Bottom-End, Writings and Reviews from Music Producer Pete Strobl

My family immigrated to the United States when I was three years old and the trip took twelve days. My latest trip to Austria took much less time but felt every bit as taxing on the nerves. It started out beautifully. I was able to secure an aisle seat in the exit row and settled down to what I thought would be a nice nap for the twelve hour flight into London’s Heathrow airport. Ah, lucky me, my neighbor was a nervous twit who had never flown across water. Every noise, every vibration was cause for a new panic attack. I found myself constantly having to remove my headphones to respond to her inane questions. So, deprived of a good night’s sleep, I made it my duty to torment the girl. Every time I noticed her start to relax, I grabbed the adjoining armrest and said something like,”Did you hear that?” or, “Did you feel something strange…what was that?” Turnabout is fair play after all. And the loss of my nap cost her at least five years in terms of roasted nerve endings.

The kicker was the speedy lay-over at Heathrow. I had never passed through security and from one terminal to the next with such speed…only to be advised at the next gate that my Vienna flight had been cancelled! I was quickly and cheerfully assigned a seat on the very next flight, but when I asked which gate I should go to, the well-mannered British Airways representative let me know that the gate would be announced one hour before boarding. And so I made it a point to stay awake, and also within sight of the departure monitor. I could have taken the nap I missed on the first flight because I stared at that monitor for a full seven hours before the departure information was posted. I did have a chance to inspect the fine products available in EVERY GODDAMNED SHOP in terminal four…at least five times! I realized that I was being looked at askance, for those unfamiliar with the term, it is the way in which one is viewed when a misdemeanor is thought to be imminent.

I finally landed in Vienna at midnight, local time. As I was meant to land at 17:20 (I know, it looks imposing, but it’s just the European way of making 5:20 look important) I was certain that there would be no-one to meet me. Ah, but all travail is rewarded when one is patient. In the time I was delayed at London, Mike Pobisch, Solidtube’s guitarist and songwriter had, upon being informed of the flight cancellation, left the terminal, done a gig in the center of the city, and returned to collect my tired ass. It turns out that Mike has a great command of English, but I’m certain that I was responsible for helping him add a few choice expletives to his arsenal.

So…twenty-four hours en-route and finally in Vienna. What to do, what to do? Drop off Luggage? Get a much-needed shower? Eat? Sleep? HAH!! In Mike I have found a kindred spirit. We are not men to trifle with such things as food, rest or hygiene. From the airport we went immediately to the Casablanca club located in an area of Vienna known as the Bermuda Triangle and the site of many Solidtube gigs. The place is about the size of three of my shoes and it was fortunate that I was wearing only two, otherwise some of the guests would have been forced out the front door.

As it was, I had the time of my life. Mike was a great host and kept one of my hands filled with a large “bierkrug” while the other was occupied shaking hands. We closed the place and I finally hit the manger as the sun was rising.

What I thought would be a restful first day in Vienna was really a continuation of apparently unfinished celebrations. I met with Mike and Mandana in the early afternoon to begin discussions about the way we will be proceeding with the recordings. In the early evening we stopped in at Replugged, the site of the Vienna Calling show to look the place over and speak with the sound crew. Mike then dropped me off at the Postsporthalle so I could meet my son Pete and his wife Sheryl who had just resumed playing with the Flying Foxes basketball team after having her first child. We had a great family reunion and Mike picked me up at 11;00 PM…I mean 23:00. Did we go home? Hah!

Mike had some friends in the car and minutes later I found myself at a club full of carousers. One thing obviously led to another and before the night was over it was round two at the Casablanca. By this time I had no clue what time it was or what day it was for that matter. And I didn’t care. All I knew was that the clocks here start over after they go past 24:00 and wherever we were, we were back in single digits…and I was having a great time.

Next post I will have visited Wild One Music studio and will also have had the first full band rehearsal. If Mike and Mandana are any indication, I’m sure the rehearsals will be everything I could hope for musically and a ton of fun as well. But for now, forgive me…the sandman is calling, and this time he won’t be denied.

London. Up until my recent trip in support of Lucia Iman’s Sellaband concert, all that I knew about London was the frantic rush between terminals at Heathrow airport. I have many friends in and from London, but oddly enough, I have never had reason to leave the airport. My recent experiences in the erstwhile capitol of the English-speaking world can be distilled down to two bits of 100 proof advice.

