This is part two of a two part column. Part one can be found in last Saturday’s paper.

In Part One, I talked about the trials and tribulations finding the right people and creating a working band.

You have musicians, a well rehearsed songlist and a plan. Okay.

Now it’s time to take your newly trained army onto the battlefield. Will we have a victorious battle and be legendary, or will the whole thing collapse with us running away and slaughtered like lambs?

You never ever really know until that first song ends. Although I’ve done it more times than I can remember, it’s always the same: waiting for either a warm wave to wash over you OR a sliver of ice sliding down your spine.

If it does go bad, it’s like landing upside down, hanging from your seatbelt on a certain airline’s plane.

Gladly, it’s usually been at least okay through the years.

Before you can even get to that point, your band has to get booked. Unless you hire an agent (who will take a hunk of your money), you are going to find yourself negotiating with some of the sleaziest characters you never had wished to meet: club and bar owners.

Not every one is bad, but you can say that about people on death row too.

Alcoholics (they own and sell ALCOHOL!), drug addicts of every type you might imagine, sociopaths, megalomaniacs, kinkos and occasionally full blown psychotics.

You would think they would fit it with the band members.

(Just kidding guys.)

So you get the jobs booked and on the calendar. Then all you have to do is what I called in Part One…”herding cats.”

Somehow you have to round up four or five humans who are not known as a group for stability and get them there. Somewhat sober and organized. On time. Without killing each other. Bad habits and all.

I must say though, back in the “old days” it was many times worse, especially the drugs and alcohol.

I once had a drummer, a very good drummer, who was a terrible druggie.

He was into any kind of “down” drugs. Barbiturates, pain meds, etc.

We’ll call him “Jim”… because Jim was his name.

At the time quaaludes, a really strong sedative, was his steady diet. He would start taking them toward the end of the night. We could tell because the songs in the last set got slower and slower. He would almost be falling off his drum stool the entire time.

I finally told him he couldn’t do that anymore or we’d have to fire him.

His typical musician’s solution was to take the pill 14 minutes before the last song ended. That’s how long it took to take effect. As the last note was ringing, he actually WOULD fall over. I think he took two out of spite.

I finally gave up. Well, if I can get four whole sets out of him, we’ll just have to call that a winner.

Another time, we had a guitar player/keyboard man who had even a worse problem. He would take pretty much any drug, in copious amounts, and wash it down with whatever hard liquor was available. Also somewhat psychotic.

Although he was a pretty good musician when sober, he was hardly ever sober. He was very sloppy when not sober.

When he was totalled out – any time after the first set – he couldn’t seem to tune his guitar. There were no electronic tuners then. It was all by ear.

Saturday night and the venue was packed to the hilt. Second set had just started and our boy, quite toasted, was fumbling with the tuners on his guitar, cursing out loud. He lost his pick and was turning red.

Grabbing the expensive Gibson by the neck, he raised it high in the air and smashed it into the stage, threw it at the audience and stormed right through the crowded dance floor to the front door. You could hear his car squealing out of the parking lot never to be seen again.

The only saving grace is that the crowd thought it was part of the show and cheered him mightily.

Ready to go start a band yet?

Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.