A Start

This is a piece from a book I was supposed to be writing. Still doing it, I suppose. Just online now.

Hello, Cleveland!


Cleveland, the Lizard tour, fall 1992. Lotsa friends visiting this gig, as was a pair of my sisters, and some future and ex-brothers in law. I was hoping that we would have a good gig, and the mood was high. Saigon Kick was about four months into this tour, and we were really hitting our live stride. I heard some tapes from this leg of the tour not too long ago and we were on fire.

Now my family could see the results of that for themselves.

The day went well, and we dined in a very cool restaurant down on by water. Showtime arrived and the band got ready in the backstage area. As in Spinal Tap, it was a convoluted system of twists and turns, all around concrete abutments. But we had nobody to tell us where we had to go to reach the stage.

And we didn't have time for a jog.

Evil, my tech, and I head towards the noise of the intro tape. I am leading the way, bass in hand, and Evil is behind me with a Mag-lite poised over my shoulder like a miner’s helmet. As we approach the sound at the end of the tunnel, I hear a voice behind us:

EVIL! WHERE’S MY TEA?

It’s Matt Kramer and he’s dry apparently. Evil now swings his beam of light off of me, and before I know it, I walk right into a five foot high chunk of concrete. Which is a bit of a problem, since I am six feet high. Like two drunken mountain goats, my large head meets it's Quik-crete head squarely and I am instantly woozy.

I stagger through the rest of the Cleveland Labyrinth, and make it to the stage a little late. Jason Bieler looks at me funny, as if to say “where the hell have you been?” and I shoot him a dazed look.

He shoots me a wide eyed one back.

During my backstage spelunking adventure, I have acquired a three inch red crease on my forehead where the edge of the obstacle met my head. It’s bleeding, but not a whole lot. I am instantly remained of Tommy Thayer colliding with a door mechanism in San Diego earlier that year. His variation was that he was wearing Ace Frehley make-up. But that's another story.

The best part is that I have a picture of the incident. I don’t know who was sharp enough to grab the shot, but SK's erstwhile bassist looks like a drunken Fred Gwynn, wearing Yvonne De Carlo’s wig during a Munster’s cast party.

With a gash in his head.