Why you may ask. Pretty much cause its the only thing I do that is intersting on the weekends.

So this gig was about an hour outside of town in a bar called the Alibi bar and grill.

Pretty cool sounding bar name, same old looking bar.

Ah, but there are some suttle differences though. New grade of alcholics, larger floor space, and an actual stage rather then a stage like area.

Although the stage was small and oddly shaped to fit within the space it was given, but a stage none the less.

It looked pretty good with all the equipment up there. The usual lights they have plus a whole nother lighting system they borrowed from another guy. A regular space age show once Lead Foot *the nick I'm giving to the lead guitarist* gets that smoke machine going.

Now before I go on with the gig story, let me delve a bit more into Lead Foot.

First off, I call him that cause the fucker drives so fast its insane. Also, he has a habit of stepping on the smoke machine's peddle for so long, it looks like we either have a three alarm fire going on or there is a Cheech and Chong convention in the building.

And to clarify things a bit more, Lead Foot is Willow's *aka Spanky's girlfriend* brother.

Alright, now that we got that out of the way, lets move into something resembling an actual story here.

I was lead to believe this weekends gig was being held in a major city about an hour away from here. Personally, I was pretty proud of the guys for finally branching out to another, larger audience.

Imagine my suprise when we ended up in a little shitburg of a town called Twinlake. Not really what you call a "big" town. More like a side show attraction gone horribly wrong.

None the less, they have finally managed to land some gigs outside of town so I can't fault them for that. Plus, I'm sort of sick of seeing them in the same three places all the time and since every other bar in town is small as hell, outside of town we go.

So I hitch a ride with Dragonhawke and Prego, who are running the sound board for the band. Except for the often road kill on the side of the road, the ride was pretty much uneventfull.

Arriving there, we come to find out we are the first to arrive. Which I'm telling yeah is such a [sarcasm]great treat[/sarcasm].

Less then a dozen people in the bar and almost all of them are fanatically watching Hockey. Hooting, hollering, beer swilling, and heavily padded men slapping a little piece of rubber around on ice.

Hey, where the hell do I sign up for this??

One thing I noticed that was strange in this biker/sports bar. There was this little old, fragil looking lady sitting at a table in the back. Sort of an odd sight in this particular atmosphere. Maybe she mistaken the Alibi bar for Dennys at senior citzen discount dinner time. Hell if I knew, so I just dismissed it.

After the gig I come to find out the little old lady is a regular there. In fact, she has been coming there on Fridays and Saturdays so often that any time she doesn't, one of the bartenders will call up her house and see if everything is alright.

I got to wonder how long do you have to go to a bar to be considered a regular of that stature? Since she was a kindly little old lady with a sweet disposition, it was "thats cute" kind of story. Now if she was there slamming back shooters while wearing PVC pants and table dancing, then I would have to question how disturbing of a life did this woman lead.

The only real drawback to this was the fact that she was so old, they couldn't crank the music up to high.

"I'll let you know if its to high" she told one of the band members.

Later on she actually got up and joined all the dancers. Holy christ I'll never get that mental image out of my head even if I scrubbed my frontal lobe with a brillo pad. A woman older then democracy itself, busting a move on the dance floor.

Now just imagine that little old lady from Golden Girls getting giggy with it on a dance floor full of people.

Pretty damn funny if you ask me.

So, after a time a few people who are "connected" to the band show up. When I say connected, what I really mean are two people desperatly trying to leach off what little fame the band has.

The first guy I went to high school with. Now what I remember of him was socially inept, pretty geeky, and very quiet. Not really a problem, tell he feels like he has a little bit of power under his belt. When that happens, holy christ this guy has some real anger control issues.

Imagine a white Urkel, only ditch the glasses, the "funny" additude, and turn him into a flaming asshole the second he is given the tiniest bit of responsibility.

I over heard a conversation with him and Lead Foot a few gigs back about him "always being there to help the band." Which just screamed of desperate recognition. Not to mention a completely full of shit statement. I've been going to Spanky and Lead Foot's gigs for five years now with different bands. I've seen him at maybe half a dozen shows a few years ago.

