By the time I was fourteen, I had already formed my own band. It consisted of three members: my friend Freddy, from Jr. High School, played bass. My cousin Jack, Jr. played drums, and then, of course, there was me, on lead guitar.
In no time flat we had learned three songs. The first song we learned was “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. It was the first rock song that I had learned how to play, so everyone else just went along. Then we learned how to play “Get Ready,” as done by Rare Earth, (not the Temptations’ version). We were feeling out our rock groove at that time. Also, you didn’t need a lot of other musicians to actually play a real song when you played rock music. The R&B tunes all seemed to have horns, strings, keyboards, congas, vocal overdubs – way too many things that we didn’t have. So, we played rock because it was easier (and because we really liked it).
I couldn’t figure out how to play any more popular songs that would sound okay with just bass and the drums. We figured we needed to learn at least three songs so that we could play at our first gig. Oh, I didn’t tell you - Freddy, our bass player, had somehow convinced someone at a neighborhood elementary school that he was in a band and that we would be happy to play at a fundraiser that the school was giving.
I was furious. Nobody would want to hear a band play just two songs, right? Of course not, that would be ridiculous – even if we did stretch each song out to last fifteen minutes each, including the ten-minute drum solo by Jack, Jr. The fact was, we needed one more song. I had announced that we were not ready to play out in public. But Freddy and Jack, Jr. convinced me that everything would be fine if we just had one more song. Those two were not going to let me talk them out of this big opportunity for us to jumpstart our careers. Besides, we were gonna get paid! Fifteen dollars wasn’t bad for a first gig, we had concluded. Heck, that was five bucks apiece, and we would be getting some much needed exposure. The gig was coming up soon and our backs were against the wall, so I did the next best thing in finding us our third song. I made one up.
I remember introducing my original song to the band. I couldn’t believe they actually liked that kooky thing. Amazingly, it seemed like other people liked it, too. Well, I just couldn’t believe it, so I chalked its popularity up to the fact that I was a young kid playing the guitar and that everybody thought it was cute that this youngster had written his own song. My cousin seemed to like it the most. It didn’t even have a name. We just referred to as “the original tune.” I believe that if I asked Jack, Jr. today, he would tell me that he still likes that stupid song. Unbelievable.
So, my big brother, who by that time had gotten his driver’s license, drove us to our gig at the elementary school. We unloaded our gear from the back of Dad’s station wagon and set up inside what now seems to me like it might have been the cafeteria, only without all of the tables and chairs. We played our three songs, saving “the original tune” for last. A grateful throng of twenty or so little kids and a handful of parents and teachers applauded as though we might turn out to be the next Jackson Five. I was shocked. They loved us! Or did they? Were they just being polite because we were kids? I was confused. To me, we had always sounded like a young-kid-crap-group. I think it was here, that my chronic perfectionism and live-performance anxiety all began. (More later on that). Nonetheless, it still felt pretty good to hear people clapping for us, even if it was just some little kids and their proud parents.
We collected our gear, received our five-dollar paydays, and proceeded to start planning out our future and how long it would take for us to make it to the big time. A year, tops was what we had figured – unless we got a big break, that is. If you looked into our starry eyes, you would have seen that it would have only been a matter of months, before we would be on tv.
We soon realized that we needed something more to fill out the sound. We had decided that we could never get anywhere unless we expanded the band. We needed another instrument. Thank God my brother had taken piano lessons when he was younger. Already, things were falling together.
As my brother drove, Freddy and Jack, Jr. raved about our performance all the way home. We had urged my brother to be our new keyboardist. By the time we reached the front door, my big brother had joined the band. We were on our way! Now all we had to do was figure out how to find the money to buy a keyboard - and then hope that we could find some more songs that were easy enough for each of us to play.
G.
(This is the fifth installment of a continuing story).
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