Here’s to you Margaret — When I say this I really mean it
Any girl that woulda had me then,
I wouldn’t wanna know right now, anyhow
Here’s another one from Cindy — a handwritten confessional
She talked a lot about God, but used her hands like a professional
She wrote “We had a lot of fun,
Together we attained a lot of knowledge”
I took her to the prom — she dumped me for a guy at Bible College
Here’s to you, Cindy — When I say this I really mean it
Any girl that woulda had me then,
I wouldn’t wanna know right now,anyhow
Oh no . . . when I sang that last “anyhow”, I nearly spewed on the mike. I am sweating buckets now, and it’s all I can do to keep the Mount Vesuvius in my gut from erupting full force. I’ll never order a burrito in a bar again for as long as I live! I sing on, gulping down the pre-eruption bile, begging my stomach to be still.
Today I bumped into a girl named Angela
We split a beer and talked about the future (uurp . . . )
The only thing she wrote in my yearbook
Was “Good Luck” (ulp . . . )
We’ve still got a lot of things to talk about
Here’s to us, Angela
You thought I was a clown (glurp . . . )
So you didn’t like me then —
here’s to now
The band flies into a great instrumental bit, and I realize there is no longer any way to stop the vomit comet from bursting through. Not wanting to puke all over my entire drum set, I grab frantically with one hand at my open-bottomed floor tom, and flip it upside down on the stage beside me. I stop drumming for a few beats as I hurl liquid fire into my drum-turned-bucket. I manage to kick my bass drum to the beat as the second volley hits the drum skin. I wipe my mouth, grab a fresh pair of sticks, and manage to finish the song the way it’s supposed to end.
Jimmy flashes an annoyed look in my direction, then he turns to his mike and says, “Well, folks, our drummer really screwed up on that one! Hey, I’ve got a joke for ya . . . what do you call someone who hangs out with musicians? — A drummer!”
A few people in the crowd laugh.
“Why are the band’s breaks limited to thirty minutes?” Jimmy continues. “So you don’t have to retrain the drummer!”
So he’s a stand-up comedian, is he? Well, now that I’ve unloaded the poison that was once in my stomach, my strength is returning. I start kicking a rhythm on my bass drum . . .
Boom, Boom, B-Boom-Boom-Boom
I begin chanting into my microphone, along with the rhythm I’m creating with my right foot:
“You know how to make a drummer’s girlfriend drive really fast? — Put his drums in the middle of the road!”
More people in the crowd laugh, a few more gather on the dance floor to listen — they think this is part of the show. Jimmy T does not look impressed that I am stealing his thunder, which is incentive enough for me to continue. I speed up the rhythm a little.
Boom, Boom, B-Boom-Boom-Boom
“What did the drummer get on his IQ test? — Drool! How can you tell when the drum riser is level? — Drool comes out of both sides of the drummer’s mouth!”
With that, I toss in a wild Buddy Rich snare fill. People hoot and cheer. Many of them have begun to clap along to the bass beat, and newcomers are heading straight to the dance floor to watch and listen. Tristan and Akim nod along, grinning, clapping to the beat. Jimmy T stands off to one side of the stage, feigning boredom. His girlfriends are clapping along, too.
Boom, Boom, B-Boom-Boom-Boom
“You know how to stop a drummer from playing? — Put some sheet music in front of him! What’s the difference between a trampoline and a drummer? — You take your shoes off to jump on the trampoline!”
I throw in a monstrous fill here, hitting toms, cowbells, cymbals, and rims . . . a tricky bit I learned by listening to Neil Peart drum solos over and over and over again as a teenager. The crowd is becoming frenzied . . . I love it! Akim has put his guitar down now, and is standing on the right-hand side of my drum set, clanging out a simple beat on the ride cymbal with a stick he’s grabbed from inside my gig bag. To my left, Tristan is clapping his hands over his head along with my drumming, leading the audience along. Jimmy T removes his guitar and leaves the stage.
