Here’s one of those classic album art pictures. This one just leapt out at me and said “Florida”. The concrete was solid, but still green. It is not so much that people drove and walked on it, but that someone would pour the slab and not barricade it.
I’ve begun my quest of the elusive volume pedal. All day at the pawn shops and nobody carries them. I tried to repair the one I had, but it has been nothing but a rip-off from day one. The rheostat is buried inside a plastic case held together by a small motherboard which would have to be broken to get inside. Nor is it possible to spray lubricant. The factory has intentionally made it impossible to service. For example, the bolt through the swivel joint defies disassembly. At first I thought it was some half-metric size but it is a special manufacture 15/32ths. By three o’clock I was heading home when I heard a guitarist playing on the sidewalk outside Thai Sushi (there is no such food) on Harrison. I stopped to listen, something about the style perked my ear. Sure enough, the guy is new in town and just arrived from California. He was tapped into one of those outlets the city places on lamp standards and was playing old rock and roll.
We got to talking and he reminded me of myself when I first got here. He is still applying west coast thinking to Florida. For instance, I told him somebody was going to come along and interfere with his playing today. He was also completely unsuspecting of the local treachery so I clued him in on that. For example, the English lady from the Chocolate Moose asked him to play there (after hearing him jam at Guitar Center). They did not tell him whether they had a house PA, whether they would pay him and conveniently forgot to tell him they were located halfway into the next county.
He was broke and looking for a band. I explained the difficulties of marketing his type of music around here, although like too many newcomers, he thinks he is going to find a club that will pay him to do originals. He had no cigarettes or beer, both California musician staples. I had not unloaded the Taurus from last night, so when I got home, I drove back there. Just in time to see a waiter from the Sushi place tell him they wanted to set tables up exactly where he was standing, suggesting he “move across the street”. Like it was nothing. Hey, I told him it would happen.
I decided to cancel my plans for the remainder and drove him over to Jimbo’s for an impromptu jam. We played from 4:00 – 10:00. What a jam it was, more twenty-dollar bills in the tip jar and this time I have another musician witness on that. He’s got food on the table and I’ve got a tidy bundle to spend in Del Ray tomorrow. I would dine in a Del Ray restaurant if the sandwiches were not already made. In addition we received lottery tickets for later tonight. The Saturday Jimbo’s crowd is all ex-rockers. Except for a Neil Young tune and some BTO, I did not recognize anything, but we had everybody on the dance floor, including the staff.
His name is Johnny and he is a 1980’s style rock-blues player. The crowd loved it. Things got so loud, my gear was at the limit. He knows he has hit a home run. No, not the Florida unused PA channel or that open mic bullsh, but a real live band, including transportation, a customer base and a regular paying indoor gig with free beer and food. When he bummed a smoke, somebody bought him a pack. His brand. All logistics are computerized. (I run a 101% different operation than yahoos with “careers”.)
At least he knows not all of Hollywood is downtown scum. I gave him a lift home but told him, as a former band manager, there are no musical miracles about to happen. I cannot now instantly change over to 80’s rock and roll, even if given a good reason to do so. I advised caution and that he find some place to play rock before committing the hours of practice required to put an act together. Also, that my equipment was geared for a lounge act, not rock sets in a bar. However, if he wants to learn my very easy material, we can be playing next weekend and he can begin scouting from that perspective. He also saw my methods, that although I do not rule with an iron fist, I am the boss. It can take locals years to learn that fact.
He was (past tense) also very trusting when he arrived. Lent out his scooter, which got wrecked, and his Strat, which went missing. Like myself, he considered musicians a brotherhood until he got to Florida. I also told him I knew around half the last set was his originals and not to do that on stage again until we rehearse at least once. His only other local gig? The Wiley Street pub, where they wanted him to “jam with the juke box”. Duh.
Trivia. In 1956, IBM announced that it had a computer which could, in three days, “predict all the phases of the moon every six hours for the next 200 years”. If only they’d quit while they were ahead.
[Author's note 2016: this was the first mention of the soldier later known here as "California Johnny". I helped him out and paid him to do some gigs, but he had been addicted to some painkiller, possibly morphine, while wounded, as the story goes. He had an outstanding court case for damages that had been dragging on for some years, as the story further goes.
A few months later, Johnny must have won the case. He showed up with oodles of money, buying rounds for the house all night. This is behavior associated with people who don't know how to manage large amounts of cash. Well, after about a week-long bender, Johnny disappeared. I looked all over for him and advertised at Guitar Center and craigslist if anybody had seen him.
He just disappeared.]
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