Once upon a time in the almost mythical place called California
In an almost mythical village called Redwood City
Was an almost mythical music store called Gelb Music.

And it was good.

Gelb Music was the last store owned and operated by the late Sidney Gelb.
Sidney Gelb had occasion to hire one Norm Van Maastricht as his store manager around 1964.
This guy was pure as the driven snow. Noted for his black suit and black tie he was the epitome of that rare species the “happily married family man”. A paragon of Americana was he, clean shaven, a monthly haircut.

And it was good.

And it came to pass that Gelb Music hired a young Kevin Jarvis as an instructor in things guitar. Kevin became a Teacher and his skill with the guitar increased his fame.

And it was good.

Sidney Gelb announced his intention to retire in 1972 and sold the venue to Kevin Jarvis and Henry White, another instructor in the store.

And it was good

Norm, at this time had undergone a major metamorphis. He found himself single and shortly after the change in ownership of the store decided to grow a beard and let his hair grow.
The suit and tie vanished; less fromal garb was worn and he started to wear a black cowboy hat.
With a feather in it.

Was this good? Let us say it was good.

It came to pass that the building was deemed too bland so an itinerant muralist was hired to paint the building and on the north wall he painted a figure of a bearded thief climbing out of a painted window stealing a painted guitar. The figure was wearing a painted Dutch Boy billed cap.

As art it was mediocre but it was eye catching.

And almost from the day the piece was finished the mantra became “The guy on the wall looks just like Norm.” even though it looked nothing like Norm at all. Norm, at this time, wore a Cowboy Hat With a Feather In It and the mural figure still had his featherless Dutch Boy cap. But still the “It looks like Norm” mantra persisted.

It came to pass that Norm left the store. He became “The Norm” and moved on to the adventure of becoming the de facto manager of a roadhouse of some repute, but that is altogether another story we won’t go into here.

But the wall mural remained there for lo, thirty nine years. Still referred to as “looking like Norm”.

It came to pass, in 2011, that Kevin Jarvis, now sole owner of Gelb Music, decided it was time to repaint the building.
And he had an Inspiration! An Epiphany!

A little conference with the involved parties.
A two minute session with a digital camera

And a new mural appeared on the north wall.
A painted figure stealing a guitar and some amplifiers from a painted window.
A painted cowboy hat with a painted feather and a painted beard.
It looks like, no, it is The Norm!

And it was good…

During the Gelb years when Kevin and Henry had the store I used to take my Dobro over to Kitty and Errol’s, the Powers sisters, two pretty Montessori schoolteachers. We’d play music. They both played a little guitar, Kitty was a guitar student of mine. They both sang so we’d have a nice time making music, folk songs mostly. We all enjoyed the exchange and this was a once or two night a week bit of business.
Well, after about a year of friendship the two girls were suddenly chatty about ‘Toni’ and how Toni was coming up for a visit.. “Wait ‘till you meet her. You’ll love her. And then they’d look at each other and would say words to the effect that I “wouldn’t know what to do with that one.”
“Can she sing?” I asked.
“No, she doesn’t sing. You just wait. You’ll meet her.”
Well, it came to pass that there was to be a dinner party and I would get to meet Toni.
I had no idea what to expect and I just hoped that whoever she was that we would be comfortable with each other since Kitty and Errol obviously loved this person.

So I show up and there are people milling around. The girls lived in a rented house and had room for a nice party if you know what I mean. Their friends were an intelligent bunch… no Bubbas…no Valley Girls. Also no Toni.
Great. Got some dame coming up from L.A. and can’t even show up on time for her own party!
I didn’t give it much thought…you know how it is… I wasn’t that concerned.
I was in the kitchen, I hear the conversation tone change. Evidently Toni has arrived. “Perfect,” I thought. “I’ll be able to ooze into the mingle if I wait a minute”.

Well, the kitchen door swings open and there she is. I had no idea what she was supposed to look like but I found that was always a good thing because in that way you’re never disappointed.

She was short…maybe five five, round face…brown hair styled nicely…collar length and full… brown eyes. Cute, rather than pretty…pretty rather than beautiful.
“I’m Toni.” she said.
“I’m Norm.” I said.
She looked and at me with a smirk and said, “I’m a hooker.”
I looked at her for a second. A little at a loss for words.
“You want something to drink? A sandwich, maybe?” I asked. She laughed and just then Kitty and Errol came in and said “You met Toni!” in happy voices.

Yes indeed. I’d met Toni

Now I’m basically a country boy. I had never in my life met an honest to god ‘working girl’ that I knew of. She certainly didn’t look anything like what I’d imagined what one would be like. None of the stereotypical descriptors of “hooker” or “prostitute” that one reads about in novels seemed to apply. She had a nice figure and was wearing jeans and a long sleeved blouse.

I was, and still am, big on ‘reading edges’ trying to ken what a persons “aura” might be saying. I didn’t actually see auras (except in special circumstances) and I didn’t see one on her but I could tell she was Going To Be Different.

I like to look at hands. Ideally, on a woman, I like ‘Vargas Hands’, the kind that have long tapering fingers with lonish enameled nails but those are rare. Still, some of their personality is reflected in thier hands. I always look at their hands because to me it speaks volumes of how a woman views herself. It’s part of the whole picture.

“Let me see your hands” was a question I was never afraid to ask . The way they put their hands forth told me things. I would do my “study” and sometimes do a jackleg imitation of a palm reader which allowed me to touch her hands and pick up little hints about their persona. A lot of tactile signaling can happen doing this.
When I asked her to show me her hands I noticed a bit of a hesitation and she presented me with two gently clasped fists that she ever so slowly opened. A person who trusts but only reluctantly…

She had “Urchin’s Hands” which are hard to describe. They aren’t and never could be ‘Vargas Hands’ but long nails wouldn’t enhance the hands that much. But I could see she had a well keptness to them. Honest and sturdy but still maintaining femininity.

I took her two unclenched fists in my upturned palms and was startled by her wrists. She had deep scars on both of them the ones on her left wrist a bit rougher in scar tissue than her right.
I gently stroked them with my thumb.
“Are you O.K. now?”
She cocked her head at me said “Kitty and Errol told me you’d let me know if I was OK or not.”
“Well, you really ought to get into another business if it comes to that, y’know? You need to be good to yourself”

We talked for a little while. She said she wasn’t a street hooker…no, she was a ‘call girl’ and she just had a couple or ‘regular clients’. More like a kept woman was how she put it. She made it very plain that she had no pimp. “No man ain’t taking any money from me.” I listened to her story with absolutely no judgment to it at all except to sniff it lightly to see if it was a true tale. It certainly seemed so.
Oh, well, another trippy person living an interesting life but the scars on her wrists bothered me. These weren’t little white lines… she had done a real hack on herself .

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. She and I mingled with the others and eventually Kitty, Errol and myself played about an hours worth of music. A good time was had by all. Toni and I didn’t say much for the rest of the evening . I’d catch her looking at me sometimes. Sometimes her face would be expressionless other times she would have her smirk. a certain knowing smile.

