caches (or beer coolers if it was summer) and return with refreshments.

I noticed that some of the kids playing were already getting very good at using their position of ‘a guy in the band’ as leverage in social relationships with the opposite sex.  The rest of us were either too shy or else (in my case) too completely obsessed with playing to have time for anything else.  I can remember playing the same songs over and over again in order to have ‘just one more shot’ at that really cool solo line in that one song that I was trying to get just right.

The following year I got a male friend of mine to assume the role of bass player and we once again set our sights on the school talent show.  This time we made it.  It was the biggest assembled crowd I had played for at that point.  Hundreds of people (fellow students, teachers, parents) in the school gymnasium all packed in the bleachers to see us!  Well, there were 20 other acts on the roster, but we KNEW everyone was just there to see us.  The glaring, overhead house lights went down and the stage was lit with a couple of spots.  We suffered through the acts ahead of us with overwhelming impatience until it was our turn to “Rock the world, dude!”  Finally it was time.   I started with a solo rendition of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ ala Hendrix with wailing rockets, simulated bomb explosions, distortion drenched feedback.  Then, we were off and running!  First up was our rendition of the Ramones’ manically speeded up version of the beach-song classic ‘California Sun’.  We closed playing an original called ‘I Was Born to Rock ‘n’ Roll’.  Really.  It was fast, loud and frantically comic (though not necessarily intentionally).  My drummer was playing so hard the drums kept sliding and scooting away from him due to the punishment he was inflicting upon them.  He kept having to playing with just one hand at a time in order to use the other to reign back in parts of his set.  Both my singer and bass player insisted on wearing sunglasses throughout the performance although it was obvious they couldn’t see a damn thing.  I was hooked.  Hooked, I tell you.  Like a pathetic junkie.