Back in 1970 I devoted a lot of effort to trying to get connected with a band in Tyler, Texas. It was kind of frustrating because Karina was having flings with some of the top local talent (I won't name names) and even they couldn't help...
The issue was that all the really good musicians were in established bands (two of them had songs on the billboard charts) and there were no "lower tier" bands because there were so few rock venues in town... In southern California you could get gigs simply hanging out in music stores but that just didn't happen in Tyler...
Of course - if you were willing to play country it was a whole different story. I knew lots of guys who hated country music but played it at truck stops and redneck bars (excuse me - private clubs) because that was the only way to make ends meet... Yeah - Smith County is technically dry but you can go to any number of places and pay a couple of bucks for a "membership" and drink. It's totally hypocritical - but I digress :-)
The point is that if you insisted on playing rock and weren't in one of the top bands you pretty much had to move to Dallas to survive... I wouldn't play country and really wasn't in a position to move so I was stuck.
And that's the "backdrop" for one of the strangest evenings of my life. I really don't remember all the gory details but I'll try and hit the highlights:
I've mentioned before that I played a lot of tennis in the nearby park that summer. There were a few guys I used to play with regularly and one day I found out that one of them was involved in an effort to start a new band. The "bonus" was that one of the prospective members had inherited a bunch of money from his grandmother and could afford the "communal" equipment (like mics and a PA system) that most groups don't have the resources to acquire.
So we agreed that the next day they would pick me up after supper and we'd go somewhere to practice... Simple enough - right?
The first thing I remember was we ended up in some guys front yard and everyone was standing around B.S.ing for 1/2 hour while I impatiently waited. I think the issue had something to do with getting hold of a van to transport the drums and other equipment... When we finally hit the road I was sandwiched in the middle of the back seat of a 1964 Chevy Impala with 3 other people.
Now -that wouldn't have been an issue except that the person to the left of me was a 13 year old girl and the guy on the other side of her had his hand up her skirt and she was making all kinds of interesting noises and was trembling and stuff. I was trying really hard not to get aroused but it was kind of impossible because we were seriously mushed together and I could feel every twitch and quiver. It was an "uncomfortable" experience to say the least :-) Enough of that...
Tyler is not a big place. You could drive from one end to the other in less than 10 minutes. Yet it somehow took these guys 3 hours to find everybody, ditch the girl, get hold of a van and load up all the equipment... It was 10 PM by the time we pulled into the intended practice location - a service station on the south end of town. A friend of a friend worked there and had agreed to let us set up in one of the service bays.
We had just started playing when the owner called and told the employee to get us the heck out of there. I don't know who complained to who - there were no houses within hearing distance - but we had to pack everything back into the van and head off to find another place. There were no backup plans so we spent the next 2 hours crisscrossing back and forth across Tyler accomplishing absolutely nothing... Before long it was abundantly clear to me that these guys were a bunch of complete tools :-)
It was a little after midnight when we arrived at an abandoned building outside of town. But apparently it had never dawned on them that not having electricity might be a problem for a rock band. So we turned around and were headed back into town (yet again) when we encountered a blond girl running down the middle of the road playing chicken with oncoming traffic. At first she wouldn't let anyone near her but one of the guys knew her really well and eventually managed to calm her down a bit. She had apparently dropped a bunch of "Orange Zonker" - a mixture of LSD and meth - and was having a particularly bad trip.
Aside - I really don't understand why anyone would take LSD or meth let alone mixing them together. But it was really popular with the hippie subculture in Tyler at the time...
We had just gotten the girl off the road and into the van when the sheriff's deputy arrived. I was not privy to the conversation that ensued between the deputy and the driver of the van but the officer was apparently somewhat sympathetic to the situation and gave us the option of leaving the county as opposed to turning the girl over to him... I suspect he just didn't want her (or us) causing any more trouble in his jurisdiction that evening. So we were escorted to the nearest county line... And as a result I can legitimately claim to have been kicked out of a county :-)
BTW: That was yet another uncomfortable ride because I ended up sitting next to the tripping girl and every once in a while she'd look at me and freak out and her friend would have to calm her down again... I hope it was some sort of hallucination because I was trying really hard to be non-threatening. It sucks to think that one look at my face could trip somebody out that bad :-)
We ended up driving to a lake (I no longer recall which one) and sitting on a dock eating watermelon and talking about nothing in particular for a what seemed like a particularly long time... Finally, around 2 AM the girl had recovered to the point where she was more or less coherent (she was also puking and not looking very perky in general) so we headed back into Smith County (hoping the deputy didn't spot us again) and they dropped me off at home. The whole thing took about 8 hours and we never did get to practice... I don't know if that would have been considered a "typical" evening for those guys but I had no intention of ever finding out. It really wasn't my idea of a good time :-)
Epilogue: I didn't mention it during the narrative but it was my tennis playing buddy who was messing with that 13 year old girl in the back seat. (He was 16 at the time.) We still played tennis together from time to time afterward and a few months later he told me he'd gotten her pregnant and was being "strongly encouraged" by both of their fathers to marry her. (Think shotguns.) He had cut his hair, dropped out of school and gotten a job... The whole thing had him pretty much scared sh*tless... I made a mental note that if I ever had a girlfriend I should really try and avoid getting her pregnant :-)
The issue was that all the really good musicians were in established bands (two of them had songs on the billboard charts) and there were no "lower tier" bands because there were so few rock venues in town... In southern California you could get gigs simply hanging out in music stores but that just didn't happen in Tyler...
