My tires were slashed and I almost crashed but the Lord had mercy
My machine she’s a dud, I’m stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jerseyfrom “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” bt Bruce Springsteen
Way, way back; long time ago, I was in a band called Skydog. Actually, it was the first band I was ever in. It was really a garage band and we went through a lot of different players. We sort of thought of ourselves as a southern rock type of band.
We practiced a lot and started getting pretty good. We played a few dances and keg parties then, we would break up, get back together, blah, blah, blah; a bunch of kids that wanted to play some rock and roll.
At some point this old country singer named Bob Bridgeman found us and wanted to hire the band to back him. He wanted more of a rock edge to the old country tunes he was doing. In that way, he was ahead of his time. Bob sang stuff like “Truck Driving Man”, “Don’t Anyone Make Love At Home Anymore”, and “Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms”.
Bob had this gig at the Flying Saucer Lounge in Union, Missouri. My memory is fuzzy but it seems like it was three or four nights a week. We would do four sets a night that consisted of 20-25 minutes with of old country stuff with Bob then, our singer would get up and we would play Skynyrd, Arrowsmith and Stone’s songs. I think we were making $25.00 a man. We kind of felt like we had broke through a barrier, like we were working musicians. We were all still under age, 17-18 years old, but they let us drink at the club. There was a good bit of partying going on.
So, one night we got finished playing, went out to the parking lot and all of our tires were slashed. I think that between us, we had two or three vehicles there so, it was a pretty big deal. None of the regular customers’ tires got slashed, only the band. After we filled out a police report, the cops went to the club owner and told him that it would be a good idea to get rid of us, that somebody was trying to tell us something and that there would likely be more trouble. So, we got the axe and that effectively was the end of Skydog.
Several years later, I joined a road band from Albuquerque, New Mexico. This would have been sometime in the mid ’80s’. If you are interested, I wrote another post about this band entitled “Holiday On the Lonesome Highway”.
Anyway, we were booked to play at this place called the Border Bar in International Falls, Minnesota. We got to the club a night early to check out the band and have some drinks. There was a big labor dispute going on in International Falls at the time. I think that there was a construction project at a pulp mill and they hired a large number of non-union workers.
The band that was playing that night, who had already been there for a couple of weeks, told us that when they started the engagement, somebody had slashed all of their tires. The story was that some disgruntled union guys were going around to the bars and slashing tires on vehicles with out of state plates; thinking that they belonged to scab workers.
So now, fast forward to last night. I was playing a gig with Mark Alexander (I think I used Mark’s real name in an earlier post but he wants me to use his alias) and Bill Boon. There was hardly any crowd there. Joel Johansen sat in with us and there was almost as many people playing as listening for most of the night. It did seem like the people that were there were drinking pretty heavy though. At one point, a guy tried to leave without paying his tab. At another point, there were a few guys outside of the door scuffling around a bit.
At the end of the night, Mark said to me; “Play one more song while I go get the money”. I called off “Bony Maronie”. I guess I was trying to lighten the mood. We finished the song and started to pack up the gear. Mark came up to me and said that when he went out to move his van, he found three tires had been slashed.
It occurred to me that every time this happens there are a couple of questions that always seem to go un-answered. Is someone trying to send some kind of message? Is it a case of mistaken identity?
Just part of the game I guess.
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