Nine Hundred Nights Read online

  Sean snapped us up some beer as we stood at the bar, since there was no where else to go. The lights went down.

  First up…THE FUGLIEZ. They played three songs. They sucked. Also, the sound went out about a minute into their last song; no great loss.

  Second up…TRILOGY. They rocked. Three guys, full sound and really tight. Only problem was they played a song by RUSH, a song by U.K. and a song by The Scorpions. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE RUSH AND U.K., it's just that this crowd in Queens was more of a Led Zeppelin kind of crowd, more blues based and not really progressive. Also, there was crackling from the PA system all during their set, it was distracting. The sound dudes held up the third act for ten minutes as they dealt with the problem.

  Third up…Ruf Kut. These guys were hard core. None of them were physically large, but every one of them looked like a troublemaker and by that I mean, they looked like 'Dennis the Menace' on methamphetamines…"Gee Mr. Wilson, I have your wife's head in this bag." They finally get the OK, from the sound guys working on the 'crackle', to come out and start their set and immediately the singer from the Fugliez is shouting smack about their being too late. The singer/guitar player from Ruf Kut initially ignores him and they start off with 'Live Wire' by Mötley Crüe, and a good choice it is, but about ten seconds into it all guitar sound dies, completely. The band stops and the sound guys from five bands are crawling all over wires everywhere. While this is happening, the Fugliez guy is busting balls with some friend of his helping him along.

  "You guys suck. Get equipment that works!" knowing full well he played through the same equipment.

  His friend says "Get off, Rough Cunt!"

  The Ruf Kut singer steps over to the bass player and it's pretty clear he's telling him what he'd like to do with the guy. The sound comes back on and they start again. They get fifteen seconds into the song before the guitars cut out again. Now the crowd is booing and the sound guys look like chipmunks in heat and the Fugliez dude picks up where he left off.

  "Will you get the fuck off the stage. You suck. Get off."

  The crowd is booing about the sound system, not at Ruf Kut, but the singer can't really know for sure.

  "MAYBE IF THE FUCKIN' SOUND WORKED!" he shouts in frustration.

  A few people cheer at that, but some continue to boo. I'm starting to have serious doubts about the problems being fixed before we go on.

  The Fugliez guy shouts "MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T SUCK!"

  The guitar sound comes back on and they start again. Front and center is the Fugliez guy and his friend, no one can hear them, but you can see that their shouting at the singer. This time they get to the half-minute mark and the singer/guitar player stops the band himself by doing a cutting gesture to his throat with his hand; the band stops. He calmly takes off his guitar and gently places it in the stand and turns to walk off the stage. I couldn't blame him, I'd have had enough too. He pivots and jumps off the stage like James T. Kirk onto both of the idiots annoying him. He starts to beat the crap out of them, BOTH OF THEM, when his bass player leaps off the stage and into the fray with complete abandon. He still has his bass on! He's a crazy bastard and is swinging in every direction. All of a sudden a bottle of beer moving at the speed of sound crashes against the drum kit and the drummer, the biggest guy in the bunch, looks as though someone killed his child. He stands on his drum seat and jumps over the drum kit, cutting his head as it hits the lights hanging from the ceiling, and lands in the bedlam. Everyone was fighting, it was pandemonium.

  Closer to me, some guy punched Ingy in the back of his head and Sean lifted the guy up and threw him over the bar; he landed against the bartender, taking him down in the process. Ingy was pissed and trying to jump over the bar to rearrange the guy's grill but Sean had both arms around him and was able to hold him back. Jimmy and I are the biggest two in the band, and as much as we'd have enjoyed it, no one took a swing at either one of us…though we stood in place and waited for it patiently. Some dude pushed Tommy and Tommy got him in a headlock. The dude's girlfriend, about five feet tall in heels and with huge tits, was belting Tommy with her little studded leather pocketbook; shit was flying out of her purse and onto the floor and I picked up her diaphragm and asked Tommy if he'd lost his and he laughed as he struggled with the guy.

