Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Night My First Band Fell Apart and Had a Blast
A different show.
This happened in 1997 or thereabouts. We played what was then called “college rock” or alternative. All originals, no covers. We were small taters in the OKC area, but we had a CD and played quite a bit. Our name, judyjudyjudy, came from Goober’s Cary Grant impression on “The Andy Griffith Show.” We liked blaring his voice through the PA during the intro to one of our songs.
Key to this story is the lineup: One drummer. One guitarist. One bassist (me). One keyboardist (playing vintage Farfisa organ and singing.) One other lead vocalist.
We weren’t hard rock, but we weren’t England Dan and John Ford Coley either. We graduated from the do-it-yourself REM school. You know the type. Nerds.
We had a “manager” because the dude (J-Bird Productions!) liked our shambolic racket, or maybe the two girls up front, and could get us booked. Anyway, let’s just say nobody was getting cheated because nobody was making any money.
We got a gig in an old movie theater in south OKC, opening for a heavy metal cover band (we didn’t know at the time). We were as unmetal as could be. The theater was one of those “chicken wire around the stage” deals, because people there liked to throw things. Probably Bud Light back then. Times change.
The first thing that went wrong for us was a staffer/gaffer/stagehand tripped on our hardwired Farfisa’s chord, ripping it out of the organ, and rendering it useless for the show.
And where was our guitarist? We had an extra guitar, which I could play a bit, but we needed HIM. Couldn’t reach him though. Out of time.
We huddled, scrapped the setlist and started thinking of covers we could simplify and play unrehearsed with me on guitar and our keyboardist picking up a bass. I showed her the old Navajo trick of “watch where my fingers go, and try to match the places.” I stomped on every stomp box we had, and away we went.
We opened with Camper van Beethoven’s “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and we closed with Zep’s “Rock and Roll.” It wasn’t the biggest gig we had (the one in the photo was), and it wasn’t the best, but it was the most…levitating. The metallions LOVED us that night. I remember spontaneously tossing that Telecaster up to the ceiling at the end, and it coming down on the drum kit, knocking the ride cymbal over. We stayed up, keyed up, all night in a Denny’s-alike called The Kettle, drinking coffee, eating pancakes, and reliving that blast of a disaster.
Later, we found out our guitarist had been in a car accident, so we asked to be forgiven all the colorful curses we’d hurled in his direction, even though he was okay.
I’ve been in a few other bands since, but the night everything went wrong is still the most fun I ever had.
By the way, Honest Ron fixed my Telecaster, and I still use it today. If you ever need guitar repair in OKC, I’m pretty sure he’s still there on May Ave., and he’s a trip.
Published in Entertainment
From about March of 1979 to around May of 1981, when I had my first real programming job in Central Oregon, I also helped out a local country-rock band with their equipment. Their main instruments were okay – the main guy, for example, played a Martin 12-string guitar a lot, among other instruments – but their “PA system” deserved the quotes I just used. Most of their vocals were run through additional guitar amps! They also had some kind of simple powered mixing board – maybe Tapco? – but just mono, and it wasn’t much for a live performance even in a relatively small space.
They had made a little money playing regularly at a couple small bars in Sisters, and the son of the people I rented my place from had a 6-channel Yamaha stereo mixer and a 200wpc stereo Kustom power amp, both designed to be rack-mounted, that he wanted to sell. That meant they didn’t have to use any guitar amps for vocals any more, and they could also run a mix of the guitars etc through the PA speakers too, to spread things around some, and for stage monitors.
And I set them up with a Farfisa VIP-233 organ, I think it’s called a “double manual,” with two keyboards.
The main guy’s wife played keyboards too, just electric piano up to that point but they also wanted the organ sounds available.
It basically came as a road case that also held the stand legs inside when closed. It had a wide variety of sounds, including the “pop” sounds used in the song “Popcorn.”
It had a connector for bass pedals, but the pedals didn’t come with it. I found pedals somewhere, with the right plug but wired differently. Maybe it was for a different Farfisa model that used different connections for some reason, or maybe it was a different brand altogether, I don’t remember. But somehow – maybe there were schematics inside the organ case? – I modified them to work with the VIP-233.
I made sure they used heavy enough wiring for speakers to not be a problem, that was something else they’d been skimping on to be cheap. And I added horn tweeters to their PA column speakers, 4 x 10s probably, although possibly 4 x 12s, with adjustable level controls.
I made some customized gear for them too, especially a “controller” for the piano/organ speakers, which had Leslie systems in them. They wanted to be able to switch between “presets” with just one button on the piano or organ, especially to make it easy for his wife. So I built a box that was “programmed” just with switches on the front, Leslie On/Off and Leslie Speed Fast/Slow, switched by relays, and an A/B button on the side of the piano and organ keyboards was connected to that.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t already seen it, I recommend “Bandslam.” Also “Roadie (The Story Of A Boy And His Equipment)” starring “Meatloaf” and featuring Roy Orbison, Blondie, and others.
I don’t remember what our Farfisa was. We got it used for $50. I’ve seen a similar one in a Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd photo. The cable was hardwired, which we fixed after this gig. Eventually, we lost it when we lent it to a fellow musician who “left it somewhere.” Yeah, right.
PS. Wish we had your Leslie customization!
I’ll have to look those up.
Cool!
Fun story. Maybe losing the organ was a plus with a metal crowd.
That and hitting the distortion pedals and just letting ‘er rip.
There was a group called JudyJudyJudy that did a song “What You Hide” for the indie movie Bandwagon. It wouldn’t happen to be your band, would it?
Wish it had been. We were all little j judy at that time, because we were artsy, don’tcha know.
Somebody put us up on YouTube years ago:
It’s funny how things can go, especially when one lets go.
There were a couple poets a bit more than a hundred years ago who decided to make fun of what was going on in poetry at the time. They made up pseudonyms and let it rip, and most critics consider their work on that project to be the best poetry they ever wrote. Most people never got the joke at all. Their pseudonyms were taken seriously.
You guys were pretty good!
I should have said “a very young Meatloaf” since it came out in 1980. :-) And 43-years-younger Alice Cooper was there too! I found a couple places on YT that have it for free, showing different running times which is always fun… but try this one:
I would have to say now, that “Bandslam” is more fun, but I don’t see it free anywhere. Maybe on DailyMotion but I haven’t checked yet.
First bands and PA systems brought this story to mind.
When my first band was starting out (summer 1980) we had some cheap PA system that was improperly grounded. If you let your lips touch the mic while playing your guitar, you’d get shocked — not devastating, but unpleasant. We finally added foam wind covers to the mics to avoid this issue but before we got smart enough to do that, we just learned not to get closer than 1/2″ or so from the mic.
One Saturday morning on the way to my day job, I T-boned some idiot who pulled out in front of me, splitting my upper lip right below my nose, needing 6 stitches to close it up. We had a gig that night. No problem. I wasn’t the lead singer anyway, and a couple of Tylenol and a few beers would take care of the pain — I thought. When I first stepped up to the mic to warble some harmony my by-then-swollen upper lip closed the distance faster than anticipated.
If you’ve never gotten shocked through a stitched-up lip, I don’t recommend it. Once I got up off the floor and my eyes quit watering, we finished the set. More beers were required, obviously.
Ow!
No kidding. Just remembering it 43 years later makes my eyes water.
I’ve gotten some interesting zaps over time, including something like 2.2 kv from a high-voltage transformer for the Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment in Jr High School.