Here is a list of stories that are favorites of mine that are in the spirit of Spinal Tap - surreal moments of stupidity. Please refer to the Band Tree before reading this as it might make more sense to you.

The Connection:
Scott Holmes, put in charge of running sound for the CEHS Talent Show of 1986, was brilliant in duping Steve Harmon into thinking he was coming through in the mix. Another moment that I remember: Jen Dudley asking me how she was supposed to harmonize with Steve. My answer, having forgotten all music theory that I was learning at the time, "Sing the same thing he does, only higher."

Slow Children at Play:
The one time we actually attempted to practice was in February. We drove into a seedy section of Portland to the apartment of Skull 69. I met Phil, who was to be our drummer, who greeted me with, "Do you have any money for food?" Chris of course had never thought to ask the leader of the group if we could practice at his place, and the guy was dead set against it as the landlord was ready to boot them. Skull 69 dude was not happy to see us, as he was on his way to the soup kitchen. His apartment was filled with all sorts of video and sound equipment and they had a mighty array of amplifiers, yet they couldn't afford to eat. They had one of the coolest punk rock band names ever, though.

The Relapses:
At our first concert Seth broke his drum pedal. Luckily, he lived up the road so he went home to grab a replacement while Andy and Tina stalled for time When he returned, he was greeted with triumphant cheers. We then launched into my bizarre proto-metal song 'Egomaniacal Schizophrenia'.

Total Perspective Vortex/The Phantom Strangers:
We opened for a puppet show which I performed in. We had to stop the show so I could go perform and then start after the puppet show was done. The band debuted by lip-synching at a Talent night and of course, we lost. We played live at a Talent Show in February where we lost (again) to two lip-synching duos.

The Baked Potatoes:
Our first Geno's gig was funny because we had no idea what to expect. The Kopterz played what would now be labeled alternative rock (kinda like Husker Du and The Byrds) but when we showed up they were sound checking with a KISS song and the crowd at the club cheered loud. We were freaked out because we played Grateful Dead and Neil Young tunes and knew no hard rock at all. I remember Woody being particularly distressed. Joe Brien made a tape of the performance which was cool because you can hear The Kopterz making fun of us the whole show. The sound quality of the tape of the show was terrible and I think Joe charged a lot of money for copies of the tape.

During the second summer of The Baked Potatoes, Andy got a 4-track recorder. Woody, Seth and I borrowed his four track to record a song of mine and didn't tell Andy. We couldn't figure out how to use it so we then called him to ask, making pains to not get him over to the 'session' because we didn't want him to take over and tell us how to arrange the song. What this band needed was one of those coaches that Metallica used on 'Some Kind of Monster.'

Mr. Soul:
There were a number of funny stories (but not funny at the time). At our first Geno's gig Andy was walking around the club with his guitar and harmonica trying to look cool. This drunk guy named Joey called Andy over and asked to play Andy's 'harp'. Andy handed it to Joey who immediately poured beer over the harp to 'clean it'. Andy got uptight, grabbed the harmonica and left in a huff. All night Joey was in front of the stage two feet from Andy screaming,"Gimme da harp! Gimme da harp! Blooze Jam!" Geno's son who tended bar would call Joey over and give him a drink and Joey would come right back over. We made $7.00 that night and Andy swore never to play there again. We went back of course and made $11.00 that night mainly because Woody's father showed up to hear us play and felt sorry and gave us money. We then went to Dunkin' Donuts at 1:00 a.m. and spent the money on donuts. During one of those gigs I turned twenty-one. We stopped the set, Geno's son gave me a free shot of tequila, I went back on stage and we finished the show.

The worst memory was the hose job we got at the Old Port Tavern. They treated us like the unprofessional kids that we were, paid us almost no money, didn't give us a sound check and we cleared the place in under an hour (it turns out Neil Young doesn't write much dance music, but apparently the booking agent didn't get that part. But I'm not bitter).

Full Circle:
The one neat thing I remember from this was the way we recorded. We set up in a room in Seth's house with a soundboard and a tape deck. Seth had brushes(?), a snare and used his sneaker on the hardwood floor as his kick drum miked with a SM-57. Everybody else was direct to the board. The sound was really good. I give Seth a hard time in these pages for lack of organization but he knows sound. I was so impressed that I went over to Louis Philippe's office where Seth and I had started hanging around just to hear Louis listen to it. He knew immediately that I had played on it although I denied it to his face. Integrity? Honesty? What's that?

The Penetrators:
We made a video for a religion class as the band Death's Kitchen, which was highlighted by a horrendous version of Motorhead's "Ace of Spades", and bad English accents during an interview. Chad's part of the interview where he talks in a whiny voice about wanting to teach elementary school kids while wearing a bottle cap with a pentagram drawn on it stuck to his forehead is a particular highlight as well as Dave's role as an illegal immigrant lead guitar player who doesn't speak English even though he has red hair and freckles.

