LUNKHEADED

Part Five

Things really started to come together when Brian came aboard. He took his metal guitar abilities and transferred them flawlessly to bass, coming up with really inventive, rolling bass lines that really livened the songs up. John was also really starting to excel as a guitar player and I think having Brian around to push him totally helped John.

John was a prodigy from the beginning though, we all knew it. He was easily the most talented one of us. In addition to being an amazing painter and a gnarly skateboarder, he came from a family of musicians and was destined to become the virtuoso he developing into. Dave, John’s older brother, was a working jazz guitarist and had done tours overseas and their dad was a gigging bluegrass guitar and banjo player. When you would go over there for dinner, after the food was done everyone would pick up guitars and they’d have a Sampson Family Jam. They’d go on and on, playing more and more complex interweaving tunes, all made up as they went along. I’d sit there with my after-dinner coffee and wish I was a Sampson.

John is also the, for lack of a better word; wackiest person I’ve ever known. One time after practice we noticed that it was boat launch day at the beach up the street. Cars and boats were bumper to bumper in front of the house, and suddenly John is rolling down the double yellow line on his skateboard in a Batman mask and bedsheet cape. He would ride slowly between the cars, peering into the cars and SUV’s with a scowl on his face. “I’m Batman.” He told them as they rolled up their windows. Another time, back in the Kolar’s garage days, we invented this game called Retard Hitchhiking. We’d found a cache of rad 70’s clothes that had been Kev and his brothers’ when they were kids out in the garage, so we squeezed into the ill-fitting sweaters and windbreakers and put on our skateboarding helmets. Then we walked out by the main road and wandered around into traffic, drooling, without thumbs out. Cars would slow down so as not to hit any of the retarded hitchhikers as we’d moan incoherently at the, occasionally flopping down onto the road, kicking and screaming.


The first gig we played with Brian on bass was at this joint called Fotch’s. Fotch’s claim to fame was the free video games. “FREE VIDEO GAMES!!!” all the flyers would scream. Brian knew the dude who put out CAMM, a local metal magazine, and he also booked shows at Fotch’s. He booked us a show with his band, STYGIAN. For some reason this guy thought we would draw well. We drew okay, but this place was in no mans land and we were only in it for the video games and didn’t give two shits how many people showed up as long as they had Punch-Out.

Twenty or so of our friends showed up, like us, mainly for the video games, and at first the owner guy didn’t wanna turn the games on. After a near mutiny, the power was turned on, and there was a stampede into the game room. The games were all 80’s games, but free video games are free video games.

After about an hour of Tempest, Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Scott Stygian. “Dude,” he said “you’re on.” “Shit, man, can you give us a few more minutes?” I asked. He kinda shrugged and wandered off so I turned back to my game. A little while later we pryed everyone away from their respective games and filed back into the bar area. We’d been in the arcade for the better part of an hour and had expected the room to be steadily filling in our absence. As we entered, it was apparent that it hadn’t.

There was nobody there. Literally, nobody. An empty room. Even the bartender didn’t show. The only people there were us, our friends, STYGIAN, and the sound guy. We asked if we could move the PA into the arcade and do the show in there but they said no. So, laughing, we jumped on stage.

The best shows are always the ones nobody sees. One time, in L.A. we got booked in with this goofy straight-edge band at an afternoon show. The five or so straight-edgers who showed up stood with their backs against the wall, and we just totally went for it. Screaming, yelling, rolling around on the stage, it was easily one of our most frenetic shows and as we walked off the stage and directly out the door I actually said to one of the dudes in the other band, “Top that, buddy.”

This was one of those shows. Shit just clicks. You hit on all cylinders and just go OFF. We did that again. We ripped through ten songs in about 25 minutes and went right back to the arcade, drenched in sweat and played Centipede while STYGIAN played to the sound guy.