Toggle sidebar

OT: Unnamed Weekend Jukebox (aka Tom Troll Jukebox)

T

Tgar

Heisman
Nov 14, 2001
6,095
13,851
113
laKavosiey-st lion said:
I just don’t get the dead even a little
Click to expand...
So @laKavosiey-st lion It’s 1982, Tower Theater, Upper Darby Pa. Spring outside, it’s raining. The street is glistening with the promise of a crazy evening. You are with friends. You meet your buddy from growing up and your partner in crime, Joe D. To push him and his wheelchair inside. Upper Darby is buzzing underneath the elevated tracks. Kids everywhere.

Bobby and The Midnights are playing with Billy Cobham on Drums and Alphonso Johnson on bass. The place is electric. Joey rode the wheel chair to shows because the built in flap pocket under the seat was used to carry all the sheets of acid to be sold along with all sorts of other goodies. The attached crutches were used to attach microphones for recording every show.

The entire theater is riding the same electric wave, same as at your Punk induced evenings of mixing it up in the pit. Everybody is drinking furiously to contain the intensity of the acid. The bars are selling beers left and right. The band rips through a stellar first set mixing in Bobby project songs, covers, and a sprinkling of GD as well.

During the break, you realize you cannot only hear every conversation in the Tower but every conversation in the universe as well. Your mind has expanded beyond any previous experience. You take it all in while breathing out. The second set rocks just like the first with a Billy Cobham solo thrown in for good measure.

Show ends, you drift out with everyone and get your bearings. The scene outside is as chaotic as what you just left. It’s a bit of a drive back to Lansdale and you need to get your wits about you. Somehow or another you drive through the night to arrive at the apartment with friends in tow and the party reconvenes. At 4 am the police arrive to find a giggling bunch of wasted humans rocking on the balcony trying to kill a terrorist pigeon with a badminton racket. Nobody fell off, nobody died, the pigeon lived on to torment everyone.

Sunrise starts to break and everyone is hungry. It’s off to the local diner for Mexican omelets, coffee and pie. Had you been driving further, it would have been pancakes, Milk shakes and pie at Howard Johnson’s on the turnpike.

The night was an adventure, a blast, a drug fueled bonanza of sound, light, laughing, law breaking and hijinks. Eventually, most of us would have to go on to grow up. We knew that. A couple of others would die along the way, way too soon, and somehow we knew that as well.

The members of the Grateful Dead always talked about creating this opportunity for my generation and subsequent generations to chase a little adventure. We chased it, we traveled, we crashed, we burned, and we enjoyed the music because it was always ours. We saw places we never expected to see and reconnected with friends we never expected to see again, often only for moments, not forever. While everyone else was studying for finals, we were unconcerned, we were on the road and everything would work out or it wouldn’t.

As Jerry once said on Letterman, some
People like licorice and some people don’t but those that do, like it a lot. They also let us keep their music that mingled with our memories.

To Quote Linus … That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Mr. Potter, Zenophile, LionJim and 3 others
laKavosiey-st lion

laKavosiey-st lion

Heisman
Sep 10, 2013
17,251
12,350
113
Tgar said:
So @laKavosiey-st lion It’s 1982, Tower Theater. Spring outside, it’s raining. The street is glistening with the promise of a crazy evening. You are with friends. You meet your buddy from growing up and your partner in crime, Joe D. To push him and his wheelchair inside. Upper Darby is buzzing underneath the elevated tracks. Kids everywhere.

Bobby and The Midnights are playing with Billy Cobham on Drums and Alphonso Johnson on bass. The place is electric. Joey rode the wheel chair to shows because the built in flap pocket under the seat was used to carry all the sheets of acid to be sold along with all sorts of other goodies. The attached crutches were used to attach microphones for recording every show.

The entire theater is riding the same electric wave, same as at your Punk induced evenings of mixing it up in the pit. Everybody is drinking furiously to contain the intensity of the acid. The bars are selling beers left and right. The band rips through a stellar first set mixing in Bobby project songs, covers, and a sprinkling of GD as well.

During the break, you realize you cannot only hear every conversation in the Tower but every conversation in the universe as well. Your mind has expanded beyond any previous experience. You take it all in while breathing out. The second set rocks just like the first with a Billy Cobham solo thrown in for good measure.

Show ends, you drift out with everyone and get your bearings. The scene outside is as chaotic as what you just left. It’s a bit of a drive back to Lansdale and you need to get your wits about you. Somehow or another you drive through the night to arrive at the apartment with friends in tow and the party reconvenes. At 4 am the police arrive to find a giggling bunch of wasted humans rocking on the balcony trying to kill a terrorist pigeon with a badminton racket. Nobody fell off, nobody died, the pigeon lived on to torment everyone.

Sunrise starts to break and everyone is hungry. It’s off to the local diner for Mexican omelets, coffee and pie. Had you been driving further, it would have been pancakes, Milk shakes and pie at Howard Johnson’s on the turnpike.

The night was an adventure, a blast, a drug fueled bonanza of sound, light, laughing, law breaking and hijinks. Eventually, most of us would have to go on to grow up. We knew that. A couple of others would die along the way, way too soon, and somehow we knew that as well.

The members of the Grateful Dead always talked about creating this opportunity for my generation and subsequent generations to chase a little adventure. We chased it, we traveled, we crashed, we burned, and we enjoyed the music because it was always ours. We saw places we never expected to see and reconnected with friends we never expected to see again, often only for moments, not forever. While everyone else was studying for finals, we were unconcerned, we were on the road and everything would work out or it wouldn’t.

As Jerry once said on Letterman, some
People like licorice and some people don’t but those that do, like it a lot. They also let us keep their music that mingled with our memories.

To Quote Linus … That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.
Click to expand...
I love everything about this……except the schitty music. The fall before I saw my first ever live show, DEVO, in that same building (didn’t trip or even drink) at 17yo:)
i sometimes ask myself why I still like the bands that followed my generation’s black flag/clash /ramones. It’s the energy brah, the hate love and adrenaline. It’s not fighting, it’s dancing after all
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Zenophile and Tgar
You must log in or register to reply here.