Finally I went up to he and very quietly said “Y’know what?”
“What?”
You think you’re pretty rowdy. Yeah, you do. You think you’re pretty rowdy but you’re just a rowdy little punk which is to say you ain’t all that rowdy at all.” She thought this was very funny. I started calling her “Rowdy” after that. She loved it.

She was only up for a weekend. The dinner party was on her arriving Thursday. That Friday we went to an Emerald Hills burgerie and played pool. When we got there I found she was only 20 which would be a problem because the Canyon Inn, the burgerie, was a beer and wine joint and she had no ID.
We just wanted to eat and shoot a little social pool so we had Toni drinking Cokes. I got another revelation when we got there. She asked me if the cops in this area write citations for needle marks. Whoops! Needles! This explained why she was wearing long sleeves on warm nights.

That gave me something to chew on as we played some pool. We eventually got turned out because Toni couldn’t produce an I.D. so it was a short night. She was on a plane that Sunday and I figured that would be the last of her.
Just as well. It’s hard for me to understand someone so into a substance that they are willing to inject it into themselves. We ain’t talking medicine, here. Her world was so different than mine I didn’t think we would ever be more than casual aquaintances.

A couple of months later, to my surprise, here comes Toni strutting into the store.
“The Rowdy Little Punk is here!..” she announced, kissing me in the process.
She invited me up to the Powers house that night and of course I went. We had a nice time. Played music, sang a little, Toni just taking it in and enjoying it. Talking during that second weekend visit I found out that she made really good money at what she did but she had nothing to show for it except a lot of clothes. She said that’s where most of her money went…to clothes.

She told me that she had been involved with an “outlaw” motorcycle club for a while. She liked the big bikes and the lifestyle. And the drugs available. She had pretty much quit that life but still kept in touch with some of the guys. After all, she had built some friendships with some of them.
She wanted me to write to her so I did. I think I saw her on three, maybe four separate weekends. Never even approached intimacy… no kissing, well, no necking, making out…that kind of thing. But still, a deep, caring, love and affection was growing between us.

I wrote to her for a year or so. She would get depressed and I would somehow cheer her up. And I would keep gently pressing her to get out of the business. She asked me to call her a couple of times and introduced me to her mother over the phone. She lived with her mother and would meet her clients at whatever rendzevous they arranged. Never at home.

One night her mother called me. She was worried because Toni was stoned or something and would I talk to her. I had no idea what I could do that far away. Looking back on it, she should have called the paramedics but maybe it was a financial thing or she was afraid of getting her put in jail, I don’t know. But talk to her I did and she was a mess. Obviously depressed but not actually suicidal that I could tell. But she was loaded on something. Just what I never found out or cared to find out. I talked to her and got her from mumbling to coherence, somehow.
I got a promise from her to call me the next day and once more I told her she had to find something else to do with her life but I felt out of my depth. I mean, why am I even talking to this girl… she likes bikers and uses drugs that require needles.

I’m not exactly sure what it was that did it…she always said it was me…but she got reconnected with her father who ran a catering truck business and who had a small fleet of “roach wagons” as people call them. She got a job driving one of these and found that she loved it and claimed that she had quit The Business and the drugs except for a little pot. Quitting the business was not an overnight thing. She may not have fully quit it, I don’t know. But her letters took an amazingly upbeat tone. She was starting to save money and just all in all felt happy.
This went on for a long time. She never came back to the Bay Area. But I had no idea that I would never see her again.

This went on for a while. She was happy and proud to be out of her olld profession and lifestyle.
One night I was thinking about calling Kitty and Errol and see if they’d heard from her…when the phone rang. It was Kitty. Toni was In Something more than trouble.
It turns out she went on a ‘run’ and a good time was had by all. During the revelry she had gone into someone’s tent and indulged in a needled drug. I have no idea what it was but likely it was heroin.

She passed out. She had overdosed herself because she had tried to throw up and aspirated on her own vomit. This is usually what kills in an overdose. It isn’t the drugs necessarily, that kill them. It’s the incapacitating effect so that your body doesn’t react to things like aspirating your own vomitis. You drown in it. She didn’t die but it caused oxygen starvation… brain damage…and all that was Toni went away forever. She was alive but she was pretty much going to need institutional care for the rest of her life.

A day later I got a letter from her. She had written it and mailed it just before she went on that fateful trip. In it she said she knew I wouldn’t approve but she was going on a run with this bunch of bikers she used to ride with “just this once and never again”. She told me she would be careful and signed it with love as she always did…

I cried. Deep and hard. The adult version of that little kid’s shoulder shaking shuddering, gasping sobs. There have only been two other incidents that moved me that deeply and I have to say it is Not a fun cry to have.

When I went to LA on what I call “The Johnna and Deedee Caper” I decided to try to find out more about her. Kitty gave me a phone number of one of her friends in L A and while I was down there I called the number and stated my business… was there some way I could visit Toni. The guy made me leave a number and I’m sure he made a couple of calls to have me checked out.

He called back and said, “Look. I don’t think you should go see her. She’s really fragile now. In fact the person you knew as Toni Berry isn’t in her any more. She’s changed a lot physically and she would not like to know you saw her like this.” His voice was gently…not hostile or defensive bit full of empathy and sadness.
“Remember her as she was, man. Everyone would be better off…”

And that’s the end of it.

Of course, now, there are lots of ‘what if’s’ but they won’t fit in the slot and you don’t get to play them anyhow…

I’ve only composed two songs in my life. Both instrumental, both played on the Dobro.
One is called “Travis” and the other…

…the other is called “Berry Pickin’ Waltz”

She came in with a more or less country band, one of those that get thrown together by using people of varying skills and no rehearsals..

She was better than a ‘pretty good’ singer… lovely, confident voice…great fun to work with.  She liked cutting up a little bit, enjoying the moment and always sang with a smile.

Beautiful girl…

It was hard to tell how serious she was about her music because she sometimes had to be cued as to when to come back into the song after the instrumental break. 

If she missed the cue she would just laugh and somehow get things back on track with a little help from the band.

Cameras liked her a lot. 

Very photogenic…

She moved away…
 When I heard she was leaving I gave this to her.  I thought it was a pretty good “Lip and Eye” as I called those kind of renderings…

He was a dancer.

Well, he wasn’t really a dancer.  He didn’t dance professionally or anything like that.  He was just a guy who had learned how to dance along the lines of the Western Swing dancing made popular in the roadhouses of the southwest.

Disco music was “in” when he learned and Saturday Night Fever had been a recent hit.  The Bar also booked some country flavored bands that suited the style nicely.

Men who go to saloons would do well to take up dancing.  It gains them many points and gives them a higher profile on the women’s radar.  He quickly found this out.  He had learned some basic moves and was a strong leader on the dance floor.  Women would ask him to dance because swing dancing, when done properly, was great fun.

He likened it to a trapeze act in which he was the ‘catcher’ and the lady was the ‘flyer’ as he led them through his series of moves.

His partners varied.  Some were good and interacted well.  Some were not and did not.

