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Live Music III

This is part 3 of an ongoing series, updated at random. Part 1. Part 2.

For me, the core of a band has always been the rhythm section. If you’ve got a drummer, bassist and/or rhythm guitarist who can keep things together and manage cues, you’ve got it made. Singers and lead guitarists can explore whatever flights of fancy they like, and it will sound good. With a solid rhythm section, it will be simply mind-blowing.

I was fortunate to be part of such a rhythm section. Heaven knows why, but we seemed to be at a point where we could damned near read each other’s minds. This served us well when our lead guitarist decided to spend a few minutes in solo land, or our singer started doing a rap with the crowd in the middle of a song.

Then again, the whole thing might be a case of: “The older I get, the better we used to be.”

So, there we were, practicing upwards of 14 hours a day, depending on work schedules, and not making a lot of money at it. People seemed to like what we were doing, but we weren’t finding many gigs. Heck, we didn’t even really have a name. My suggestion of “Five Froggin’ Meatheads” didn’t go anywhere, but somehow, we settled on “Scavenger.”

One of the band hangers-on was something of an artist, and we ended up with a logo that was a vulture perched on a tree branch smoking a cigarette. (Which was actually pretty cool, thinking back on it.)

Finally, the opportunity for a paying gig presented itself. The bass player’s cousin was getting married, and they needed a band. Since he and his fiance had spent the summer in the band house, the choice was natural. Plans were laid, and we were to make our paying debut in a small town south of Great Falls. (Name removed to protect the innocent.)

So, one hot summer day, we packed all of our equipment, and headed east. We arrived at the home of the groom, where the reception was to be held, and set up our equipment:

Yup, that’s me, stage right, holding down rhythm guitar and backup vocals. You can tell by the red Charvel. (What? You can’t pinpoint a red Stratocaster clone in a scanned 15-year old picture?)

OK, how’s this? Note the ‘tude with the extended middle finger! (There will be a quiz later.)

There’s not a lot to tell about the gig. Suffice it to say that when your repertoire includes Ozzy, Priest, Sabbath, Kiss, and so forth, you’re not going to be a big hit in small towns south of Great Falls. Things may have changed, but I think that you’d still be better off with Chris LeDoux and George Strait than Skid Row and Poison. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. The bride and groom liked it, and we almost covered our expenses, so we chalked it up as a win. Scavenger was on its way!

Reality had other things in mind, and we were soon back to 14 hour practices, and an ever-changing audience.

At that age, though, dreams and ambitions are hard to shake. We were basically a garage band with somewhere between average and slightly above average talent, but in our minds we were just about to break over the hump and hit it big. We’d been working on our stage show, and had come up with some good stuff. At least we thought it was good.

We’d worked up a song entitled “Hands Off” by a group called Junkyard. Raise your hands if you remember that song.

Hello?

That’s what I thought.

The song was your basic A-C-G-Em-A chord progression anti-ballad. The love interest in question had tossed our protagonist’s belongings out of the house, ran over his foot with her car, and tried to say it was just an accident. But we all knew better. She was just a slut, playing our hero for a fool.

The high point of the song comes when he laments that he tried to be a “Woody Allen type guy” about the whole thing, and moves out to give her some space, only to find out that his best friend had moved on in and got to know her in the biblical sense. And as she’s explaining her actions to him he wails, “Baby, you gave him h**d!”

At that point, we made a jangling stop, as if this revelation were a surprise. I would usually start off by saying, “Whoa! Him too? I thought it was just me.” One of the other band members would chime in with a similar line. Each of us in turn would briefly describe our turn with the lass in question. After the last guy put in his piece, the singer would hit the “G-d Damn!” and we’d manage to come back in right where we left off.

Trust me, it was funny. Really. It never failed to crack up the three people in the audience who knew the song.

We were definitely geared toward the 21 and over crowd, so it only made sense that our next paying gig would be a high school dance.

(Cue impending doom .)

To be continued . . .

Quiz time: Just leave a yea or nay in the comments:

In the second photo, is the guy on the left with the red guitar wearing a mullet?