most rock n roll moment ever by
pril
by A Guest Author

Ladies and Gentlemen.... Michele's off to get the Turtle and the sites ours for the next few days.... I'll do what I can to retain your interest, but I don't think that'll be an issue based on what we have coming up from our guest writers... So, without further ado, I present pril and the Most Rock n Roll Moment Ever.....
-finn

I've been playing music in bars around Southern Oregon for about ten years, entertaining drunk fishermen and loggers and whoever else wanders in to these out of the way, small bars. zbg_DSC00311.JPGOften on a backroad in the middle of nowhere, 50 miles from Here and There. Some of the best times i had were in a band out in Coos Bay. The drummer, we'll call him Djeef, and i were best buds, and still are, and we worked some painting jobs together and tried to get on this pipelining job together (another adventure in itself) and we were a formidable rhythm section. We were rock stars. "World famous locally", was our motto.

He had come out of the SF speed/thrash metal scene, and my influences lay squarely in the 80s LA punk scene. So you can maybe see how we might have meshed. Perfectly. We could be drunk as shit after sharing a bottle of Beam and a 12-pack of Henry's, but when it came time to play, we nailed it. Sometimes between sets we'd get up and jam through For Whom The Bell Tolls or Hungry Wolf. If we felt really brave, we'd throw in a chunk of Death Angel's "Ultraviolence".


He did this barehand solo toward the end of the night usually. It was great to watch. Sometimes he'd slice his hand open on a cymbal and blood would fly, and more than once he broke a finger, but he just kept playing. There was no stopping him. I gave him this stuffed toy i had, the Energizer bunny, because he deserved it more than i did.

In 2002, the band got asked to play at this festival in downtown Coos Bay called the Fun Festival. Bitchen. $350 for 30 minutes and it was two blocks away from where we practiced. Outside, on a flatbed truck in front of the courthouse.

When we got there, some of our other friends were on stage. And, honestly, their band totally sucked. They'd chased most of the people out of the area in front of the stage, and the entertainment coordinator who hired everyone was a weird shade of green, off to the side. Very happy to see us. Even though he hadn't heard us. He was happy to see us, because how could we possibly be any worse.

So we played, and the crowd started coming back. In front of me was a gaggle of young girls all probably 9-15 years old, taking pictures and videoing. Our guitar player had a herd of teenaged guys (he was an awesome git player) and our singer had her own crowd of fans. At some point, her daughter came up and sang with us, some Blondie, a Pat Benatar song, and "Respect". Yeah, we were a cover band. The best one EVAH! *snap snap* We finished off with Metallica's "Seek and Destroy". Djeef was in a good mood and went straight into his barehand drum solo. We all stood off to the side to watch, because it was always fun to watch him do this.

He came to the end of it.70-cymbal.jpg He laid into his big ol' crash cymbal. Blood flew. The cymbal flew. Up. Up. Flip flip flip it went, right above his head. We stared, open mouthed. He'd broken the bolt that holds it down. I remember this in slow motion, it was so cool, and someone somewhere has it on video. It reached its apex at about 5 feet and started coming down. Djeef had been looking around himself for it, unsure about where it went. He looked up just in time to see it coming straight for his head. He leaned back in his throne and held his arms out in front of him...

And caught it.

He stood up, holding the cymbal over his head like the goddamn Heisman trophy, and the crowd that had gathered went fucking bananas. That was it. We were done. We loaded out and took everything back to the practice pad, and finished the bottle of Beam that was waiting for us.

Damn. See, it was the. most. rock n roll moment. ever. In a town of 24,000 people.

pril

Comments

Fantastic story, pril... It has everything... Booze, rock n roll and blood....

--------------


thanks! A fond memory. I wish i could find some folks around here (in Klamath Falls, where i moved) as balls-out as Djeef is.

--------------


that stupid "remember personal info" box. Anytime i click on the page, all my personal info gets erased. grrrr.

--------------


No sweat.... I've got your back.... and I can fix your comments.... Thanks again for the story...

--------------


Fantastic tale, Pril.

Bare handed percussionists are great. I was in a cover band when I was stationed in Okinawa. We would do three sets and we had a friend who would come out between our second and third set and play a bare handed solo on a set of roto tams. Great stuff.

--------------


agreed. most rock and roll ever.

g-d loves a good rhythm section.

and there's NOTHING better than an SF speed/thrash metal drummer. nothing.

--------------


Great story, Pril!!

--------------


ooh can i take a moment to be cheesy and ask folks to pop over to my page and click on the march of dimes donation link....

--------------


I knew I should have stopped at Coos Bay. Bleeding on stage for the fun of it... good times. Thanks Pril.

--------------


It's goin take a whole lot for us to outdo that one in our band Pril!! Best I've ever been able to do is hit the cymbol from underneath as I gracefully flipped it up and hit myself in the head with the drumstick! Not a real rock and roll moment but it was a frickin crack up! I think this article gets a .... 10! lol

--------------






eXTReMe Tracker