Tales From The Musical Trenches

By C.B. Heinemann

While everyone hears stories about famous musicians, the barely visible world of struggling musicians is jammed with juicier stories, more colorful characters, and a powerful streak of hopeful desperation. In my own long musical career, I have played, toured, and recorded with everyone from the unknown to the revered. Those who put their futures on the line to pursue dreams unlikely to ever come true possess a peculiar, mad optimism that creates lives that can be more fascinating than those of the stars. The world of struggling musicians is a world of heartbreak and hope, death and redemption, near-starvation and triumph, addiction and epiphany.

My musical life has introduced me to extraordinarily interesting and inspiring people, and has taken me to places I would otherwise have never known. But it is always the music that is the most important thing to all those who have chosen this difficult and unpredictable life, and it is always the music that sustains and nourishes us, even in the face of our self-imposed hardships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.B. Heinemann
• Release date: Apr 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463861547

C.B. Heinemann

C.B. Heinemann has been performing, recording and touring with rock and Irish music groups for more than 30 years. The Washington Post said his songs are “...among the best coming from either side of the Atlantic,” and Dirty Linen called him a “virtuoso.” His short stories have appeared in Florida English, Berkeley Fiction Review, Cigale, Rathalla Review, Howl, Ascent, Lowestoft Chronicles, Outside In Literary Journal, Storyteller, One Million Stories, Whistling Fire, Danse Macabre, Battered Suitcase, Fate, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Cool Traveler, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Car & Travel. His stories have been featured in anthologies published by Florida English, One Million Stories, and Whereabouts.

Book preview

TALES FROM THE

MUSICAL TRENCHES

A Collection of Short Stories

By C.B. Heinemann

Furka Press Smashword Edition

Copyright 2020 by C.B. Heinemann

All rights reserved

Smashword Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reissued to others for commercial or noncommercial purposes. Thank you for your support.

Swan Song for Wild Rick, first published in Whistling Fire, Celts, Kilts, and Kips in Florida English; Godzilla In Washington in Battered Suitcase; Freiburgitis in Inside/Outside Literary and Travel Magazine; Three White Boys in Rathalla Literary Journal; The Swiss Birthday Party in Inside/Outside Literary and Travel Magazine; Playing For the War in Ascent Magazine; The Price of A Toilet In Oldenburg in Lowestoft Chronicles; Obsession in BioStories; A Few Tunes In the Pub in Mountain Tales Press—Whisperings: Galileo’s Hood in One Million Stories, 2010 Anthology; A Party North of Baltimore in Deltona Howl Archives; Back to the Stone Age in Inside/Outside Literary and Travel Magazine; Concert In Savona in Ascent Magazine; Looking For Ireland first published as Troubled Holidays in Dear Old Erin in Inside/Outside Literary and Travel Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Swan Song For Wild Rick

Celts, Kilts, and Kips

Godzilla In Washington

Freiburgitis

Three White Boys

The Swiss Birthday Party

The Court of the

Princess of Rockabilly

Playing For the War

The Price Of A Toilet in Oldenburg

The Best Gig Ever

Obsession

A Few Tunes In the Pub

Galileo’s Hood

A Party North of Baltimore

Back To the Stone Age

Concert In Savona

Dave’s Basement

In the Eye Of the Cat

The Last Busker

Looking For Ireland

About C.B. Heinemann

Other Titles by C.B. Heinemann

Connect with C.B. Heinemann

Introduction

While everyone hears stories about famous musicians, the barely visible world of struggling musicians is jammed with juicier stories, more colorful characters, and a powerful streak of hopeful desperation. In my own long musical career, I have played, toured, and recorded with everyone from the unknown to the revered. Those who put their futures on the line to pursue dreams unlikely to ever come true possess a peculiar, mad optimism that creates lives that can be more fascinating than those of the stars. The world of struggling musicians is a world of heartbreak and hope, death and redemption, near-starvation and triumph, addiction and epiphany.

