London Rage

I could never understand why, but Derek seemed ashamed to admit the fact we were indeed from Brampton. We all grew up here, we all went to school here, yet D seemed to not want to acknowledge this. Granted he did leave high school in Brampton to attend an alternative school in Toronto, and his former business "Afterlife" was also in Toronto, but he actually lived in Brampton. Despite all of that he still considered himself to be from Toronto and he considered Grasshopper to be a Toronto band.

I don't know why, but back in those days I was always proud of Brampton, especially the music scene. It just always amazed me how many talented kids were doing their thing here. Hell, my rap band 3 n' Pass even did a song called "Straight Outta Brampton" our very own loose cover version of N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" it always amused me how Brampton and Compton almost rhymed with each other. 

The scene was always alive in Brampton, and club Tremors was the spot for live musical performances. We has been contacted by a band from town called "RundFunk" and they wanted to do a gig with us at Tremors. It took some deliberating and debating, but eventually we convinced Derek to play the show. I think the fact it was happening on my 20th birthday made him feel compelled to do the gig. It was actually on my birthday, so we advertised it as "Theo's 20th Birthday Bash" As suspected the show was a success, after all it was our first time gigging in Brampton. A lot of old and familiar faces came out of the woodwork, including dead beat leeches who assumed they could get something beneficial through us. And of course there were a lot of younger unfamiliar faces in attendance. I got completely fubar and to be quite honest most of the night is completely unmemorable to me.

After a night lacking in sleep, I was up and hungover, and now en route to London Ontario with Grasshopper. It was our first time playing London and we were quite excited. The Embassy Hotel was the location, and it reminded me of our home away from home, the 1150 club in Toronto. We put on a solid show and the turn out was decent. We we're invited to a party afterwards, so naturally we accepted the invitation. Somewhere along the way LSD was brought into the picture, and we were now tripping balls. The house party was fairly rocking, but the music was totally doing my head in. Someone put on an album called "Pure Guava" by a band named "Ween" and it was some of the weirdest shit I'd ever heard in my life. The acid was only making the music sound that much weirder, but we were all digging it. 

I had made eyes a few times with a tall, slim, gorgeous redhead, and I was getting the impression she was into me. I had seen her back at the gig and now here she was once again. Before I could make my move she left with a group of people to attend another party, as this one had gotten thin and mellow. I chatted up a local guy who was giving us the scoop on things and convinced him to bring us to the other party. He agreed, so I rounded up Derek and Mike and we were on our way.

When we got there it was much more livelier, and sure enough that girl was there. We kept making eyes with each other, then eventually she went down to the basement. I decided to follow her but I was awkwardly surprised when I got downstairs to find just her lying on a bed alone. I struck up some conversation and the next thing I knew we were making out. Time flew by as it does when you're having fun, and it was almost 4am. The guys were freaking out and ready to leave, as Mike had to work at 6am and he'd be running on no sleep. They were pressuring me to leave.

The girl, who's name ended up being Sue, begged me to stay the night and she ensured me she would drive me home the next day. I told the guys I was staying and that they could leave without me. They were a bit concerned for me, yet they were also a bit pissed off that I'd waited to tell them. They hopped in the van and rushed back to B-Town, as where I ended up in Sue's bed for the night.

The next day we stayed in bed watching movies and television. Sue lived with he grandparents and she didn't even actually have a car. She was relying on borrowing her grandparents car to drive me home, but they had plans which meant I was stuck here for another night. I really wasn't complaining, but I was going to miss a show in Toronto. Thankfully it wasn't one of our shows, but Rage Against The Machine were playing Toronto for their very first time at the Opera House. They were still fairly unknown at the time, and admission was only $5.00, but our MCA buddy Elliot Lefko had gotten us on the guest list. I figured missing them was worth the cause, and I knew they were going to be huge, so I assumed I'd get to see them play Toronto again sometime.

The next day rolled around and Sue's grandparents told he she could not use the car. I was totally freaking out, but she had a master plan. Her grand folks retired early for the evening, so she snatched the keys and we were on our way. We got to Brampton fairly late, so I called Jerry to see if we could crash at his place for the night, thankfully he agreed. We didn't do much sleeping that night, and by sunrise she was on her way home. I was totally smitten with this women, but unknown to me at the time was the fact I'd never see her again.

I've never had any regrets in my life, and I'd never change the way I've done anything during my time here, but had I known I'd never get to see Rage perform live I may have changed this one thing...