  I looked for Kenny and Dave and for a second I feared that someone might have thumped them, but then I saw them all the way down at the end of the bar sitting on adjacent stools, smoking weed out of a little ceramic skull pipe Kenny always carried. Kenny usually wore a shiny bullet-belt made of large real but empty bullets, and at the moment he had it wrapped around his hand. While Dave was taking a hit from the pipe I saw a guy move behind him and wind up to hit him, but then Kenny casually punched the guy dead in the face with the bullet-belt without getting up from his stool; the guy tumbled backward and fell to the floor. Dave never even noticed that Kenny punched the guy; the two of them just sat there concentrating on keeping the flame going in the pipe. At this time it occurred to me that perhaps we should make an exit. I expressed the same to Jimmy, who agreed in principle, and then the two of us began extracting Tommy from a tangle of bodies.

  It was at this point that six cops pushed their way through the front door.

  They got every last one of us out of the club. The night air was chilly and we all had to wait, lined up quietly on the sidewalk, while two cops stayed and kept order. At three in the morning, the owner opened the door and first the customers were allowed to enter, one at a time, to get their belongings; they also let the sound guys in to begin tearing down the equipment. When the customers were done, one band at a time was allowed to go in and take their equipment; somehow Sean got us in first. By the time we got everything packed and then drove to the diner it was six in the morning. I bought Kenny's breakfast.

  Track 12

  The Water Pistol

  It was May of '83 and Jimmy and I were driving around with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon. As we drove through a series of storefront blocks, the kind that have apartments over and shops below, Jimmy pointed to the one that he and his parents used to live in. I suggested that we get out and walk around a little, maybe grab a sandwich. Jimmy parked and led us to a deli a block away; he ordered a roast beef and swiss with mayo, and I ordered my favorite, a swiss, tomato and red onion with mayo, salt and pepper. We moved to the register to pay and there was the normal collection of crap, an impossibly diverse array of 'impulse buy items'. I never see anyone buy any of this stuff so I'm not sure why they clutter the place up with it…having said that, there was a little cluster of tiny water pistols of various colors…with a small white square of cardboard taped to one of the items that read "$1 ea". It didn't seem that much, a dollar to squirt someone in the kisser…that's a bargain for me I thought. I coughed up a buck and bought a little red one. It fit into the palm of my hand. Cool.

  Six hours later Jimmy, I and the rest of the band are playing at The Rising Sun. We're a few songs into our second set, playing Thin Lizzy's 'The Boys Are Back In Town'; I'd waited judiciously until this moment.

  Earlier in the day, before I left for the gig, I'd peeled off a small piece of duct tape from a large roll in my equipment bag. With some good old-fashioned American ingenuity, I brought together two things that had never been combined before and created something new! By taping the tiny red water pistol to the back of my guitar's headstock…nestled securely between the rows of tuning pegs…I'd created the 'Squirting Guitar'. Just before we went onto the stage I had a Molson Golden in my hand; I sipped a mouthful and used it to fill up my new little friend…it became a 'beer pistol'.

  When we play 'The Boys Are Back In Town', which is of course laced with the rich guitar harmonies of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson, I usually stand behind Ingy and play with our guitar necks parallel, mine behind his. Tommy is center stage to our left…and might I add…only a couple of feet from the 'business-end' of my newly capable squirting axe. About a minute into the song, where Ingy and I are about
to play the guitar harmony, I reach up and pull the trigger. Tommy isn't singing at that moment in the song, but he is looking at the crowd. (Squirt.) I resist the urge to look at him and play it very cool.

  I wait twenty seconds more. (Squirt.) I glimpse it this time, I got him in the ear and he's reacting like a mosquito is buzzing in there. He hasn't caught me looking though.

  Just before the longer guitar harmony in the middle of the song. (Squirt.) (Squirt.) This time he almost catches me, but the instant he looks at me, I look at Ingy, as if I may have seen something too. It's masterful misdirection if I do say so myself. I look back to him with a furrowed brow and gesture at Ingy with my head. Tommy now looks at Ingy and it's clear he just wants to get even; poor Ingy's just looking at his fret board the whole time…minding his business and focusing on doing the best job he can for the paying customers. The sap! I think to myself 'Hey…someone has to take the blame…and it ain't gonna be me!'

