We had a monster party planned for the night. It was Halloween and the choicest girl-flesh was coming over in an hour, "So let's get this stupid practice over with, pronto." We ran through the repertoire: Stones, Mott the Hoople, Bowie, Skynyrd, Zeppelin, NY Dolls, etc. We still did "Sunshine of Your Love" and we did it right.
The night was cold and didn't pretend to be fall. The girls sashayed in, resplendent in their winter finery. Alluringly costumed teenage girls removing their parkas and ear muffs are sexier than a boatload of strippers, or so it seemed.
We enjoyed a sophisticated interlude with the babes, then others begin to drag in, and soon the room was full of witches, football players, transvestites, and cartoon figures. I was a urinal: don't pee on me.
The Bogus Basement Band began to play. The dungeon became a swirling miasma of smoke, hormones, elbows, knees, rubbing, jumping, loud noise, mud, blood and beer. The scene resembled the underwater frogman battle from Thunderball: all grand gestures in slow motion enacted by sinuous plasma awash in a muddy sea.
At midnight, a climactic firestorm of guitars heralded the end of Mott the Hoople's "One of the Boys," and chased a cockroach through a crack in the wall. Next came "Sunshine of your Love," featuring yours truly on, um, lead vocals and guitar solo. My voice was shot from the screaming, the metallic heat, and the toxic fog that enveloped the gathering, but I gave it a go.
The guitar solo was much more successful than the vocals: particles of emotion spread before me. I hunted them down and smote them with my battle-guitar, lingering triumphantly over each dismembered corpse. White fire consumed the carnage and chased the ashes skyward into the orange and black night, or select your own similarly hyperbolic metaphor.
After the solo, the band jammed on into the void, somewhat anticlimactically, I might add.
While the others droned on, I maneuvered my urinal costume around with my back to the crowd and took an edifying gulp of glacial brew. I then placed my guitar pick, a thin triangular wedge of plastic, between my teeth in order to tune up amongst the din of the "Sunshine" groove. As I tuned, I felt a satisfied yawn well within me. I opened wide to luxuriate in the yawn when everything stopped dead.
I tried to cough.
Nothing.
I tried to inhale, exhale, Nathan Hale - anything.
Nothing.
I had swallowed my pick and its edges were wedged painfully and emphatically into my windpipe. I whirled around to find faraway faces thinking faraway thoughts behind makeup and masks.
Article comments
1 - Craig Lyndall
This is a great story. Very nice work!
2 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Craig! It's all true. I've led a strange life.
3 - Suburb Slim
Hey dude,....I was hanging out down in
Coventry in the Heights back in '73. We
could have been 'righteous' groovers, if our paths had crossed .
I used to play a mean 'harp' back then,....
AKA: the harmonica. I was 20 at the time
and jammed with my Cleveburg friends.
I was and still am into the (the old Black
blues musicians) like Sonny Boy Williamson. Although John Mayhall and
Paul Butterfield were the young bucks of the day. Me and my buds used to hit the bong
and groove out , later drive all over that crazy city. One dude had a place his band
rented for practice that was down near the
Flats. In the bad old days, when that wasn't the coolest place to be late at night. We used to drive to Chesterland to catch bands
play at this place called Hullaballoo, or something very '70's like that. Kent, and John Carroll, were close enough for checking out the music scene too.
All I can say is 'small groovey world',...man.
(Ala Cheech and Chong,......man.)
Great tale,.....better than choking on your own vomit like Hendrix. Artists and musicians have suffered much, on their journey towards greatness or mediocrity.
Fate had better plans for you.
4 - Eric Olsen
thanks for the very kind words Slim! And the great old blues is no less great than it was 30 years ago! We may well have run into each other, especially down in Kent. I also recall when the Flats were seedy as hell. Very nice to hear from you