Riffin' The Blues

“Who’s interested in playing a band instrument?” I wasn’t certain that I wanted to play in the school band but at ten years old, when an offer to leave class and spend twenty minutes anywhere other than amidst the pedagogy of whatever a Royall Elementary School teacher was forcing on my already brilliant ass, I was certain that I’d at least go to the meeting. So a few of us headed to the auditorium to hear Mr. Alan Perry’s spiel about joining the school band.

Mr. Perry was a cool cat. Kinda ironic and mildly sardonic at the same time butcept I wasn’t aware of it at that particular moment. I’d discern such later when I sorted out his after school activities as a Jaguar E Type S-1 owner and member of a jazz group that played local weddings and social events. The car alone was enough to make him a cool cat. I mean really. His yellow Jag convertible was exotic in its own right but even more so when Mr. Perry pulled up at school and parked it amidst the early 1970’s teachers’ cars caca. But I digress.

So not only did I decide that I wanted to be in the band, I settled on being a drummer. I took the information home to my mama and she agreed it’d be a good idea since I’d recently been kicked out of Cub Scouts so we went to Summerell’s music store to see about a snare drum. Actually, it was Mr. Summerell’s house. Small town. Shut up. And within thirty minutes at Mr. Summerell’s house/store, I was kitted out with a snare drum starter set. My mom wisely rented it, knowing that I was just as likely to be done with the whole thing in a week as I was to become the drumming prodigy that I thought I became.

Mr. Summerell for some reason, kinda haphazardly tossed me a probably twenty year old Slingerland drums catalogue that would fuel from that moment on, my absolute obsession with owning a full set of drums…the entire kit…GeneKrupa style. Whoever the hell he was.

I dutifully learned my 13 Rudiments and jammed with my fellow band members to Riffin the Blues and Pine Tree Patrol during practice. And I drove my mother off the deep end when playing that snare drum at home. But it was the Slingerland catalogue that got me. I thumbed the pages relentlessly, lusting after the goods on each page not unlike the contents of the moldy Playboy magazine that we kept up in Purvis’ woods at our camp. The difference though was that I had a vague idea regarding what to do with the stuff in the Slingerland catalogue. I had no idea where Niles, Illinois was and I probably pronounced Illinois like noise. All I knew was that they made Slingerland drums in that town and I wanted them to send me some.

Gene Krupa was Slingerland’s front man and was on the cover of every Slingerland catalogue for thirty years. And Krupa is credited with many of the trap set standards…tuneable heads, the high hat stand as well as working with Zildjian on creating standard use cymbals in the ride and crash categories. I loved the marine pearl drums that Krupa played and I wanted them. Real bad. 

 Buddy Rich in my humble opinion was far and away the better drummer. Speed…that was his differentiating strategy. But Buddy was not a true blue Slingerland man. He flirted with other makers including Ludwig but in the end, he was back behind a set of Slingerlands. Watch Krupa and Rich. It’s clear that Rich, while being respectful of his legendary elder’s skill, was just waiting his turn to smoke him. 

But I thought both guys were cool and I was  intrigued that they played drums in suits. I only wore a suit to church on Sundays and only then because my mama made me. Later I learned that Krupa got busted for marijuana and that made him even more mysterious and edgy to me. Remember, I was ten. That's Krupa above. Voluntarily boarding the Paddy Wagon after his arrest. It would be several more years before I'd be herded onto a similar vehicle in North Myrtle Beach. And I wasn't near as elegant as Mr. Krupa during the boarding process. I had those plastic disposable Spring Break handcuffs on and I was crying and drooling draft beer spittle on the front of my Howdy Doody t-shirt and I smelled a little bit like upchuck.

I begged my parents for a Slingerland set…the marine pearl ones just like Krupa’s. And since I was a model child, the next Christmas I had ‘em…at least a starter version. Two mounted tom-toms, a high hat and one ride cymbal…Zilco not Zildjian. Zildjian cymbals were pricey and my prodigy-ness was yet to unfurl. I saved my money and later added better cymbals and a floor tom. Look at my Justin Bieber, curl blow dried out of my hair, bang(s).