Love Cactus:
There are many standout memories. The best was the weekend tour we did of Orono and Old Town. After a three hour gig at UMO, the band, my friend Seth Warner, and the student who booked us (Julie) drove to the dorm where we were spending the night. Seven of us were crammed in a van with all of our equipment and a case of beer and Julie directed us to drive through a basketball court to get to the dorm. Dave made the lay-up, but found no place to park. Julie, clueless unfortunately, did not realize that we wanted to park and go to our rooms, not unload the equipment. Well, needless to say, campus security showed up. Dave was forced to deal with the wannabe-cop while Julie 's friend loudly derided the officer. Bart responded to Julie's friend with a much needed "Shut Up!", the wannabe-cop went away, and we arrived at our rooms. There was a Resident Assistant who told us about three times to be quiet, which did not sit well with any of us because we were all older than him (Dave, Bart, and Brian were in their late 20's early 30's at this point).

The next day we went to Northern Kingdom Music, run by the rudest and dumbest people on the face of the planet. Case in point: Brian walked up to pay for drum stuff and demanded a musician's discount. He got one. Meanwhile, we had to listen to a customer and salesperson barter, which went like this:

Customer: "Well, make me an offa (Mainespeak for offer)"
Salesperson, "You make me an offa (offer)"
That went on for at least five minutes. That night we played a place called the Penny Post, an all-ages dive that nevertheless had character. Julie showed up hammered beyond belief. In the middle of a song she walked up to Dave, jumped on-stage, and attempted to have a conversation with him. Dave rebuffed her, and she positioned herself in front of his amp, turning his amp on and off. Dave forcefully removed her from the stage, and somehow we finished the song. Julie left in a huff.

As far as my ego goes, the Boston gig was the deflation moment for me. I was sitting on stage playing a bad funk song of mine called "You're Funkin' Right" slapping on a Rickenbacker bass guitar where I suddenly found myself thinking, "What the hell am I doing here? This song sucks and I'm terrible at funk!" That day my car had broken down while en route to the gig and I had to have my mother call me in sick to my job the next day since we didn't have time to fix the car (the radiator had sprung a leak). We fixed the leak but did not fill the car with coolant the next day and the engine seized on the highway. After the boys picked me up in the van, I sat in the back at 10:00 a.m. nursing a Heineken saying to myself ,"I need a life. I'm never gonna be a rock star." And that is how I came to be a guidance counselor.

Boiling Lobster/Wheels of Confusion:
Our first gig was at the Penny Post. Todd and Cody disappeared, then showed up a few minutes before we were supposed to play in a very drunk state. Our first song went well, but Todd almost fell over trying to adjust his stupid DOD wah pedal with no foot switch. During the second set we played "Echoes", Pink Floyd's twenty-minute epic. Cody couldn't remember the drum beat (which is very simple) and played a blues shuffle all the way through.

One time we practiced at Todd's old dorm. He needed someone to be with us so we could practice. We set up and started playing at our usual head splitting volume. Down came the Resident Director of the dorm, taking our heads off with a very good verbal barrage. She noticed a paper bag next to Cody. "Oh S**t!" I thought since I had not noticed the bag being brought in but I knew immediately what was in it. Cody was not of legal age and Todd vouched for it. The Resident Director immediately demanded that Todd dump the booze. Todd valiantly stuck up to her saying no way and we were kicked out. Not realizing how long it took us to pack up, she threatened to call security. A year later, I was a graduate assistant in the financial aid office. I met with parents and students and in walked the Resident Director. I brought up the incident thinking that we would have a good laugh about it but she would not believe I knew nothing about the alcohol. What a b***h.

The one time we practiced with Jeremy was with Seth and Todd at Jeremy's dorm. Jeremy had a mike and an amp but could not sing the grunge tunes we were doing. He was very good screaming Led Zeppelin tunes which was odd. He stomped in circles around his mike stand a lot. He was also a Resident Assistant and was getting complaints from the students that we were too loud. I thought that was pretty ironic. After the practice we ran into Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle who were in the middle of filming 'Dorm'. I declined to be an extra in the film but the song 'Ayatollah Mike' was used in the sleep music scene of the movie.

Confidential Informant:
I always had a great time watching Nate during any of our gigs. He was prone to grunge-type histrionics while we played, frequently pounding his head against a wall or singing while lying on the floor in the throes of great angst. These antics, juxtaposed to music like "Little Sister", didn't work well as far as stage presence went.

One gig he showed up with his arm in a cast from a fight at a concert the night before. He had been told he might not be able to play again because of the damage to his elbow, and the first thing he does is to rip the guitar from Jesse and play a solo. This was something he did to all of us frequently. Luckily, he was good. I enjoyed his intro to our band as well as his off-color remarks (after a song he had us play call 'Big Fanny'):"She's got a great big fanny, I can't get around it no way. I can only enter it."

Bumstock House Band:
Seth quit graduate school a week into rehearsals and moved back to Portland, prompting the usual melodrama that I tire of in music scenes. I scrambled to keep him in the band, and looked like a jerk as a result. I had to deal with phone calls at 11:00 at night from Jeremy and others who were very nervous about Seth's ability to pull off the gig with very little rehearsal. I had Denny Taylor from Confidential Informant stand in as an interim drummer, and it was decided that he would play for Deidre's set for his efforts to help keep the House Band from imploding. Seth pulled it off, but the Off Campus Board (the people in charge) were sure to put his worst performance on the CD. I wound up on three tracks of the Bumstock 95 CD, so I can't complain (even though I just did).