Some women took the words ‘swing dancing’ too literally and would grip his hand as if they were swinging on a rope over a creek.  Some never quite got the trick of how to hold his right hand properly and he would have to break stride to catch them and keep them from falling.  On one or two occasions he wasn’t quick enough and the poor dears would skid across the dance floor on their backs.  Thankfully, the only injuries suffered were to dignity and ego.

“Hang on and pay attention” he would tell them and off they would go, he and his partner of the moment.  He gained a reputation for his ability to dance and women would seek him out because they knew they would look good dancing with him.  His moves were much easier to follow than the elaborate moves shown in John Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever movie and some of the women really jelled with his style.

She was not a dancer…

He had seen her sitting alone at a table looking a little sad on a Tuesday night.  She was a dark haired, pretty girl, with a nice figure and pretty legs.
There was a jazz band playing but no one was dancing so he asked her to dance in hope of cheering her up.
She initially declined, saying she didn’t dance well but he coaxed her up.  “Just hang on and pay attention, Honey.” he said.

Like so many before he led her through the basic moves he used and she quickly caught on.  He liked dancing with her because she was an ideal height and weight for him.  She learned quickly and didn’t make an issue over natural mistakes that happen when learning a New Thing.  But best of all it turned out that she was absolutely fearless on the dance floor.  Her trust in his ability to keep her from falling was almost childlike and they spent more and more time on the dance floor learning communication to such a degree that their connection was almost magical.  They incorporated some of the more strenuous moves from the old jitterbug days…in short they became a dance team.  She lived for their dancing sometimes wearing skirts that would flare out like disks when he spun her.

Dancing is a sensual exercise and on the dance floor they were like two lovers in one of the musicals made in the thirties.  Dancers who  convey this kind of intensity are more interesting to watch.

She got so she was quite demanding and he had to work hard to exhaust her so she would settle down and let him tend to his duties at The Bar.  Once the dance floor filled up they would no longer dance because there wasn’t enough room and they wouldn’t communicate again until closing time.
They grew very close and had love for each other but never joined as a couple.

Inevitably, as it always must happen, she left the carousel that was The Bar.  She left the state, actually and eventually got married and had children.

Every year she would call him on his birthday which was in April and he would call her on her birthday which was in January.  Always they would express their special love for each other and his final words at the end of their birthday calls were “Save The Last Dance For Me” after a song popular in the early and mid sixties.

One year he called and instead of getting her or her husband on the phone, he got their answering machine.  Thinking they were out celebrating the birthday he identified himself and said “Save The Last Dance For Me.” as he usually would.
About twenty minutes later her husband called back and gently told him that she had died a couple of months earlier…  “She just didn’t want to live anymore.” her husband said…

… she was almost thirty…

He still thinks of her almost every day.  Sometimes he thinks he sees her out of the corner of his eye, walking next to him…for some reason she is always barefoot in a summer dress… she is always happy…
and of course he always is reminded of her when he hears the song

Save The Last Dance For Me

_______________________________________________

Paper Dolls by Vann~

Kate Moss…

Popular fashion model of the seventies and eighties.

Thin girl, but one who had a yearning beauty that earned her a lot of money.

This is one of two that I did…side by side on the same piece of 20 x 30 illustration board.  One was a scrub because I had botched something and thought it ruined.  So I did an indetical copy on the available space.  Water color is tricky and treacherous but I somehow pulled it off and ended up with two looking so close to identical that you needed to look closeley to tell them apart.  Great hair for me.  Hair was always a problem for me.

A sharp knife broke up the set.  A guy bought one of them and , (gasp) had it framed.  A friend of mine saw  framed painting on his wall.  “That’s a Vann” his friend said…

Good feeling… someone bought a painting…  Even better to be reckognised…

This is Evelyn Nesbit.

A beautiful, young,  turn of the (19th) century lass.

An in demand artist’s model, she gained fame as one of the “Gibson Girls” by modeling for Charles Dana Gibson a noted illustrator of the day.
She had several affairs, most notably with Stanford White architect of Madison Square Garden.

Sweet little fox worked as a model and a showgirl and in that capacity met and married Harry Thaw.
Harry was very rich, very jealous and just a tad nuts.  He shot ol’ Stanny  in June of ’06  and the tabloids of the day had a feast.

It has since been the topic of several books and a couple of movies.

 
I had a page that had been taken from a dilapidated album that had a pen and ink head sketch of Evelyn Nesbit that is a superb example of the genre.

  Looking about to cry, she has a defiant chin thrust out and an amazing pout. 

Amazing what a person can do with just a pen and black ink!

 
Well, I tried several times to run that over to color and haven’t got it right yet. 
This one came out pretty good…
Gave it to a good friend, a lawyer.  I expected to see it in his office and was put out when I didn’t see it so I got on him about it a little.  I thought he had put her in a closet or his garage or something.
He has it at home, hanging on a wall.

It’s nice to know when they make it to a good home…

The Mating Dance is a series of observations of human nature in pursuit of  (more or less) romantiic endeavor   They are not in any particular order.  That would imply rationality .

This sampling is unconnected synapses.  Brief  little spots in time.

                                             None of these are about the one person.  

  Which is why I call it…

                                          Snapshots

                  None of these items are attributable to or about you…

                  … I don’t think
___________________________________

Save The Last Dance For Me

_______________

She was a lean, tight bodied, high breasted beauty…dark hair in a pixie-ish cut.  A Latina, or partly so, with high cheekbones and a generous mouth…

_________________________

Her makeup looked like she spread it on a wall and ran her face into it

________________________________

She was a young thing, barely twenty one.  She favored tight t-shirts which did little to hide or diminish her dark nipples, faintly visible, through the thin cloth.  A tall girl, slender… usually wore jeans but sometimes wore almost diaphanous dresses because she knew they showed off her legs to an advantage…

              Don’t get too close to that candle little moth…  (The Write Down Book)

__________________

She was a pretty girl but she somehow managed to look as if she was mis-cast in a high school play

________________

She moved like a denim clad sidewinder…

___________________

A light pout on her mouth
Uncurled but thick eyelashes

_____________________

If she comes up to you with her hands behind her back and wiggles her shoulders it tends to arch her back slightly to enhance the thrust of her breasts.  This is usually accompanied by a fluttering of her eyelashes, a sure sign she either wants something or has a bridge to sell

_________________________

She was a cross between colt and puppy
All wiggles and struts.

_______________

Some women can do wonders of cuteness with a cap or a hat.
When it works it is as effective as Odysseus’ Sirens
When it doesn’t it is about as exciting as a stump

___________________

Women can do amazing thing with a button or two at their bodice

Making the man think he’s seeing more than he is.

___________________

Want a hint?
Don’t eat bar popcorn or bar nuts and breathe on people if you can help it….
I know it tastes good but if you have to talk closely to someone (or maybe kiss them) equalize things somehow.  Take a mint or make sure you intended has eaten some also.

_______________

I like to come and check out the stock.

_____________________________

A woman’s eyes take a special glint when they know they’re wearing what looks good on them…

___________________________

Some do a better job of being female than others.

_________________________________________

They scan, weigh and judge, dismiss their target in the flicker of an eye.  If you interest them they’ll look again

_____________________

The Warner brothers twins, porky and pig

_____________________________

Gender Check!