Most of these stories are taken from my own life and experiences. The stories Celts, Kilts, and Kips; Freiburgitis; The Swiss Birthday Party; Galileo’s Hood; and Looking For Ireland, read in that order, chronicle my first musical trip to Europe, and form the framework for my novel, The Last Buskers of Summer. A few stories are based on real experiences with a few details altered and the timeline compressed to prevent tedious digressions. Back to the Stone Age—which contains the seeds of my novel, Ghosts Behind Walls—is very loosely based on real events, but with imaginary characters and life circumstances dropped into the story, while A Few Tunes in the Pub and The Last Busker are fictional. I have to admit that historical accuracy may be a bit off at times. To paraphrase Sellar and Yeatman, authors of the cleverly mangled version of English history 1066 and All That, history is not so much about what really happened, but rather what you remember.

My musical life has introduced me to extraordinarily interesting and inspiring people, and has taken me to places I would otherwise have never known. But it is always the music that is the most important thing to all those who have chosen this difficult and unpredictable life, and it is always the music that sustains and nourishes us, even in the face of our self-imposed hardships.

Swan Song For Wild Rick

I’d heard rumors about Wild Rick Mizell for years. He was the hottest guitarist in town and considered one of the local musicians most likely to make it big. He’d been playing to packed nightclubs for years, and when he opened for Johnny Winter at American University, Winter asked him to come up and jam with him at the end of his set. My friends and I were too young to get into the clubs where he played, but we heard stories from older brothers and sisters. So when my friend Mark caught me between classes in eleventh grade to tell me that Rick wanted to audition us for his new band, I was not only flabbergasted that he was interested in hiring us, but that he even knew we existed.

The next day after school let out I saw a guy in his early twenties with long dark hair and a fat handlebar mustache sitting in a blue Ford Falcon behind the school busses. That’s him, said Mark, who ran up beside me. Right on time, too.

I climbed into the back seat and Rick glanced at me in the rear view mirror. His eyes were dark and glittering. Hey man, thanks for coming. His voice was high and he spoke in spurts. So we’ll see what happens, okay? I’ve got some gigs lined up. I want to stop doing cover songs and make my own mark on the world but I need a band. I hear you guys are really good and don’t mind a little hard work.

I didn’t know who was spreading such stories, but didn’t argue.

I’ve got drums, a bass, everything you need already. And there’s a six-pack of Cokes in the trunk for you, too.

I could tell that Wild Rick was shy and even a little nervous. He drove us a few miles to a brick colonial with a dirt yard next to a highway. We followed him into what looked like a typical hippie group house—bare wood floors, a few mismatched and worn sofas, anti-war posters on the walls. As we entered the kitchen I saw where the garlic and tomato aroma came from. A young woman in overalls with a thick, dark braid down her back was cooking up a big pot of sauce while a toddler played at her feet.

Hey guys, this is Amy, a friend of mine, Rick said as Amy turned and smiled at us. Here, come on down.

Rick led us into a spacious basement with only a few cardboard boxes and stacks of amplifiers and speaker cabinets. A double tom-tom set of Ludwigs was set up and ready to go. Mark picked up a red Gibson EBO bass that was plugged in to an Ampeg amp almost as tall as he was. Is this for me to use?

Yeah, I know you usually play guitar, so it’s pretty easy to play.

While I sat at the drums and adjusted them I wondered what the catch might be. Rick bent down and pulled a gold Les Paul out of his case and strapped it on. The black leather strap was emblazoned with gold lettering.

What does that strap say? I only saw part of it as Rick plugged in. Wild Rice?

Rick popped a short, loud laugh. No, man. Wild Rick, not Wild Rice. He pulled the strap down for me to see. You’re crazy, man. But hey, let’s call our band Wild Rice. He laughed again, turning away as if embarrassed. Wild Rice. I like that.

Once he put the guitar on I saw him in all his glory. Along with the long, gleaming dark hair sweeping across his back and that big mustache he wore a scarlet silk shirt, black trousers, and alligator skin cowboy boots. Rings flashed from most of his fingers and colorful tassels dangled from his guitar and strap. Most striking was that he was only about five-foot-three. After tuning he cranked up the volume on his stack of Marshal amps and let loose a high-speed barrage of guitar flash that was so loud and so virtuostic that I reeled for a moment. This guy was the real thing—a guitar God.

