I supposed that anyone that plays in a band remembers their first gig. I know mine is indelibly etched in my memory.
My musical career almost never got stared. My parents bought me drum set for my 14th birthday but it sat in the basement for a couple years get only occasional use when I played to some 45?s on my sister?s old player. I tried to take drum lessons at the high school but they consisted mainly of playing military style rolls. Having no desire to grow up to be a drummer boy in the Civil War I preferred my Saturday mornings in bed.
As it turned out my cousin, a year younger than I, was trying to put together a band and reluctantly agreed to have me ?try out? sin they didn?t have a drummer, or anything like a band to tell the truth. I had no idea how to play but neither did they. But we kept at it. We would listen to records and try to imitate what we heard. We would add new people and others would leave. Most of the time we practiced in my basement because my parents didn?t object to the noise(my mother loved to irritate the neighbors) and it was easier not to have to move the drum set.
By some miracle our noise began to sound more and more like the records and we began to think of ourselves as a band. My cousin took it upon himself to be our manager/promoter. He seemed to feel for no apparent reason that we were actually good enough to play in public and he had cards printed up so he could distribute them to potential clients. He came up with the band name, the Antiques ? you know for the ?modern beat?. Cringe.
Among the longest shots was promoting the band to a local DJ from the biggest rock and roll station in Philadelphia. He also hosted a local TV show loosely modeled on the old Bandstand show. Of course, we never heard from him but I never expected we would. Still we went on week after week playing in our basements. We were by our own definition a ?blue-eyed? soul band. A bunch of Jewish kids playing James Brown, Otis Redding, the Temptations and , of course, Smokey. We did a couple of Beatles songs(can?t Buy me Love) but they didn?t have our hearts.
Then one day I got a frantic call from my cousin. He got a call from the DJ. He was doing a hop at a big catholic High School in Bristol and the band punked out on him. Could we do him a big favor and play the hop?
By now I was 16 and had my license. We got another band member?s mother to also drive and we headed up to Bristol excited out of our minds. When we got there we found the hop was being held in the field house. A temporary wood stage was under one end of the basketball court. We set up in a panic with barely enough time to see if the amps would work. We had no idea what a sound check was but if we did there was no time. The place began to fill up with Catholic youth. And there state seven Jews about to see it we could actually get away with playing out sweet soul music.
As the DJ was warming up the crowd we were deciding on what to play in the set. The bass player said that since we were in Bristol, maybe it would be cool to open the set with the Bristol Stomp. It was an old song but it was easy to play, simple cords and a straight beat. I wasn?t sure this crowd was into irony but everyone quickly agreed and so we waited for our cue.
Finally, the DJ turned round and said, ?Everybody give a big hands to the Antiques!?
The bass player, Rudi, counted off the beats and Mickey hit the cords unmistakable chords ? da, da , dada then down da, da, dada then up da, da , dada then a final da. For a second the chords seem to hang in the air. Then the first line of the song went out ? ?The kids in Bristol are sharpe as pistols, when they do the Bristol Stomp?. Instantly, the entire field house erupted as everyone instantly understood what was happening. They jumped up on the temporary stage stomping in their big wing tipped shoes that were part of the catholic school uniforms.
The stage, really nothing more than plywood on some risers, began to undulate up and down with the stomping. It was then I discovered that my drums walk. I had no idea that on a stage like that the vibration of my playing plus the dancing would cause all pieces of my kit to begin moving away from me. I was frantically trying to pull them back while playing somehow managing to keep going. Everyone else was equally occupied with the mad scene all around us and with the knowledge they were stomping to our beat, our music.
It seemed to take forever to play that 3 minute song. When I hit the final beat and held my cymbals to stop the vibration I hear the crowd still stomping and whistling for us. I have never felt anything like this. For those minutes all of our playing merged into a force and that force was energized by the dances which in turn gave us a groove ? to play without thinking, to just be ? there in the moment.
I looked over at Rudi and our eye meet. We both had the same thought. Mama Mai! THIS is for me!