The First Gig :
Having learned the very basics in high school, which end of the microphone to yell into among other things, I realized I knew all there was to know about putting on a show, how hard could it be? Like most crew guys I started out as a rock star wannabe. I played guitar and started a band, I was on my way.
The town I grew up in was small and there really weren’t any clubs as such to play in. As kids we convinced the owners of the local taverns, gin mills for the working man, to let us set up in the corner and play. We were allowed to charge a small cover which the bar owner would then give us a percentage of, or so we thought.
There were only a couple of bands in the school I went to, and as I said very few places to play. When one band would get a gig at the local bar, the rest of us would become the crew, carrying in equipment in milk crates in hopes of avoiding the cover charge, and possibly getting to mooch from the bands bar tab. The phrase “I’m with the band” has gotten me many a free drink over the years.
The first gig that I actually recall was a neighborhood bar called “Schultzes Tuck Inn” , it was a massive building with a four sided bar right by the front door, and a couple of pool tables further back. Behind that was just a large darkness, the place was poorly lit and there was no reason to go beyond the pool tables. I spent many a Saturday afternoon as a kid in Schultzes, sipping cokes and playing shuffleboard as my parents drank with their friends. Eventually someone ventured into the darkness at the back of the building and realized there was a full-size stage there. Nobody seemed to realize it was there, and the owner couldn’t seem to remember why it was there or if it had ever been used.
The gig at Schultzes was an enormous event that took weeks of planning, an army of friends to help, hand made flyers, a PA “borrowed” from school. This was bigger than Woodstock. The lights we had were made from tomato sauce cans that our friend from the pizza place saved for us, the really large ones. The bulbs, I am sorry to say, were borrowed from a local airport runway. This was back when you could drive right to a runway, not like today. It never occurred to us that taking the runway lights might be bad. We were kind of like the little rascals that way; everything seemed like a good idea.
The gig itself almost seems uneventful after the weeks of planning. Songs were played, people danced, bar tabs were rung up. But it was the planning, the putting together of this massive event that stands out in my memory.
This gig led to others, a lot of bars where we kids weren’t really welcome. We didn’t care. When you are under the legal drinking age but either in or with the band, nobody thinks to proof you. It is assumed you are legal. Not only that, on the nights when you aren’t playing you could go to a bar where you were known and drink, and often times the bartender wouldn’t charge you because you were a regular. This may not seem like much now, but to a kid of 15 or 16 back in the seventies, this was heaven.