Yikes Dykes

___________________________

‘I’m so cute I can’t stand it’

___________________________

It’s not that she was perfect.  She wasn’t.  It’s just that there was so little of her that warranted correction.

______________________

Sometimes a wig works… sometimes it doesn’t…

____________________________

When women have a breast augmentation and they get older the NewBoob skin doesn’t’ age the same way as the rest of them does and they end up looking like their bodies were put together out of kits and the parts got mixed up.

_____________________________________

Tarted up a bit… 

A sweetness of pink lips and a dollop of eye shadow…

Very effective…

______________

“You’ll do.”  she said

 _____________________

For Meeee…???

__________________

                                                                                The Doorman

door•man    (dôrmn, -mn, dr-)
n.
A man employed to attend the entrance of a hotel, apartment house, or other building.

bouncer
bounc•er    (bounsr)
n.
Slang. A person employed to expel disorderly persons from a public place, especially a bar.

__________________

 The law in California requires that individuals purchasing alcoholic beverages must be twenty one.  The law states that it is up to the vendor to make sure that the persons served are indeed twenty one years or older.  If a minor is found in possession of alcohol in a licensed establishment the law will presume that the vendor was aware of this and deliberately served a minor.  This can result in heavy fines and temporary or permanent suspension of the saloon’s liquor license.
 Of course, if it can be proved that the minor made the transaction using a bogus identification then the saloonkeeper is off the hook but litigation is expensive and bad for morale and the resultant press bad for business.
It is up to the doorman to collect cover charge and most importantly, check the I.D. of all patrons to make sure some adventurous youth does not slip under the tent and partake of the debauchery and dissolution that the young are absolutely convinced exist in saloons.  The state licensing board, the venerable ABC, takes a dim view of saloons corrupting the morals of youth.  Such corruption, they say, should be done in the home…

And so it was.

 Now during the day or on nights where no bands were working it was fairly easy and reasonable for a bartender or waitress to tend to the task of checking I.D.’s if the age of the person was in question. 
It was an altogether different matter on band nights.  The flow of incoming patrons was such that even a full crew of bartenders and waitresses could not keep up which meant you needed an individual to check the documentation of potential patrons…a doorman.  And on busy nights it was good to have the stabilizing effect of a ‘bouncer’, an individual of whom it was presumed could and would defuse potentially violent situations and eject any belligerents with dispatch, discretion and ease.  The Bar was no different and did the time honored thing of hiring a person known as a doorman.

All for the princely sum of twenty five dollars.
A shift. 
Eight p.m. to two a.m.

 Alcohol and machismo are a bad combination.  Actually, alcohol and any emotion are a bad idea but in spite of everyone realizing this, saloons and liquor stores existed still exist. 
We are all aware of the Great Experiment known as Prohibition, where the Temperance people actually changed our Constitution to ban sale of alcohol except in certain applications.
This had the effect of creating a tremendous morphing from ethnic petty gangsterism to organized crime and much bloodshed and stuff from which TV and Movies could draw from endlessly.  They then reversed themselves and changed the Constitution again this time  to allow alcohol sales but it was strictly regulated and only sold by package stores or Saloons.

When people drink they bring on mood swings.  Some get silly.  Some get maudlin.  Some get belligerent.

And for the belligerent ones we needed the services of a capable doorman/bouncer.

Truth be told, most of our door guys were lightweights and non combative.  Take the money, check the I.D.  The rare idiot who decided to throw a punch was usually swarmed by his mates or other patrons and evicted before the punch was thrown thanks to the stiff legged macho posturing that usually preceded any actual combat.   You really did not want to have a pugnacious doorman if you could help it due to the liability factor in our litigious society.  You didn’t want The Bar getting sued because your doorman felt like getting into a dick-swinging match with someone who, when full of beer, felt they invincible.
 
The Crew, both bartenders and waitresses, had a fine ear tuned to anticipate most potential problems and cutting the customer off was usually effective although if this was not done soon enough the customer would resent such treatment and get vocal or sometimes violent about it.
 
I didn’t drive and had affected a carrying a walking stick due to an unfortunate occurrence with a local unleashed dog.  As time went on this stick became legend.  It was 36” long made of ebony and had a custom made absolutely solid round brass head on it.  The whole thing weighed exactly one kilo (2.5 pounds) and had a sobering effect on some miscreants although I never ever used it in anger.  Many Urban Legends sprang up about myself and that walking stick which I referred to as ‘The Bat’ and because of these tales  it had a small measure of crowd control just by being seen.

Once in a while there would be no doorman present and I would be called upon to deal with an inebriate.
The absolute first thing I would do was to hand off my walking stick to a trusted squire.  I had no desire to have it taken from me and used in a negative fashion upon my person.
I would approach the drunk empty handed, palms open.
Then I would give him three options:

1.      “You can stay but you cannot drink anymore because right now you are officially cut off.”
2.      “You can go home.”
3.      “You can go to jail.”  (whichwas conveniently located about three blocks away)
This usually brought protests of maligned innocence and protests about being singled out.  (Who/why me?”)
So you listen to their defense (so they can feel like they’ve been heard) and you make your offer again.

1. “You can stay but you cannot drink anymore because right now you are officially cut off.”
2. “You can go home.”
3. “You can go to jail.” 

We always hoped they would just go home by cab or by friend.  It usually didn’t work for them to try to stop drinking.  Too often they would try to sneak ‘just one more’ either by direct request or by having a friend buy another drink and slipping it to our Problem Child.

I was not a fighting man.   If a negotiated end could not be reached and there was any sign of further belligerence phase two would come into play.  I would signal the doorman.  And if, as I mentioned, I did not have an assigned doorman on hand, a quick signal would have the bartender on the phone and the Police at the doorway in short order.  They would take the individual aside and, in most cases end up taking the miscreant away. 

Sometimes you would see a guy take the measure of a cop.   I once saw a cop draw his baton and just hold it, hands down, across his lower body.  The drunk, a guy who had the look of a Vietnam vet, was watching the cop who is a little shorter than he.
The cop remained standing relaxed, with his baton held in both hands horizontally looking at the drunk calmly.  It was evident the cop was holding his baton in the prescribed manner outlined in a training manual.
Doing it by the book.

No words were exchanged
You can see the vet’s brain ticking… “I can take this guy.  Easy.”
The cop finally said “You ain’t gonna win this one, pal.”
The vet looks at the cop…his eyes flick to the baton and back to the cop’s eyes a few times and he leaves with the officer and gets taken away.
 Now, the local police had no desire to be Security for saloons.  Cops don’t like bars (except their own) because it is they who have to deal with the stupidity and temporary insanity that alcohol can inflict on an average person.  “On the other hand, “as one criminal defense lawyer said, “in a cop bar all the drunks have guns.”
Saloons can produce drunk drivers, wife beaters and sometimes homegrown murderers which add to the workload of law enforcement.
  Sometimes you just had to make the call.  A guy might be too scary.  Too big or had a look that you knew was dangerous.  Or as the country song went, the beer and whiskey would make them feel ten feet tall and bulletproof.  But usually it would be because the guy just would refuse to leave. 
Still, no one liked to call the police. 