  As Ingy and I played on, Tommy casually moved to the drum riser; he always had a bottle of beer stashed in the shadows of Jimmy's kit that he used to quench his throat during the set. I saw him grab it and move with deliberate indifference behind Ingy and I. He put his thumb over the opening and shook the bottle very hard, then released it directly over Ingy's head. The foamy ejecta covered Ingy's head as I clumsily but quickly moved out from between Tommy and Ingy.

  I'm standing center stage and the quick sequence of expressions that flashed across Ingy's face are burned into my mind for all time; anger, astonishment, shock, unhappiness, confusion and I'll throw anger in there again for good measure. The crowd at this point is making a LOT of noise. I didn't think they'd seen my instigation but I couldn't be sure; though they couldn't miss Tommy's ill conceived retribution. Ingy didn't stop playing, you gotta love the guy.

  Tommy moves away from Ingy, feeling that justice had been served and as he's posing for the crowd, we continue our harmonies. Suddenly, a disembodied arm rises from extreme stage right in the crowd. I can't see who the arm is attached to because their body is blocked by the PA column, never the less the arm stretches up toward Ingy with a half pitcher of beer. Ingy grabs the pitcher and tosses its contents at Tommy, who is far enough away that the golden liquid has time to spread out while in flight. When it hits him it's as if he were blindsided by a typhoon of beer. He halts his heavy metal singer bopping, looks at Ingy in disbelief and sees Ingy scowling at him. It was then that I saw the look of doubt cross Tommy's face; with a flash of insight he posed the hypothesis to himself 'Suppose it wasn't Ingy?'

  Tommy's confused expression and vague feeling that a third party might be responsible must have been transmitted to Ingy by telepathy, because at the same instant they looked away from each other as their eyes searched for me. By now I'd moved over to stage left in front of my own amp, where I normally stand. Their probing eyes found me red faced and laughing.

  Tommy still had the just-about-empty beer bottle in his hand, and used what was left to partially fill his mouth. He came toward me smiling and began spitting little streams of beer in my face as I tried unsuccessfully to dodge them. Ingy was slowly moving toward me and Kenny was standing on the edge of Jimmy's drum riser and watching our little beer fight. When Ingy started to come for me, Kenny grabbed a plastic pitcher full of something clear, it could have been water or Sprite or something, from the floor beside his amp and closed ranks with him.

  Now the three of them are standing in front of my convulsing body as I continue to laugh and wait for the deluge in Kenny's hand. Tommy is reaching for the microphone that I use to sing back up vocals and is about to yell something to the crowd who by now are calling for my head. Kenny, true to his nature, upends the pitcher. Not over MY head, but over his own head and that of Tommy and Ingy! It was madness and the entire audience erupted!

  If it had stopped there all would have been in good fun, but a second later Tommy grabbed the microphone and I heard a 'clap'; Tommy and Ingy dropped to the stage as if mortar shells were incoming.

  Dave was the first to realize that the two had been electrocuted and launched himself toward us; in one motion I took my guitar off and threw it to him and luckily he caught it. I helped the two of them up and they weren't even dazed, they were only…for lack of a better word…shocked.

  Tommy, without letting his lips make contact, stepped to his mic at center stage and growled "We'll be back in just a minute folks…someone needs an ass-kickin'. Tip your bartenders."

  We got cleaned up and finished the set. Afterward, we were all back in the dressing room and Tommy ripped my beloved little red water pistol from the guitar, tossed it on the floor and crushed it under his boot heel for all to see. What could I do? Hadn't I caused enough trouble? While it was true that my purchase of a tiny red water pistol had ended with the spectacular public electrocution of two musicians, did it necessarily mean that I had to be humiliated for it? So many questions. I couldn't do anything about it, I had to stand there in the dressing room and take it as the guys laughed and jeered. Upon deeper reflection though, it was awesome that I'd caused that much mayhem for a dollar and a mouthful of beer!

