In The Beginning
by j.charles @ textproductions
Mic and phattie had pretty much known each other for a while by then, i'm sure of that. And by high school if you’re into making music in Napa, you pretty much have known everyone for a while. It’s a small town, especially when you can’t drive.
Mic played the drums in almost every band on campus, from the marching band to big band, I’m sure he even played in jazz band or choir or some shit, too. So, naturally he had a lot of practice in the same classes as a mister Rizzo. Rizzo had an affinity for the piano, he was and is pretty damn good. And, although they never actually practiced together, they were always in the same place. Mic liked Rizzo’s sound and Rizzo said the feeling was likewise, and as musicians often do, they began to play together. It was a mess at first, but youthful enthusiasm prevailed, and they kept doing it. The trio tried out new shit and fucked around, constantly attempting to challenge themselves. And they DID get better, and they did gain confidence.
The trio (Mic, Phattie and Rizzo) became a quartet (4?) with the addition of not just Timmy, the guitar player, but his mother’s garage, directly across the street from the high school. I mean like two sidewalks and a road between your math class and the front yard. Finally, the time arrived where mic, phatty and Rizzo got to have a real band practice.
Every Wednesday class would get out early. Seven minutes after that bell rang at noon, right when everyone gets into their cars and gets stuck in traffic, and right when most freshmen wait in the sweltering heat for their parent’s minivan and the salvation of air conditioning. That’s when the boys began to play for the very first time. Today marked the day that each and every one of them could confidently tell anyone who asked that they…were a member….of .a…..BAND!
“Yeah, hi, my name’s Rizza, this is my BAND” he shouted in excitement, and really, who could blame him. I know I would’ve, had I ever been in a band.
Practice lasted for about fifteen second before anyone actually noticed, but everyone just kept on playing until the first song was over. Almost immediately Timmy jumped at the opportunity, edging out the other two for the first comment to phattie.
“Don’t you have a microphone?” Timmy could barely finish the sentence before he started laughing. The lead, and only, singer in the band he played guitar for had no microphone.
Phattie countered with a fairly confident answer; “I was just going to sing over the band” he said, losing more and more confidence as each word came out.
Before he had even finished the sentence, phattie was in pursuit of a solution to this minor hurdle. Out the door, across the street and right up to the back door of the music room, the same door he had lugged three years of band shit in and out of. The same door he knew was unlocked right now. Phattie went in, grabbed a mic and went back to practice. Simple enough. Practice lasted until way too late, but by the end of the day this band had a name. They were “strange brew”.
Strange brew, of course, was mostly a band for the members. They were good, don’t get me wrong, but I mean, who really showcases a band in high school? So you play where you can, for whoever wants to listen. This sometimes means that you have the pleasure of playing your first show in front of Timmy’s cousin, who lives three and a half hours away from Napa in a little town called Incline Village just outside of Tahoe.
I assume that there are a handful of people left that have never been anywhere near the lake, so fuck you. You won’t laugh, and you don’t deserve to. For the rest of us, just picture the anxiety you get when you’re driving up Donner Pass. Take the time to re-orient yourself with the very visible thousand foot drop off directly to the right hand side of you. Familiarize your memory with the gusts of wind that have been known to knock over a tree or two. The gravel for traction, road debris, tourists, and perpetually shitty condition of the roads makes it one memorable trip. Mostly because your ass muscles hurt so much from being clinched in fear the whole time you look out the window. It may be tough to drive it, but it’s even worse when you have to look at all that shit as you almost get blown off the road.
Now imagine being in a nimble, road worthy four by four and scampering past an extraordinarily slow caravan of three vehicles. Six boys. Two jeeps and an early nineties Japanese pick-up truck. You know the type, vinyl bench seat with a floor to match, four cylinder. Both of the jeeps were topless in the summer heat, carrying as much gear as the vehicle would allow. The remainder was heaped into the pickup. Heaped is an understatement, because the bed was bursting with cargo, neatly tucked away under the familiar blue of tarpola and well tied knots. The truck would flip over backward before any gear fell out.
The first thing you see as you approach in your nimble, road worthy four by four is that in each vehicle you see a shit load of non descript cargo and two boys, but you fly past them at such an alarming rate that you hardly even get a chance to enjoy it. Even if you slowed down beforehand to laugh at their plight more intimately it still offered only a limited time to stare. I bet it must have been good. It took so long to get up that pass it was god damned hilarious. At some point everyone else pretty much agreed as well.
What ride across state lines would be complete without a little harassment from the state troopers? And of course, what better way to break it to mom and dad that you self medicate than by being charged with a felony possession in Tahoe Nevada, at the age of eighteen? Rizzo would’ve been the man to ask just such a question if the cop that stopped him had any idea at all what marijuana smelled like. Fortunately for him the bacon had to sizzle; had an accident to attend to. But before he left the cop had one last piece of advice: ‘enjoy your stay to the fullest, because you almost got a felony.’
Keeping that in mind Rizzo, Mic, Phat and the rest of ‘Strange Brew’ did in fact enjoy their visit. They played a hell of a show, and probably partied way harder than they would’ve without the pleasantries exchanged with the local law enforcement.