I know that if you didn't grow up during the '60s, you can't comprehend the feelings that were going on during this time. There was such political unrest, not unlike today's. There was a war going on that was never actually declared a war, much like today's. People back then, however, protested to the inth degree against the US involvement in Viet-Nam, and it was a feeling I can't even begin to put into words when you were so dead against something that you knew was doing no good, yet you couldn't bring anyone home because the government wouldn't call a cease-fire and admit they were never going to win this war.(Hey, George W, does this sound at all familiar to you today?)
Anyway, one of the things that seemed to bring release to the tensions of the decade was music. I can remember my radio in the car was always on, either that or my 8 track player, and when I was home, I always had music playing on the stereo. Whenever I listened to my music, I envisioned in my mind entertaining people like they had never been entertained before. Each time Summer Heat took to the stage to play a dance, I always wanted to put some of my ideas I had to the test and see if they left the audience wanting more.
I received so many compliments on my lighting and how it complimented the band as they played. Of course lots of the people at the dances looked forward to the band playing "Fire" and seeing the cloud of smoke emanate from my pipe. There were other things, small things that we did week after week, some that worked, some that didn't work so well, but we at least tried to give the people that attended our dances something they could talk about days after the dance was over.
A few days before our dance following the Rush County Sectional Basketball Tournament final game on Saturday night, probably back in '68 or '69, I had conceived an idea that I hadn't even shared with the members of the band. The true reason I hadn't told them of my idea was basically because I was afraid they would shoot the idea down and tell me not to do it...and actually, I thought the spontanaity of it would be even better for them if it was a total and complete surprise.
Like I've said before, I've not been blessed with any true musical talent, other than maybe a little bit of luck writing songs...but I can't play anything well, just a little bit here of this instrument, and just a little bit there of that instrument. Several years prior to this time in my life my parents had bought me an acoustic guitar from probably Sears, but I never managed to learn much on it, mainly because I didn't realize I was trying to play the damned thing upside down. I play a guitar left handed, and for those of you who have tried to do that, you know that basically most cords are anatomically impossible to play because your fingers simply won't bend the right way. Anyway, I didn't know this at the time, so the guitar had laid around the house for several years without any attention being paid to it.
The night of the tourney dance, I fumbled thru my closet at home, found the guitar, and basically sneaked it out of the house and into the trunk of my car. I got cleaned up, shaved, and put on my favorite pair of stage pants, which were a pair of gold, wide corded corduroys with flaired bottoms. I put on my gold shirt with the huge color, another popular item of its time back then and made sure my hair looked just right...
I arrived at the Community Building about the same time the rest of the band pulled in and we began unloading the van and carrying equipment in and setting up the stage with the drums, the PA system, the lighting, etc. Denny and Mike tuned their respective guitars, Jim set up his drums just right, Jay set up the microphones, and I helped carry in the amps got the lights set up just right...While everyone was busy with their particular job they each did so well and so often, I got into the trunk of my car and brought in the old acoustic guitar and set it behind Mike's Fender amp.
It didn't take long before Jay spotted it and asked me what the hell that was for. I found a quick lie in my head and told him someone was coming to look at it that evening, which I guess really wasn't a lie because before the night was over a lot of people were going to be looking at that old acoustic guitar.
Back in those days, folks, there were so many things one could buy across the counter to get high on it was unbelievable. You could buy Romilar 8 hour syrup, which, if you drank the entire bottle would totally screw you up for hours, not to mention make you empty the entire contents of your stomach along with that feeling. You could buy Primatene tablets over the counter, each pill containing 1/4 grain of phenobarbital, so if you took four of them, you were getting a full grain of the depressant. You could buy a simple Vicks nasal inhaler, break it open and take the gauze that contained all the goodies for your sinuses and drink it down with a swig of coke and within an hour you would be on one hell of a speed trip that lasted for close to 8 hours or so...
On this particular night, if memory serves me correctly, it was the Vicks Inhaler that was going to get me going for the evening's surprise performance.