Look right!

Take money…with you I mean…and lots of it.

After taking the Tube to the Earl’s Court station, we were left with a short walk to our accommodations. The weather was wonderfully mild and after the eleven hour flight, a short walk was just what the doctor ordered. A short, pleasant walk…which very nearly became a walk straight into the jaws of an ignoble death at the hands of the bane of the foreign pedestrian, the widely feared BLACK CAB!

As I stepped onto the pavement to cross the street, I read the words, “Look Right” painted on the asphalt under my feet. Naturally, I obeyed my instincts, looked LEFT and walked on confidently. If the cab had been painted with one more coat, I would be writing this from the grave. They drive on the wrong side of the street over there! All of them…and fast. And no matter how many times I saw, “Look Right” painted in big white letters on the pavement, I always looked left, and I was always nearly in danger of becoming a hood ornament.

Clearly, If I was to see London before being killed, I would have to join the traffic flow. We decided that we would ride inside one of the famous London Black Cabs. One thing I can say for London, You don’t wait long for a cab. The city streets are rife with the bastards. They are like big, shiny water bugs crawling over every paved inch of the town. No, you don’t wait long for a cab…it’s after you get inside that the waiting begins.

You see, the streets are so crowded with cabs, that you really can’t get to where you are going any faster than if you had walked. I looked out of the taxi and a Fruit stand caught my eye. And before we had driven the length of the block, I thought that I saw the shopkeeper grow old and gray. His son took over the business and he in turn took on the appearance of of an old, bent man, worn out by years of carrying bushels of fruit to and from the sidewalk from his store. Alright, okay, I may have stretched the truth a bit, but I swear that the grapes had turned to raisins before we rounded the corner.

An hour’s ride inside a London cab will get you about the same distance as a good 30 minute walk. And this is where my second bit of advice comes in. Wait, just wait til you realize that while you were chatting, while the sights of London were looking back at you through the cab window, while the world outside was going about its business…the meter was running. No, the meter was sprinting. The rocket propelled vehicles attempting to set speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats are land tortoises in comparison to a London cab meter. I’ve never seen anything move that fast without igniting.If you want to stay alive…if you want to ride in a cab, bring money. Lots of it.

After our cab ride, I was somewhat confused. Whenever we walked and came anywhere near an intersection, there seemed to be hundreds of cabs speeding past waiting for the slowest of the herd to look the wrong way. But the instant we flagged down and entered a cab, even my metabolism seemed to come to a screeching halt.

I tried to get a look into a number of cabs that almost got me as I put my foot into the street as if testing the pool temperature. But they always flew by too fast for me to see if anyone was inside. I really wish I could have had just one ride in one of those speeding cabs. But I think they only have those to run people over with.

So…That’s London in a nutshell. Two things to remember. Look Right…and bring lots of money.

On the serious side, Please check out the new links in the sidebar. Check out Sellaband and become a part of a great new way to support new music.

This is the story of the bass that got away. That’s bass as in “ace” not “ass.” This is not a fishing story, although the story does start on a river somewhere in the wilds of Indiana.

During the late eighties, I was working somewhere between 150 to 200 dates a year, most of them fly dates. We would go in and come out before anyone got hurt. At the time, I was playing my 1964 Fender Jazz bass and every trip my thoughts went to the unmentionable consequences of possibly losing or damaging the venerable old girl. Well, the unmentionable almost happened one day.

We landed at the Purdue, Indiana regional airport . My bass, along with some luggage belonging to the other passengers had not fit into the small plane, but I was assured that the missing pieces would arrive from Chicago and be brought to the venue in time. The car that was to take us to the gig was late so, to entertain myself, I hid the keyboard player’s bag and had him paged to recover it at gate five. Then I had a pleasant hour watching him walk back and forth in the tiny terminal, searching for gate five. There were no gate numbers as there was only the one gate and designating it by number seemed pretentious. This has nothing to do with my bass, but the story serves to illustrate the sophisticated nature of our surroundings.

