INTRODUCTION After eight years in rock and roll bands on the east coast, living in motels and doing everything from playing frat parties and low-life bars to backing popular singers and working as a session…
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SERGEANT BILL Sgt. Bill was a rare cop. He used to park his cruiser in a vacant lot near one of our illegally-placed landing docks, and watch the boats go by. I first met him…
HEAVY DUTY CRUNCH BAND IN COMBAT CONDITIONS The band seemed to thrive on what we came to call “combat conditions.” When other groups fussed about inadequate or faulty sound systems, made sure their hair was…
RIP TORN BOMBS OUT AT THE BERMUDA PALMS The upper level of the Charles Van Damme was occupied by Chris Roberts, an artist with a vision so grand that he was considered insane even by…
THE HOT MOLECULE Our next home was another small plywood barge, an upgraded version of the Hot Set-up. We called the new place the Hot Molecule. The phrase was one of Joe Tate’s leftovers from…
THE REAL REDLEGS STORY I couldn’t have been more wrong when I first arrived and thought the waterfront/Redlegs scene was a cult. It was not a cult, a commune, a “tribe,” it wasn’t even a…
It was 1971 and we had just moved from the city to the Mathias Ranch six miles south of Boonville with an overwhelming load of juvenile delinquents, and on the wholly deluded assumption that delinquents…