theclubsinger

Being the lead singer in a rock band was my dream, but there were a couple of things missing: fame and fortune. The circuit was not what I expected. It had started to turn into a grind – the clubs were getting weirder and so were the people. I was getting bored. Not good. The nights were getting longer and longer.  

One club in particular was Fuller’s Inn. It was a quaint, dockside bar at the Jersey shore town of Tuckerton, where ‘the regulars’ there seemed not quite right.  We had a four night gig scheduled for our first appearance, and on the first night, a Wednesday, we met Bob.  He was one of those regulars; a tanned, perpetually inebriated boater in his sixties with glow in the dark white hair – he never sat down. He was quite gregarious and seemed to know everyone. He also had deep pockets so maybe that had something to do with it.  For our four night stint, he would stay for the entire night, circling and socializing with everyone at the bar and getting excessively sloshed and super loud.  He routinely bought rounds of drinks for all.  Bob took to yelling out to me on regular intervals,  ‘I can’t hear your keys, honey!’. I don’t think he could hear much of anything over all his yelling and clinking of drink glasses, so  I made a ‘gee really’ face and fiddled with knobs.  I could hear my keys just fine, so to placate him, I did a lot of grinning, shrugging and looking confused.

There were more odd ducks at Fullers.  On our first break of the night when I noticed how Bob’s hair really did glow in the dark, I met Sue – one of the recipients of his free drinks.  She was a petite, yet gigantically endowed forty-something leathered-beyond-recognition sun worshipper with a whispery voice and big hair.  “You guys are just awesome, really.”   I am really super enjoying everything you’re doing here. She took a verrrry long pause to sip her cocktail and continued, “ we are going to dance this set for sure…” She then slipped me a folded up cocktail napkin, and I unfurled it to see the words, ‘House of the Rising Sun’.

Seriously? 

Now ain’t that one a barn burner.

We would frequently get ‘stump the band’ type of song requests that were totally out of left field. 

No offense, band named The Animals –but really?  Talk about a buzz kill of a song…

She pulled that one out of her ass… and of course we didn’t know it.  I said “gee, Sue – let me see about this one.”  Since this was a hit in the early 60’s (and some of us hadn’t been born yet) and we were doing Zeppelin, Ozzy, Van Halen, Pat Benatar, Judas Priest tunes … well, it just didn’t ….  well, you get the idea. Ugh.   

I was wondering if there was a rock band that was able to, or willing to do this song out at a club. “Hey, everybody – grab a beer because we’re about to make you cry in it!”

Man, just thinking about that song makes me wish for the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald …again,  sorry, band named The Animals and Gordon Lightfoot. 

Anyway, Sue was accompanied by Freddy, a happy-faced, local longhair dude who was also in a rock band. He, too, seemed to be a beneficiary of Bob’s drinkfest.   He asked to sit in with us and he looked like he was really good (yeah, I know … what the hell does that mean?) but we were already kind of bored.  It wasn’t even 10 o’clock yet and the audience was hammered.  Why not? So we invited Fred to sit in for a song.

 We started the second set with Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll.  We immediately discovered that Freddy sucked.  And we had no way out – he played a bombastically loud and crappy solo through the entire song, drowning out my vocals – and everything else except the drums. He was trouncing around the stage like he knew what he was doing, however we had seen this type of schtick before…the looks are one thing, but the sound —   Yikes!  I looked around, fretting about our choice to let this kook on stage … no one here seemed to notice. They were too busy schmoozing and drinking. The best part is we were unable to extricate Fred from the guitar – he wouldn’t even stop soloing when the song ended, so we just kept right on going. He continued to solo and do jumping jacks throughout the entire set.  Like I said, no one noticed. It gave our actual guitar player, Johnny, a break, and we all had a chuckle. What the heck.

 As the night wore on, heading towards the end of our third set, I noted how the fine folks of Fuller’s were now dancing to a drum solo – that’s when you know they be really drunky drunk. Not a single note of music being played;   just Tony beating away on everything in his kit. Cymbals, Tom Toms, Kick drums, snare ….  Ugh.  What was happening to my stellar career as a rock star?

So it was after midnight – just one more set to go that night, and I sat at the bar just taking it all in. The folks were pretty fascinating.  They took my mind off my “I’m in hell” thoughts I was having about my career.  That’s when I met Wayne. I had noticed him while I was on stage; he was right in front of the band most of the night and seemed to be really into the music. He was pretty good looking: about 6 feet tall, perfectly trimmed blond hair with a real nice body…I didn’t complain when he sat down next to me during our last break.  He immediately barraged me with a series of compliments that were pretty over the top.  Feeling really uncomfortable, I interrupted him and got a question in : ‘what do you do?’  “I’m in a band” he says. “ I’m the lead singer.”   “Oh really? I asked.  My ears perked up.

Then it got real interesting.

 He tells me that he met his band in the “Heidelhauffer” in Germany while he was in the Army. Okay, I never heard of this place, but I was going along with it. He continued.

“They were a bunch of Australian guys jamming and they asked me to come up for a song. It was great – they just loved me!  They asked me to sit in for the whole night!” 

 My eyes started to widen… I’m wondering how is he doing it?  He seems to be crafting this story so effortlessly.  I wanted to hear more.

 “And then what happened?” I asked. 

 He continued.

“Our band, we named ourselves The Domino Theory, got an offer to cut a record. Of course we jumped at the idea and we went right into the studio the very next day!  So when we got there, we realized we didn’t have any material of our own…”

 “Wow, Wayne!  What happened then?  I asked.”

 “I sat down in front of the studio’s steps and wrote the songs.” 

 “Really?  How many did you write?”

“Eleven.”

“You wrote eleven songs that day?!  Wow – and then what?” I asked.

“We went in, learned them and recorded them. No problem.  We did it all in the same day!”

Golly I was speechless. All of this story telling was happening so effortlessly and with incredible ease…he didn’t appear to be hammered.  He wasn’t slurring his words or anything.  He wasn’t blinking very much, either, but nonetheless, I was thinking it was like an art to be able to look someone in the eye and tell such a complex yet nonsensical story. I was wondering if he rehearsed any of this. I was in awe… and man, was this shit entertaining…and I was suddenly wide awake after midnight…

I made a ‘do continue’ face.

 “After the studio, we had a gig at an outdoor concert in Hollywood, California.”

Yep.  That’s what he said.

“But the stage was burnt down so we didn’t actually do it.”

I asked, ‘caught fire?’

He said “no – it was just down –it wasn’t working” …

 Hmmmmm…whaaah??.  I looked at my watch and I had just a minute or so to spare until I had to get back onstage but I let him continue:

 “Well, we had no other alternative so just broadcast live on the radio instead.” 

Amazing, right?

“Oh yeah, after that, we went everywhere, we played in Sydney, Rio, London, Rome …”

Ohhhhhhh, yeahhhhhh….. this is good stuff, I’m thinking as I start to get up to go back onstage and Wayne adds, “I have some phone numbers for you – these people can take you to the top.”

I stopped in my tracks and for some reason thought that maybe he really did have something. After all, my goal was to be a star.

“So these phone numbers here are of four female disc jockeys from Columbus, Ohio – they really know their stuff…”

Ugh.

The circuit had turned into a grind and I started to doubt I was on track to rock stardom. As I went up for our final set of that long Wednesday night, I was somehow invigorated by that encounter with Wayne.  It was the purest, uncut version of fantasy ever and I discovered it was my new favorite part of a gig.So I embarked on a new mission: I would enjoy my voyages out with the audience during our breaks, seeking out new life… new civilizations… and let their imaginations boldly go where no one has gone before.