Boom, Boom, B-Boom-Boom-Boom,
“What’s the difference between a drummer and a vacuum cleaner? — You have to plug one of them in before it sucks! Aaaaaaaaand. . . . ”
(I throw in a HUGE drumroll here . . . )
“Last but not least . . . How is a drum solo like a sneeze? — You can tell it’s coming, but you can’t do anything about it!”
And with that, I cut into the biggest, fattest, loudest drum solo I’ve ever played; there’s some Neil Peart, there’s some Ginger Baker, there’s some Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, there’s a little bit of every drummer I’ve ever studied.
As I bring the solo to a climax, Jimmy T climbs back onto the stage in front of my drums, if only to absorb a bit of the applause for himself.
“And here’s one for the road, before we leave you for the night,” I add, feeling that my vengeance is not totally complete, “How is a drummer like a stagecoach driver? Both sit behind a horses’ ass!”
Jimmy T scowls. There is applause and laughter as we step down from the stage. The place is loud with hooting, clapping, beer bottles clinking on the bar tables. We’ll get an encore call for sure.
“We’ll be right back in a few minutes, folks!” Tristan shouts into his mike.
Jimmy storms from the stage, does his best Hyde-to-Jeckyl transformation, then joins the two girls at their table, grinning suavely. As I walk past them with my floor tom full of vomit, one of the girls shouts out, “Hey drummer! That was awesome!”
“Thanks!” I say, giving her a Jimmyesque wink, which I know will bug him.
I am almost to the stage door, when I hear the other girl say, “Jeeze, Jimmy, you’re a great songwriter, and it sure was nice of you to let the drummer sing a couple of your songs!”
“Well,” mutters Jimmy, quietly enough to sound modest (and also to avoid being overheard by me), “it’s his birthday.”
I set the floor tom down by the door and stomp back over to where Jimmy and the girls sit.
“My birthday is in December, you idiot!” I bark, then, to the girls I say, “Sorry to disappoint you, ladies, but I write the lyrics, and Akim and Tristan over there write the music. Jimmy can’t write a friggin’ set list. ”
Illusions are shattered. The two girls wanted so badly to believe that the good-looking guy with the nice clothes wrote all the songs. They look like they might cry. Jimmy, on the other hand, looks really pissed off, because his chances of fondling their young breasts have just decreased significantly.
“Anyone can write a rock song!” he rages, “Anyone! You think you’re such hot shit! You’re just a drummer. A damn metronome! I could write a better song than you in five minutes if I felt like it.”
I reach into the back pocket of my jeans, and toss a stub of pencil onto the napkin in front of him.
“Okay,” I say, “you’ve got five minutes.”
The two girls look hopeful. They believe that their handsome hero can do it. I walk outside to empty the barf out of my floor tom.
Jimmy does, in fact, have something written on the napkin when I return. He waves it at me as I approach.
“See, I told you anyone could write a song in five minutes. And what’s more, we’re gonna play it tonight.”
“Oh, come off it, Jimmy,” I say. “We can’t write music that fast.”
“Oh yeah?” He hollers out to Tristan, who is cleaning his guitar on-stage. “Tristan! Come here!”
Tristan must be finished tuning his bass, because he walks over immediately, which reinforces the Leader-of-the-Band image Jimmy is trying to cultivate with his two young groupies.
; “For our encore, wanna play the blues with some lyrics I wrote?”
“Well, I guess,” says Tristan hesitantly, “but let’s see the lyrics, first.”
“Let me read ’em to you,” Jimmy says. He clears his throat and recites:
Girls are hot
like ’em a lot
I like ’em a lot
yeah, girls are hot
I like ’em in skirts
I like ’em in jeans
I like ’em on their backs
or down on their knees
I like girls
when they moan
I like girls
on the phone
“Wait! Wait!” Jimmy T hollers, scribbling out the last line on the napkin, “I’ve got something even better! Listen to this!’
He continues:
I like girls
when they moan
I’m a dog
and they gimme a bone!
He crosses his arms and waits for the chorus of admiration.
“What the hell was that?” laughs Akim, who has wandered over to the table, “Horton Gets Horny, by Dr. Seuss?”
