Part 3....Celebrity Face
One more in short order
Whiter Shade of Pale
I’ve told this story for years. It’s true.
But I also know that people tend to embellish stories in the telling and I’m certainly a people. Still, everything I’m telling you has a definite image in my head, every detail I recall has form, so it must be the truth.
I’m sorry to say.
Steamboat Springs was a club in the shadows of the Galleria. It smelled of the ancient forest. The primordial soup that was damp carpet, old cigarette residue mixed with alcohol, the distant ammonia of urine, and the faint decaying odor of bog people, created a sickening, rotten-sweet, not-completely-unpleasant atmosphere. It has left a permanent stain in my olfactory memory. It was the club that we played regularly enough to call it ‘our’ club. We’d started out playing Sundays through Wednesdays and slowly would graduate to the odd weekend. It got us in front of an audience and Barry, the club’s manager, would book us because we’d play for the door, pay for our drinks, and promote our own gigs. Suckers.
One week we were booked, the performance the previous night was by Gary Brooker, keyboardist with the 60’s band, Procul Harem. Whiter Shade of Pale, Conquistador…that Procul Harem Gary Brooker. And as it happened, he was in the club when we were setting up. He talked briefly to Barry and went to the bar and had a cig and a drink while we did our sound check. After we were done, he called across the room, telling us we were pretty good and were those songs originals? Well, hell yeah! He introduced himself and said he really liked them and opined that we had good singles potential. As fate would have it, that was exactly what I needed and wanted to hear. For the next hour, we were like moths, attracted to his star light and talking about his experiences, he flattering us and our obvious talent. He’d played on George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ and he told me that George was funny most of the time but could often get quite petulant.
We invited him to dinner, which he graciously accepted, and we had a great Mexican meal. He being English, we wanted to show off our fair city and its cultural heritage. The famous touring musician allowed us hand-to-mouth journeymen to buy his meal in exchange for his coming to our gig and perhaps critiquing our music. A fair deal.
Following our show, he agreed to come back to our place to share in a bowl and discuss what he had observed. It was simple as he had no entourage, save a girl who had latched on to him during the evening, and he rode back with us in our big brown school bus.
At our apartment we put on some of our recordings to further impress him. I had already written the press release in my head; how we were discovered in a swamp called Steamboat Springs by Gary Brooker. He, however, was clearly distracted, looking for things in the kitchen. As he explained, he had some cocaine that he wanted to cook. Holy shit! I thought we were gonna sit and smoke pot and listen to music. Apparently, Gary thought he was going to get fucked up and then fuck the girl. In my bed. At that moment I felt like the biggest small town hick. Where was my worldliness? My liberal sex and drugs and rock and roll attitude? Holy shit! He’s free-basing! And I didn’t even know what that was, except that it was described enough when Richard Pryor caught fire to know that’s what Procul Gary was doing in my kitchen.
I never did hear what Gary thought of that night’s performance. He did his cackling mad scientist thing in the kitchen and then did even more upstairs in my bedroom. Rock stars. At the least I figured it’d be a good story to tell.
Sometime around noon I was awakened on the couch by Gary looking for Chaz. Girl was gone. The night was gone too, and the morning had made everything normal again and relegated the previous night’s weirdness to the ‘ether-world’. I’ve found that when the morning comes, everything starts over, resets, and last night’s slate is wiped clean.
So Gary comes back after talking to Chaz and says he’ll see us again at that night’s gig. After he left, it dawned on me that he had arrived with us on our bus and I wondered aloud what he was going to do. It’s an effort to get a cab in Houston. Chaz said that Gary had wanted to see Galveston (the popular song made the seaport town sound so exotic) so Chaz had lent him his MG. Cool little car, that. And….wow…you gave him the keys to your car.
