by Eric Shoars
“Onions!” the four of us shout in unison bringing our hands up over our heads.
The curtain draws back once more, the chanting stops, to be replaced by insane cheers. “Let’s do it,” Todd states, leading us in a jog back on stage. The clamoring gets louder at the sight of us.
“You got it,” Laurel announces to the audience. “One more song.” She throws the guitar strap over her head which lands on her left shoulder. “Earlier we sang the first song ever sung by this band.” Laurel stops to look around to make sure we can proceed. “Now we’re going to play the second. Think a lot of you will recognize this one.”
The first trail of notes land in the ballroom and, I swear, the roof is going to blow off the joint. It is a sound of absolute euphoria. What’s stunning to me is that it’s not just our peers who recognize Talk Dirty To Me but our kids as well. Getting such a reception for this song is tremendously gratifying.
It’s the final song of the night for us too so we let it all hang out turning the dial to 11 and a half. The encore is truly our song of thanks to our family and friends for helping make tonight such a stunning success.
Not sure who is jumping up and down more – our peers or their kids. They’re singing along with us which is just crazy fun. It’s difficult to pay attention to the music while trying to take in the moment and watching Todd, Laurel, and Lorelei absolutely tearing it up. In that instant I am not the drummer of the band but simply a fan as well. I allow myself to marvel at their talent and their passion. Sweat running down my forearms rollercoasters up, over, and down the goosebumps popping up.
Then we bring it home. “...ooh, yeah!” the final lyrics are sung and my ending downbeat brings the song and the show to its finale. “Thank you, Surf Ballroom, goodnight!” Laurel shouts her right arm flying up to a wave. The curtains fly shut, the house lights come up, and house music begins playing, although hearing it over the clapping and whooping is almost impossible. It doesn’t stop for another ten minutes.
The four of us leave our positions and head to the men’s and women’s dressing rooms. We are all soaked with the hard-earned sweat of a job well done. A quick wardrobe change is in order before mixing with the people who came to see and support us.
The next couple of hours are spent schmoozing and catching up with everyone. Every person in the place is greeted and commiserated with. Other than the day I married Julie, I have never hugged or been hugged as much. The concert may have ended but the energy level hasn’t dropped one bit. The band, our songs, and our reason for being have all been accepted without question, without hesitation. As we talk with folks, we’re shown videos they’ve taken, social media posts...it’s a little overwhelming that people have cemented a relationship with us and our music this quickly.
Then there’s the media itself who have joined us – reporters from the local television station and the newspaper spending time interviewing each of us for a human interest story with a decidedly local twist. Any media attention we can get is welcome. Buzz has to start somewhere.
This impromptu class/family/friend reunion is a hit. Simple, laid back, and totally bitchin’. What more could the Class of 1986 ask for? It’s a nice touch that our kids can be here to experience this. That’s not the normal class reunion for sure. Furthering the enjoyment is reuniting our class with Todd and Lori which is a happy bonus for them. Our classmates had been informed of the composition of the group but hadn’t seen half the band in decades. Stories go back and forth in the catching up of Todd and Lori to what’s happened since they moved away.
Our friend and classmate Randee makes sure she talks to us when she can catch the four of us together. Randee stands about five-four with sandy blonde hair with curls that won’t stop and brown eyes with a twinkle of excitement. She must have an aging portrait in her attic because she looks 29, not 49.
She’s clad in a pair of tan capris, a brown blouse with the top two buttons unbuttoned, a tan stud in her right ear, a brown stud in her left ear, and a pair of brown sandals. She hasn’t changed that way either. Back in high school she coordinated her outfits the same way. Now she’s before us with something we apparently must hear without any further delay.
“Hey, guys, wonderful show!” Randee starts. “I love this!” She opens her arms and sweeps them around. “The band, the music, the tour, all of it. But you’re missing something,” Randee informs us putting her left hand on her hip and pointing her right index finger toward our faces. “Merchandise!” Her index finger moves to Laurel’s left wrist. “Love, love, love the wristband. I can custom design leather wristbands for Onions At A Crime Scene. You could sell them at your merchandise booth at your shows.”
