If history has taught us anything with the lessons that can be gleaned from its infinite swath of examples, then surely we have at the very least learned to never trust a government-centralizing authoritarian who claims he can rebuild your country after economic and social collapse, that “the human being and fish can coexist peacefully,” and finally, a great musician is only as good as the quality of gear that he surrounds himself with.
That kind of paragraph is usually proceeded by a colorful add with some long-haired 80′s metal guy sweetly cradling an Ibanez guitar, and in that case, the saying is probably truer than ever. But what I’m talking about is the kind of equipment that either faithfully lets you spend your entire gig enthusiastically jumping up and down and rocking out in a sheer display of music induced euphoria, or the kind of equipment that mercilessly switches off at the most random of times, sometimes never completely relenting to return to full functionality, so that you spend the better part of your performance groveling at its feet on stage. The problem is that whether your situation is the former or the latter, you’ve probably grown so accustomed to your piece of gear that you don’t want to part with it, because you’re afraid you may get some equipment that is unspeakably worse. So, what do you do? You just keep on trying to live, one long day at a time, and try not to think of your problem. Sure, it will be there when you play your next show and will most likely leave you crying and edentulous, but in the grand scheme of things you keep telling yourself things just aren’t so bad when really you’ve got nothing better to cling to.
For clarification, we are speaking about an amp – not the latest gossip between the waitresses at your favorite restaurant or a dysfunctional relationship worthy of a Lifetime original movie. Wait… they’re the same thing.
That being said, Stereoreel played quite a fun concert for the assembled youth during “The Night!” at the Heritage Free Will Baptist Church in Bunker Hill, WV. It’s a great ministry that incorporates many youth groups throughout the area that all get together for one big youth night – THE Night! The kids were all pretty cool and really fun to play for. At one point I looked up and saw a kid landing on his feet in a position that could only have been achieved after performing a backflip. This act has not been confirmed by anyone else in the band, but I’m pretty sure it happened.
However, despite the warm welcome, the smiling faces, and the hordes of children attempting backflips, there was still a bit of a dark cloud for one respected member of the band. Poor Ethan couldn’t get his bass amp to work to save his life. We’ve all known about this problem for some time, and had resigned ourselves to just not talking about it, in case the audible mention of a malfunctioning input may incense the amp and cause it to do something rash like no longer work properly. Despite our best efforts to remain reverent to the dubious electronic article, the amp finally decided to keel over for half of The Night.
As soon as the amp went on the fritz, Ethan proceeded to fix it in the only manner a musician can. He kicked it repeatedly until it started working again. Soon that approach no longer worked, and may or may not have attributed to the following behavior. The bass amp soon completely refused to emit any sort of sound whatsoever. This marked the devolution of our bass player. Once standing upright, strong and proud, he was now reduced to a hunched-over state, trying desperately to hear the notes that weren’t coming out of his confounded amplifier. Soon after, the use of his legs was no longer necessary, so he began to support his weight with his knees while still slightly stooped. By the end of The Night, the poor lad had been reduced to an almost amoeba-like state of being – lying next to his amp feeding on microscopic bacteria.
Just so you know, the amplifier has been put in my charge so to discover the cause of this errant behavior. And though one would like to think that a bass amp’s reach on affecting our day is only as long as the show we play, it soon became apparent that this specific bass amp had a little more sway than we realized, for when I went to the Golden Arches for our after-gig food consumption, we encountered even more incompetence. When Ethan only wanted a Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad to cure his ills, and I ordered accordingly, they decidedly jilted the poor boy. Ethan, waiting at home to blow off some steam, eagerly opened up the fast food baggy and instead of a Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad, he discovered a Bacon Ranch Salad with Southwest dressing. Now, if any of you know Ethan, you’ll know that no matter how many times he eats at McDonald’s and no matter how complicated or simple his order is, they always screw it up. Special orders mustn’t upset them, because they make no effort to actually accommodate the requests. Don’t blame me, either! I looked in the bag and saw the Southwest dressing and assumed the best!
Well, of course Ethan wanted at least one thing during the course of the night to actually go his way and begged me to take him back to Mickey D’s to return the salad and get the one he wanted. By this time, I had come to the realization that everything from that point on would go terribly wrong for Ethan. I was also certain that if I left the house with him in my car, we’d get flattened by a Mack truck at some shady intersection. Respectfully, I refused, knowing that our father would take him. Which he did. And when they got to McDonald’s and went through the drive-thru to return the salad, telling them what had happened and clarifying all their questions, they received a brand new salad.
As they were about to pull out of the parking lot, Ethan eagerly opened the goody bag and finally beheld… a Bacon Ranch Salad with Southwest dressing. This time without any chicken at all.
Absurd as it was that a young man should have to make three separate trips to a fast food joint to get the correct pre-packaged food source, that is exactly what they did. Dad turned the car around, and in they went. The manager politely greeted them, and heard their story once again. She smiled and said, “Alright, honey. We’ll get that right out here for ya!” She took 5 steps away from the counter, looked back at the food line and yelled, “HAROLD! YOU SENT THE WRONG SALAD UP HERE AGAIN! GET ME A SOUTHWEST SALAD WITH GRILLED CHICKEN!!” She grabbed the salad, set it down on the counter and sweetly asked, “Here ya go, honey. Is that what you wanted?”
At that moment, the clock struck midnight and the day was over. Ethan had survived The Night, survived late-night service at McDonald’s, and I didn’t get hit by a truck. A boy had his salad and a new dawn was fast approaching. Bring it on, future. Bring it on…
