Nurse the Hate: The Doomed Gig In Detroit

 

One of the first cities the Cowslingers were ever able to play with regularity was Detroit.  Very early on I realized that if we wanted to become good, we needed to play in front of strangers, not just our enthusiastic friends.  There are so many talented bands from this region that just refused to get in the van.  I get it.  It’s scary to walk out on a stage where you are the 45-minute-long obstacle for the people to see what they really came to see.  Personally, I always liked it.  The challenge of winning over the room, or sometimes even more exciting, failing to do so and then baiting the people for the rest of your set.  There isn’t a much more exciting thing than exposing yourself to ridicule by playing your music to people that don’t care.

 

We got in at Lili’s in Detroit thanks to an early incarnation of Th’ Flying Saucers that had Detroit local Pistol Pete on upright bass.  Those guys were very popular at Lili’s, an old Detroit tavern that had been an important early punk venue.  We had opened up for them a couple of times, and then the always turbulent Saucers went though a patch where they stopped playing out.  I talked us into getting on a bill at the club without the Saucers, but the caveat was that we had to play on January 1^st to get the decent bill later in February.  Please note, I am not saying we got New Year’s Eve.  I am saying we had to drive to Detroit the day after, on New Year’s Day, and play a show that night to whatever degenerates go out the night AFTER New Year’s Eve.

 

This is probably 1992.  We had our first 45 out which had been reviewed positively in Alternative Press.  That was the extent of our press, which was justified because we weren’t very good at this point.  We were still trying to find our voice beyond trying to replicate the Beat Farmers and Blood On The Saddle.  I couldn’t sing at all and I was trying to figure out what to do when I wasn’t screaming in the mic.  Bobby and I were just then taking creative control of where we wanted to go, and we were figuring out how to write songs.  We had that youthful confidence that allowed us to think we were badass if we had enough beer in us, but also the sneaking suspicion that we sorta sucked. 

 

I might be merging a few Detroit gigs together in my head, but this is the way I remember it now.  We used The Chief’s Dodge Caravan as our band van at that point in time.  There were a few problems with this set up.  1.  It wasn’t big enough for all the gear and five guys.  2.  The Dodge Caravan’s engine was not designed to haul that kind of weight around.  More on this later.  All we need to focus on at this point was that a decision was made at The Chief’s house to secure Leo’s bass drum to the roof rack to free up space inside the van for the rest of our crap.  In theory, this was a good idea.  In reality, this led to a disaster as the members of The Cowslingers in 1992 were not adept enough to figure out how to tie down a drum to a roof rack.

 

If you ever debated on buying cases for your drums, I would like to use this incident as Example A as the reason to do so.  I was in my Lakewood apartment waiting for the guys.  The band all drove over from The Chief’s in Mayfield Hts.  Bobby was sitting in the back seat.  He looked out the back window right around Burke Lakefront Airport and noticed Leo’s bass drum rolling down the Shoreway, disintegrating as terrified drivers swerved to avoid the scattering debris.  I guess they didn’t do a very good job latching down the drum.  There was nothing else to do but keep driving and hope one of the other bands on the bill would allow us to use some of their kit.  Leo was shockingly unconcerned.  This was my first indication of his huge tolerance and arguably embrace of chaos.  Almost any other drummer would be in tears that his signature drum had been destroyed by negligence.  For Leo, it was just another day at the office.

 

We made the drive up blasting music and talking shit.  I was uptight that we would be late.  The rest of the guys had no clue how difficult it was to talk a club into allowing us to come and play a second-rate version of a subgenre that had limited fans when it had been at its peak a decade ago.  The last thing I wanted was to have to apologize before we had a chance to really have something to apologize for later after we had 100 beers.  It was really cold that night.  I remember that vividly.  When we pulled up, I went to help with the load, and bring in The Chief’s big speaker cabinets.  I turned at this weird angle, and I felt my already tense back tweak.  What was that?  I didn’t exactly hurt, but it felt… wrong.

 

I walked into the club with the cabinet, set it down and felt… weird.  We finished the load in and I sat at the bar and ordered a beer.  Being in The Cowslingers in 1992-94 was 80% drinking beer at the club with 10% dedicated to the gig and 10% to selling merch after the show.  The Chief sat down next to me and we started talking.  Suddenly I was overcome with the urge to violently puke.  This had come from nowhere.  I shot up off the stool and rocketed back to the filthy men’s room.  I bent down to let loose in the toilet and… the need to barf totally vanished.  Poof.  It was gone.  What the fuck?  I went to stand back up and discovered I could not move my back.  It was locked up, and I was now stuck in a bent over position with my hands on my knees.  This was not good.