Mark tuned up then looked behind the top of his amp for a moment. This is seven-hundred watts? Seven hundred? I didn’t know they went up that high!

Yeah man, it’s plenty powerful, said Rick. So look, here’s the first song. You might want to turn up some.

Once we were playing Rick lost his nervousness and led us through the first group of songs, carefully teaching us each change, each segment, so that it would be just right. It was immediately apparent why he liked the idea that we were hardworking, because we went over and over and over the songs until they were pounded into our minds forever. I had to beat those drums harder than I ever had before because Rick liked to play loud—very loud. I was too young and awestruck to suggest that he might turn down, and that first rehearsal may have been the beginning of serious high-end hearing loss, but I still remember the songs and those tricky changes so well I could still play them today if the need arose.

After a couple of hours Rick drove us both home. We rehearsed with him three times a week for six weeks and built up a set of solid material, most of it Rick’s originals. His songs were built around catchy blues-rock riffs with extended guitar solos that showed off his talents. He didn’t bother much with lyrics, which were generally a couple of lines per song repeated over and over. One was You’ve got my soul, babe—You’ve got my soul. Another was You got my money—And you know that. The day he showed up with an acoustic 12-string he made up a song on the spot. The music was hard edged, but the lyrics consisted of variations on I don’t know—Where I’m going today. There may have been more lyrics to his songs, but I never heard them.

Those little fingers of his were a blur on the fretboard, but speed wasn’t all there was to his playing—he employed complex phrasing built on a succession of inventive melodic twists that developed into a crescendo of such emotional power that I could hardly believe he could pull it off. In spite of his gifts he was ill-at-ease around us. It was easy to understand—he didn’t really know us and to him we were kids. Many people get involved in music because they don’t know how else to relate to other people. Mark and I never really got to know Rick, though we chattered happily away to him about ourselves. We often talked about our friend Dave, and one day when Rick came to my house to pick me up, he looked at my dog with a puzzled expression. Hey man, is this Dave?

Rick didn’t provide many details about our first gig, and on the Sunday evening he drove us there I found out why. It was at a nursing home. How or why a nursing home hired a loud blues-rock band was a mystery, but Rick treated it with the same businesslike demeanor he might treat any gig. As we set up, I could see his hands trembling.

Once we got started, Wild Rick flew into action. He strutted like a rooster around the stage area in his alligator boots and a black satin shirt, his stubby fingers racing around the neck of his guitar, his head thrown back until his hair thrashed at the small of his back. He tore through his repertoire of blazing fast leads, low note moans, and high note shrieks. I expected our elderly audience to retreat, but their eyes never left him.

After the set a line of elderly ladies waited to meet him, most of them in wheelchairs. I broke down equipment and looked over occasionally. Every one of the ladies took his little hands in theirs, their eyes glowing up at him, and thanked him for coming to make their day so much brighter. Rick, still flushed and perspiring, thanked them for coming the same way he might thank an old friend.

Our next gig was at a coffeehouse for teens called The Garish Grape. I knew the place well and had many friends who hung out there. It was appropriately gloomy, with dripping candles, black lights, and black walls punctuated by psychedelic posters. Most bands who played there were inept at best, fumbling through Cream and Hendrix covers. I could hardly wait to do a gig in front of my peers and Wild Rick didn’t disappoint. He was electrifying, and we left the crowd in slack-jawed amazement. I felt like a rock star.

But it was the very next gig that we had been building up to and that had us all on edge. It was at The Emergency, a big-time venue, featuring local stars like Grin—lead by Nils Lofgrin, who later joined Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band—and touring national acts. Rick was more wound up than usual and could barely get out more than three words at a time while we set up. I knew the gig meant a lot to him. He was sweating when he picked us up that afternoon.