The band played a number of warm up gigs and I remember playing one gig in someone's living room, another at the Ram's Horn, and then one with Denny in tow in someone's backyard at night. That one was fun because the cops broke it up and Denny and I were the only sober ones there. We hung out in Denny's truck while everyone else panicked and then we calmly went home.

Standout memories were many: great sounding sets from all the singers, the cold, Ben Meiklejon throwing his shoes at the audience, Jeremy Potter taking his pants off (not a good sight), a horn section of a saxophone player and trombone, and Adam White with his strumming hand covered in blood from thrashing his guitar so hard. Quite a bit of fun.

Funniest moment but definitely not funny at the time. Seth came up the night before Bumstock to finally rehearse with everybody. As we ran through the setlists for Jeremy and Adam, we ran over Adam's song "Thief on a Cross". Adam started the song with his guitar, strumming like it was a blues shuffle, but the rest of the band played it straight. I told Seth, "Whatever you do, don't shuffle this song." He said okay but he wasn't taking any notes because he had it in his head that this was going to be a piece of cake. So we got on stage and Adam started "Thief". Seth came in with a blues shuffle. I was yelling at Seth not to shuffle the song and trying to follow the chord chart I had written for the song because every verse was different. Finally in the middle of the second verse Seth pulled it together and we managed to get though the song. That song, of course, was the one they put on the Bumstock CD.

MOSS:
When we played live, Marcos had trouble keeping hold of his drum sticks, and every once in a while I would see them fly over my head into the audience. I would turn back laughing to see Marcos with a sheepish look on his face. One night we played at the Granary and this guy (Pete, I think) asked to play the congas that Marcos had set up. They were next to Steve so Steve said sure. We launched into "Opaque Lake". Just as Steve was about to crank out a fiery solo, he suddenly lost power. He looked down to see his power strip had been turned off, presumably because Pete had accidentally stepped on it. He turned it back on, but Steve wasn't the type to let something like that go, so he yelled at Pete the conga player, then turned to solo. Pete, who didn't fully hear what Steve was yelling at him about (did I mention that we were really loud?), assumed that Steve wanted him to turn the power strip on, not realizing that Steve had already done so. The conga player flicked the switch just as Steve was to solo cutting off the power again and prompting Steve to let loose with all sorts of verbal abuse. This sort of thing was not uncommon in MOSS. People would show up with instruments and sit in with us, whether or not we wanted them to.

Dirigo High School Pep Band:
We were playing during the Augusta basketball tournament when a player was injured. While we stood around waiting for the player to be treated, I asked if we could play. Cramer had no idea if we could or not so Josh Schoolcraft and I started a simple cheer. Both sides were clapping along until our high school's former principal chewed me out during for playing during an injury time-out.

The Backwater Blues Revival:
At a gig, Grant set up our incredibly large P.A. that could take down a building with its volume. He set up a loud amp behind him, a loud amp to the side of the stage next to monitors, and then plugged himself directly into the P.A. giving us three channels of Grant. In the middle of the first song he leaned over to me and said, "I think the bass is too loud."

The Maplejuice Quartet:
A really funny though embarrassing memory was when I invited the Maplejuice Quartet up from Portland and promised them an hour to play the jazz music we were working on. The 'juice were a bit uptight and they complained about the bareboned sound system and the indifferent (and loud) crowd. The manager thought the music was wimpy and shut us down after four songs. I looked like an ass and the boys were not happy. That was the last time I made any attempt to book a gig for them.

Faceplant:
Recently Doug, Jill and I did a trio gig at a bar called the Funky Red Barn (formerly the Backstage) in Bethel. There was a fairly large crowd there but they were not paying much attention to us. Someone shouted the dreaded words, "Play Freebird!" which is really the most hated song in the universe for any self-respecting musician. Luckily, we had no self-respect, so Doug started to play the song. I chimed in playing the lead riffs on my bass. The place suddenly emptied out onto the dance floor. I stared in amazement and disbelief before launching into a horrendous solo for the finale. Later, one of Doug's coworker's, who lives next door to the place, calls to complain about the noise and the terrible band doing the horrendous version of "Freebird". He was very apologetic when he found out it was us.

Dave Rowe Trio:
For a year or two the Trio played at a place in Waterboro called Sully's run by our good friend Jane. Dave started playing the Jimmy Buffet song "Margaritaville" a song I have become intimately familiar with over the years. Dave occasionally liked to use different chord progressions and not tell me. He also had this habit of needing to be right. So there was a wrong note that was being hit and every time it happened Dave would yell at me "It's an A!" which was freaking me out and upsetting me because I was playing an A. I was getting to the point where I almost threw down my bass and walked off the stage when he finally looks at me and says, "Oh, my guitar was tuned down and I forgot. You were playing the right note."