Should your saloon attract too much Police Business you could face all kinds of social problems.  Like more frequent “walk throughs” where officers would make themselves obvious to all by walking through the establishment, checking I.D.’s etc   This sets off many customers who get nervously distracted by the presence of police in a saloon.  If the police feel your saloon has attracted too much attention they can order that the saloon hire a Rent-A-Cop to bolster the doorman duties.  This happened to The Bar once and the extra expense made us be a little more selective in our doorman hiring process.  The rent-a-cop we had to hire (for a month) was not particularly intimidating but the message was clear.  Find an effective doorman at our price or be forced to hire a rent-a-cop at a much more expensive rate.
 
The Bar had quite an array of door crew over the years as one might imagine.  Once I even hired a really pretty girl as a ‘doorman’.  She actually was effective at collecting cover because she was so cute that guys didn’t want to appear cheap in her eyes and would pay up without the usual hustle looking for a discount.  Sadly, she didn’t last because she got bored with the job and wanted to party more than make the small amount of money we paid for the job
In the early days most of them were ‘regular guys’ and unremarkable as personalities     There were some that were more memorable but space is limited so I’ll just touch on a few.

T.O. had attracted some football players patronage and one of the men on the team thought being a doorman would give him easy access to the local women. He was a nice guy, and an OK doorman, big enough that your regular machismo guys looked elsewhere for their posturing.  Having a local football ‘star’ was a perk too.  This guy had a short tenure because one night he refused to let a young lady in because she had no I.D.  She didn’t take kindly to refusal and something in his manner set her off and she connected with a kick to the groin that laid the football guy low and ended his brief career as a bouncer.
 

We had one guy I hired but always felt uneasy about.  There was something about him that just didn’t seem right.  He was a good looking guy, about 5’7” and a good, wiry build.  He had your classic New York arrogance and accent which I told myself was maybe why I felt uneasy about him.  New York people can sometimes be abrasive when they mix with California types.
He claimed to be a Vietnam vet, a LURP no less, another thing which tended to make me stifle my suspicions.  The LURP were ‘long range reconnaissance patrols’ inserted behind enemy lines for weeks at a time whose mission was to avoid contact and gather information.  These guys were a special class of fighting unit and were respected by their peers and feared by the enemy.
He also claimed to be a Medal Of Honor recipient.
I took all this in and figured maybe that was why I had the uneasy feeling about because some Vietnam vets were edgy due to the effects of the war and sometimes set off cautionary vibes.
Initially he was a pretty good doorman as far as the job went, stayed on top of checking I.D.’s which was the most important part and never really got put to the test as far as having to deal with a violent customer because, as noted, we seldom had fights at The Bar..
He, like all the doormen, also got to meet and greet all the ladies who came in and no doubt sampled the wares offered by some of these ladies.  Some of ladies liked his dark good looks.
He had ambitions.  He wanted a title.  He felt being ‘just a doorman’ was a low esteem kind of a thing in the eyes of the ladies.  He wanted to be called something that had ‘manager’ attached to it.  Something a bit more glamorous.
 
And he wanted more money.

 Well, we made no effort to invent a cosmetic ‘title’ for him just to satisfy his ego.  It was a door gig.  It paid 25.00 and you got to pay employee prices for drinks.  That was it.
He borrowed money from me from time to time, a practice I did not encourage because my income was nothing to shout about.

Two things started to happen.
 
The door take was starting to be ‘off’.  The door money was a cash thing and as the evening went on it was understood that the doorman had the discretion to knock a buck off the cover when it was getting late.  Still, the amount we netted didn’t seem right but there was no way we could prove it.

The second thing was he started telling me “war stories” about having to fight or otherwise deal with pugnacious customers in some quick but violent manner.
Now, when grown men fight there is certain cruel coarseness and brutality to it.  Knuckles get skinned, shirts get torn, lips get split.  He would tell me of his latest fight and never show any evidence of having done more strenuous than moving a barstool.  And there were never any witnesses.
I finally told him I didn’t believe him.  I told him that he couldn’t possibly be having that kind of activity and not show any kind of stress to body, clothes or demeanor.  He didn’t like that too much but, outside of giving me a hard look he didn’t say anything.  I just told him, “We sell rope here.  You can take all the rope you need.  You either pull or hang.”  The very next night he again claimed to have dealt with some thug and showed me a bruise on his cheekbone as proof.  At the time I thought he had somehow dealt it to himself and I still feel that way looking back on it.

Things got a very dicey very fast.  I got a tip that he was selling bindles of cocaine which T.O. (and anyone with half a brain) did not want happening in his business so we decided he had to go.
He saved us the trouble by quitting.  He borrowed money from one of his girlfriends and came by and paid me most of what he owed me.  He had no sooner paid me when he took his girlfriend and off they went, riding into the sunset.
None too soon for him because not three hours later the local cops came by looking for him.  They would not say why they wanted him but they were definitely Looking for him.
After he had been gone for a month or so I did something I wish I had done earlier.  I went to the library and looked in a certain reference book.  It was up to date and a recent printing.  It listed the citation texts of the Medal Of Honor recipients from all the American wars including the Vietnam War.
He wasn’t on the list.  It is very possible that the closest he ever got to Vietnam was sitting home watching the news.

Another notable I shall dub “Moose” (although that was not his name.)  He was a big guy, a bodybuilder, about 5’10 with a nose like an axe blade and a bona fide New Jersey accent.  This accent cannot be faked, folks.  You either have it or you don’t.  He definitely had it.
He came in one night and was instantly smitten by one of my waitresses.  Classic love/lust at first sight!  I was sitting at her station when he came into view.  I had seen that look before on many a male. She was one of those women that men lust after, a blonde beauty, generously endowed.  You could see the love hit him as clearly as if he had been whalloped between the eyes with a board. It was like something out of a Warner Brothers cartoon.   I mentally wished him luck because I knew the girl pretty well and knew she wasn’t really looking for a permanent hookup at the time. 
He applied for the job of doorman/bouncer to T.O.  T.O. liked what he saw and since we did need the position adequately filled put him on the job.  Moose was happy because this put him close to his Chosen One and made him a little money too.  We were happy because it is easier, at the rate we paid, if someone asked for and wanted the job.
He was actually a great guy with a good, if East Coast cynical, sense of humor.  He didn’t drink much (a plus) and didn’t indulge in drugs outside of a little pot now and then.  He was proud of his body and was prone to wearing muscle shirts to show off his excellent musculature which tended to discourage any ideas the hostile minds might have about engaging him.  The girls liked to look at him but he didn’t fool around because, after all, his sweetie was working most nights he was.

But he was from New Jersey.  
Everything they say about New Yorkers applies double to guys from New Jersey.  A bit more arrogant.  A slightly larger chip on the shoulder.  That was our Moose.

We put him on the door and he was excellent at it.  He’d done doorman/bouncer duty Back East and had all the moves down pat.  He was perfect at the job.  The only thing I didn’t like about it was the “or else” tone he took with some of the males. I thought he was just a bit too challenging attitude wise but soon accepted it as part of what made him the Moose.
In any case he had the job and pursued his waitress/inamorata with diligence and a whirlwind courtship doing his best to sweep her off her feet.