The Starter

Grasshopper was still rolling with momentum, and our merchandise was selling amazingly. Our "Born Loser" demo was getting heavy rotation on college radio, and we hit #1 on HMV's indy chart. Our video was also getting quite a bit of play on MuchMusic, and the Fusion episodes were saturating cable 10 in Brampton. Our shirts were quite possibly our best selling item though, as we seemed to constantly be getting more printed off.

Derek got a great lead on cheap blank shirts through one of his suppliers downtown where he used to pick up incense and other items to sell at Afterlife when it was still active. Thankfully he had kept this contact, as we were getting our shirts for next to nothing. We were making money off of them, but all of the money went back into the band and it's primary investor, Marsha, Derek's girlfriends mother.

Once again we had sold out of shirts, so I went with Derek one night to the supplier to pick up more. The location was on Spadina and it was like a wholesale head shop. All of the things you'd typically see in a head shop, or rock shop, but in endless abundance. The Indian fellow who ran the place brought us down to the basement to get more shirts, and that's when something caught my eye.

There was a shelf full of starter pistols, the kind they use for starting races and whatnot. They emit a loud bang when you pull the trigger, but they don't actually fire any type of bullet or projectile. I asked the owner if he could sell me one and he eagerly agreed for the low low price of ten dollars. I was always into collecting props of all sorts that could be used for theatrics, and this was an incredible piece to add to my collection.

We packed the shirts in the van, strapped ourselves in, and prepared to roll out. I discretely took the starters pistol out of the box for a quick peek at it. I was conscious enough to keep it down low in my lap to avoid anyone seeing it and getting the wrong idea. We drove down Spadina until we hit Dundas, here we waited to make a left hand turn. There was a police cruiser in the oncoming lane and he had the right away, yet for some reason the car sat stopped at a green light. The officer driving waved us through, so we made our turn.

The next thing we knew, the cop turned right and flashed his lights and ran his siren. It was apparent he was pulling us over. As Derek pulled the van to the side of the road I noticed a fleet of squad cars coming out of the shadows. We were completely surrounded by flashing lights and parked cars with their doors open, yet no police were in sight. Then a loud booming voice echoed through a megaphone "Slowly step out of the van" to which we obliged. The next command was to put our hand behind our heads and to slowly start walking backwards, which we also did. It was then that I noticed all of the cops hiding behind their open car doors with weapons drawn and aimed at us.

As we walked backwards we were greeted by groups of unfriendly police officers who immediately started going through our pockets. One of the cops even started searching through Derek's dreadlocks and he proclaimed "if I find a needle in here you're fucking dead!" Meanwhile other police officers were searching through the van, what they were looking for was still a mystery to us. This was all happening right in front of the 52 division, one of the largest police precincts in the city, and the audience of bystanders was rapidly growing in numbers. The next thing I knew we were in handcuffs being brought into 52 division.

After siting in a small room for what seemed like hours, two cops entered the room to explain why we had been detained. Apparently someone called the police claiming we were driving around waving a gun out of the window, which I knew in my heart never happened. Had someone seen me checking the starters pistol out in the van? Had the proprietor who sold me the pistol ratted me out minutes after taking my money? The answer was unknown to me, as it still remains to this day.

When the police figured out it was a starters pistol they became much more friendly. They were taking pot shots at the officers who called it in, two cops from a smaller precinct in Parkdale. The duo were now the butt end of all the jokes the 52 division cops slung about. They fed us McDonalds, processed us, and released us...but not before charging us with "weapons dangerous"

Here I was trying to live life on the straight and narrow, my criminal past behind me, and now I'd have to appear in court again. Derek was quite terrified as he had never dealt with police before. He was a wreck, shaking, crying, and totally freaking out. I tried my best to keep him calm and explained that I would take full responsibility for the situation, even though charges had been layed on him too. 

I didn't know it at the time, but this would be the pre-cursor of negativity that awaited in the wings for us as individuals and as a band...

3 n' Pass

Amidst all the madness of the Grasshopper happenings, I was spending all of my free time working on my passion... My rap group "3 n' Pass" with Mike C. and Mike Myre. As much as I was loving being in a band, rap music was my true passion at the time. I believe Derek felt somewhat threatened by this fact, as he always seemed uneasy when I spoke of what we were up to. Perhaps because I had so much fire in me when it came to this project... It was my baby... my brainchild... Regardless, I was pumped to be apart of two bands, one that was on the uprise, and one that was starting at the bottom.

