Rock and roll, blues and country music were carried to term and birthed in some fairly uncivilized wombs. Some of them were really, really uncivilized.
So, your goal is to play music all the time, do nothing else of any substance and get a job where drinking at work is the norm? Sleep all day if you want? Spend all of your time with people you shouldn’t even know? In places you shouldn’t be? I have some advice for you.
GET HELP. You can get a free referral to a psychiatrist in your area by going to: YouDon’tWantToDoThis.com.
Not so much anymore in this day of Disney-built pop bands, but bands used to work their way into the big time with years of playing in skanky bars for small money. The Beatles got their start in German strip bars.
All the names you might recall from the 1950s to the 1990s… bar bands. Most had to slog through years of it.
The successful and famous bands were the ones who had talented songwriters or who had super incredible talent and charisma. Everyone else… bars to infinity.
Not all bars are satanic dens of iniquity. They come in a wide range of civility, from the best to the worst. The best are boring to talk about, so I won’t.
I definitely have a “top ten” list (more like bottom ten) of the rough ones, so I will try to fit in three from that Hall of Infamy.
THE GOLDEN BELL —
Yep, right here outside Columbus. Out in the woods somewhere on the way to CAFB. When I mentioned it in a column, it surprised me to get comments from so many who remembered it.
Me and my best friend were 15 years old, inexperienced musicians, and we somehow got hired to fill in with a bar band of older guys. By older, I mean they were probably about 20-21 years old. They were all airmen from CAFB.
This is in the mid-60s. I don’t know how the Bell was during other periods of time, but then it was a rough and tumble juke joint of a place. Full on fights would occasionally break out with broken chairs and bottles. The drummer kept a shotgun behind the drum kit. It was quite an education.
The constable and his deputies would raid and bust heads here and there. Ray and I would hide when that happened, but they didn’t seem to be interested in minors in a bar.
BIG DADDIES — West Palm Beach, Florida
Back in the 70s and 80s there was a chain of bar nightclubs in South Florida called Big Daddies started by a for-real thug/gangster named “Big Daddy” Flannigan and owned behind the scenes by the Gambino crime family in New York. We played for a time in the one in the West Palm suburb of Lake Worth.
It was dark and dank. A place where hard core drinkers sat at the bar for hours floating their brains in whiskey. It was quiet when the band wasn’t playing, but there was a hovering sense of doom pervading the dimly lit room. It was reminiscent of the kind of establishment where you might expect a mob hit to happen. Like in the Godfather.
One night when we were on break, I noticed a strange sullen little man who had been sitting at the bar for hours talking to nobody. Suddenly as the bartender was walking past him, he stood up and punched her in the head. They had no conversation before that… he just cold cocked the girl.
From nowhere out of the shadows, three burly young men dressed in black suits and ties like John Wick appeared and whisked him out the back door. When they came back in (without him) I saw that one of them had blood on his white shirt. They were there then disappeared back into the shadows.
Another night, another wacko committed suicide on the sidewalk out front. Several years later, the brother of Charles Whitman, the sniper of the University of Texas mass shootings in 1966, was shot dead in the back parking lot.
Never a boring place.
THE PINK PUSSYCAT — North Palm Beach, Florida
The name sounds like either a strip club or an off brand version of Chuck E. Cheese, but it was a “hippyish” nightclub. Of the Degenerates, by the Degenerates and for the Degenerates. It was the mid-70s after all.
At least the crowd wasn’t violent, but that’s ‘cause they were numb head to toe.
This place was like the Costco of illegal drugs and the hard liquor flowed like a mountain stream. Folks on the dance floor would suddenly decide that dancing and rolling on the floor naked was a great idea. To use the restroom, one would have to navigate napping junkies and couples romancing in the booths.
Sodom and Gomorrah was a Wednesday night prayer meeting when compared.
Every now and then, young women would find a way to the side of the stage, out of the crowd’s sight, and perform an impromptu strip show to the music.
This was the cause of many mistakes and bad notes emanating from the band.
Oh, did I mention? We were the house band for a year.
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.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
