So as many of you know, I'm living in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and have been for nearly a year now. Still involved in music back home to a degree through the web and such. I try to do as much playing as I can down here, though it's not always easy especially for a hard hitting ex punk drummer like myself. Guitar players down here are a dime a dozen, and all believe they're the next coming of Stevie Ray Vaughn. Don't get me wrong I love Stevie, but there was only one. Any musician who's not one of the sort of guitar players will know exactly what I'm getting at here, but that's for another post all together.
I've been jamming with this guy Andy, who runs the dog shelter that I volunteer at sometimes, Peanut Pet Shelter. He has this little dingy, dirty, stinky, back room that we jam in. He plays bass, and I'm on the drums, or sometimes guitar if there's no one else. Just the two of us, nothing to exciting but a fun way to spend an evening with a few beers. Well his friend Eric is down from Minnesota for a month. Eric is a really great guitar player and we've been practicing a couple songs to play at Bad Boys beach bar.
Bad Boys has a house band, JJ and the Nasty Bastards that play every Thurs and Sat and have guest musicians throughout the night. They play mostly standard cover songs like, Sweet Home Alabama, Mustang Sally, Old Time Rock and Roll, Margarita Vile, ect, ect, ect,. So we threw together Black Sabbath's Paranoid, and ZZ Top's La Grange and went down to Bad Boys last night. We took the stage to start their 3rd set, about 7:45 or so. This bar actually closes at 9 or so, weird I know, but I think it's because it's right on the beach and most of the night life is up on 5th ave, or down near the night club scene so it makes sense. Also "some" of the clientele is, let's call them....... blue hairs, or older than dirt, you get the idea. So needless to say by 9:00 when the band finishes "some" of the customers are tired and need to head home to bed and get their dentures out! (just kidding)
So we get up on stage and JJ introduces us as this new band in Playa called the Playa Dawgz. We bust into Paranoid. I don't really know what to expect from the crowd as this is a much heavier song than this bar is accustomed to hearing, not to mention the frequent Satanic references! I wasn't really paying attention to the crowd anyway. I wasn't nervous or anything, but when I perform I just focus, and tune everything else out that's not part of the music, its a science! We're rockin' out, it's loud, way louder than any of our practices, it great! After the guitar solo we head back into a verse, and I look over at Andy (who's doing the singing on this one - great job singing Ozzy, most people wouldn't dare trying to sing like the prince of fucking darkness!) and he's fumbling around in his pocket, telling us to keep going. Of course Eric and I keep on rockin', looking at each other with confusion on our faces. After playing through an entire verse without any singing or bass for that matter, Andy finally pulls out this crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, unfolds it and sets it on the floor in front of him. Ah yes, his lyrics! So we all have a quick chuckle as Andy jumps back into the verse! It was great! It was comical, yet we didn't miss a beat, and for the most part I doubt much of the audience even had a clue what was going on.
So we powered threw the rest of Paranoid and as I hit the last crash to end the song, the place erupted, went absolutely nuts like I've never heard before! It was crazy! This is a small bar and it sounded like a small coliseum after we finished the song. We quickly got our focus back and kicked into La Grange by ZZ Top this time Tony from the Nasty Bastards jumped in on guitar, as well as Skinny on keyboard. Not my favorite song by any means, but none the less we kicked the crap out of it and got a huge ovation again! It was fun. It was what I prefer to do rather what I have been doing here, music wise that is. We aren't the greatest players, but I like planning a couple songs, practicing a bit, and then performing them. We are going to do this every Saturday for the next few weeks while Eric is in town. Next week I think we're doing Smokin' in the Boys Room, and maybe Hells Bells by AC-DC. Should be awesome! I'll be sure to post some pictures and maybe even video if anyone captured any.
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