Myself and the two Mike's had a few songs under our belt now. We had started off with "The Immigrant Rhyme" our track using Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" and it was quite a success. We ended up shooting a video for it even, and it was one of the most fun experiences I had partaken in during the year of 1992.

We had also made a few more songs using our same recipe of me looping beats on my dad's JVC tape deck, Myre providing keyboard and synth riffs via a cheap Casio keyboard as well as drum hits compliments of his cheesy little drum machine, and Mike C. cutting up records on the "wheels of plastic" yes, we had a shitty old plastic turntable. We actually had to tape pennies on the needle cartridge to prevent it from skipping when Mike was scratching vinyl. Since we were doing everything on Derek's four track recorder, we had to run multiple channels into a mixer, then run the mixer into the four track, enabling us to mix four separate tracks down to one track.

As far as microphones went, we were pretty ghetto in that department too, as we made due with a small plastic mic from a 1970's cassette recorder and "the rap mic" The rap mic was actually a novelty kids toy we found at Toys R Us. It had pre programmed beats you could rap over, or you could rap acapella. It also had a jack on it giving one the ability to plug it into anything. Since we only had two microphones we actually had to pass the mic off after we finished spitting a line, which meant two mics in rotation between three guys when recording vocals.

Our second song we did was called "Fry-Day" and as you can imagine it was all related to marijuana. We sampled music from The Jackson Five's "Enjoy Yourself" which was a happy, up tempo funky track. The lyrics were comedically playful, and we just had a whole lot of fun with this track. I'd say it was collectively the fave amongst the group.

Eventually Myre decided to try his hand at producing a track, and he came to us with a song that went on to be titled "3 n' Pass" named after our band of course. Mike used samples from Celtic Frost and RUN D.M.C. to put together this little ditty. In our first two tracks we attempted to emulate the Beastie Boys style of passing the mic, but for this song we decided to each do our own verse, which gave some nice separation and range to the track.

The song turned out so well that Mike decided to take another stab at production. Once again he used yet another RUN D.M.C. beat accompanied by some heavy synths. The track had a happy and positive fun party vibe, so we decided to write lyrics depicting a fictional party we attended together. This song came to be known as "Fryday the 13th" and I always got so pumped up and energized whenever I heard it or whenever we jammed it.

As our musical tastes expanded it began to show through in our music. For our next song we stepped out of the box and sampled a song from noise legends Sonic Youth. We incorporated it with a break beat from a song that escapes me now, but it gave the track some nice separation going from slow and low to fast and furious. We ended up dubbing this one "Weird n' Willy" a chorus that we came up with after the song had been completed.

We now had five songs and we we're excited to share them amongst our friends. Myres through together a little intro and outro, and we had enough material to make our very own homemade demo. As I compiled it all via Derek's four track, I decided to add on a bonus track. I still had live jams from the early days of our inception, one of which was a jam of Cypress Hill's "Real-estate" so I dumped the music into the four track, wrote some quick lyrics, then recorded them. Needless to say the guys were a bit surprised.

We ended up making a few more music videos as well with Mike's trusted camcorder. We shot vids for Fry-Day, 3 n' Pass, and Weird n' Willy. It seemed like each video we made just got better, as we were learning tricks to edit more smoothly as well as getting more creative in our cinematography. Eventually we aired all of our videos at our buddy John Waller's place one weekend, since he was having a party and coincidentally had a huge tv that was probably about 50-60 inches. Everyone got a kick out of the videos, and as insecure as I felt, I was happy that our friends appreciated what we had done.

We were always trying to do something different with our music, and even though we were inspired by the Beastie Boys, we strived to have our own sound and not come off as a complete and total rip off.  We had used samples of heavy music before, but this time we decided to get even heavier. We ended up using a loop from Slayer's "Seasons In The Abyss" for our next track, and it was heavy as hell. As per usual, we needed an uptempo breakbeat, so we threw in a loop from a SCHOOLLY D track. It felt like every new song we did got better, and naturally became our personal new favourite. This hit came to be known as "Straight Outta The Abyss".

We ended up doing a cassette single for the song, the original Slayer version, and a second version with just the simple beat from the rap mic with a bit of live guitar noise provided by Mike C. I even went as far as to create covers for our demos and to come up with our independent label "Weed Of Wisdom Inc" and "Bot-Spot Records" in ode to our session spot at Lester B. Pearson school, the birth place of our rhymes and ideas. Looking back at this stuff, the audio quality was terrible, a lot of our rhymes were corny, and we were lacking in rhythm for most of our lyrical deliveries. None of that mattered. We were doing what we loved with a fiery passion and we were having a hella fun time doing it.