Of course - if you were willing to play country it was a whole different story. I knew lots of guys who hated country music but played it at truck stops and redneck bars (excuse me - private clubs) because that was the only way to make ends meet... Yeah - Smith County is technically dry but you can go to any number of places and pay a couple of bucks for a "membership" and drink. It's totally hypocritical - but I digress :-)
The point is that if you insisted on playing rock and weren't in one of the top bands you pretty much had to move to Dallas to survive... I wouldn't play country and really wasn't in a position to move so I was stuck.
And that's the "backdrop" for one of the strangest evenings of my life. I really don't remember all the gory details but I'll try and hit the highlights:
I've mentioned before that I played a lot of tennis in the nearby park that summer. There were a few guys I used to play with regularly and one day I found out that one of them was involved in an effort to start a new band. The "bonus" was that one of the prospective members had inherited a bunch of money from his grandmother and could afford the "communal" equipment (like mics and a PA system) that most groups don't have the resources to acquire.
So we agreed that the next day they would pick me up after supper and we'd go somewhere to practice... Simple enough - right?
The first thing I remember was we ended up in some guys front yard and everyone was standing around B.S.ing for 1/2 hour while I impatiently waited. I think the issue had something to do with getting hold of a van to transport the drums and other equipment... When we finally hit the road I was sandwiched in the middle of the back seat of a 1964 Chevy Impala with 3 other people.
Now -that wouldn't have been an issue except that the person to the left of me was a 13 year old girl and the guy on the other side of her had his hand up her skirt and she was making all kinds of interesting noises and was trembling and stuff. I was trying really hard not to get aroused but it was kind of impossible because we were seriously mushed together and I could feel every twitch and quiver. It was an "uncomfortable" experience to say the least :-) Enough of that...
Tyler is not a big place. You could drive from one end to the other in less than 10 minutes. Yet it somehow took these guys 3 hours to find everybody, ditch the girl, get hold of a van and load up all the equipment... It was 10 PM by the time we pulled into the intended practice location - a service station on the south end of town. A friend of a friend worked there and had agreed to let us set up in one of the service bays.
We had just started playing when the owner called and told the employee to get us the heck out of there. I don't know who complained to who - there were no houses within hearing distance - but we had to pack everything back into the van and head off to find another place. There were no backup plans so we spent the next 2 hours crisscrossing back and forth across Tyler accomplishing absolutely nothing... Before long it was abundantly clear to me that these guys were a bunch of complete tools :-)
It was a little after midnight when we arrived at an abandoned building outside of town. But apparently it had never dawned on them that not having electricity might be a problem for a rock band. So we turned around and were headed back into town (yet again) when we encountered a blond girl running down the middle of the road playing chicken with oncoming traffic. At first she wouldn't let anyone near her but one of the guys knew her really well and eventually managed to calm her down a bit. She had apparently dropped a bunch of "Orange Zonker" - a mixture of LSD and meth - and was having a particularly bad trip.
Aside - I really don't understand why anyone would take LSD or meth let alone mixing them together. But it was really popular with the hippie subculture in Tyler at the time...
We had just gotten the girl off the road and into the van when the sheriff's deputy arrived. I was not privy to the conversation that ensued between the deputy and the driver of the van but the officer was apparently somewhat sympathetic to the situation and gave us the option of leaving the county as opposed to turning the girl over to him... I suspect he just didn't want her (or us) causing any more trouble in his jurisdiction that evening. So we were escorted to the nearest county line... And as a result I can legitimately claim to have been kicked out of a county :-)
BTW: That was yet another uncomfortable ride because I ended up sitting next to the tripping girl and every once in a while she'd look at me and freak out and her friend would have to calm her down again... I hope it was some sort of hallucination because I was trying really hard to be non-threatening. It sucks to think that one look at my face could trip somebody out that bad :-)
We ended up driving to a lake (I no longer recall which one) and sitting on a dock eating watermelon and talking about nothing in particular for a what seemed like a particularly long time... Finally, around 2 AM the girl had recovered to the point where she was more or less coherent (she was also puking and not looking very perky in general) so we headed back into Smith County (hoping the deputy didn't spot us again) and they dropped me off at home. The whole thing took about 8 hours and we never did get to practice... I don't know if that would have been considered a "typical" evening for those guys but I had no intention of ever finding out. It really wasn't my idea of a good time :-)
Epilogue: I didn't mention it during the narrative but it was my tennis playing buddy who was messing with that 13 year old girl in the back seat. (He was 16 at the time.) We still played tennis together from time to time afterward and a few months later he told me he'd gotten her pregnant and was being "strongly encouraged" by both of their fathers to marry her. (Think shotguns.) He had cut his hair, dropped out of school and gotten a job... The whole thing had him pretty much scared sh*tless... I made a mental note that if I ever had a girlfriend I should really try and avoid getting her pregnant :-)
1 comment:
Tyler sounds like an awfully strange place to have been in 1970. Orange Zonker sounds like a nightmare...amazing that so many people would think that such an awful idea sounded like a good idea. :-)
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