The Slingerland set fuelled my transition from school band member to rock star wannabe. My mom found a gal who taught drums…not snare drumming but how to play a set of drums. She came to our house with a book of very basic drumming sequences and showed me how to read each line of music that represented different drums or cymbals. I practiced my ass off and the two times she showed up to teach me were great. Then she no-showed one afternoon. I learned later by eavesdropping on my mama and aunt Kat in the kitchen that the gal got busted for marijuana. First Krupa and now my two-visits drum teacher? What was it about that evil weed?

Remember the stereo system in your parents’ den or basement? You know, the one that was a piece of furniture about as long as a steamer trunk…replete with a swing arm multi-album turntable and an AM-FM radio as well. Then to top it off it had the area to house albums and forty-fives. The speakers were in the front panels. Well, I blew my mom’s speakers within six months of banging my drums in the living room. That's little LFG in front of the still damaged and still in my mama's house, stereo.

Sandy Nelson albums…Teen Drums and Drums and More Drums fronted my first play along with albums efforts. Chuck Berry’s Maybellene and Johnny B. Good were easy enough to keep up with and I played the Rare Earth Get Ready album; with one side devoted to the title song, incessantly.

R.R. got a guitar and small amplifier and S.S. got a beat up old bass and we had visions of going on the road. Mostly we just played at whoever’s mama’s house would tolerate our noise making. And I continued to play in the school band through junior high. But here's an important point...We didn't have uniforms and we didn't march anywhere during elementary and junior high band. So I dropped band  like a bad habit during my inaugural, pre-freshman year summer band camp. I was too busy trying to be a hippie and besides, chicks didn't dig guys that wore goofy ass uniforms while playing in the marching band. Thereafter I was playing in various pick-up bands and had pretty much abandoned playing anything as elegant as Krupa and Rich style music for loud Rock and Roll. I have a 70% hearing loss in one ear to vouch for those heady years. 

I shared this in another story but here you go again…if my cymbal wasn’t in the way, you’d see ADG, the high school sophomore accompanying Louise, the gal who won the talent show that year. My band had just finished covering the Stories song, Brother Louie and we didn’t win dooky.

After my sophomore year of high school I pretty much ran outta gas on the idea of being a rock star. I played drums here and there but then gave it up for college and the KA house and all things fratty. My best childhood buddy, fellow school band drummer and wingman to this day, DCA, ended up with my drum kit at his house. Then it got lent to various and sundry parties and I figured it to be lost forever. Not too long ago DCA informed me that they had emerged again. They’re now in his attic and even though I’m not in a hurry to go get ‘em, there’s comfort in knowing that my marine pearl noise makers are within reach.

Onward. No autographs. Please.

ADG Deuce.

 Oh, and please…enjoy Stories and Brother Louie. Oy. One big-ass wah-wah pedal of 70’s twang.

First Car--First Girl

I know it’s not a great picture but it’s the only one I have. I wish that I had a better picture of both because they were beautiful…at least to me. My first car and my first girl…literally…in the same photo. I loved both. But maybe the car just a little bit more than the girl.

 MG Midgets weren’t exactly ubiquitous in Florence, South Carolina. If less than a dozen Mercedes prowled the mean streets of Florence, one can figure that the body count for British Midgets would be low. There might have been one other MG…maybe an MGB or an MGB-GT in town and there was nobody and I mean nobody who could work on these things. I learned out of necessity to work on mine. Amazing what images one can find via Google. The car above is almost identical to my mine.

There was a parts company in Charlotte, N.C. that handled British car stuff…Viking Imports. I just checked and they are still there—at the same address. Of course this was pre-internet so the process was by today’s standards, onerous. I would call them and tell them what I needed. They’d locate it and I’d send them a check. Most times what I needed wasn’t too esoteric so after my check (or my mama’s if I was a bit short on cash in the bank) cleared, they’d forward the goods. But even in the best scenario it usually took a week and a half. So if the needed part sidelined the car, and in my case it usually did, I either bummed rides or cajoled my sister into lending me her much less esoteric but slightly more reliable Pinto. The part shown above is an MG Midget Slave Cylinder…for the clutch. Yep, a hydraulic clutch…just one of the many examples of British motorcar persnicketalia.  It seemed that I  blew out the clutch slave cylinder every other month and surely one of the reasons had to be that I wasn’t rebuilding it properly. The guy at Viking, after selling me the rebuild kit a couple of times, suggested that I order “more than one if I was gonna go through ‘em so quickly.” Smartass.

