continued…

Unfortunately things were heavily weighted on the dismal side.
At one point I remember trying to find the rest of my band and found most of them across the road from the ramshackle joint at which we staying.  Across the road on a big hill was a rundown, abandoned Victorian-looking mansion.  It was night time and some of the guys in the band had found a local connection to hook them up with some blotter acid.  Which they promptly took and for some reason decided was the perfect time to do a little investigative exploring in the “creepy place across the street”.

I found them all in the labyrinth basement of the place terrified out their chemical soaked little brains.  They had stumbled upon a gym shower like cavernous series of rooms that resembled Nazi-style gas chambers.  There was no light, their meager flashlights had run out of juice and they were convinced by their rapidly accelerating hallucinations that there were “seriously evil demons” down in bowels of the house “trying to get them and suck their eyeballs out of skulls”.

By the time we got to the gig for that evening they were completely, physically, emotionally spent.  It was a disaster.  Not even the normal pre-stage ritual of a 40 ounce pint of malt liquor and a joint would do any good due to the acid still crawling through them.  Since it was Metal music, which is supposed to be loud, fast, mean, ominous, menacing sounding, et cetera, we were hopelessly screwed from any angle.  If we succeeded in pulling it together the music would immediately freak out the bass player and singer due to their indulgence.  If we didn’t succeeded in getting the music across correctly there would be no freak outs on stage, but everything would be terminally hysterically funny or terrifyingly depressing to them.  And they would crumble like spineless little invertebrates with skulls full of mushy, chaotic jelly.  Dealing with drunken musicians is never easy; stoned musicians are hardly easier; hallucinating musicians are completely impossible.

At one point we had to stay in a barn because the guy getting our gigs had forgotten to pay his rent, skipped town and left us poor suckers as the fools that had to answer the door when the landlord came by with the police.  I suppose we were fortunate in finding the barn a few miles outside of some city.  A girl that had come to one of our gigs fell in love with our drummer and told him we could all stay there for few days until things got sorted out.  We almost picked up some extra work as a blues band.  But the drummer had “principles, man”.  We were a “metal band, dude”, and he wasn’t about to “sell out to the man” and play some “crappy, blues stuff for money”.  That pretty much sealed the fate of the band, because at that point we were all out of money.  I took all the equipment that was mine, threw it in my truck, drove down to the nearest pawn store and walked out with enough cash to buy gas to drive anywhere I wanted and food to keep myself fed while I did.  I split.

I worked (again) with a number of different cover bands after that.  One gig found me and the singer showing up at the same time, setting up gear and waiting for the bass player and drummer…who never did show.  We used the MIDI sequenced CD backing tracks I always used at solo shows and nobody cared a damn bit.  In fact several people were more pleased than usual with “sloppy out of time bands”.  The sequenced bass and drums were perfect for people used to dancing to rap, hip-hop, techno, etc. type songs and grooves.

I have (mercifully perhaps) lost track of how many gigs I played for free, for advertising, for exposure, for auditioning purposes, for…nothing.  I know that it “could” help your musically career if you would open for a well-known band for free and then hang out for three hours at the bar while members of some other well-known band decide if they want to help you or introduce you to their manager or…whatever.  I suppose you could say schmoozing and networking are more important than music in the music industry and I just had no patience for that whatsoever.  There were more than a few band members, club owners, movers, shakers, fool, liars, jackasses, idiots, famous artists that I pissed off passed the point of no return.