There were three incidents involving belligerent customers that stick out in my mind.
Once there were two guys near the side door on a no band night that was getting a little heated.  You could see them circling like dogs, taking each other’s measure.  Moose saw it and got between them.
“Ain’t no fightin’ in here!” he said with that patented New Jersey “or else” tone.
“I wasn’t gonna fight him” one of the guys said.
“What… were you just tryin’ to shake his hand?” being an excellent example of dealing with a Problem with humor.  Everybody cracked up, including the belligerents, effectively defusing the situation.

The second incident was an example of what a being bouncer was about.
 As you went out the front door we had a pretty good sized pyracantha bush.  I trimmed it often when I got bored and had it cut in a nice more or less square shape.  It was about three and a half feet high and was a hedge-like rectangle about four by ten feet in surface area on top.  Pyracanthas, for those who don’t know, are also called “firethorn” bushes because they are a prickly, thorny bush.  They also have a red berry that ferments and seasonally you can see birds partaking of the berries and getting loaded.  Pretty apropos for a saloon I’d say but let’s get back to the story…
Three guys came in.
Moose was at the door.  It was early and, while he was charging cover, he let them in without taking the fee as was allowed at the doorman’s discretion, for people that just wanted to have a drink or two.  The idea was that they would leave before the band started.  I didn’t quite hear what exchange they had but I distinctly remember hearing Moose’s “or else’ tone gets added to the mix.
The three guys had a drink, maybe two, certainly no more than that and were talking among themselves, looking toward Moose.  I knew one of the guys and didn’t think much would come of it so I didn’t give it much thought.

Moose was talking to his new girlfriend and I was standing by the foyer entrance when the trio started walking out.  Next thing you know words were exchanged.  The girlfriend tried to calm Moose down but he shoved her out of the way and the three guys jumped him, one in particular throwing a haymaker punch that might as well have hit a wall for all the effect it had. 
Three on one!  Suddenly one lost his grip and in short order the fight just two on one and the donnybrook was over.  The three men were not knocked out but definitely out of commission.  Moose looked over the three and said “I want the bum that sucker punched me.”  He identified the miscreant and dealt him a terrible blow to the face.  The three gathered themselves up painfully and left, never to return that I knew of.
I asked Moose if he was OK and he said, “Oh yeah.  Ya just shove them into the pyracantha bushes dere.  Takes alla the fight out of ‘em” And he laughed.

The third incident was a really strange one.
It was nearly closing time on, I think, a Wednesday.  There was myself, T.O. and Moose and a bartender in attendance.
Some guy none of us had seen before came in and asked for a drink.  Moose and I saw that he’d already had a few but T.O. either didn’t see it or didn’t think the guy was all that drunk.  T.O. said “New customer!  Get him a drink.”
And so he was served.
It became quickly evident that, not only was he very drunk, but he had some anger management issues.  He got into some kind of back and forth with Moose and the drunk stood up to fight.  Moose did not want to fight the guy because he knew there would be No Contest and the guy would get needlessly injured.  Moose quickly spun the man around and grabbed him in a bear hug from behind.  The guy was immobilized.  Moose held him for about thirty seconds and said “I don’t wanna fight with you.  I just want you to calm down and I’ll let you go and we can all be friends, alright?”
The guy agreed.  What else could he do?  So Moose let go of him.  Of course, the idiot took a swing at Moose.
Moose grabbed the guy by one arm and, to my amazement, threw him like a Frisbee good ten or fifteen feet.  The guy saw the error of his ways and the “new customer” left while he could and was never seen again.
Moose?  Well, Moose and his girlfriend had some incompatibilities and split up.  Without her to keep his attention he tired of the bar scene and moved out of town and out of The Bar’s sphere of influence.

We went through a few more guys in the ensuing months but none of them made legendary status until finally we found the perfect one for our purposes.  He was a very articulate, benevolent acting, long haired guy whose mellow demeanor covered a very capable troubleshooting ability.  He loved the job for the social aspect and was honest to a fault.  Not much of a drinker but he did like his pot which tended to keep him mellow and philosophical.
He loved The Bar and stayed on the job for years, lo even unto its demise…

As I said in other missives, it got so blues bands just didn’t cut it at The Bar.

There were, of course, certain blues bands The Mark Ford Band, for one that did do well, or Mark’s second band The Blue Meanies. But that was largely due to Mark’s charm and his ability to make people get up and move.  He played good harmonica and perhaps his voice might have been a bit easier to listen to… his was more of a tenor but I’m not really sure that was it.
 Some bands, like Stu Blank and His Nasty Habits depended heavily on the blues format although Stu did not feature a harmonica in his ever changing band lineup.  But he, too, got people to get up and dance.  Stu’s music was almost perfect as an example of a great saloon band with his earthy delivery. 

 Here are things we all know.  Blues is an art form.  A genre.  It is stylized, rooted in the music of slaves developed and refined over the years and is largely done in a twelve bar format.   We know all that.

I don’t want to get into a deep discussion of blues music here because I really don’t know that much about it and it would serve no purpose in this narrative.  I had a mild dislike for blues because so many blues bands strove for ‘authenticity’ and in so doing tended to sound a lot alike.  Some seemed to go on forever in the heavily accented “BUNK-ka BUNK-ka two-four beat while a singer rehashed how bad it was to get up in the morning or complain because he’s on drugs or his woman left him etc. etc.

One of my friends, K.J., was a legendary local guitarist and owner of a successful music store.  He liked playing blues occasionally in a mixed set list but refused to let his bands play slow blues.
 I found out why when I recently overheard him talking to another guitar playing friend at a local club as they listened to the band play.  The leader called for a slow blues and K.J. turned to his friend and said:
“They really shouldn’t do a slow blues because, first of all the song’s tempo will be so slow that musicians like to do musical masturbation over it…………show off.
 It takes so long to finish the 12 bars anyway but then soloists will often be so taken by their own playing they’ll want to go again and perhaps even again.
 Simple math dictates that what should be a five minute song will now obviously stretch to about 10 minutes, which is too long to listen to…I mean Jeeze, enough already.”
K.J. went on.   “Look.  These guys are playin’ a little amped so I’ll say nine minutes…  They’ll finish in nine minutes.”
So the two friends bet the next round on it.
The band finished the song at 8:55.  Close enough for KJ to get his drink bought on that issue.
 

Even that would be tolerable except for the main thing and that was that blues bands just flat did not draw a crowd at The Bar.
No crowd, no money.  Simple.  It’s a business…

Still, you had to find a way to sort it all out.
In the modern world, with computers social sites and websites, most bands with any self-respect have a URL address that will take you to pictures, biographies and often have music clips or even video clips of the band in action.  A smart live music saloon has a website in today’s world featuring a constantly updating band calendar.
 In the seventies and eighties this magic was not available or widespread as today’s web is…
 
Some blues bands had demo tapes. 
Most did not. 
Some blues bands had promo pictures. 
Most did not. 
Some blues bands had mailing lists. 
Most did not. 
It sometimes seemed that they thought that just getting onstage would bring in the bucks and the babes through osmosis or some other magical voodoo. Or because they were more ‘authentic’…

I keep going back to the core reason for booking bands. 
You play to the women!

