The Best Gigs Ever Part 2
First, I will say that somewhere sometime I have played on many of the major venues in the U.S. and more than a few times to upwards of 20,000 people. Not many of these outings were as much fun as say playing any night in a bar with a country band. This gig was the most fun.
The band Snotty Scotty & the Hankies is a Pasadena, California phenomenon which has been chugging out the hits of the 50’s and 60’s in their locale for at least 4 decades. While I played in the band it was noted for appearing at the most disreputable dives of local skid row class.
During this period a character appeared who we at first assumed to be a street person… an extremely overweight and obviously what we used to call mentally handicapped guy named John Fisher. He couldn’t drink and would hang around trying to cage change from the customers while watching the band. He did seem competent in some ways, but mostly like a seven or eight year old at best in most things.
After some time passed he was pressed into passing the band tip pitcher at which he initially proved adept and was given a cut.
I cannot overemphasize the Brechtian or Bukowskian charm of these establishments.
One was painted entirely black top to bottom freshly every six months to make the roaches less conspicuous. But the whole world seemed about the same to John and the lure of show business, even in this rancid setting was too deep in his blood. Again, time passed and one evening he told us he was now ready sing with the band. What would he sing? Why, any of the songs you do regular.
Of course his versions and perceptions of the songs varied from the originals
but his transformations of the tunes we regularly played like ‘Route 66’, ”I Fought the Law (and the Law Won), and “Boobs a Lot” morphed into “Room 66” , “Hop off the Log (and the Log Won) and “Do You Like Gookilacks?” Soon he was added to every set the band played to the delight or non delight of lovers, drunkards and thieves. We learned in the transition that he was a “ward of the state” with an actual location he stayed and used the bus lines with great skill to become a man about town.
So it was with great reservations I went to the gig at the Victory Park gymnasium because it was to be a party and dance for the other “wards” from his housing unit and a few other local ones. We set up on a small riser and the doors were opened.
In slowly and painfully
came every kind of physically or mentally troubled person you could ever imagine. Every age and size, so many with walkers, canes or attendants helping them just to walk to a point in the room and sit down.
We started playing almost spontaneously to break the tension. They started dancing with total abandon. They flapped, rolled, skipped , waved their canes and suddenly it was almost a choreographed stage show. They rolled left and right and formed broken conga lines that ran amok.
I actually had trouble concentrating on playing as I watched in disbelief. Then the song stopped. The crowd stopped completely in their tracks, almost frozen in their last gesture. The drummer counted off the beginning of the next song ” one, two , three..” and on four they were all off again.
After a few numbers
John indicated it was time for him to take the stage. Obviously he had been telling his friends for many months that he was the singer in a band and had been met with some disbelief. This moment was his triumph.
He did an entire set of all of his songs, told a few of the bands’ oldest jokes, kept on making references to it as “my band” and generally in his own manner was the Chairman of the Board in Vegas. What a night! Three solid hours of frenetic truly happy liberating dancing with no limits. Yeah, I know both they and we had to go back to the “real” right away but I have always remembered our paths crossing as the most satisfying gig I ever played!