It was at that very moment it occurred to me that I had stacks of books on rock music, the musical charts, and lots of other reference material. I went to one to look up Procul Harem, but it was hard to tell, since it was tiny and everyone was rather hirsute. Another picture in another book, however, gave a clear view of Gary Brooker. And our guy wasn’t him; not even really close. And…wow…you gave him the keys to your car.
You might understand the complete breakdown that now occurred in the living room. Chaz was completely freaked out. What had he done; it was his car! And why didn’t we see before? There was nobody with him; no assistants, friends, or handlers. We bought his meals and drinks; he never even pulled out his wallet. Everything he’d said or done was now scrutinized, parsed, and subjected to critical analysis. Damn, I even ripped apart his English accent, which up to now had been slightly charming; now it was a cornball fake. He’d partied on our largess, taken half the weed, borrowed $100 from Ric. (Where did Ric get a hundred bucks? Half the time we were eating peanut butter and instant rice with powdered gravy so what was he doing with that much paper?) And he’d made off with Chaz’s car. Nice haul.
Chaz made some phone calls but he felt too ridiculous to call the police. We contacted Barry who told us Gary Brooker had left for New Orleans right after his gig. But we saw you talking with him! “I don’t know who you saw me talking to, but Brooker left on Saturday!” Great. Wonderful. We were now officially a complete band of chumps. Every one of us fell for his line. Ric told me that he thought I knew what Brooker looked like, being the one so into rock music and its history, so when I accepted him, he did, too. Not only am I a chump, I’m responsible for Ric being a chump as well.
Our gig started at 9:30 that night and just as we were getting ready to go, who should we hear from but ‘Gary’. Telling us he was running late and wouldn’t get to the club until after we started. Convenient for him. Rather than fronting him out about it, Chaz told him he’d be on the guest list and we looked forward to seeing him. Chaz was hopeful that if ‘Gary’ didn’t know that WE knew, he might be willing to play his con even more and we could spring some not-yet-thought-of trap. Except right then I felt like if we combined all our collective brain power we’d still be stupid.
We received yet one more call before we left. The several alarms that Chaz had sent out had reached a member of another Houston band, a hard rock conglom called Kayote. Yes, they spelled it that way. Rock on, dudes. Anyway, questions were asked and answers given. Turned out that the suspicious story had sounded familiar to this guy and he suspected he’d met ‘Gary’ recently. As the investigation proceeded (we were going to be late to the gig, but screw it) it seemed that not only had Kayote been victimized in somewhat the same fashion, but that the cocaine in his possession actually belonged to the other band! In my own head, I was strangely comforted to know that we weren’t the only guys to fall before this guy’s con; I only wish I felt like the Kayote bunch were a cleverer group of people to compare myself to.
The now-thought-of plan was that Kayote would come to the gig (damn, five more names on the guest list) and confront said con artist, if he ever arrived. I never got to see that, thank goodness. As it was told to me later, ‘Gary’ arrived in the parking lot in the little blue MG and was accosted by Kayote’s big roadie and friends, who relieved ‘Gary’ of the keys, his possessions, his dignity, and his immediate health. I do understand that ‘Gary’ fled the scene under his own power, bruised and perhaps bloody. We were mid-set and only Tommy, our door guy at the time, was able to observe any of this. Just rewards? Perhaps, but it left me squeamish. I partied with the guy, ya know?
So we never found out his name, his history, nothing. I marveled at a couple of things, though. He actually brought the car back. We lost only the $100 Ric loaned him which, in an act of band unity, we agreed to repay from the band’s income. It merely took us about a month to come up with that much. But why had he come back? Was it to con us further? Out of what? We’d pretty much been played out as much as we were worth. Maybe he didn’t want a car stealing charge against him, though we could only shame facedly identify him as, ahem, Gary Brooker. I don’t know.
But it was a cheap lesson learned about celebrity and what amount of reality people will suspend when faced with it. You’re famous? Well, fuck in MY bed! You’ve had a hit record? Well, commit a felony in my kitchen, it’s OK. Take my car…take my money…
I’ll write about you later.