South Carolina allowed you a restricted drivers license at fifteen so you could drive without a guardian in the car but only during daylight hours. I’d been fifteen for a few months when my dad pulled up one day in what was to be my little MG. But I thought it was his toy. He let it sit in the driveway for a week before he told me  it was mine. Three years old with about thirty thousand miles on it which today is nothing on a well maintained car. But these British babies were a bit dodgy from the get-go regardless of the mileage and mine, aesthetically pristine, soon became shall I say, a mechanical character builder.

 The Smiths gauges and the always interesting Lucas electronics were like the weather in England—a bit unpredictable and more often than not...cloudy. I learned to tolerate the electronic shenanigans out of love for the car. Who am I kidding? I learned to tolerate intermittently operable temp and fuel gauges because I had no choice. Shut up.

 What I couldn't repair or maintain was an issue with the tires. MG Midgets came with either wire wheels or ugly, utilitarian looking rims seen below. Mine was blessed with classic wire wheels replete with the single lug/spinner knockoffs. But the front rims weren't true. So I went through a pair of front tires every 3 months…crazy I know. Recaps…remember recaps? Fifteen bucks a throw.  

What a great first car though—even with all of its typical British car idiosyncrasies. But then they ultimately ruined the lines on MGs when they were forced to put those ugly black rubber bumpers on them—the beginning of the end. I can remember driving down Cherokee road with First Girl beside me. Top down, quarter tank of gas and ten bucks in my pocket. Everything at that moment, if the clutch didn’t blow, seemed right. I can even remember what song was playing on the radio…Rock the Boat by the Hues Corporation. Damn.

 So what happened to the car? My dad offered to swap me a Triumph GT-6 for the MG Midget if I’d give him my summer job savings to boot. My MG Midget, at least through my eyes, went from sugar to shitake in a nanosecond. The GT-6 was sleek to my Midget’s sudden boxiness. The GT-6 had problems too but it would run—fast. So fast that my dad took it from me within three months.

The Girl…my first real girlfriend. I’d never really kissed a girl…leastways not a real kiss kinda thing. I think I nervously gave S.B. a tentative peck on the lips during a sixth grade pool party and it took me a week to work up the nerve for that particularly bold move. But First Girl…she was worldly and learned by Florence South Carolina standards. She’d had an older boyfriend before me…a wise and skillful old sage of sixteen years. And she’d made it known to me that she’d already learned how to kiss. And I did not make it known how scared I was and how out-of-my-league I felt.

I remember pulling up for the first time in front of her house. I was so nervous I think I drove around the block ten times before turning on to her street. I had to meet her parents and her dad was the kind of dad I want to be the first time a guy calls on LFG. He was nice but he had that piercing look in his eyes…the kind of look that says “I’m being nice to you but don’t get comfortable with me son. I could kill you just as soon as look at you.” This would be me around that time. Boast or Fred Perry tennis shirt on and a pair of Bata Bullet tennis-court shoes. I shoulda stuck with this look.

I’ve already admitted somewhere in a previous story that the mid 1970’s was in my opinion, an absurd sartorial epoch. And I was impressionable. Impressionable at about a hundred pounds soaking ass wet. Impressionable with barely enough meat on my bones to skulk into the Men’s Department and hope that they had something small enough to fit me. I might have been driving a traditional British motorcar but that’s where any semblance of tradition ended. This was a synthetic moment and Nik-Nik shirts ruled the day.

God only knows the mélange of petroleum distillates that went into the creation of one of these babies. Five gets ten that the carbon footprint from one Nik-Nik shirt equals a month’s output from that gay little spaceship known as the Toyota Prius. Carbon footprint or not…I had to have a Nik-Nik.