When we arrived at the gig for soundcheck, I had a foreboding feeling. The “venue” turned out to be a barge fitted out as an old-fashioned showboat. The soundcheck and show would both take place with the barge…and us, being towed up and down the river behind some sort of stinky popeye looking scow. Even If the bass was delivered to the hotel, it would not make it onto the barge/showboat in time.

I panicked. We decided to forego soundcheck and repaired to the bar when the bass player in the opening band stepped in and saved the day. He asked me what kind of bass I play and when I told him, he told me that he also played a Fender Jazz and that I was welcome to use his. He apologized for the fact that it wasn’t a “vintage” instrument but I was relieved that the show could go on and thanked him for his kindness. Then it was drinks all around til showtime and a good time was had by all…until I watched the opening band and discovered that the bass player was LEFT-HANDED!

That was probably the longest show of my life! I played his bass allright, right-handed with the strings upside down. Talk about keeping it simple. I immediately decided that I needed a bass to take on the road that I didn’t worry would get lost or stolen.

When I got back home, I went about the business of building a bass that would fill the bill. I wanted a Fender style body but decided on neck-through construction as this would probably be more stable with the bump and grind of traveling. I found a blank “second” at Performance Guitars for very little dough. I already had a great set of pick-ups that Seymour Duncan had been kind enough to let me try and had enough hardware around the house from other projects to finish the job. Instead of shooting the guitar with lacquer, I spent evenings rubbing boiled linseed oil into the wood with steel wool while watching Twilight Zone re-runs.

Well, when I got the bass together, I instantly fell in love. It felt, played and sounded very much like an old well-worn bass but with one exception. I had decided to build a five-string but with a right hand string spacing much like that of my old Fender. Turned out to be a sweetheart.

I put some real miles on that bass and was happy that the old Jazz was now safe at home while I was out gallivanting. One night at the Miami airport we were told that our flight would be delayed due to bad weather in Dallas where we were to connect to our LA flight. I was able to get the band on a direct flight home but our luggage had already been loaded. The agent assured me that our luggage would be in LA by morning and would be brought directly to our homes.

Upon landing in LA, I registered a “lost luggage” claim as instructed by the agent as this would facilitate the pieces being delivered. The next day, as promised, the airline called to say that four pieces were on their way to my house. When the delivery came, the driver put two clothes bags on my doorstep and asked me to sign an invoice for four pieces. When asked, he claimed that this is what was put on the truck and that was all he was to deliver. The worst had happened, and I knew that I would never see that bass again.

After complaining, screaming, begging and charming a path through every poor bastard with a phone that worked for Northwest Airlines, I ended up settling for a sum of money that would allow me to build a replacement which turned out to be the “Man’s Bass” described in an earlier blog entry. But what started as a cheap bass for the road turned out to be a friend I lost forever.

I wish I could say that I hope whoever is playing her now is treating her well and making beautiful music…but I can’t…I’m not built that way. I hope that the fuckhead who stole her tripped on the curb as he ran across the street and the anvil case caught him full in the nuts causing him to fall out of the line of sight of the septic tank clean-out truck that barely shuddered as it rolled over his skull, forcing his brains through his nostrils.

And that is the bass in the picture above…the one that got away.

Here’s another installment from the “weird gigs” file. When I came home from this one I realized how spoiled we are in Southern California. There are so many ways to be entertained here, most of them more sophisticated than what happens in the hinterlands of the Midwest. But as necessity is the mother of invention, so is extreme boredom the mother of creating stupid shit to do. This is one example that proves the rule.

Saginaw, Michigan is situated in the center of the state. Michigan is shaped roughly like a boxing glove and if you live in Saginaw, you live just about at the second knuckle of the fist. We were in town to play some sort of outdoor street fest. Lots of sweat, huge bugs, beer, brats(wurst, that is), and a typical midwestern crowd. Always appreciative and ready to rock and have a good time. I always loved to play these gigs because the locals loved to show us a good time after the gig. Most of the band would be into twisting one and ordering pizza at the hotel, but I always made it a point to find out just what the people of Saginaw or Moline or Terre Haute could invent for late night entertainment.

On this particular night, the gig proved to be of secondary importance. The rep from the hosting radio station had been with us since we had arrived at the airport. She was blond, hip, and best of all, had a white corvette. White corvettes are the perfect car to drive drunk in…at least that’s what the blond radio rep tried to sell me. She said that she was going to take me to a club out in the sticks that I was going to love. I talked her out of the drivers seat and we roared off into the woods.

