Posted by Icky (24.24.168.81) on April 22, 2004 at 02:00:44:
Part 1. "Hello, Tulsa!"
So, Imperial Drag has been split up for a couple of years now. It’s about 1998, Summer, I think. I had been bumping into the guys from a local band from L.A. called “The Tories” at just about every show I went to. Every time I saw them they kept practically begging me to play drums for their band. They were sort of a Bargain-Basement Jellyfish. I had seen them play at the Troubadour in West Hollywood Before I went on tour with I.D. and thought they were okay. Cheeky, but talented. After numerous encounters with them, I rescinded and went to see them play a street fair/concert down in San Diego (Free tickets to see them open up for...Cheap Trick? – Sure! ) They sounded good, and after their show, I agreed to play a show in Tulsa, Oklahoma with them and ...Cheap Trick. They had been doing a “VH1 Rock across America” tour that basically had them & Mssr.’s ‘Trick setting up wherever they landed and playing on a giant, Pop-up-book-type stage mounted on the back of a Semi. I learned the entire set (nine tenths of their CD – in a week – a new record, I believe – meticulously - They were worse detail-sticklers than Roger, if you can imagine that) . That Friday, we were to fly to Tulsa, and play on Saturday.
We arrived in “O.K.” on Friday afternoon. I hadn’t been on a plane, in a “Touring”-type situation since I.D. came back from Japan from the end of our tour, so it felt good to be “Back in the game”, as it were. There was nothing to do, it being, after all, Tulsa, and home of Oral Roberts (yes, that’s his real name), the Televangelist and his “Praying Hands” University. On the way into town to get a drink, I made a crack about “Jesus freaks”, which, not knowing that Steve, the band’s lead singer, was a Born-again Christian (!), I believe, although unsubstantiated, to be the reason for my premature ejection from the group less than three weeks later.
The next day, we went to play the show. There we were, set up on that pop-up stage, in front of two hundred people. That’s right, I said two hundred. I guess they don’t do radio promo for shows in Tulsa. We blazed proficiently through the set. I didn’t fuck up too badly. As we left the stage, I saw the Cheap Trick guys hanging out at the “Catering” area, which was no more than a card table with some chips & dip and sodas. We said “hi” to the guys, dispensed pleasantries, and I even reminded them of the ugliness that occurred in Cleveland when last Tom, Robin & I met, to which I don’t know if I was relieved or offended that neither seemed to remember. Upon meeting Rick Nielsen, Robin corrected his assumption that I was a member of Jellyfish he had met before. To this day I could skin J.J., the Heavy-Metal-turned-Pop Torie’s guitarist who didn’t push the button on my point-and-shoot camera to take what surely would’ve been an amazing pic of me & Rick pre-show, alive. After shooting the shit with them, they went on stage.
The band was in rare form. Robin’s voice sounded God-like. Tom’s bass sounded gigantic. Rick’s guitar & vocals were spot-on. Bun E. was solid. And there I was, in the little space betwixt the audience and the stage, proudly waiving my “VH1 Rock across America” laminate in proud, “Wayne’s World” - like fashion. To procure my obscene vantage point with camera in hand: a nostril-view of my favorite band in the world!
Coming up next: Rockin' the Holiday Inn! Aaaaoooowww!!!