Even though the ballgame wasn't going to be over much before 9:30 or so, our dance started at 8PM sharp, and actually quite a few people showed that chose not to go to the basketball game. Right before we started our first set at 8, I walked outside, put the inhaler inside my handkerchief, laid it on the ground and stomped on it, so I could retreive the little soaked wad of gauze. I pulled it out, drank it down with probably coke or pepsi or something else, then went into the Community Building and joined the rest of the band on stage. Promptly at 8, Summer Heat started playing a dance that would be talked about for the next few years as one of the wildest shows they had ever seen us do(at least up until then.)
I did my thing with the lights as Summer Heat belted out tunes by Blue Cheer, Cream, Vanilla Fudge and the like. Within 40 minutes or so, I was really feeling the buzz from my trusty old Vicks wad. As we closed in on the 9 PM hour, Jay told the audience we were going to take a short break. We stepped outside, gathered our senses, I smoked a couple of cigarettes, something I've long given up since. We talked, and as we talked, I buzzed more and more and stronger and stronger and realized that we were probably within an hour of my big surprise. That got me going even more.
My excitement had to be showing, because Jay and Mike kept asking me what the hell I was on and why I seemed so uptight and excited. I told them it was just the excitement of the evening and that I thought they were playing great. Even Jim, who didn't really carry on a great deal of conversation with me usually, noticed I was wound. He even told me my lighting effects seemed better this evening that they ever had. That really made me feel far out, because sometimes my lighting effects got on his nerves...he said my timing sometimes thru off his drum timing...But tonight that wasn't bothering him at all.
Around 9:15 t0 9:20, Summer Heat once again took to the stage, and by this time, yours truly is really flying higher than the proverbial kite. More and more people began piling in, and the crowd was growing. Jay announced after just a few songs that Rushville had won the game and was moving on to the Regional Tournament, which met with lots of applause because, face it folks, Indiana is definitely a state that loves its basketball. Several more songs were played, and Jay began talking to the crowd again, and I felt like my time was about to arrive.
I glanced out at the crowd, which by this time, close to 10PM, was really growing, matter of fact, people reached three quarters of the way across the building. Their were couples standing together, waiting to dance to the next song, groups of people just standing around talking, and the usual group that found a place to sit down and be comfortable and just enjoy the music sitting down. Jay looked back at the band and announced, "One more song and then let's break for a few minutes."
Jay turned back to the crowd and announced, "We're going to do one more song and then take a short break. This is one of our favorites by Steppenwolf, it's called "The Pusher."
Those words were like magic, because I knew this was it. My lighting scheme for The Pusher was almost all strobe light, so once the song got going I wouldn't have to stay by the control box. This was just what I needed.
The opening chords were played by Denny on keyboard and then Mike joined in on lead guitar. For those of you who have heard this song, you know it's a slower tune but very powerful in its delivery. Tonight, I was going to make it the most powerful delivery Summer Heat had ever given of it.
Jay started singing the first verse, and I stood off to stage right by my lighting box and played my tambourine in beat to Jim's drums, eyeing the crowd, who were basically just dancing with each other and not really paying any attention to the band. Jay went thru the first chorus, asking God above to damn the pusher man....my head was reeling at this point, and I was nervous as hell as the proper time was getting closer.
Jay began singing verse two, talking about the dealer and selling you lots of sweet dreams. I laid the tambourine down and slowly walked back towards the Fender amp as Jay began singing about the pusher leaving your mind to scream. As he belted out the second chorus of God damn's, I reached behind the amp and got out the acoustic guitar.
When Summer Heat played The Pusher, we had a very long instrumental in the middle, longer than Steppenwolf played on the original, and this was when I was going to pull my surprise. Jay always grabbed an extra guitar to play rhythm while Mike played a fabulous middle break on lead. When he grabbed that guitar, he looked over at me and saw me holding the acoustic and the look on his face was basically asking me "What the hell are you up to?"
He was about to find out.
As the instrumental between verses two and three had gone on for maybe twenty seconds or so, I held the guitar in a position like I was actually going to play it and walked up the front of the stage and looked out at the dancing crowd. It would be the last time I saw them until the song was over. I slowly turned the guitar to where the top was facing me, and let it rest against my right knee. As Mike's awesome lead got stronger and the song seemed to grow louder in my head, I reached down, grabbed one of the strings with my left hand, and pulled the string straight towards me, breaking it in the process. I remember my left hand feeling warm, and grabbed a second string, doing the same thing to it, pulling it towards me until it broke as well...I turned the guitar over to my left leg, again facing me, and pulled the remaining 4 strings from it, one at a time, and saw something in the strobe light that looked like dark water flying thru the air...