“Well, Jimmy,” says Tristan, in an attempt at diplomacy, “I’m not sure it fits our musical style. Maybe you can sell those lyrics to Aerosmith or something.”
“C’mon, Tristan!” Jimmy says, “It’s the blues! We can do the blues!”
I decide to put an end to the horror. The crowd is chanting for an encore, and I suppose Jimmy has suffered enough for his sins. All he wants is to impress the girls, so I’ll let him have his wish.
“Hey, listen, Jimmy, for our encore I think you should do most of the singing . . . my throat is pretty scorched from puking onstage, you know.”
“Oh. Okay. I can do that. Hear that, girls . . . I’ll be singing lead for the rest of the night.” Then he looks back at me. “You puked onstage? When?”
GLASS HALF EMPTY
After three weeks away on a road trip through Northern Ontario, playing at taverns in crossroad towns none of us have ever heard of before, we’re almost home. One last stop just outside the city, and we can finally sleep in our own beds again. We’re playing a bar just off a Highway 401 exit ramp, a big, cinder block building in the middle of a warehouse district. It’s called Rockin’ Rob’s Roadhouse, but the suburbanites who frequent the place call it the “Triple R”.
Mid-term exams at the university are over now, so Zoe, Veronica, and Sung Li are venturing out tonight to listen to the band, and to celebrate their continuing academic survival. Akim has been missing Sung Li, Tristan has been missing Veronica, and of course I’ve been missing Zoe, even if I’m not yet entitled to the physical benefits that Tristan and Akim will receive from their impending reunions. Tristan is so excited to see Veronica he’s forgotten to set up his video camera to record the show.
We’ve positioned our equipment across the bar’s ample stage, and we’re about to do a sound check. Akim, Tristan and I are onstage, plugged in, cranked up and ready to go, but Lola and Jimmy T are still cavorting behind the black curtain between the stage and the ten-by-ten foot space that passes for the band’s dressing room.
“Come on, you two!” Akim shouts. “Get your hands out of each other’s pants and get out here!”
They tiptoe through the curtain. Lola’s face is flushed. Jimmy T turns away for a moment and zips his fly, pretending to be discreet about it, but of course wanting us all to know that he’s just scored again. They assume their positions in front of their microphones, but they are still unable to keep their hands off each other.
“Oh, come on,” moans Akim, from the other side of the stage, “can’t we even do a sound check without you two getting it on?”
“You’re just all worked up ’cause you haven’t had any for a couple of weeks,” Jimmy T grunts. “You’ll get some soon enough.”
“Such a classy guy,” Akim says.
“Let’s play the new song I wrote,” I suggest.
“Oh, the one about Zoe?” Jimmy T mocks. “Looks like Dak is trying for a conjugal visit as well, eh? Good luck, bro.”
“Just play the damn song, Jimmy,” Akim says.
“Hey, it’s not my fault he’s chasing after a chick who doesn’t want him,” he says.
“Shut up and play!” Tristan says. I guess the road trip is finally getting to him, too.
The song starts with just Akim and Jimmy playing a funky little reggae bit (Akim nearly gave himself a migraine trying to teach Jimmy T how to play the simple, muted rhythm chords). Then I come in with a syncopated beat on the high-hats, and Tristan follows with a twisty, slithering bassline. Lola harmonizes perfectly with me as we sing:
Even the waitress in the restaurant
where we used to go
Even the waitress in the restaurant
she wants to know
“Where’s your girlfriend? What a couple!
I love serving you!”
Everybody knew we had it
except for you
I can live through this
But I can’t smile or sing or dance
On the word “dance,” I rip into my drums full force. Akim kicks the switch and sends his amp buzzing into overdrive, and Tristan begins plucking little bursts of thunder from his bass strings. Jimmy, as usual, forgets to switch his overdrive on, but luckily the rest of us pretty much drown out the feeble, squeaky chords bleating from his amp.