In a clearing on the country highway, there stood a garishly lit roadhouse. It was big enough for a crowd of five or six hundred so the thousand or so that were in the place made for a snug fit. We passed through the bar grabbing handfuls of pitchers en route to what I thought was a small back room. I was surprised to find that as we passed through the swinging doors, the “small back room” was actually a huge dancehall and it was ramming like a beer commercial in there.

And here was where the fun started. In the middle of the hall was a dance floor and in the center of the floor was a boxing ring…a real fucking boxing ring, complete with a couple of exhausted shit-kickers sitting on stools in opposing corners, pouring sweat, gasping for air, and waiting for the bell. A girl with a microphone slipped through the ropes, the bell rang and out they came. They wore street clothes without shirts and went after each other throwing wild haymakers. Since the gloves were huge, they were totally done in thirty seconds and spent the rest of the two minute round swinging their bodies from side to side in hopes that the centrifical force might lift their fist high enough to look like a punch.

The bell rang and the heaving shit-kickers fell backwards onto their stools. From the side of the ring, there was a rush of activity. A TV screen had been put into the ring and someone announced that Todd was up. “Let’s make some noise for Todd!!” Out of the speakers came the intro of Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds” and into the ring leaped Todd…with wireless mic and an Elvis suit! This was…this was absolute genius in entertaiment. Beer, controlled fighting and Kara-fucking-oke! All under one roof, and under that one roof, along with the beer, the fighting and the Karaoke, were tons of drunken chicks!

This madness went on all night long. I don’t know which sign-up line was longer, the one to get beat up, or the “I’m so fucked up I sing like Johnnie Mathis” line. This was something I had never seen before. Two minutes of watching guys trying not to get hit alternating with three minutes of homegrown, drunken versions of everything from Tom Jones to Pat Benatar. Most fun I had in months.

I don’t remember how or when, but at some point, I found myself back at the hotel just in time to brush my teeth and get down to the car taking us to the airport. Ah Saginaw…another night could have been dangerous.

I just talked with an old road warrior pal of mine and as a result of that conversation, I feel “moved” to say a few things about the benefits of toilet humor. First of all, everyone thinks that farts are funny. PERIOD. And anyone who doesn’t admit it is a goddamn liar. I would give anything to be granted an interview with the Pope. Could you just picture tearing canvas in the presence of his holiness and watching him try to look…well, holy? And I contend that it is beyond the realm of reasonable belief to think that the presidential cabinet, any presidential cabinet, hasn’t been punctuated by high fives and comments like, “Nice one, George!” (Washington or Bush, take your pick).

I just thought that I would thin out the crowd and get rid of the potty humor pussies before I get into my story. Some years ago, I was doing a few “Oldies” type gigs. Four or five blasts from the past, a backstage deli tray, and a a bunch of liars telling each other about all the “original” music that they are recording back home and how they are all just about to get signed. The truth is that it was good work, good fun and decent dough. One of my favorite things was when the acts would argue about who was opening for who…(whom? ah, who cares). What was left of The Association were the worst, man. They (the two-and-a-half remaining guys) thought that they were too fucking famous to open for anyone else now that The Beatles had broken up. Seeing these self-possessed midgets in their white suits taking on Mitch Ryder’s leather and bandana clad gang was a special moment.

Well, back to the point. Sometimes there would be a celebrity DJ serving as emcee on these shows. Once, on a steaming summer day in North Carolina, I was sitting on the can getting rid of two days and three flights worth of road food induced bowel kinks. I heard the next door creak open and shut. Then I heard the unmistakable growl of Wolfman Jack as he lowered himself into the throne of life. “Owww baaby!” I had to laugh out loud and at the same time I thought, Fuck man, I’m shitting two feet away from Wolfman Jack! Then I heard a noise that sounded like bowling balls being dropped into a pool from a helicopter. I answered with a scatter-shot butt-splasher of my own and we both laughed uncontrollably.