  We packed everything in Tommy's van and were standing in front of it in the parking lot, reliving again the night's wet and wild fun, when all of a sudden I was hit squarely in the back with a powerful stream of cold water. I turned instantly to the threat which turned out to be Ingy and a garden hose. I did not run, I stood and let him take his revenge on me…which he did, from head to toe. It was a cold and soggy ride home.

  *****

  DISC 2

  *****

  Track 13

  La Donna è Mobile

  June, 1983

  As described at the very beginning of the story, we'd staged a brief coup d'état over Scott the sound dictator, only to have it metaphorically fall as flat as Kenny's amplifier. Being a young band though, we had resilience on our side and recovered quickly. Dave bolted out of nowhere and man-handled Kenny's amp back into place and we turned our amps back to their 'Scott-approved' levels, tucked our tails between our legs and continued the set.

  One thing that I also got a kick out of that night was a little prank pulled on Ingy. In the song 'The Zoo' by the Scorpions, there's a guitar solo that Ingy plays using a 'Golden Throat'. It's a device that channels all of his guitar sound up a plastic tube and into his mouth. This tube runs up the mic stand and is mounted alongside Ingy's microphone and when he switches it on, the BLAST of guitar sound is enough to rattle his molars. His mic throws that 'mouthed shaped' guitar sound out there through the PA system. If you've ever heard the guitar solo in that Peter Frampton song 'Do You Feel Like We Do', then you know what I'm talking about. Tonight, during The Zoo, I thought it would be funny to see how determined Ingy would be in the face of…cayenne pepper. I dropped some of it down into the tube and with the powerful blast, some was sure to be ejected into his mouth. As insurance though, I borrowed Scott's ChapStick and used it like a glue stick of sorts, to put a little coat on the tube end piece that would be in his mouth; then I sprinkled a little bit of the pepper on it. Ingy never touched the thing until it was time for that one solo. We began the song and I'm doing a great job of 'playing casual', then the solo part came and he hit the switch. Over the course of maybe ten seconds, maybe less, his face went in stages from white to beet red. It's a pretty long solo and I take no pride in the fact that he really screwed it up, the pepper was too much for him, he couldn't handle it that long.

  The icing on the cake was that when Ingy was done screwing up the solo, Tommy looked at me for a second and I shook my head and threw him a disappointed look. Ingy, who by now had figured out who did what to whom, was ready to choke me. We had to take a little break after the song so he could wash his mouth out. Out of guilt I offered him my beer bottle but he shoved it away, afraid that I'd 'quench' his thirst with something even more caustic. He can be such a paranoid guy. In point of fact, my beer bottle had only a little beer left in it, LOADED with the rest of the red
pepper. Ingy is a formidable adversary (I think that sounds best if you imagine Sean Connery saying it.)

  The last song in the playlist was Black Sabbath's 'Heaven and Hell', and one change we made to the song was that I'd play an extended guitar solo with only Kenny and Jimmy playing a steady rhythm behind me. I usually played with a wireless transmitter/receiver unit that did away with the cord that would connect my guitar to my amp and on nights when the audience seemed really with us, I'd take advantage of the wireless connection and jump down into the crowd to play some of the solo.

  As you might imagine, after turning up the amps in the mutiny against Scott and then the crashing defeat of that mutiny, the crowd was definitely pulsing and there was no way I was going to waste that energy. We reached the middle of the song and I started riffing away into my solo on my new axe; I knew once I was in the crowd I'd really be able to hear this wench with the full force of the PA system. I hopped down off the stage and began to play for my own enjoyment. I loved the sound of her, she was definitely a keeper. If I do say so myself, and I do, my solo was inspired…I was tastefully cart-wheeling with the Floyd Rose and sneaking in little snippets of recognizable melodies. I snuck in ten seconds of the theme from the movie 'The Exorcist' and melted that into half a minute of the theme from 'Mission Impossible'. Sounds crazy right? Theme songs against a background of Black Sabbath…but I made it work. People around me are making lots of noise, cheering and so forth, when I look up and see Paul, a friend that I knew from the clubs, standing directly in front of me giving me the devil horns.