Saturday, August 21, 2010

Fayette-nom

I have to be careful about how I talk about Fayetteville, NC since my wife is FROM there but just yesterday I was thinking back on the gigs I’ve played there. All but one, the back-up singer/tambourine player gig I did with Dan’s “Hearing Impared” band, were with The Fabulous Knobs. This was Jack’s and my first band. The Knobs were no slouches. We were actually as good as any bar band you’d ever wanna hear, and I’m not just saying that because I was a part of it. Just ask anyone from around here who ever caught one of the shows. We were good enough to consistently SELL OUT The Pier, a 600 seater in the underground of Raleigh’s Cameron Village Shopping Center. The band was pretty wild, with a hellbitch (I say lovingly and I’m sure, with her blessing) banshee lead singer and an ensemble of clockwork musicians playing rocked up Motown and Soul songs, along with a growing smattering of originals. The one thing the Knobs were NOT though is METAL, the one and only type of music that military personnel seemed to understand at the time, and maybe to this day ( I haven’t been there lately). So the band never really caught on in Fayette-nom. We tried several clubs but never with much success. I DO remember one night though that I’ll NEVER forget. The club was just outta town and the crowd actually stuck around for most of the night. The stage was low and we were in the thick of it with the drunks which might have made the difference. I mean, we weren’t Metal but at least we were loud! There was a particularly drunk young “lady” there that kept yelling out the nastiest things you could think of. We’d look and each other and laugh as she stood in front of the stage and repeatedly hollered stuff like “Stick it in the hole!” (huh?) and “Play ‘Free Bird’ and I’ll give you a free blow job!” (uhhh…how much did you usually charge?). She was a complete mess. Finally, we took a break and as guitarist Keith Taylor was standing at the urinal having a piss, another young drunk pulled up (or out, I guess you could say) along side him and asked “Whatchu you think of the band?” Keith never let on that he was actually IN the band, he just smiled and said “I don’t know, they're alright I guess”. The drunk’s head popped back a bit in astonishment.
“Alright!!?? Hell, I’d rather go to a goat fuckin’!!!”
Like I said, we never really caught on in Fayette-nom.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I've always loved that story.

Anonymous said...

Ugh! Had rental houses in that town. Everytime I left there I felt like I needed to take a LONG shower!
Barry H

Bo said...

Keith never looked like a band member offstage. But what chops...