And can you imagine what this slinky shirt looked like on a bony, bird chested boy who weighed a buck-ten? I’m glad there’s no photo evidence of it because surely, my spindly frame avec Nik-Nik probably made that pencil necked bird-esque Ira Magaziner throated Anthony Weiner look like the Incredible Mutha Futha Hulk. These are the Allman Brothers. I wanted to be an Allman Brother. The Allman Brothers wore Nik-Nik kinda shirts. Any questions?

And please, let’s not forget my shoes. I had Earth Shoes and Famolores. Ok, let’s just stop the story train for a minute. At least I’m confessing my sins. So if you’re sitting there howling at me, I’m good with it. But what was your worst sartorial moment? I didn’t ask to be born at a time that would assure my transition to the Men’s Department would find me amongst such absurdly synthetic swathing options. Thankfully my foray into things Nik-Nik and Famolore would be brief. I tried to be a hippie. I really, really tried but I was never a good one. But then again who was a really, really good hippie...in Florence South Carolina?  

So picture this. I’m all showered up. I've blown all the the curl out of my hair and its height has me standing, as opposed to my usual at that time, five feet maybe five inches…at about six feet tall. Cheap bell bottom jeans from Mangum’s Army-Navy Store on Dargan Street and my brown Earth Shoes. I’m wearing a size small Nik-Nik that’s still two sizes too big for me so it hangs on me like some deflated County Fair balloon. Half of the graphics are tucked down into my jeans. But in retrospect it was probably a good thing. The graphic stuff should remain in your britches.

I’m not making this up. By the time I pulled up at First Girl’s house, my back was soaking wet. The Nik-Nik against my black-vinyl bucket seat manifested a synthetic slow-burn. Kinda like the smouldering epicenter of a sawdust pile. The fellowship of these two vinyl comrades-in-arms is gonna make you sweat—regardless of the season. And it gets worse. I've never met her parents and I’m nervous. I'd never had a girlfriend...at least one where you drive to her house and meet mama and daddy and stuff.  I’d go on to develop a rather facile approach to charming parents and quite frankly, most people. But on this day I possessed no such facility. I had no game. All I wanted to do is not puke.

Half way up the lawn I step in a big pile of dog dookie. Not a little job left by a toy poodle but a huge pile…fresh and tenacious. And it ain’t gonna come off without some effort. I can feel my face flush with heat while the back of my Nik-Nik shirt feels kinda cool as the vinyl-vinyl fellowship moisture evaporates. I can only imagine what I looked like trying to get the dookie off of my Earth Shoe by dragging it on the grass. “What’s the skinny new boy doing walking in circles in the yard honey?” I remember leaving my shoes outside at the front door and proceeding with the meet-and-greet sans shodding. Surely it went ok but to this day, I get a hitch in my gut when I recall the dookie event.

I’d go over there as often as possible during the next year. The routine was always the same. We could sit in the living room but the door had to be open. And we’d kiss our faces off till I had to go home. I’d stay until I absolutely had to haul it home to make the curfew.

I declared to my mother that I’d found the girl who was going to have my kids…that I loved her and that we were going to have three babies and live in the mountains…you know, kinda John Denver Rocky Mountain High-style. My mother laughed at the notion and I became livid...really pissed at her. How could she doubt my undying unquenchable love lust for the first girl I’d ever kissed? Geez...stupid parents. Statistical likelihoods be damned. But mama was right….just like the MG Midget in the shadow of the Triumph GT-6…First Girl faded rapidly when I met Second Girl at the tennis courts the next summer.

First Girl, mother of two grown gals has been married to the same guy for years. I saw her on Facebook one time. She seems to have remained in a hippie-granola holding pattern and that’s ok I suppose. I’m not sure the status of Girls Two through Twenty Seven. Wonder where my British cars are?

Onward. Home from Anaheim. Thankfully in all cotton.

ADG, II

Fleetwood Mac $6.50

I saw a ton of great bands during my junior high and high school years but only a few ticket stubs escaped my mom's house cleaning and my numerous moves through the years. I just enjoyed a really nice but hazy walk down memory lane a moment ago-fueled by these stubs. I think TicketMaster and other resellers should be jailed for the markup they foist upon the public these days.

