Hoo-boy, Columbus

We’ve had some memorable shows on January 26.  Rick Brown sang “Neutron Bomb” with us when Inconvenient Music opened up in Birmingham AL in 2007.  Both John Cameron Mitchell  (“Holly Holy“) and Daniel Johnston (“Speeding Motorcycle” and “The One After 909“) sat in with us at Sundance in 2005.  But my sentimental, if that’s the right word (it isn’t), favorite is Denison University in Granville OH in 1991.  We were in our Fakebook guise–Kevin Salem on lead guitar and Wilbo Wright on upright bass–and booked to play a free show in  some common room.  My notes tell me that support was provided by “2 guys with acoustic guitars singing classic rock” and my memory tells me that they killed.  We . . . did not.  Boredom was audible, but as show business professionals we were undeterred, and played a 15-song set.  An encore seemed utterly superfluous,  but a couple of friends from Columbus disagreed and demanded their 45-minute drive‘s worth.  This created a conundrum until we determined it would take us about five minutes to strike our equipment and set back up in our dressing room, so that’s what we did.  We invited anyone from the audience who wanted to join us to do so, and a couple of people stuck their heads in, but no one stayed.  We played another six songs and everyone was happy.  Almost everyone: The promoter called our agent the next day to complain and threatened to stop payment on our check.  He didn’t.

 

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