Published Wednesday, February 24, 2010 2:15 PM
Updated Wednesday, February 24, 2010 2:16 PM
Mike cranked into a high octane riff, that Marshall JCM 800 stack screaming like a wounded banshee. I came in right behind him on the dual guitar lead break, my trusty old Carvin Blues Tube roaring right under Mike’s ball peen hammer-like riffs.
In front of us, lead vocalist Eric was soaring all over the high tenor vocal wail of “Defy You,” a particularly instigating anthem of rebellion by a band called The Offspring.
We have to be good. We have to be real good. There’s a huge fight going on right in front of us.
Golden Survival Rule Number One: When playing a bucket-o-blood honky-tonk like this one, if a fight breaks out, keep playing. If you stop, the whole place will erupt. If they rush the stage, go for the windows. If there are no windows, pick up anything that will keep you out of range of fists, feet, and blunt objects and start swinging.
It reminded me of the movie “Roadhouse,” a cinematographic masterpiece inexplicably snubbed by the Academy. Who could forget such classic lines as, “This place is so classy it’s got a sign over the urinal that says ‘Don’t eat the big white mint.’”
That line pretty much sums up this place we’re playing. Black spray paint on basement windows that look out on nothing. Duct tape on beer taps, pool table felt, and sound system speakers. It is a place frequented by meth heads and hillbilly punks, all of whom are getting into what we play, but at the break, they’ll be hip-hopping to the most hardcore gangsta rap there is, eyes pinning and swirling as the stuff they’ve ingested scrambles their brains into senseless omelettes of emptiness.
I wouldn’t darken the doors of this place on a bet. Yet here I am onstage because it pays well. Now I have a glimmer of what they mean when they call it “Combat Pay.”
The melee started when two guys got into a shoving match that probably started over something one of their girlfriends said. They hadn’t so much as toed-up at each other before six huge bouncers closed in on them, put them in hammer locks, and threw them bodily out the door.
Then a couple of girls got into it, and the next thing I see, eight redneck babes are all over each other. They’re far more vicious than the guys -- hair pulling, eye gouging, kicking, punching, biting, the works. One even has some sort of metal knuckle-duster in one fist; she gets in a lucky shot and the girl she pounds suddenly goes down like a sack of wet cement. Another one slings her adversary -- a big ol’ hoss of a gal with a rear end that moves like a litter of puppies fighting in a blanket -- right into my monitor.
I take two steps to my right and keep right on playing.
By this time, the bouncers are all back in the bar. But they’re no help; they’re mesmerized. I guess they think this is hotter action than mud wrestling. Finally, one of the bigger girls picks up a skinny little thing, punches her in the face and shoves her into our soundboard.
Our sound guy, Jerry, finally gets into the act.
Jerry’s big, about 6’3” 235, and tough as a keg of nails. He just wades in and starts slinging them right and left. The bouncers finally break out of their stupor and start hauling them out, one by one.
A couple minutes later, another girl appears out of nowhere. She’s so incredibly trashed I can’t believe she’s actually moving under her own power. She trips over the top step of the stage, falls over my guitar stand and proceeds to vomit uncontrollably all over that door. Two bouncers drag her, unconscious and toes first, off the stage and out of the bar.
And we keep right on playing as though our lives depend on it -- and they probably do.
And all this was but a highlight of our first set.
About halfway through the night, we all go out to the parking lot and after a few minutes of venting, we make a solemn pledge that we will never, ever, ever play this place again.
Then at the end of the night, the owner is counting all the money he made. He loves us. Just has to have us back.
No way, we say. It’s just too long a drive from where we live.
He triples our pay if we’ll do the following evening and one weekend a month for the next six months. We all look at each other shaking our heads.
And except for the yellow police tape strung in front of the stage, the following night isn’t so bad.