Women like to dance.  They want groove and they want some tempo and they want some variety.  Get the ladies having a good time in a saloon and the male money will follow shortly. 

The boys and girls want to engage in The Mating Dance and that is more fun with more people.  More short songs are better for the Party Hearties than a few long ones because they can catch a break.  Rest up.  Schmooze a little..

But please… Make ‘em Dance.

When I did the band booking I had to be like Solomon and somehow be able to judge a band on the enthusiastic pitch of the Band Mouth (that being the talker for the band) as he or she yanked my sleeve begging me to ‘book my band’.
Eventually the word got out that I did not care for blues bands and avoided booking them.
I finally hit on a screening formula.

 
Let me digress a moment…

Some years later, after The Bar had gone away, I was in a bar watching a “jam” and was approached by a guy that I knew to be an exceptionally fine harmonica player.  He got right to the point.  “What do you have against harmonica players?” he asked.
“Nothing at all,” I said, “I like to hear a well played harp.  In fact I think you’re one of the best I’ve heard in a long time!”
“Then how come you wouldn’t hire harmonica players?”
So I told him about how blues bands didn’t do well at The Bar and described my screening ploy.  It was quite simple and went like this:

“Book my band” the Band Mouth would say.
“I don’t hire blues bands.  Are you a blues band?”
“No, man, we’re not a blues band!”
“Do you have a harmonica player?” I would ask putting an interested inflection in my voice.
“Yeah!  Yeah man, we do as a matter of fact!”
“You’re a blues band.  No dice.  Sorry!”

So there it was.  It is one thing to have a band that possibly features a harmonica solo once or twice a night.  It’s quite another to have the harmonica player be a Featured Instrument.

But lest you think I was a total wedgeass I could be talked into giving a band a try. 
Some Band Mouths were very persistent and would relentlessly pressure me to hire their bands even if it was a blues band. 

One guy sticks out in my mind.  I had known him for a few years. I had had no real idea he had a band in all the time I knew him.   He was a sack of a guy, going toward being fat and didn’t have any particular charisma that I could see.  He claimed to be a singer and his band “packed them in…packed them in” everywhere they played according to him.  He followed me around and nagged “Hire us and I guarantee we’ll pack ‘em in like sardines in this joint!”
“Based on what?” I asked.
“I’m a great singer!” he said. 
This was news to me because as long as I had known him I never was aware he had any musical abilities at all, certainly not as a singer.
“Do you have a demo tape?”
“Uh, no… we’re working on one but we don’t have one yet.”

So, against my better judgment, I booked them for one night the next month.
Then I had to put up with this guy stopping by every other night or so telling me “Pack ‘em in!  Like sardines!” until I was ready to throttle the bum. 

Finally the Great Night arrived. 
I had booked him on a Friday which is always the primo night for booking a group.  Friday is the Primary Hunt night for those looking to hook up with the opposite sex.  You tend to get a better house on a Friday than on a Saturday because of this.

Well, they bombed. 

The guy was unattractive to begin with and didn’t try to improve his visual by maybe dressing up a bit.  I can still see it…an old looking green tee shirt and faded blue jeans.  The band, as well as his singing voice was really unremarkable and worse of all, only twenty five or thirty people showed up.  At last call there were only ten people sitting at tables and six or seven people at the bar proper.
The next day I got a call from the guy with a list of reasons why he had no house.
It was a fairly impressive list but none of the reasons cited made much sense.  He even tried to tell me he was coming down with a cold although he hadn’t mentioned it the night before.
He asked for a rebook to show me he and his band could really pack them in.
“I think not.” said I.  “Let me give you a word of advice.”
‘What’s that?”
“Next time you go to ‘pack them in like sardines’ ..Use a smaller can.”

 
Then there was the blues guy we shall call Johnny Norbert (not his real name).  Another one of those guys who was relentless in his efforts to book his blues band.  He had played The Bar once before to a mediocre house but he claimed his following had improved.
So, after much pressure and nagging,  I booked him.
He wanted me to book him as Johnny “Harmonica” Norbert but I refused on the basis that I had heard him play and I had heard others play harmonica and to my ear his skill level did not strike me as befitting such a billing.
So we booked him as the Johnny Norbert Blues Band.

We not only got a lame house but the guy’s singing was off.
The next day he called and wondered what I thought.  I told him.  “You need singing lessons.”
Remarkably I saw this guy some ten years after The Bar closed.  He told me that was the best advice he’d ever gotten and he had acted on it.  Big improvement.
Still, I don’t think anyone ever booked him as “Harmonica Johnny Norbert” though.

 
Did I miss some good opportunities?  Probably.  But sometimes even seasoned performers bringing in some of the hottest hired guns of the local music scene couldn’t get a house as a blues band. 

The late Vala Cupp and some of her bandmates come to mind… She was a beautiful lady with great legs and a great blues voice.  She brought in some mighty fine musicians with her but the crowds were up and down even with her great combinations. 
She was the first person I called if a band cancelled on me.  She would get on the phone and bring in the best musicians she could find and she would deliver for me but book a night under her own name and we’d seldom get even half a house most times.

It’s a tough life, particularly for the bands on the circuit reaching for the brass ring….

“If you have to tell people how cool you is…
  You ain’t…”
The Write Down Book

I have to apokogize for the scan here…it is fuzzy but I can’t re-shoot it.

A most remarkable bit of business for me.  A guy brought me a tear sheet from a magazine and asked me to paint the girl.

I got it done in four hours.  Delivered it to him still damp.  I believe I got 400.00 for her

“I like trumpet players but if all I hired was trumpet players my show would fold”
                                                                             Jackie Gleason

T.O. had a soft spot for country music.  There’s nothing wrong with that except it was difficult to get a house at The Bar with a country offering.
There were exceptions of course.  Back In The Saddle, a seven piece ensemble that delivered smooth Western Swing and Chuck Wagon and The Wheels whose brand of Western Swing was a bit more irreverent but every bit as much fun.  Shagbark Hickory was another of the groups that did well carrying a pedal steel it the mix.  Tom Rigney’s ‘Sundogs’ did consistently well with their brand of Cajun Zydeco music.

 
But what brought in the girls was rock and roll.

 
Uncle Rainbow, any of Mark Ford’s bands (and there were several) Daddy-O and such like.  You really couldn’t go wrong with bands like that.  Stu Blank rocked the old upright piano so hard he broke strings on it!  There was Merlin, featuring a guy named Carlos playing a harp of all things
There was System 9, one of those “wedding bands” that made up for lack of original tunes by delivering accurate covers of just about any rock or pop song you could think of.
The bands on that list were, at a local level anyway, truly great bands.  But those bands were not available at all times so you had to try other local groups hoping to find a new, emerging group that might catch the public eye.  That was always a risky business because there are just so many low draw nights a saloon can take and still survive over the long run.
Some bands did better than others of course but it was a gamble when you ran a new group since few new bands really drew all that well on their first few appearances at The Bar.