Now I’m howling (and, on a good night with a good crowd, people would be jumping to their feet to dance along with the pounding rhythm):
I would love to see you open up to me
But I will not pry
And I could use a little release
But I cannot cry
And I love the way that you erode me
Every time you sigh
And I would love to move you
But I will not push
And I would love to tell you everything
But I’m muffled by this hush
And I’d like to take your burdens on me
And laugh as I get crushed
Jimmy adds a third vocal harmony to Lola’s on the chorus, and it sounds so good that I almost forgive him for his lame guitar sound:
And I can live through this
But I can’t smile or sing or dance
A short, sweet solo from Akim, then:
The answers to your questions came to me
as if from above
And I could feel you from across a table
such metaphoric love
And our words all worked together
Like lines in a movie script
But you’ve torn the sails, and the rats have bailed
And I’m sinking with the ship
Tristan, Jimmy T, Lola and I are all singing in harmony now:
I can live through this
But I can’t smile or sing or dance
A big wail-a-thon, with Akim wrenching beautiful soaring notes from his Strat, Tristan thumping up and down and all around on the bass, and even Jimmy, who has finally remembered to kick his distortion channel on, laying down some chunky rhythm guitar, only to have to switch it off again for the softer ending: the return to the simple reggae beat of the introduction:
Even the waitress in the restaurant
where we used to go
Even the waitress in the restaurant
she wants to know . . .
“Damn that song kicks ass!” Jimmy T cheers. “We need to keep ol’ Dak here lonely and horny so he can keep writing good shit like that!”
Tristan calls out to the waitress behind the bar at the other end of the long room.
“Everything sound okay back there?”
The waitress flashes us a thumbs-up.
“Great!” Jimmy T says, setting his guitar down. “Sound check’s over. I’m getting a beer!”
Akim and Tristan sit down at a table to write out the song list, and Jimmy T runs to the bar to order a drink from the cute waitress, leaving Lola standing th
ere on the stage with me.
“Jesus,” Lola says to me. “He knows I’m right here, doesn’t he? I’ll bet he flirts even more when I’m not around to keep an eye on him.”
Since she didn’t exactly ask a question, I’m relieved that I don’t have to give her an answer. “You sounded great on Even the Waitress, Lola.”
“It’s a good song. If Zoe doesn’t come running back to you after all these songs you keep writing for her, I’m going to have to give her head a shake!”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
She sighs. “I wish someone cared as much about me.”
“What about Jimmy T?” I say, immediately regretting it.
Lola simply glances toward the bar at the back of the room, where the waitress is giggling at whatever tale Jimmy T is spinning for her.
“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’re more committed to Zoe than Jimmy is to me, and I sleep with Jimmy T. Zoe isn’t even dating you. She ought to have her head examined.”
Lola steps toward the back of the stage, adding, “And so should I.” She disappears behind the black curtain. I step down from the stage to join Akim and Tristan, when Lola pokes her head out from behind the curtain.
“Hey, Sifter. Are we gonna do the other new song, the song about you-know-who?
“Definitely.” I say. “Especially if she brings him along.”
“Good,” Lola says. “I’m in the mood to see an asshole suffer.”
She disappears behind the curtain again.
We’ve played a hot first set, and Rockin’ Rob’s Roadhouse is now filled to capacity. The air rumbles with the sound of a hundred voices, accentuated with the percussion of beer bottles hitting tabletops, pool balls clacking together, and the occasional glass smashing against the concrete floor. As Tristan, Akim and I file onto the stage to play our second set of the night, and Jimmy T and Lola appear from behind the black curtain, the crowd erupts, cheering and hooting. Wow. After three weeks of playing mostly-empty small-town watering holes, this is a rare and welcome show of enthusiasm.
Jimmy T would normally be eating up every second of this adoration, stretching himself wide to absorb it all, but at the moment he looks meek and shrunken. In lieu of their usual pre-set quickie, Lola has spent the last ten minutes backstage screaming at Jimmy T for his second trip to the bar to visit the attractive waitress. When he claimed that he was just doing his “public relations job,” that just pissed off Lola even more. As she takes her position at centre stage, her face is still flushed red from her tantrum.
Featherless Bipeds Page 10