“We thought we’d just make some t-shirts,” I admit. “Hadn’t considered much else. Is this something we should do?”
Laurel, Lori, and Todd agree it is an intriguing idea and we give Randee the go-ahead to design a leather wristband for our group. “How much do you charge?” I ask. No one does anything for free. But Randee shakes her head.
“I don’t want anything. Tonight you’ve shown us something special and I want to support you. I’ll email you the design in a week or so and we can go from there.” We thank Randee and then she moves on to socialize with classmates she’s not seen in years. Once Randee’s out of earshot Todd asks, “Merchandise? Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves?”
“Wouldn’t a KISS fan be all about the merchandise studying the master of merchandising, Gene Simmons?” I tweak my friend.
Todd shakes his head at my teasing and shrugs his shoulders. “I guess you have a point there.”
“Just because Randee is going to design something doesn’t mean we have to move forward with it,” Lorelei answers Todd.
“It’s fantastic that we played our first gig and someone has an idea to help us. Why not take a look?” She finishes then turns to Laurel and comments, “You trendsetter, you. You wear the rock chick leather wristbands and now everybody wants one,” she chuckles.
Laurel chuckles with her. “Yeah, tell my boys their mom is a trendsetter and see what they say.”
With that, we go back to socializing and bask in what has been a dazzling and dizzying evening.
***
A shade before midnight the last of the non-family members are gone leaving us to ourselves for the first time since walking into the Surf Ballroom this afternoon. A mutual exhaustion comes upon us but it’s a fantastic exhaustion. I may go to bed tonight and wake up Monday. Glad we decided to book hotel rooms and don’t have to travel a long distance tonight.
The last official piece of business before departing is to pack up our instruments, equipment, and cables into Todd’s trailer for transport. The best we can do for a road crew is our children. It’s free labor and makes quick work of packing, hauling, and storing.
My girls, Lori’s girls, and Laurel’s boys decide to loiter in the parking lot while the rest of us head back into the building one more time before calling it a night. One final visual sweep satisfies us all is well, we haven’t forgotten to pack anything, and we can officially bring this first gig to its official end.
Julie puts her hand on my arm just as I am about to suggest we disappear into the evening which has turned to morning. “Hang on a second, guys.” The four of us plus Seth look at her wondering what could possibly be left to do tonight.
Julie pulls out a cardboard priority envelope from her large handbag. “This came in the mail today and it looked important. With the concert being tonight I didn’t want to distract you with anything so I held on to it till now when the event is over.”
Julie hands me the envelope since it has my name on it. If it were a paper envelope, it might be just regular mail or even some sort of rejection notice. But there’s something different, something suspenseful yet hopeful about this type of mailer. I grab the cardboard tab and pull, unzipping the envelope, removing a letter, and sca
nning the words quickly.
“Oh shit,” I say feeling my knees buckle a bit. Julie puts her hand on my right shoulder to steady me, just in case.
“What is it?” Lorelei asks. “Is it good news?” Laurel, Seth, and Todd give me looks that ask the same question.
Making eye contact with them, almost in a daze, I reply, “We got a sponsor. We got a tour sponsor.”
What ensues is an echo effect of stunned whispers one right after the other. “We got a sponsor...we got a sponsor...we got a sponsor…we got a sponsor.”
“WE GOT A SPONSOR!!!!” we shout as if we already hadn’t figured that out. I think the entire city of Clear Lake heard us. Hell, Buddy Holly may have heard us. We’re jumping up and down, high-fiving, fist pumping, and dancing on the ballroom floor. It takes us two minutes before we’re calm enough for Laurel to ask the question: “Who is sponsoring us?” Everyone stops celebrating; realizing that knowing who our benefactor is would be helpful information.
“Yeah, who are we going to be rocking with?” Lorelei follows up with anticipation.