 
 Still, the idea was to draw women and to do that the band you book had better make the girls dance.
However, T.O. was not a dancer.  Music did not move him like it moved the ladies and their lusting beaux.  There is nothing wrong with that, either, so long as you realize who you are trying to please and hire what your patrons like.
There were some bands he did not like.  He did not like them “because what they played was not music.”  He had the normal human failing of thinking that if he liked or disliked a certain type of music, why, he was providing the world with an example of excellent musical taste.  We all feel that way to a degree.  For most of us we are thankfully limited to controlling just our own CD and TV fare.  When running a saloon however you have to try to figure out what brings in customers and your own brand of music may not be it.

 
One of the music forms T.O. hated was Fusion, that admixture of rock and jazz.  Another band type he disliked was any band that played “metal” or “alternative” rock.
There was one such band we shall call “Razed Cain” (although that was not the band’s name) that we shall use as an extreme example of Saloonkeeping Gone Wrong.

 
 Here is where the Jackie Gleason quote mentioned at the start of this writing comes in.
You cannot hire bands as if you were buying CD’s for your stereo.  Your saloon is not your living room.  Sometimes you have to hire what you don’t like if it brings you money.

 
I didn’t particularly care for the music of Razed Cain either.  They played too damn loud and their vocals were unremarkable (to me).  But their front man and lead guitarist was a darkly handsome, obnoxiously arrogant, young man who played a style of guitar that did not interest me but the girls just loved.  They would flock to see that band and dance to their music.
The leader of Razed Cain offered us a deal.  He wanted us to charge a seven dollar cover for one of his shows.  This was an unheard of high price for The Day.  The normal cover fee was 3.00, sometimes 4.00.  Along with this high cover charge the band would just work for the door.   I had to ask T.O. since Razed Cain was one of his least favorite groups.  He OK’d the deal figuring he’d be getting a band for free and Razed Cain would be cutting their own throat.

 Razed Cain absolutely packed the place that night!

T.O. sat by the side door darkly, drinking beer after beer after beer…

Finally he could stand it no more.

He made his way through the crowd and got up on the stage.
The crowd grew quiet.  Many of the patrons had no idea who he  was.  The musicians, however, knew T.O. by reputation had an inkling of what was to come and those of us that were crew knew what was going to happen and could only watch helplessly…

He was brief.  I’ll give him that.

He proceeded to tell the patrons (in a packed venue, mind you) what he thought of Razed Cain and their music.  He also made a point  to tell the patrons that they had terrible taste in music to even listen to this kind of thing to begin with….
He finally finished his rant and got off the stage glowering pugnaciously at any and all as he went to his seat and had the duty bartender call him a cab.
Razed Cain tried to pick it up from where they were interrupted but never quite got off the runway for the rest of the evening.
Some patrons assured me they would never return as they left.  I think most of those did return because of habit but some hardcore Razed Cain fans probably never returned.

 
 The event described was probably the most extreme example of hosting at its worse.  These incidents didn’t happen often but an inebriated owner publicly unhappy with the band du jour was a Loose Cannon in its most draconian form.  Over the years there were a few more such incidents but none were quite as provocative.

 
On another tack there is always a problem of a creeping rise in volume in a live music club.  It happens.  You try to stay on top of it.  Some bands are just difficult to deal with for that kind of thing.

Actually the crowds seem to like loud bands.  Where it got to be a problem was with Crew.   At a certain volume level the bartenders and waitresses could not hear each other well enough to get the orders right.
I would approach the sound man and tell him/her to get the band in hand and sometimes that worked.
Sometimes it did not.
So I would go to the head of the band, between songs, and give them the word.  That usually worked.  I wasn’t all soft and sweet with them but I wasn’t rude either.  I had played in club bands and I knew how it was from the musician’s standpoint.  They truly cannot hear how they sound to the patrons.  On one of the nights Razed Cain was playing I asked him twice to turn down and he wouldn’t.  Finally I went to him looking overjoyed and I said “You did it!  You finally did it!”
“Did what?
“Your playing is so loud we can’t hear the singer at all!  Thank you!”
That worked.

 
T.O., if in his cups, sometimes thought it was better to just get in there and “help”  the sound tech and sometimes actually tamper with the mix because, of course sound tech was an overrated skill that anyone could do.  Alcohol never seemed to improve anyone’s attempts at controlling a soundboard but he felt he was capable of ‘fixing it’ after he’d had a few.  One night he did this so “well” that the  sax player in the band had to be restrained from packing up his instrument and quitting the gig.

 
Or he would stand in front of the band waving his arms down as if he were Johnny Carson telling and audience to quiet down.  Letting the world know he thought the band was too loud.  It probably was.  But there are more effective, less public ways to get your point across.
Having played in bands I told him it’s too hard for a band to turn down in the middle of a song while they were playing.  They had to do this between songs.  He would look at me as if I were daft and pantomime a guitarist reaching behind himself and turning down an amp.  “That’s all they got to do…”

 
T.O. certainly was not like that every night.  However it must be said that it is a problem when that obnoxious drunk in the corner is the owner and not someone you can cut off or send home.  Not everyone knew he was the owner which meant that some customers saw it as a Saloon that could not maintain order.

 
Even with bands he liked he could be a problem if he had too much to drink.   Alcohol’s consumption past a certain limit seldom brings out the best in anyone.

 
It got so I had to avoid booking bands I would have liked to have booked again.   Some I felt, if given a fairly regular opportunity, might build a following at The Bar but if T.O. didn’t like certain bands he discouraged me from hiring them.  So the bands booked themselves elsewhere and their fans followed them.
Away from The Bar…

 
There is no way of knowing whether the bands I would like to have hired and could not would have fared better over time.  Sometimes even a popular band would lose its edge and attendance will drop because people got bored with what was perceived as a same-o same-o lack of fresh material.
I can’t even say that the kind of embarrassing scenes I described here had that much of an affect on the overall business since, after all, it was just a drunk getting out of hand and who has not seen a drunk get out of hand in a saloon?  There have been stories, tales actually, of bars that have brawls every weekend that still manage to stay open and apparently thrive although no local bar could make that claim.  The Bar was not noted for having much in the way of fights.  In that respect we did well.

 
Gleason’s adage still applied
“I like trumpet players but if all I hired was trumpet players my show would fold”
Hiring bands to suit your own taste will, in the long run, cripple your establishment because what you, as a saloonkeeper, like often has no connect to what the partying public likes.

 
As time went on it seemed like no matter what kind of band we hired the crowds were on a decline.  The sure fire bands that always seemed to draw were getting very scarce.  The video cassette, the rented movie and ordered in pizza was making a dent in the business.  People found ways to stay home and have fun and avoid the risk of an alcohol related ticket.  When they did go out they drank less because of the real fear of harsh fines if caught driving even a little over the legal limit.  And finally,  the clientele started to age.  Some got married and became parents.  Partying on weekends was curtailed because it was hard to budget and famly  responsibility crowded the saloon life out.

… and the younger folks migrated elsewhere looking for the newest Hot Spot.

The nightclub business was losing its sparkle…