The Night I fell Over On Stage

When we had shows at the club Streets, my girlfriend Barbara loved to have the Someone & The Somebodies "Entourage" over for a hearty meal of anti-pasto, pasta with her incredible north Italian style tomato sauce that included sausages sourced from the neighborhood deli in Park Slope. We usually ate a lot because it was so awesome. Er, we also drank A Lot of wine with these meals. It just felt right at the time! We'd all stumble around to Streets and arrive just in time to set up and play. It was one of those nights in 1981 when I was reeling from one of Barbara's heady fetes. It didn't help that the audience was particularly hostile. At one point my bassist Tristram was hit in the left elbow by a full beer bottle. No chicken wire here! Half way through the set came one of our more complex pieces. The ending was a rapid fire cadence, "DAdadadaDadadadaDAdadaDA!" where I conclude by damping the ride cymbal on the last beat. Only this time I kept going, falling over my floor tom and crashing to the ground still holding the ride cymbal. My throne, floor tom, cymbal and a few microphones were scattered over the stage. I calmly picked myself up, got everything back in place and said, "Excuse Me". Right out of Cheech & Chong's "Up In Smoke". the night didn't get any better. Between songs towards the end of teh set the club DJ announced, "Would the owner of a Toyota sedan with New Jersey license plate #........ please come to the bar. Your car is on fire". Tris lowered his head in ultimate dejection. Yup, that was HIS car on fire. Rock & Roll!