Monday, November 17, 2014

High Strung Playtest Session - Dumpapalooza!

On Saturday, I ran another session of High Strung featuring the 1985 ska band, Dynamic Habit. Some of the band heard their demo song being played on the radio, and were totally stoked, not knowing in this day of no internet or email that it was getting scattered national play.

Wanda, at 18 the youngest in the band, let it be known that she had broken up with John Jacob Jinglehiemer-Schmidt, the 40 year old sax player, when she was 17 because not only was he sleeping with her, he'd gone after her 15 year old sister. John had just lost his day job as a keypunch operator, was sleeping on the couch in the rehearsal space, and hadn't money to put gas in his car, so it was a banner day for him. The band was disgusted, but John was a hell of a sax player...

Anyway, Doc Brown called every club in the Detroit area that allowed non-cover songs, and could find nothing. No gigs. No interest. Several prposals to do something fell flat, until Lief suggested they turn the warehouse the practice space was in into a club, and charge admission. This received unanimous approval, so everyone did something. They put just enough gas in John's car to get where they were going, and used that to haul what they could scrounge.

Lief asked his father for some cash and bought the non-scroungable stuff - beer, TP, and a decent PA from a pawn shop foremost. Rusty, who worked as a garbageman, brought Wanda and Doc to the dump, where they scrounged some decent though mismatched tables and chairs, and some nice hardwood flooring a renovator had ripped out of an apartment. Wanda knew about a cinder block wall they could dismantle by night for the underpinnings of the stage, and they cobbled together some passable stage lights scrounged from the dump. John cleared out the practice space, and Doc, who worked for the city's Public Works department, borrowed a street sweeper and cleaned the floor of the warehouse. They called it Club Dumpapaooza.

This is all completely outside the rules, mind! But I know one Band in Boston that did exactly this, the Phantoms, who created Club One in their basement, with scrounged booths, tables, and decor, and had many gigs on their own with other bands. I had to allow it.

Then they decided they needed a band manager to boost the draw. They would pay for it from their Hope in a rotating arrangement. Doc, John, and Rusty decided since they were hiring a Band manager, she might as well be a stripper too, so they hired Brandi Banxxx, who had both requisite talents.

They got a couple other bands to join in with them "Preferably bands who had a decent following but aren't as good as us!" and worked up to the gig. They decided to go on second, so the people who came to see the third act wouldn't leave early.

Right before the second set, John played his Nasty Card, which stated he put laxative in Doc's drink, to incapacitate him. Doc and John had been feuding since joining the band - Doc as trumpet player and John as sax man fought continually over who was the lead Riff player - and Doc had just started dating John's ex-wife to dig the knife deeper. John figured Doc would be unable to play, and that would settle who the lead was tonight!

Doc blew out his bowels, and, cramping violently, went to Brandi, asking for a butt plug and an adult diaper. Brandi, who turned some kinky tricks in her third side, could actually oblige, and with her help, Doc played through the set, though he did not challenge John for the lead.

They had their best gig yet, and went home happy, if in one case rather sore.

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