A semi-sheepish expression on my face is what they see as I reveal the identity of our benefactor. “Centrum Silver,” I announce with as much fanfare as I can muster. This is the brand I didn’t want to tell Julie about for fear of jinxing it.
Crickets. Serious crickets.
Todd scowls. “Are you joking? Centrum? Vitamins for senior citizens? We’re not going to be sponsored by an energy drink, a beer, a soda, or a battery but by vitamins for old people?” Todd sweeps his hands, pushing the news aside, rejecting the information.
“I know, I know, it’s not sexy,” I acknowledge. “But we have a sponsor. No out of pocket costs for us. At all.” My words are not making a dent in turning the mood around. Julie gives me two thumbs up and a toothy grin. She knows it’s a big deal even though it might not be from our “dream” category.
“Well, it would certainly speak to our generation,” Lorelei says in a half-hearted attempt to be excited about our sponsor.
“Hold on,” Laurel interjects. “Before we get all bent out of shape, how much is the sponsorship worth and what do we have to do for it?”
I answer the second question first. “The sponsorship means their brand goes where we go and on our promotional items...banners at our concerts, at our personal appearances, on our website, mentions in our media interviews, anywhere the Onions go, Centrum Silver will be there.”
“How much?” Todd insists I answer Laurel’s first question.
My eyes never leave Todd’s as I reach into the envelope, remove the check, and hand it to Laurel to reveal. The dawning reality moves across her face that instantly goes white, her eyes almost popping out of her head. It’s a bit unnerving.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” Laurel responds apparently hypnotized. Or traumatized. Take your pick.
Todd’s head jerks so violently sideways in Laurel’s direction that a vertebrae cracks in his neck. “Did you just say one hundred thousand dollars?” wondering if his ears malfunctioned.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” Laurel repeats still dazed and somewhat confused. Lorelei and Seth pounce to each side of her to see with their own eyes how many zeroes are on that check. Lori looks up at Todd and confirms with amazement, “One hundred thousand dollars.”
Still not believing what everyone is saying, Todd comes over to see for himself only to find what everyone has said is true. He puts both hands on his head like Publishers Clearinghouse just showed up at his door with the balloons and the big check. “I love Centrum Silver!” he yells at the top of his lungs thrusting his hands in the air. “I’ll take Centrum Silver every damn day for the rest of my life! It’s the best vitamin for old people ever!”
We make such a commotion our kids come flying in from the parking lot to see what happened. They reach us just at the moment we all yell, “We love Centrum Silver!”
What a magnificent moment. What a grand night. What a wonderful way to kick off the tour.
Thank you, Shirley Partridge.
CHAPTER SIX
Lights, Camera, Onions
July 27, 2018
“This is crazy. You know that, right?” is how our interview begins.
It’s 10:30 on a Friday morning and Onions At A Crime Scene is on-set at a regionally syndicated Minneapolis-based television show called The Jason Show. The host is – wait for it – Jason. It is he who sits directly across from Laurel with Lorelei, Todd, and yours truly in a line off Laurel’s left shoulder. We’re in front of a live studio audience in Minneapolis promoting our Saturday night gig at First Avenue.
Thanks to an introduction assist from my long-time radio buddy Jay Philpott – an on-air personality for one of the local radio stations – we have booked the legendary First Avenue for our performance tomorrow night. Jay also put us in touch with The Jason Show’s producer to get us some publicity before tomorrow night’s show and help sell more tickets.
Our interviewer continues his thought, “I know we live in an internet-sensation era but a reunion tour for a band that didn’t exist six months ago? That’s wacky.” Jason looks to the audience. “Am I right?” The audience responds with spirited applause accompanied by a few hoots and hollers.
The pace of life has picked up significantly since the Surf Ballroom performance. The reaction to our songs by comments from the show’s attendees and by comments on our YouTube channel made it clear we needed to get our songs released before our first tour stop. The Centrum Silver sponsorship money gave us the means to get in the recording studio and produce our first album No Way Back Today.