When the last string was broken free from the guitar, I again turned my attention back the other direction, held the guitar back on my right leg, and held it up all of sudden high above my head...in less than five seconds, I drove it as hard as I could to the floor of the stage, breaking the body of the guitar, but leaving plenty of it still intact. I was lost in the music, and again, took the guitar up above my head and pounded into the wooden stage floor, more of the body breaking and the neck cracking away slightly from the body. I fell to my knees, and repeatedly drove the guitar down into the stage, smashing it beyond all recognition of what it had orginally been...
I looked over at Jay, who by this time was humping his guitar against the amplifier, causing this tremendous amount of feedback. Mike was facing his Fender amp, playing directly into it, the sounds of his lead guitar feeding back with such volume, and Jim was crazily beating the living hell out of his drums...
I kept looking for pieces of guitar that needed smashing, but all that was left was the neck, so I began attempting as best I could to destroy that as well...I honestly think it ended up in about four pieces...and all the while, I kept wondering where all this dark colored liquid was coming from that I saw flying thru the air in the strobe light.
I honestly don't know how long that instrumental went on, all I know is that when I finally realized nothing of that guitar was left to smash, I threw it to the stage floor, and Jay laid his guitar against the amp and he went back to the mic and the band went into the third and final verse of the song. I simply stood their, totally physically and emotionally spent, and stared at the destroyed guitar as the band finished the song.
When the final bars of The Pusher were played, I looked up from the stage to the crowd, and got the shock of my life. No one, not a person was dancing. They were all standing as close to the stage as they could get, staring at the spectacle that had just happened. A few seconds passed, and then the most thunderous applause we had ever received up to that time roared out of the crowd...I kept thinking, wow, how fucking cool, and damn my hands hurt. I bent down and turned off the strobe, Jay announced we'd be back in 15 minutes, and the main lights in the building were turned on. It was then that I discovered what the dark fluid was that I had seen flying thru the air in the strobe light.
My hands were completely covered in my own blood. Not only covered, but dripping profusely onto the stage floor. Jay ran over to me and hollered, "You crazy fucker, that was beautiful, man!" He was overcome with laughter and excitement at the same time. Mike was also fired up as was Denny, then Jim walked over and said, "Man, your hands are cut to ribbons."
Thru the pain I looked at them all and asked, "Yeah, but wasn't it worth it?"
Jay answered, "Hell, look at that crowd, man, fuck yeah it was worth it!"
That made me smile.
A real, big smile.
The funny thing I noticed, no one was leaving the stage area, they were all standing there like something else might happen. I heard people hollering "Far out" "Outasite, man" "Unfuckingbelievable, man." I even heard a few comments such as "that dude is fucking crazy" and the one I have never forgotten, "Man, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen anyone do on stage."
I stepped off the stage, several people coming over to help me get my hands doctored, because, quite honestly, there were some really nasty cuts, deep ones, no doubt from the guitar strings I had pulled off at the very beginning of this stunt.
During that break as we found a bottle of alcohol and quite honestly, we poured the whole bottle onto my hands and probably used a half a pack of paper towels from the men's room to stop the bleeding, but people kept coming up to not only me, but to the whole band and told us that was the most unbelieveable thing they had ever seen a band do in Rushville.
I was so high on the excitiment from all the attention we had gotten collectively, and was so pleased how Jay and had gotten into the moment and how the whole thing had blossomed into what it had blossomed into. A friend of mine told me the whole song lasted somewhere between 12 to 15 minutes. The instrumental with the destruction of the guitar was almost half the time. I don't remember, I truly don't, I only know that it was a pinnacle for me at that point of my short time with Summer Heat, and I didn't think it would be a moment we would ever top.
Later on, I would be proven wrong.
But for the moment, I was on top of the world, chopped up hands and all.
I think Summer Heat was feeling pretty cool too at that moment.
to be continued...
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