The Dirtbag Vernacular [Original Novel]
ENTRY 31
A guy named Darryl answers the ‘Guitar Player Wanted’ ad that Wes placed all over town. I pick Darryl up at his house one day after work to talk things over.
At the Chameleon we’re having a beer, “Yeah man, Thunders, he’s what it’s all about.” The skinny, gaunt, six-foot-tall, black haired guy talks about his favorite music.
“What kind of guitar do you play?” I ask.
“A Fender Mustang, and I know what you’re thinkin’, a Fender? But man… this baby screams. Ya see, I’m left handed. And it’s hard findin’ lefties, so I gotta take what I can get. Anyway, I stuck a Seymour-Duncan stacked humbucker in it. Man…, sounds just like a Junior.”
“Wha’d’you play?” he asks,
“A Les Paul Special.”
“Cool, cool.”
After we finish drinking and talking things over I go home, call Wes and we decide to try playing with Darryl. The next night I pick up Wes and Michael after work then get Darryl and head to the practice space.
“Okay, what you guys wanna start with?” I ask Michael and Wes.
“Lost Cause,” Wes suggests.
He starts it, me and Michael jump in and almost immediately Darryl is going off on a lead.
Later, I sit with Michael and Wes in a downtown bar just south of Market.
“That guy was playin’ a lead right off the bat tonight. I mean… we just started the first song and then he’s doin' some wanna be Cheetah Chrome thing. What’s the deal with that?” Michael inquires.
“I dunno,” I answer shrugging my shoulders.
“Well he’s prahbly the best option we got, all the other gahs ah talked to were inta Pearl Jam or Danzig,” Wes comments.
“Yeah, yeah,” I nod my head. By the time the evening is over we decide to ask the guy to play with us regularly.
I want to get to work on all the songs and get things squared away as quickly as possible, so at the next practice I suggest that we get Darryl singing. I figure start with something simple like the backing vocal on “It Takes Two.” I tell him that on the second verse he’ll be singing, “methyl ketone, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl ketone, methyl ethyl ketone,” over and over again.
When I tell him this he looks back at me with the same kind of bewildered look I might get if I asked the foreman at Ravanni & Tognotti Plumbing and Heating to sing these lyrics for me. Instantly I miss Frank, who delights in the absurd and ridiculous in all forms, especially in our songs and it drives the point home just how unique he is.
That night we also work on a couple of Darryl’s songs, one of them about a friend of his who had offed herself entitled “Fade to Black.” I can’t help but think it sounds just a little unoriginal and obvious for this day and age in the underground rock n roll world.
Photo by Hoffacurse