Rock Gods #104: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene

By Artie Capshaw

The band played on.

They kept playing. In the rain. And dozens of people were egging them on. In the rain. Not so much so that they could all keep dancing. Probably more because, somewhere way back in their feverish hippie heads, they wanted to see what it was like to see someone being electrocuted.

Drinking was involved, plus less fluid things. You might think this happened in front of a drippy barn on a swath of countryside a few towns away from here. No, this was one of the sidewalk celebrations on the main drag gone awry. A college jam band which had never been offered a gig like this (for money, that is) strummed and tootled, having abandoned all semblance of sanity before they’d even shown up.

Yes, we were there, but we were one of just two disapprovers. The other was the poor guy which the Parks & Rec Department had put in charge of setting up the stage. We were chatting, ignoring the music, when he began to notice the shape of the band’s equipment—frayed wires sticking out of the amps, a used mic that a big-band crooner might have thrown away in 1937, pedals in puddles—and wondered aloud if he should bring the show to a close.

It was a drenching rain by now. The shops had pulled in their card tables and T-shirt bins. The band was its own event, no longer a draw for passersby but playing only for the delight of their dorm buddies. Bottles and flasks were passed around. The Park & Rec ranger made his decision and formed a plan. At the end of this song, he’d pull the plug. Moments later, a clear wind-down from the longwinded jam began, and the ranger began to make his move, advancing to the stage.

Then, in a sudden, unexpected sonic segue which flew in the face of everything in the rock improvisation rulebook, a switch-up the most devious psychedelic axeman could never have consciously devised, I at once recognized the opening notes of the opening riff of what we all know to be the longest, most endless, most disorienting and debilitating rock song of the 20th century.

“Stand back!” I yelled to the righteous ranger, who’d been abruptly caught in the line of fire. “They’re gonna blow!”

 

Pogo to your heart’s content; there’s punk pop at every club junction tonight: Gentlemen of the Fourth Escape, Mice of You and Four Flushing at the Bullfinch (where flushing the men’s room toilet continues to be an advanced art form), Old Eggs in a New Basket, Upon Atom and Every Day Has Its Dog at Hamilton’s (the commercial, college-friendly, preening variety of punk, but good in a pinch)… Ten Foot Poll tax, Bemildred and Merry Crispness at D’ollaires (gotta admire their staying power)…