As we washed our hands, Wolf told me a hilarious story. It seems that he was doing an all day gig and wearing an Elvis type jump suit. As he introduced the first act, he went to fart…and shit his pants! Picture it, outside gig, all day, no change of clothes…and porta-potties for facilities. I asked him what he did, and he said “what do you think, baby. I walked around in shitty pants all day long!” Christ, I smile at the thought.

So , if you’re not into toilet humor, fuck ya, I think its funny… and so do you, you just won’t admit it. More Shangri La next time.

I’m going to interrupt the story of my family’s move to California in order to pull a few examples out of the “weird gigs” bag. A gig qualifies as weird if something out of the ordinary occurs, surrounds or pervades the natural course of events. Now, gigs in general are by definition already pre-loaded with circumstances that can tend toward weirdness so I try to cull the ones that offer something more than just “there was a big fat chick in the front row” as a qualification.

I was Musical Director for Gary Puckett (yes, that Gary Puckett) and, as we were out on a string of one-nighters, the office had booked a few “fill-in” dates to cover expenses. You never really knew what to expect on these dates. Usually they were rock clubs in smaller towns and could be quite well attended. But every once in a while it could be the type of show that made us look at each other as if to tacitly promise that what just happened would never be mentioned again.

On this occasion, we found ourselves in San Leandro, California. The theater was one of those mission-like auditoriums that work really well for chamber music, barbershop quartets, or SAT testing. This type of theater, and there’s one in every town in california, puts the saying “you can hear a pin drop” into extreme focus. My first shudder came as we neared the back entrance for sound check and I saw two guys in salmon jumpsuits setting up what looked like a circular chain-link dog pen. I don’t remember the exact name on the truck but let’s just say it said something like “Acme Trained Dog Company”. We were opening for a dog act fer chrissakes! This was going to be a long frigging day!

One look inside and our sound man turned to us and said, “Look, fuck it, it’s not going to sound good…period, no matter what you do, no matter what I do, no matter what those goddamn poodles do. So let’s not piss these people off until we hit the stage.” Agreed all around. Incidentally, there were three poodles, they were the big boingy kind and all of them white. Of the three, two were always trying to hump and one was always shitting in that hump-back, shaky-legged way that only a smart-ass white poodle with two guys in salmon jumpsuits cleaning up after him can do.they all looked exactly the same so I hope that they were trading off between the humping and shitting.

Backstage, I got the details. This was a variety show for some sort of charity and our office had decided that it would be fun for us to spend the day in this circus rather that take a day off in San Francisco. Yeah! We decided to hang out in the dressing room and drink until we either had to play or the governor called the backstage telephone with a stay. The call never came.

Our part of the show was dismal but we had invoked road rule 1a, namely, “It never happened.” The acoustics in that barn were such that i’m certain that the snare drum is still reverberating in some corner of that room twenty years later. The dogs were a big hit though. It was, after all, a variety show and there were a ton of kids in the audience. I had thought that they would have humped and shitted themselves into some sort of civilized state before they hit the stage but I have an abiding respect for the stamina…and capacity of crazy white poodles as a result of what I saw on stage that evening. Between the hind-leg walking with a beach ball on the nose and the fire hoop jumping and the shaky-legged shitting at the stage apron and the crazed squeal of the kids as the poodles humped their way about the stage…Ah, I was actually glad to be there.

But then came he weird part. Yep, it got even better, at least for me. On the bill that night was a ventriloquist. I recognized him from having seen his act on TV. After his act (which was the usual talking while pretending to drink water, and the dummy making a dummy out of the ventriloquist), some kids in wheelchairs were brought backstage to meet him and probably to get the dummy’s autogragh. And then happened a truly extraordinary thing. A thing so unexpected and with such delicious results that I’ll never forget it. As the kids were wheeled around the ventriloquist, he did a little impromptu act for them and pretended to argue with the dummy. Just as the argument became heated, he twisted the head right off of the body, tossed it into an open bowling bag and threw the limp body into his briefcase, slamming it shut. As he zipped up the bowling bag the kids were horrified to hear the now disembodied head plead for air as the ventriloquist seethed, “Who’s the dummy now, dummy!” The kids were very quickly wheeled out of the dressing room emotionally scarred for the rest of their lives.

I’ll never know if he snapped or if he was just a naturally sick bastard, but that moment, the look on those kids faces when the head was begging for air…that made the whole day worth while.