Whiter Shade of Pale
I’ve told this story for years. It’s true.
But I also know that people tend to embellish stories in the telling and I’m certainly a people. Still, everything I’m telling you has a definite image in my head, every detail I recall has form, so it must be the truth.
I’m sorry to say.
Steamboat Springs was a club in the shadows of the Galleria. It smelled of the ancient forest. The primordial soup that was damp carpet, old cigarette residue mixed with alcohol, the distant ammonia of urine, and the faint decaying odor of bog people, created a sickening, rotten-sweet, not-completely-unpleasant atmosphere. It has left a permanent stain in my olfactory memory. It was the club that we played regularly enough to call it ‘our’ club. We’d started out playing Sundays through Wednesdays and slowly would graduate to the odd weekend. It got us in front of an audience and Barry, the club’s manager, would book us because we’d play for the door, pay for our drinks, and promote our own gigs. Suckers.
One week we were booked, the performance the previous night was by Gary Brooker, keyboardist with the 60’s band, Procul Harem. Whiter Shade of Pale, Conquistador…that Procul Harem Gary Brooker. And as it happened, he was in the club when we were setting up. He talked briefly to Barry and went to the bar and had a cig and a drink while we did our sound check. After we were done, he called across the room, telling us we were pretty good and were those songs originals? Well, hell yeah! He introduced himself and said he really liked them and opined that we had good singles potential. As fate would have it, that was exactly what I needed and wanted to hear. For the next hour, we were like moths, attracted to his star light and talking about his experiences, he flattering us and our obvious talent. He’d played on George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ and he told me that George was funny most of the time but could often get quite petulant.
We invited him to dinner, which he graciously accepted, and we had a great Mexican meal. He being English, we wanted to show off our fair city and its cultural heritage. The famous touring musician allowed us hand-to-mouth journeymen to buy his meal in exchange for his coming to our gig and perhaps critiquing our music. A fair deal.
Following our show, he agreed to come back to our place to share in a bowl and discuss what he had observed. It was simple as he had no entourage, save a girl who had latched on to him during the evening, and he rode back with us in our big brown school bus.
At our apartment we put on some of our recordings to further impress him. I had already written the press release in my head; how we were discovered in a swamp called Steamboat Springs by Gary Brooker. He, however, was clearly distracted, looking for things in the kitchen. As he explained, he had some cocaine that he wanted to cook. Holy shit! I thought we were gonna sit and smoke pot and listen to music. Apparently, Gary thought he was going to get fucked up and then fuck the girl. In my bed. At that moment I felt like the biggest small town hick. Where was my worldliness? My liberal sex and drugs and rock and roll attitude? Holy shit! He’s free-basing! And I didn’t even know what that was, except that it was described enough when Richard Pryor caught fire to know that’s what Procul Gary was doing in my kitchen.
I never did hear what Gary thought of that night’s performance. He did his cackling mad scientist thing in the kitchen and then did even more upstairs in my bedroom. Rock stars. At the least I figured it’d be a good story to tell.
Sometime around noon I was awakened on the couch by Gary looking for Chaz. Girl was gone. The night was gone too, and the morning had made everything normal again and relegated the previous night’s weirdness to the ‘ether-world’. I’ve found that when the morning comes, everything starts over, resets, and last night’s slate is wiped clean.
So Gary comes back after talking to Chaz and says he’ll see us again at that night’s gig. After he left, it dawned on me that he had arrived with us on our bus and I wondered aloud what he was going to do. It’s an effort to get a cab in Houston. Chaz said that Gary had wanted to see Galveston (the popular song made the seaport town sound so exotic) so Chaz had lent him his MG. Cool little car, that. And….wow…you gave him the keys to your car.
It was at that very moment it occurred to me that I had stacks of books on rock music, the musical charts, and lots of other reference material. I went to one to look up Procul Harem, but it was hard to tell, since it was tiny and everyone was rather hirsute. Another picture in another book, however, gave a clear view of Gary Brooker. And our guy wasn’t him; not even really close. And…wow…you gave him the keys to your car.