Minutes before our set he pulled us into the men’s room and held out two plastic cards. I got you fake ID’s just in case. But I don’t want anything to happen, man. This is the night we start to make our mark on the world. Whatever you do, don’t try getting a beer or anything like that. Don’t even go near the bar—I’ll get you cokes. And stay in the background, you know? Don’t attract attention. Stay under the radar. We could all get in a lot of trouble.

The place was jammed and Rick turned his amp up all the way. On the first note I swore I could see sound waves ripple out from the stage on a fusillade of high volume. The bass made my lungs shake and the floor pulsate, I pounded the drums so hard that my hands hurt, and Rick’s guitar demolished everything in sight, screaming on high notes before descending in a lightning flurry of growling riffs to crushing power chords. We were so loud that my inner ear twirled with vertigo, and several times I almost keeled over. That relentlessly visceral intensity was painful and intoxicating.

During one of Rick’s solos I heard a crash and commotion through his Les Paul’s cries for mercy. Five policemen ambled in and signaled for us to stop. The agitated owner ran out and spoke to the policemen. People started to leave and Rick hopped offstage to see what was happening. After about a minute he climbed back up and hurried over to me. The cops are closing the place down, man. We’re done. Let’s get our stuff and get out. He gave a short laugh. We blew the windows out, man, can you believe it? We blew the friggin’ windows out!

Rick was more silent than usual on the ride home. He pulled over in front of my house and let the engine rumble. When he turned to me, I saw tears in his eyes. Hey man, I just want to thank you guys for everything. For everything. You were great and I’m really proud of you. I can’t thank you guys enough.

It’s cool, I said, feeling a nudge of alarm. Sorry we got kicked out, but it was fun anyway.

Yeah, man. He turned around and wiped one sleeve across his eyes. Okay, I’ll call you guys, okay? Take it easy.

Mark and I didn’t hear from Rick for a couple of weeks and he didn’t return our calls. We wondered if he was discouraged by getting the boot from The Emergency, or if he decided we just weren’t all that good. We still had a couple of gigs coming up and I didn’t know what to think.

At last I got a call from Rick and he asked if Mark and I could meet him at Gino’s, a burger joint not far from where we all lived. We waited for him and nibbled at Gino Giants, wondering why he wanted to meet us there, of all places. Maybe he wanted to formally kick us out of the band. Or maybe he wanted to discuss future plans. Maybe, Mark suggested, he was just hungry.

When Rick showed up he was wearing a white polo shirt and jeans; it was the first time I’d seen him out of his Wild Rick persona. He walked in with red eyes and a somber expression that gave me a twinge of concern. He shook our hands, which cranked that twinge into a jolt. Hey guys, thanks for coming. I won’t keep you long.

Oh no, I said to myself, here it comes. We’re fired.

Hey man, I just wanted to thank you again for all you’ve done. You guys were more than I could have hoped for. You work hard and you’re really talented. You’re going to go a long way, man. I know that.

Mark looked at me and then at Rick. So what’s happening, Rick? What’s this all about? What’s going on?

I’m sick, man. Rick took a shaky breath and lowered his eyes. I’ve got cancer. I’ve got to go in for treatments. They say I don’t really have much of a chance—maybe a couple of months left. I guess this is the end of the band. I’m really sorry, guys.

I sat staring at him, feeling as if I’d been smacked in forehead with that Les Paul of his. Mark leaned toward him. You’ll get better, Rick. I know you will. We’ll come visit you in the hospital or wherever. You’ll be all right.

Yeah, don’t listen to those stupid doctors, I said, still in shock. You’ve got something special inside that can beat this.

I don’t know. Rick’s voice lost that nervous staccato. I’m going back home to New York State. To be near my parents and all. It’s too far for you guys. And, I don’t know, I just don’t think you should come. I don’t want you to see me, you know, after all they’re going to do.

We’ll get up there, Rick, I said, fighting to comprehend. We can borrow my mom’s car.

No, man, I don’t want you to. Don’t come up. Please. I can’t explain it. Tears filled his eyes until they glittered like diamonds. I just want you know how much it’s meant to me to play with you guys. You helped me maybe, you know, leave something of myself behind. You guys, all this, meant a lot to me.

