Growing up Bass Player (Sugar Mountain) (The beginning of the End)

As I said, it took a series of events to make me quit.

I found, maybe because of fatigue, that after playing six nights a week I started to notice the same people at the club every night of the week. They would be there when we started playing and when we quit. Every night they would get drunk. How they got home I don’t want to even think about. You must understand that people did this all the years I played.  It was just then I started to take notice. It bothered me, bothered me a lot. One night there was a woman dancing up close to the stage. She was there every night and she was very drunk. While she was dancing, she pee’ d her pants and did not even notice. She just kept on dancing. I thought -I don’t want to do this any more.

The tension in the band continued to grow. Everyone felt it. We hardly even talk to each other. My dislike of Roy continued to grow. (My mother taught me that if you can’t say anything nice about someone, say nothing at all) I won’t say anything more about Roy.

Glen continued to over power the band with his drums. Alan’s drinking got more and more out of hand. Glens drumming was driving me crazy. Gary didn’t say much about all this but I think he was as frustrated as I was.

On what was to be the last night we play together, things got real bad. I had always known that something was wrong with Glens drumming. I kept thinking that if I just practiced more, learned the song better, he would follow me and get better with me. Wrong!!! I have come to realize that I never heard Glen’s bass drum. Enter one big ass bass drum mike and that changed.

More Later

The Last Gig