I was curious to see where the road was going to lead this rap-tastic endeavor...

Stream or download the 3 n' Pass demo for FREE

Fusion

Grasshopper's bass player, Mike C, the linebacker of basslines, was still working every Sunday morning at CIAO radio in Brampton, a multi cultural radio station. Mike didn't necessarily enjoy the type of music he had to spin, but he loved the job for the simple fact that he was getting hands on experience in radio broadcasting. Grasshopper had done a few interviews now on "college radio" stations like 88.1 CKLN, 105.5 CHRY, and 89.5, and we were catching up to speed with Mike, in regards to how the inner workings of a radio station operated.

Our hosts were always gracious, they gave us the liberty to pick the music we wanted to hear, and some of them even let us smoke dope right in the control room. One time in particular at CHRY, security guards came knocking on the door of the radio station, as they could smell the pot in the hallways of the university. The host of the show quickly dismissed them, stating we were "live on the air" and they couldn't interfere with the broadcast. It felt nice to get that royal treatment.

Meanwhile back at CIAO radio, Mike had a friend and coworker named Stuart, who coincidentally happened to be friends with a gifted young film maker named Owen Roberts, the same Owen Roberts who had produced the amazing Epileptic Brain Surgeons music video for "Cows" a year or two prior to this timeframe.

Stuart informed Mike that Owen was starting up his own show on Rogers cable 10 television in Brampton, with Stu as his trusted sidekick and sound engineer. The show would be called "Fusion" and the premise of it was to showcase local artists, wether they be involved in music, art, poetry, or any other type of expressive art form. Needless to say, we thought it was an incredible idea and we were more than happy to oblige when Owen asked us to perform on the show.

We ended up going into cable 10 studios after business hours. Asides from us, Owen, and Stu, nobody else was in the building. Once again we were shown great hospitality behind those closed doors. Carte blanch to snoop around, smoke weed, and have our run of the place, as Owen set up a stage for us to perform on while Stuart hooked up all of the audio equipment. We pretty much had an empty area of a room to perform in, with nothing more than a black curtain behind us and some lighting. It seemed a bit bland and boring, so we went around ransacking all of the offices for any plants we could find. From there we set all the plants up around our gear, and a little bit of life was injected into the stage setup.

We played through a few songs while Owen filmed and Stu worked the soundboard. It was a total trip being in that building. After what seemed like the longest night ever, we busted out of there not long before sunrise. I imagine the people who worked there were probably en route with their morning coffees to start the day as we were heading home to bed to end our day.

Shortly after that experience, Owen invited us back in to view the footage with him. The audio recording wasn't as polished as we'd hoped, but visually we were happy with what the guys had put together. We picked the two songs that we thought sounded the best and left it in Owen's hands. It wouldn't be long until the first episode of Fusion aired on cable 10, and we anticipated it with great excitement.

The day, or night, finally came for the premier episode of Fusion, and it was awesome. Owen had done a great job editing, arranging, and producing a solid little independent television show. It felt pretty cool seeing myself on tv, and I wondered how many other Bramptonians had witnessed the show. If people had at all been wondering what I had been up to, they now had an answer. The show was on fairly late, and had a scheduled time slot, but somehow Fusion was being aired quite frequently. It was almost as if cable10 was playing it anytime they needed to fill an empty time slot, and we sure as hell weren't complaining about it.

Sure enough, Fusion started causing a buzz. People I hadn't spoken with since high school were contacting me to say they had seen me on television. Whenever I ran into people I hadn't seen in awhile, they too would mention the fact they had seen Fusion. It was almost as if all the bugs were coming out of the woodwork, as some very unlikely people went out of their way to contact myself, Mike, or Derek.

I really admired and appreciated what Owen was doing. One one hand he was trying to establish a name for himself as a film maker, and on the other hand he was going out of his way to help promote local artists and make the public aware of them. I had nothing but the utmost respect for him.

I was definitely interested to see what Owen would bring forth in the next episode...

Tribes of the Moon

Good day readers! I am just checking in for a quick post in regards to current events, or should I say future events? I'm always one to have multiple projects on the go, and I've recently had another brain fart to add to the list. I've decided to start working on yet another full length LP. I know, you're probably saying "But Kabal, you're already working on a full length LP" which is true "What's Below Remains Below" is my most recent full length I've been working on for the past year and a half. It is close to complete, but I've still got a few tracks to do after suffering some setbacks earlier this year.