He got up and left. We stood at the big windows watching him drive away in his blue Falcon just as a mom came in with seven kids screaming and scrambling all over the place.

Decades later when I run into graying musicians who have been playing around the area for awhile I’ll ask if they ever heard of Wild Rick Mizell. Frequently, their faces come alive. Ricky? Wild Rick? Of course I knew him. They stop and chuckle to themselves. Poor little Ricky. Another pause, this time without a chuckle. Man, there will never be another Wild Rick again. Never ever again.

On a whim I recently Googled him, using all the variations of his name, wondering if his music ever did outlive him in some way. I didn’t get a single hit.

Celts, Kilts, and Kips

Just as I managed to drop into sleep, a jolt shot me into wakefulness. There was finality in the way the train slowed in a series of jerks, a summons in the long, loud hissing of the brakes. The world was still dark, but I heard muffled noises in the corridor. I woke Charlie and Terry, picked up my pack and bouzouki case, and stumbled out of our compartment while a series of bumps knocked me sideways.

Two students with baggy pants and spiked hair already stood near the doors rubbing their eyes and blinking at each other. As my companions joined me, I put down my baggage and pressed my face against the cold window to look outside.

The night was black as doom, except for the freckles of stars above and a few random lights in the countryside. We had just reached the furthest-flung barnacle on Europe’s outer hull, and I wondered again what made us think that going there would be a good idea. I noticed more lights ahead and called my friends over for a look. A small white sign with black lettering was close enough to read. Lorient, I said as a chill squirmed through me.

The train hissed again and heaved to a stop. We shuffled behind the few others getting off. Rain gushed from a clot of clouds that swooped down from nowhere, and I regretted leaving our comfortable haven for the forbidding world of Francophones outside.

Through a labyrinthine maze of friends-of-friends-of-friends talking to the right people, we managed to get ourselves invited to perform at the Festival Interceltique in France—their first American band ever. After years of playing traditional Irish music for drunks in bars who only wanted to hear Danny Boy, we felt like we’d been handed a promotion to play with the big boys. By day, Charlie was a bike messenger, Terry worked at a record store, and I was proofreader for a typesetting company going bankrupt, so we were all eager to make a big leap into the unknown and maybe, with luck, make it as musicians in Europe.

Our train disappeared while the other disembarking passengers evaporated like ghosts. Terry, puffy-eyed, stuck his fiddle case between his knees and lit a cigarette. Charlie looked around with a grin. We got here late and early at the same time. I guess we won’t find out where we’re supposed to go for a while.

We retreated into the dingy station cafe, annoying our waiter by not being able to speak French, smoking, and pouring coffee into our stomachs while waiting for dawn to make an entrance. I found myself repeating my jokes to an increasingly unreceptive audience as a soft haze of blue began to creep over the edge of Europe. It was time for a look around. The air outside was laced with the tingle of early morning.

Lorient wasn’t the simple fishing village we had envisioned. The road from the station merged with a wide, tree-lined boulevard crammed with shops and large concrete buildings checkered with wrought-iron balconies. Cars and bicycles gradually oozed onto the streets, over which strings of colorful banners fluttered in the breeze. Lorient was a modern city, without a fishing boat or stripe-shirted fisherman in sight. Rebuilt after the devastation of Allied bombing raids on a German submarine base during the last World War, much of the town looked as if it had been cobbled together from mismatched pre-fab housing leftovers without regard to grace or durability. The scent of car exhaust grew in the warming air.

The lingering effect of jet lag made me feel like a sumo wrestling team was sleeping off lunch on top of my head, and we staggered through the streets for more than two hours, following directions in the dyslexic English that the festival organizers mailed to me until we finally found a small shop with a sign taped over the glass door—Bureau du Festival.

I bent down and squinted at the smaller sign beneath it. Great, it opens at nine and it’s quarter past. I’ve got a French phrase book, so I’ll trying talking to them.

After a frustrating game of charades with the sleepy office inmates, I began to understand that I would have some bad news for