When I was a teenager someone with a reliable car or someone's mom would go to the venue and buy the tickets for face value and we'd gladly pay up as well as volunteer to pay for gas money or whatever. As long as we got to the venue on time. I was repulsed by all of the cannibis and essentially held my breath when amidst the smoke and haze of such agents-focusing on the bands and the excitement of seeing live performances with minimal props/pyrotechnics.

My first concert ever. B.B.'s mom drove us to Columbia and with one of her neighbor ladies-attended the concert with the six of us. I think B.B. was embarrassed to death. I couldn't have cared less because the whole time we are sitting there I'm not believing that Chuck Negron is right in front of me singing all of the cool Three Dog Night stuff that I played at home on my mom's big ass piece-of-furniture stereo while banging a set of Slingerlands. Wow...after uploading this picture-I see that within a year of me being at the Three Dog Night concert, my mother would be a widow.

Rode to the Allman Brothers concert in J.S.'s Vega. Chevy Vega yep. Not a Cosworth like Toad had but hey-it was a free ride to the concert. I think that Andrew Gold....was it Gold who sang "Oh What a Lonely Boy" or something like that? He opened for the Brothers Allman. My ears are still ringing from this one. What's a Quaalude?

The Doobies-no Michael McDonald performing on October 17, 1985...it was the original bunch...it was good. I played my drums on Doobies songs a lot at home because most of the songs were three or four chords and the beats were white boy friendly. J.H. had a nice car-a new one I think. Her dad was a big money fat cat lawyer in my town so D.N. and I hitched a ride with J.H. and L.M. It was established from the get-go that it was a platonic thang and that they were glad to give us a ride in order to get some help with gas money. I'm just gonna tell you right now that the platonic thang fell through when J.H. started playing with my hair. J.H. ... the girl ... the girl who owned the car. The onliest thing I was guilty of was giving in to her advances. I had big hair-all blow dried up in a 1970's kind of a way.

I got permission to drive to the beach for August 1976 Doobie show. I was dating H.C. at the time and her parents had a place at the beach. We were forbidden to go there...I think her parents thought that if we were in a beach house unsupervised that something might happen. I was a boy on a mission in spite of the admonishment. I mean come on-I'm in to this thang for eight dollars and fifty cents times two plus other expenses.

We were staying at another house where parents were present but somehow-I don't know-it just happened...we ended up at her parent's beach house. Told the other parents we were driving home or something. I mean I didn't say that to the parents-H.C. did. I'd a never done anything like that. She produced the hidden key and I was literally forced inside her parents' beach house. All would have ended well but somehow a pair of my tightie-whities fell out of my duffel bag the next day before we left and her dad found them the next weekend. The picture above is from this approximate time in Mr. Tightie Whitie's journey. He used to burn out a blow dryer every six months getting the curl out of that head of Bee Gees disco hair. Shut up. He wishes he still had that hair.

Z.Z. Top at six bucks and change. Not sure where I came up with all the dough and for the life of me I can't remember how I got to and from this one. What I do remember is that there was one cardboard cactus prop on stage and nothing else but a bunch of strong Texas tonk. The fact that Styx opened for them was laughable.

I get a call from G.S. on Friday morning. He has two Skynyrd tickets and no ride. Three Pony Packs of Miller in the cooler. An old blue V.W. Beetle that I was driving that summer-half a tank of gas and we are good to go. I got pulled on the way back to our town that night-prolly three in the morning. But for the grace of God and my Uncle Doug...my father's younger brother-the one who bought me all of the delightfully inappropriate guns and stuff when I was a little kid. Thanks Uncle Doug for not telling my mama.

I'd really cleaned up my act by the time Fleetwood Mac rolled into town. I went with a few guys from the track team. Athletics is a character builder and for this little misguided teenager who'd lost his dad, Cross Country and Track literally saved me-gave me a new identity. This tour accompanied the release of the Rumors album. Stevie Nicks was probably in her mid twenties back then. She didn't even notice me.

The Eagles...Hotel California tour at almost nine bucks. One of the best concerts I've ever seen...not on par with Paul McCartney and Wings-The Rolling Stones-Eric Clapton but close. J.T. and I went over to Columbia for this one and I can remember eating about ten Slim Jims on the way home.

I sure had fun taking this memory trip.

Onward.
ADG