Larry
Mike’s
Pith & Wind cont.
..the sushi bar in the arcade and had some sushi rolls and miso soup before
finally heading to the carpark and my date with the supermarket. When I got
to the carpark I was astonished to find the lone busker still baying at the
sullen sky, so I walked up and coyly dropped a coin in his vinyl guitar case
before provocatively standing right in front of him and waiting. When he finished
his song I asked him how long he’d been there, and when he said about
three hours I said that must make him some sort of human juke box, which didn’t
seem to please him all that much, but then he asked me what song I’d
like to hear.
When I hesitated he considered for a while as he idly tuned his crappy guitar
before singing a Jackson Brown song about the dance of life, and rather poignantly
too, throwing his head back dramatically as I’d seen him do before from
across the carpark. I said I liked it, introduced myself and asked his name.
He said he was Larry, and that Mike was the name of a minister he knew, which
confirmed a feeling I had about him and where he was coming from.
Larry asked me what I did and looked slightly baffled when I said I was a
musician. Looking for something else to talk about, he asked me about my Last
Hurrah badge, and I told him a bit about the ‘night of nights’ and the role
of Support Act and so on. He thought it sounded a bit like a comedy night,
which I conceded it was really, and with nothing else much to say and with
enough colour for my story I wished him luck, we shook hands and parted company.
Larry. That puts me in mind of a short-lived band that Bill and I had called
‘Bob & Larry’, named after a couple of coke dealers whom we
met in the early ‘70s when they bumptiously materialised on the Spectrum
/ Stahely Brothers tour, which they’d apparently underwritten.
But this was in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, and I’d never
deliberately played stoned, so I was thinking it was about time to try it
out, and Bob & Larry (i.e.Bill and me) was going to be my first ‘out
of it’ band. I accepted a gig for Bob & Larry at a restaurant somewhere
out of town – the name escapes me now, but I remember it as a bluestone
building with a muddy carpark and that heavily embossed Fleur de Lille wallpaper
(similar to Berties) throughout.
After we’d set up, we retired to Bill’s car in the muddy carpark
and blew a joint. I was already having misgivings about this new course I’d
charted when we crept back into the restaurant, but I soon noticed something
quite remarkable. Bill’s joint had somehow rendered us both totally
invisible – not to mention effectively inaudible! (I’m not sure
about dope smell though – I was always conscious that hangs around a
bit).
So, there we were, two idiots called Mike & Bill pretending to be Bob
& Larry, reduced to a burnt porridge smell in the centre of the room,
making a complete hash (hah!) of the music and giggling uncontrollably with
nobody taking a blind bit of notice! We felt as if we’d been absorbed
by the ghastly wallpaper and were doomed to live out our lives there in some
previously unsuspected parallel dimension.
The night seemed never to end, but when it did I had already vowed never to
repeat the experiment, and as a consequence Bob & Larry only ever played
the one gig. I’m not sure there’s a moral to the story, but you
may see it as a cautionary tale for some youngster you know taking up a music
career, (mind you, they’ll want to make their own mistakes, thank you!)
and of course it may be a revelation to some of our audience that we have
always played ‘straight’. Maybe that’s the moral; for better
or for worse, straight guys finish last.
Pith & Wind cont.
..the sushi bar in the arcade and had some sushi rolls and miso soup before
finally heading to the carpark and my date with the supermarket. When I got
to the carpark I was astonished to find the lone busker still baying at the
sullen sky, so I walked up and coyly dropped a coin in his vinyl guitar case
before provocatively standing right in front of him and waiting. When he finished
his song I asked him how long he’d been there, and when he said about
three hours I said that must make him some sort of human juke box, which didn’t
seem to please him all that much, but then he asked me what song I’d
like to hear.
When I hesitated he considered for a while as he idly tuned his crappy guitar
before singing a Jackson Brown song about the dance of life, and rather poignantly
too, throwing his head back dramatically as I’d seen him do before from
across the carpark. I said I liked it, introduced myself and asked his name.
He said he was Larry, and that Mike was the name of a minister he knew, which
confirmed a feeling I had about him and where he was coming from.
Larry asked me what I did and looked slightly baffled when I said I was a
musician. Looking for something else to talk about, he asked me about my Last
Hurrah badge, and I told him a bit about the ‘night of nights’ and the role
of Support Act and so on. He thought it sounded a bit like a comedy night,
which I conceded it was really, and with nothing else much to say and with
enough colour for my story I wished him luck, we shook hands and parted company.
Larry. That puts me in mind of a short-lived band that Bill and I had called
‘Bob & Larry’, named after a couple of coke dealers whom we
met in the early ‘70s when they bumptiously materialised on the Spectrum
/ Stahely Brothers tour, which they’d apparently underwritten.
But this was in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, and I’d never
deliberately played stoned, so I was thinking it was about time to try it
out, and Bob & Larry (i.e.Bill and me) was going to be my first ‘out
of it’ band. I accepted a gig for Bob & Larry at a restaurant somewhere
out of town – the name escapes me now, but I remember it as a bluestone
building with a muddy carpark and that heavily embossed Fleur de Lille wallpaper
(similar to Berties) throughout.
After we’d set up, we retired to Bill’s car in the muddy carpark
and blew a joint. I was already having misgivings about this new course I’d
charted when we crept back into the restaurant, but I soon noticed something
quite remarkable. Bill’s joint had somehow rendered us both totally
invisible – not to mention effectively inaudible! (I’m not sure
about dope smell though – I was always conscious that hangs around a
bit).
So, there we were, two idiots called Mike & Bill pretending to be Bob
& Larry, reduced to a burnt porridge smell in the centre of the room,
making a complete hash (hah!) of the music and giggling uncontrollably with
nobody taking a blind bit of notice! We felt as if we’d been absorbed
by the ghastly wallpaper and were doomed to live out our lives there in some
previously unsuspected parallel dimension.
The night seemed never to end, but when it did I had already vowed never to
repeat the experiment, and as a consequence Bob & Larry only ever played
the one gig. I’m not sure there’s a moral to the story, but you
may see it as a cautionary tale for some youngster you know taking up a music
career, (mind you, they’ll want to make their own mistakes, thank you!)
and of course it may be a revelation to some of our audience that we have
always played ‘straight’. Maybe that’s the moral; for better
or for worse, straight guys finish last.
Larry