59 Years Ago

I do recall my first actual gig (beyond garage and basement performances). Sept 1974 at a local church that allowed a teen dance. I was still using my first cheap Silvertone electric so borrowed someone's new Tele Deluxe (2 humbuckers and a big Strat headstock). I also borrowed my brother's Traynor YBA-1 bass amp with 2 15" cabs. I think I had recently discovered the interchangeable nature of the pentatonic scale with it's relative major and recall having a blast with "Rambling Man". I recall we actually made a couple hundred bucks at the door. Good memory and glad there isn't any audio/video to dispell it, lol.

Because of my lifelong obsession in writing down my observations, I have handwritten notes on every gig I've ever played. This has proved helpful when whatever band I was in, gathered for a practice session, I could point out what songs needed work, which ones were audience duds and so on.

That was @5 weeks before I was born.

First paid gig was in a Pearl Jam cover band in high school in 1994. We were hired by the school’s dance team to play during set and costume changes during their recital. We were to be paid $200 and were given $100 up front. The money didn’t matter, we needed a place to play and that was what we had.

Wound up bringing in about 100 students who were there just to see us, and then “consorted” with the members of the dance team in various ways both backstage and during the afterparty.

The evening definitely led to some pregnancy scares, STD tests, some folks’ first time experiencing various things, and a near suspension or two.

The director of the program refused to pay us the rest of the money, and it was “suggested” by the school administration that if we forgot about the $100, everyone would just forget about the entire night.

But I never did forget. Now how rock n roll is that?

Shortly after, same band in our original music capacity wrote a scathing punk song called “The Homecoming Queen Has AIDS” after one of the popular girls who was very much a participant denied having been such, and had some very not nice things to say about our drummer. Got called into the school administration again, where, years before I even wanted to go to law school, I made my first successful “legal” argument. I didn’t deny we wrote the song, but pointed out that our school did not have Homecoming, and accordingly, no Homecoming Queen. So it was a totally fictionalized account of a fictionalized high schooler and had nothing to do with the girl in question. The Dean paused, looking at us like he was figuring out what to say, and then he jumped up and told us to get the (expletive) out of his office and never to wind up there again or we would be sorry.

We did manage the next month of school before graduating without further incident.