 

I did an awkward shuffle in that prone position out of the men’s room and tried to straighten back up.  No dice.  My back had totally seized up.  By this time the guys had discovered I was bent over like a number seven standing by the pool table.  A group meeting ensued, and it was decided that the best course of action would be to lay me out on the pool table in the back of the bar.  Leo and Matt the Wonder Roadie lifted me onto the table and I painfully reclined on my back staring at the white ceiling.  I could not move.  In a pragmatic move, I was supplied with a Budweiser and abandoned.

 

If you ever find yourself paralyzed on your back in a bar, you will discover that people adjust very quickly to the idea that a man is stationary on the pool table and is available for conversation.  The small number of people in the bar would eye me up and saunter over as if the jukebox and the man on the pool table were of equal interest.  “Hmm.  Maybe I’ll play that Cramps song on A8.  Oh, while I’m here, maybe I will ask that guy why he’s motionless on the pool table.”  They then try to find common ground before they slink away.  “Yeah man, I hurt my back once when I was painting my brother’s garage.  It totally sucked.  I was in pain for three days.  Hey, are you guys still playing?”

 

It should be noted that the only concern from the bar staff was if the band was going to cancel.  I think one of the bartenders got me another Bud.  My thought was that as I wasn’t in any pain while laid flat out, I might as well do the show laying down on the stage.  I mean, we had driven up here and we would have to drive home regardless, so we might as well do the gig.  Sure, the show wouldn’t be very exciting, but it would be memorable for the roughly 12 people in the room.  So, when the time to play arrived, I was led to the stage like a low rent James Brown, carried on either side by the guys in the band.  I was placed down in the middle of the stage like a broken mannequin holding my mic staring at the ceiling.

 

I’ve played probably 2000-2500 shows in my life.  That was probably the most memorable while also being the least memorable musically.  I am confident no one that attended that gig ever saw anything like that again, and by “that”, I mean some guys knocking out sloppy but spirited versions of “Ghost Riders In The Sky” and “Little Sister” with the singer motionless like an LSD crippled Brian Jones.  I have no specific memories of the set except the dreamlike recollection of being part of yet totally separate from the events unfolding. 

 

When the set ended, the band abandoned me up there.  I saw a Cincinnati band years later abandon a member on an elevated stage that was in a wheelchair, but at least she could make pleading eye contact for help.  I was just sort of laying there like a fuzzbox.  The best part was when some of the small audience drifted over to offer “attaboys” for my playing the set in this compromised position.  I was looking at some guy’s shoes by my head as he was looking down on me like I was a dachshund saying “Yeah man, I can’t believe you did the show man.  Props.  I hear guys complain about not having their normal gear and they say they can’t play.  You just went up here and did it.  That was awesome man.  Hey, I’m going to go get a beer.”  Then I was alone again staring at the ceiling.  The sound guy started to tear down, ignoring me completely.

 

After a good half hour, we finally loaded out.  I was carried out to the shotgun seat of the Dodge Caravan like a wounded grunt being pulled out of The Shit into the waiting helicopter.  We pulled out of Detroit at 230a or so, an absolutely freezing night.  I was reclined back as far as possible in the shotgun seat staring out the window looking at steam escape from various structures in the bleak landscape.  Detroit at 3am in the winter of 1992-93 is as post-apocalyptic as you think it is.   It felt like we were escaping.  After about 45 minutes of driving the adrenaline and fun of the night had worn off, and people started passing out.  I think Matt the Wonder Roadie was driving when the Dodge Caravan began to protest.  We were losing power and having trouble keeping speed.  We pulled over somewhere near the Ohio border.

 

When the temperature is zero, the last thing you are thinking is “the engine is overheating”.  It was so cold outside that your nose hair instantly froze up.  The gravel made loud crunching noise when stepped upon.  It hurts to have your hands exposed to the air.  Matt the Wonder Roadie climbed under the van and came back inside with the report.  “It isn’t good.  The catalytic converter is glowing red.  It’s weird man.  It is sort of ebbing and throbbing like it is alive.”.  This was not covered in the owner’s manual.  We are on the side of I-75, a bunch of drunk cowboys in the darkest hour of night, waiting for the guts of the caravan to cool off enough to proceed.  This was not the rock and roll life we had been promised in Bon Jovi videos. 

 

We spent the next three hours driving in short spurts.  We put in as many miles as we could until the van balked and then pulled over again.  We waited it out and started again.  I think I got dropped off at my apartment at 730am.  At this point I could walk, although unsteadily like a doped-up Frankenstein.  I shuffled to the elevator and got to my door, struggling with the key.  My girlfriend at the time had slept there, probably assuming I’d be home around 4a.  I was obviously a mess.  I remember her looking at me and instantly saying “What’s wrong?”.  I sort of made a grunt and struggled in the apartment where I proceeded to sleep on the floor until the afternoon.  I woke up fully clothed and took the wadded-up gig money from my jeans pocket to count it. 

 

We made $14.