Going from practicing in Laurel and Seth’s garage to performing in a studio under the watchful ear of a producer and an engineer surrounded by recording equipment and sound-proofed walls was totally tubular.
The four of us wanted to minimize nerves as much as possible so they wouldn’t hinder our process and consume precious time. The solution was to make the studio our own.
I brought the MTV beach blanket received as a high school graduation gift hanging it behind me. Lorelei brought her entire collection of California Raisins placing them all over her keyboard. Laurel brought her Alf figurine perching it on the four-legged stool next to her, and Todd has KISS’ Destroyer album propping it on top of a speaker.
The best touch is that we all brought our old concert t-shirts out of moth balls. I have my Joan Jett t-shirt from ’89, Laurel her Corey Heart t-shirt from ’84, Todd his KISS t-shirt from ’84 and, yes, Lori has her Sex Pistols t-shirt from ‘08. All shirts are on hangars and are suspended from coat hooks next to the door. The personal touches have the desired effect of putting us in a zone of crisp execution.
The recording and producing of No Way Back Today took less time than one would expect from a burgeoning band. It gets done in a weekend. The final product brings about an album which any band would be proud.
Our digital media gurus got our album uploaded and ready for people to buy and download. Onions At A Crime Scene’s No Way Back Today is another step down our offbeat path as is today’s appearance on a television talk show.
“Talk about a wonderful story,” Jason continues. “I…love you guys!”
The four of us smile and turn to the audience waving in acknowledgment and thanks. From the TV viewer’s perspective we’re waving to a packed studio full of hundreds of people. In reality, it’s a crowd of about 100 people sardined into a confined space to give the illusion of a large studio audience. Regardless, we are delighted to see such strong reactions from a group of people we’ve never met nor seen before.
The studio vibe radiates warmth. The set is bright, vibrant, alive. The set we’re on is not the set that was here before our interview. During the commercial break the stage crew wheeled away Jason’s trademark white, oval desk and replaced it with a couch for us. The couch is on the right hand side of the stage as the
audience faces it with a matching, upholstered arm chair across from us where Jason is sitting.
The backdrop for the interview set is comprised of three large squares suspended from the rafters that have space between them to walk through. The middle tile has Jason spelled out large as life. Each letter starts with a different color that blends as the letters overlap. Behind the letters is a water-blue background with bubbles cascading like carbonation in a glass of soda.
Jason wears his trademark black, horn-rimmed glasses which complement his medium blue suit with white shirt and baby blue tie with white polka dots. His brown eyes have a gleam that communicates, I can’t believe they pay me to have this much fun!
It can be hard to know what to expect when doing a show like this. Nobodies can be treated as such, just random people filling air time because no better guests were available. That’s not Jason. We’re getting star treatment as much as guests like Harry Connick Junior, Sally Field, or Justin Timberlake.
“I’ve read about you online and have seen your website and YouTube videos, which are great by the way, but why do this at all? Is it vanity? Midlife crisis?” Jason finishes with a chuckle. For the seemingly hostile questions, they are far from it.
The crowd chuckles with us at the uttering of “midlife crisis” because it does seem to be the logical conclusion. Jason’s questions are reasonable for someone who isn’t us, who hasn’t been part of this improbable journey from the beginning, who looks at us from faraway and wonders what on earth would possess four apparently sane individuals to do something so inexplicable.
“Let me state for the record,” Laurel answers emphatically, “I am not having a midlife crisis. I have no idea about these people.” Jason and the assembled audience erupt at Laurel’s metaphorical throwing the rest of her bandmates under a large bus. We feign injury at Laurel’s remark and shake our heads vigorously.
“Seriously, Jason,” Laurel continues, “this started out as a reunion of friends and living out something we talked about doing as nine-year-olds.” She looks at us and then sweeps her hand to include the audience in what she’s about to say. “It’s become much more than that.” The three of us nod with her.