here's a gig story some of you might appreciate.

in the summer of 1986, the band i was in was booked to play a place somewhere in pennsylvania called the five stars tavern or something along those lines. might have been seven stars.

anyway, for some reason my parents (i was 18 at the time) decided that since it was a nice day, to take my dad's caddy (drop-top) and take a ride to the venue where we'd meet up with the rest of the band. not a problem, not the first time they'd done such a thing.

we get to the venue and our rhythm guitarist/band leader comes up to me and says, "cj, drop your stuff off inside and come right back out." i didn't understand why until i went in with my bass and saw a stripper clad in a g-string and panties doing her schtick to sade's "smooth operator".

we get back out there and a couple of our band members - and my parents - are sort of ganging up on our lead guitarist/booker man, wanting to know, "john, what kind of a place did you book the band into?!?"

undeterred, we decided to play the gig in our street clothes rather than in our normal stage outfits, except for our female lead singer. after the first set, which went fine with no hassles, our soundman called us outside to talk to us. not knowing what he wanted, we followed him outside. he told us, "you know what? this is the best show i've seen you play because you're not dressed up and you're relaxed and you really seem to be enjoying yourselves out there."

(postscript: we ended up playing there a few more times after that, with the only fly in the ointment being some guy who couldn't comprehend why i never heard of whatever neil young song he wanted to hear.)

 

they actually thought it was funny. they were ribbing our lead guitarist/bookerman, who they liked anyway (especially my mother) about booking the gig.

 

that was more information than we needed to know... i think i'm going to puke now.

 

you must have heard me doing the same warmup patterns that flea does in his starlicks master series video.

 

down, boy! down!