You might understand the complete breakdown that now occurred in the living room. Chaz was completely freaked out. What had he done; it was his car! And why didn’t we see before? There was nobody with him; no assistants, friends, or handlers. We bought his meals and drinks; he never even pulled out his wallet. Everything he’d said or done was now scrutinized, parsed, and subjected to critical analysis. Damn, I even ripped apart his English accent, which up to now had been slightly charming; now it was a cornball fake. He’d partied on our largess, taken half the weed, borrowed $100 from Ric. (Where did Ric get a hundred bucks? Half the time we were eating peanut butter and instant rice with powdered gravy so what was he doing with that much paper?) And he’d made off with Chaz’s car. Nice haul.
Chaz made some phone calls but he felt too ridiculous to call the police. We contacted Barry who told us Gary Brooker had left for New Orleans right after his gig. But we saw you talking with him! “I don’t know who you saw me talking to, but Brooker left on Saturday!” Great. Wonderful. We were now officially a complete band of chumps. Every one of us fell for his line. Ric told me that he thought I knew what Brooker looked like, being the one so into rock music and its history, so when I accepted him, he did, too. Not only am I a chump, I’m responsible for Ric being a chump as well.
Our gig started at 9:30 that night and just as we were getting ready to go, who should we hear from but ‘Gary’. Telling us he was running late and wouldn’t get to the club until after we started. Convenient for him. Rather than fronting him out about it, Chaz told him he’d be on the guest list and we looked forward to seeing him. Chaz was hopeful that if ‘Gary’ didn’t know that WE knew, he might be willing to play his con even more and we could spring some not-yet-thought-of trap. Except right then I felt like if we combined all our collective brain power we’d still be stupid.
We received yet one more call before we left. The several alarms that Chaz had sent out had reached a member of another Houston band, a hard rock conglom called Kayote. Yes, they spelled it that way. Rock on, dudes. Anyway, questions were asked and answers given. Turned out that the suspicious story had sounded familiar to this guy and he suspected he’d met ‘Gary’ recently. As the investigation proceeded (we were going to be late to the gig, but screw it) it seemed that not only had Kayote been victimized in somewhat the same fashion, but that the cocaine in his possession actually belonged to the other band! In my own head, I was strangely comforted to know that we weren’t the only guys to fall before this guy’s con; I only wish I felt like the Kayote bunch were a cleverer group of people to compare myself to.
The now-thought-of plan was that Kayote would come to the gig (damn, five more names on the guest list) and confront said con artist, if he ever arrived. I never got to see that, thank goodness. As it was told to me later, ‘Gary’ arrived in the parking lot in the little blue MG and was accosted by Kayote’s big roadie and friends, who relieved ‘Gary’ of the keys, his possessions, his dignity, and his immediate health. I do understand that ‘Gary’ fled the scene under his own power, bruised and perhaps bloody. We were mid-set and only Tommy, our door guy at the time, was able to observe any of this. Just rewards? Perhaps, but it left me squeamish. I partied with the guy, ya know?
So we never found out his name, his history, nothing. I marveled at a couple of things, though. He actually brought the car back. We lost only the $100 Ric loaned him which, in an act of band unity, we agreed to repay from the band’s income. It merely took us about a month to come up with that much. But why had he come back? Was it to con us further? Out of what? We’d pretty much been played out as much as we were worth. Maybe he didn’t want a car stealing charge against him, though we could only shame facedly identify him as, ahem, Gary Brooker. I don’t know.
But it was a cheap lesson learned about celebrity and what amount of reality people will suspend when faced with it. You’re famous? Well, fuck in MY bed! You’ve had a hit record? Well, commit a felony in my kitchen, it’s OK. Take my car…take my money…
I’ll write about you later.