For my new project however I've decided to try something a little different. I've always been proud of the fact that I compose and produce all of my own music, so this time around I thought I'd get other people to produce music for me. Playing in numerous bands over the years I've always found it easier to write lyrics when I'm given a song that has already been written. The music literally talks to me and tells me what to say, how to say it, and where to say it. The name of this release will be "Tribes Of The Moon"

I'm accepting submissions from friends, djs, producers, amateur beat makers, and just about anyone who is interested in working with me. I've already received a few ideas from people, and just as I suspected, their songs are giving me my words and my voice. I think this is going to be a very interesting project, both fun and diverse, considering each song will be from a different persons perspectives and tastes. 

Normally I tend to post songs online as I create them, but for this project I've decided to keep it a bit more hush hush for a change. I may mention in passing I did a song with so and so, but I will be keeping every track on the downlow until the project is complete. I'm really looking forward to seeing what kinds of creations come from this collaborative effort. If you wish to be apart of this, send me your best tracks in any format, or links to your tracks. You can contact me directly via email at:

theofour20@hotmail.com

Let the games begin!

RU Down With The Goats?

Christmas definitely did come early in 1992. I was gifted with the discoveries of many new hot bands, I got to see my beloved Beastie Boys in concert again, NOW Magazine had featured us, Grasshopper was getting a lot of great opportunities, and to top it all off I was going to get to witness a live performance by The Goats, who had quickly become my new favourite rap group at the time. They were opening up for Consolidated, so that was an extra added bonus treat as well. I had lots of B.T.s and high fives waiting for Santa!

I was super stoked for this concert, mainly because The Goats were still so new to the scene and virtually unknown, this made a guarantee of a small, intimate show, the kind I liked the best. I had been listening to their LP "Tricks of the Shade" non stop since Derek returned from CMJ with it back in October, and in that short period of time I had already memorized practically all of the lyrics. I always liked thoroughly knowing the music of a band I was going to see in concert, as it always made for a more ultimate experience.

The night of the gig arrived and we got to the Opera House fashionably early for a change. I wasn't surprised at all by the lack of people there. Consolidated were a fairly established band, but nobody knew who The Goats were. I assumed Consolidated fans would show up later in the evening, and I wasn't complaining about that at all, as I managed to secure a spot dead centre at the front of the stage. The crowd was thin and loose, and the dance floor was practically empty.

The Goats hit the stage in a rage with high energy, wailing mics, and pounding beats. They put on an amazing performance and I'm pretty sure I was the only kid in the crowd rapping along to every song word for word. The three MCs, Oatie, MADD, and Swayzack, made eye contact with me numerous times, and they were even shaking their heads in disbelief over the fact I knew all of their material. They even went as far as to shove their microphones into my face from time to time. I imagine they were slightly impressed considering their album hadn't even been out for two months. The rest of the crowd was grooving along, but it was apparent they weren't familiar with The Goats, they were just going with the flow.

By the time their set was over, I turned around to head to the bar. I was shocked to see the Opera House was now fully packed with people from one end of the club to the other. Clearly I was right in assuming Consolidated fans would skip out on the opening act. I squeezed my way through the sea of people and grabbed a cold one. I looked to my left and realized MADD from The Goats was beside me at the bar getting drinks. I immediately gave him props for an amazing show and he went on to give me props for knowing all of their lyrics. He was totally blown away and mentioned how crazy it was that I was so familiar with them. We had a great little pow wow, then MA double D returned to the backstage area.

After what felt like an eternity, Consolidated finally hit the stage. They had a giant video screen set up behind them that played imagery to coincide with every song. A lot of the imagery was very graphic, and it reminded me of the Mal Havoc days. Consolidated put on a really solid show as well, and it was a very interesting and diverse crowd to say the least considering he band were advocated of women's rights, animal rights, gay rights, and racial rights. There was a song on their album that contained a bunch of audience members debating issues, so I was curious to see if anything like that would unfold.

Sure enough, after a solid hour or so of musical performance, Consolidated cut the music and declared it was debate time. People from the audience were welcome to hit the stage and discuss issues regarding, politics, government, sexual preference, racism, and animal cruelty, just to name a few. It was fairly interesting to say the least and definitely was something special that you don't see at concerts on a regular basis. It did get a bit stale and boring after awhile, so we decided to dip out and call it a night.