So now he seems to be getting payed a small amount of cash to help haul all the band equipment around during gigs. Strutting around like king shit with his chest puffed out and a look in his face as if he is dying for some one to "question his authorita!"

I really wouldn't have a problem with this if I didn't know the guy. Unfortunetly I do, and knowing what I know, I forsee a problem in the near future.

Mostly him mouthing off to some biker about "I'M WITH THE BAND!" then getting his ass severly beaten.

The other leach in question, is an ususpecting problem. At first he seems pretty cool, not really a bad guy. The thing is, any time Lead Foot isn't around, the guy turns into an authority on how to manage a sound board. Which then he tries to tell Dragonhawke what he should and shouldn't do on the sound board at every little turn.

At first I thought the guy just knew a lot about working a sound board, worked with a few bands in the past. If you call seeing someone else work the board, but never touched one in your life as an expert, then by all means do it my friend.

Now I think everyone can associate with this one. You know how to do a job, but there is some one standing right behind you telling you what to do at every turn even though he knows practically nothing of it himself.

Aparently the only reason this guy is connected to the band is because they are using his truck to help haul the equipment around in.

This has me confessed and I'll tell you why.

Three members of the band all have pick up trucks. Every gig before this guy showed up, everything fit in those three trucks. Ok, so maybe they need his truck because of the lighting system they borrowed. I mean, it is pretty big.

That would make so much sense if it wasn't for the fact the band rented a trailer from Uhaul.

Ok, you need his truck for what now?

There was one cool aspect about this guy though. He gets up occasionaly and sings "sweet child of mine" with the band and he sounds a lot like Axel Rose when he does that.

Ok, thats cool......I bet you can smell a set up coming can't yeah.

So on these gigs, he has been regulated to running the light board since there is no one else to do it. He does a pretty good job of it, trying to flick the lights to go with the beat of the music.

Here comes the complication.

An old friend of Spanky and Lead Foot's showed up. Actually, this guy was the orginal lead singer of the last band the two of them where in. He did a great job of being a lead singer. Had the looks, the voice, the charisma, and the additude all right. His guitar playing was something better left unsaid, but we won't get into that.

He was there lead singer for a few years there tell his job forced him to quit. You see, this guy is a cop and his police chief caught wind of his weekend endeavors. Finding being a lead singer in a band as "improper for an off duty cop and giving the station a bad name" he told him either quit the band or find a new job. Thus ending an era of rock and roll cop.

Well, this gig is about an hour away from town, outside of the eyes and ears of the local police force aka the police chief. So Lead Foot asked him if he would show up and sing some songs with the band for old times sake.

Which was pretty cool with him singing. Gave me some flashbacks to some great times, plus it made for one hell of a band with the current drummer and the old lead singer there.

One of the songs he ended up singing....you guessed it, sweet child of mine.

The "leach" running the light board was really not happy with this. I mean visibly not happy with this. During the entire time the old lead singer was up on stage, the guy was pouting in the corner. Not only that, but he flicked the light board to "chase" and didn't bother doing a single thing after that.

I'm thinking if they wanted the lights set to "chase" for a good portion of the night, I think they would have set it up like that themselves rather then pay someone to sit there and do it. Call me crazy, but that sounds like a waste of money to me.

Ok, so I've been rambling on and on about this gig while barely talking about the gig itself. Its late, I'm getting tired, and I'm running out of shit to either mention or bitch about.

but...

I will leave you with one thing that will reassure you all of my "full on pimp status".

I, your good ol buddy Chrome, was seated at a table all night long with three hot blondes all in arms reach of me.

Oh yeah....who da man now biznitches!!

*stands up with my chest puffed out, stares defiantly in everyones eyes while slamming my fist on my chest*

Ok ok.....so all three of them where girlfriends of band members.

But man.....did I ever look like the pimp in an unsuspecting town.

I shall be recieving my fur coat and membership card in the mail within three to five weeks.

It's about time - Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004
An Honor for Chrome - Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
A great loss - Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
a terrible announcement. - Tuesday, Sept. 09, 2003
Chrome speaks: - Friday, Sept. 05, 2003