All in all it was an amazing night and another incredible concert experience under my belt. Plus I got to meet and talk with one of my new rap heroes. My only disappointment was the fact that The Goats had absolutely NO merchandise for sale. I would of loved to have gotten a T-Shirt at least to add to my collection.

It had been one hell of a year, perhaps better than the previous year, which had been absolutely mind blowing. I could only wonder in amazement what 1993 was going to be like...

Spotlight

Not long after the second Beastie Boys concert went down, we received the call we had been hoping and waiting for: NOW Magazine wanted us to be featured in their "spotlight" article. Spotlight was usually about half of a page, displaying a nice band photo and a small blurb of information. Things had been going great for Grasshopper, and we assumed this would only help us reach more people and gain more exposure.

The people at Now even gave us a choice as to where we wanted to do the photo shoot, so naturally we picked our favourite record store "Rotate This" I can still remember the weather was warm considering we were transitioning from Fall to Winter. We showed up in our Sunday bests and met up with the crew from Now Magazine.

It was slightly awkward being catered to by the small group of people with cameras, lights, and makeup? Yes, correct. We were told we had to have our faces powdered to make the photo turn out better. Being the dirtbags we were, with the exception of Mike C., we protested as much as we could, but they wouldn't budge. We felt like a bunch of pretty boys having makeup applied by a young lady. After we got past that hump it was time to take some photos.

Rotate This had a few couches in the front of the store, so we figured that was as good of a spot as any to shoot the pictures. Once again we were faced with awkwardness, as the photographer posed us oddly and even went as far as to pile us on top of each other like we were some lovey-dovey boy band. We couldn't help but feel stupid, but we made light of the situation and busted their balls a bit. Especially Mike, who was by far the comedian of the band, always tongue lashing out some witty sarcasm and/or dry humour. I could tell we were making the Now crew uncomfortable, and rightfully so seeing as how they had made us feel uncomfortable. 

After the photos were done, we sat down and answered a few questions that would be apart of the article. They were fairly basic ones: band name, band members names, what instruments we played, type of music, weirdest moment on the job, and upcoming gigs.

All in all it was fun and slightly painstaking at the same time, but we got through it without incident. Our only concern was were we going to look stupid when this came to print?

The magazine finally came out, and naturally we grabbed an abundance of them. Inside the first page we were surprised to see a small photo of us informing the readers that our spotlight was on page 31. We skipped right to page 31 and there we were in all of our glory. As lame as we felt posing in makeup, the photo wasn't all that bad we collectively agreed. I can't speak for the other two guys, but I definitely felt like we were moving up in the scene. Our "upcoming" gig listed was a show where we would be opening for "WOOL" a rough yet melodic hard rock/punk band from Washington.

The following night the gig arrived, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who showed up. Wool were fairly big, but were still an Indy underground band. I truly didn't know if the crowd was there to see them or us. I recently learned that our pals in Yet Another Posse also played the show, so I imagine there was probably quite a few people that came out to see them as well. We headed to the "backstage" area, which was actually a small, yet long and narrow enclosed corridor at the side of the stage.

As we partook in our usual pre-show activities of drinking free beer and smoking dope, Peter Stahl, vocalist of Wool, entered the room and took a particular interest in studying the bottle toke I was preparing. After staring long and hard with an intense look in his eyes, he blurted out "Are you cooking up heroin?" I explained to him it was hashish and what I was doing was known as a "B.T." Peter was in utter amazement stating he had never seen this being done before. Sheltered Americans I thought to myself. He asked if he could try one and of course I obliged. His face went red, his eyes bulged, and then he coughed up a storm. Peter thanked me and left the backstage area.

After the session, I went to the bar to get a beer, where I saw Peter standing, looking somewhat disheveled. He asked club owner Willie New, who was running the bar, if he could have a glass of water. His voice sounded like he had a throat full of gravel and wood chips.

I chuckled to myself and hoped it didn't compromise his performance abilities. Peter proved me wrong, and Wool rocked the house down. I really have no recollection of our performance that night, but I do remember getting great embracement from the crowd.

On the way home that night I was in a blissful state. We had made it in Now magazine. We had just played in front of one of our biggest crowds to date, AND we had played with what one might consider a "bigger" band than we were accustomed to opening for. Things seemed to keep rolling for us, and once again I wondered just how far the Grasshopper would jump...