Things began to change for The House of Representatives. Urged on by the drummer, Dusty (not his real name) and his family, the band loaded up, and with our families, drove to the Knoxville studios of television station WATE and auditioned for a spot on Cas Walker’s Talent Parade. Both CEP and I were big fans of that show, and The Heroes had appeared, as had that band’s lead singer (who appeared twice as a guitarist/singer, and won on his second try), but I just didn’t care about playing it. I don’t know why.
Dusty’s stint with THOR is a hard luck story. He knew more of what playing in a band was about (the girls) than the rest of us horny idiots. Problems arose because the idiots foolishly took the playing of music seriously. Dusty wasn’t so serious in that way. The beautiful neighborhood girls, neighbors of Crowbar and Brillo (one was Crowbar’s sister), often attended practice, and that threw Dusty into a tailspin. He sometimes drifted off time during songs while trying to flirt with the girls. The rest of us didn’t care that he talked to the girls, but going off time was a sin. He wasn’t serious enough (as if a 14 year old can be so serious), so he was already on the way out before we took that Knoxville trip.
Walking through the Greystone studios was like touring a shrine. The sets for all the shows were spaced throughout a large, underground area. The ship shaped bleachers that housed kids attending a Saturday morning show featuring Popeye cartoons. The news set was not far away, and a fairly small spot surrounded by curtains made up the Talent Parade location.
I don’t remember any other performers that day, but I know we auditioned for host Hop Edwards on Sunday, got accepted, and were scheduled to play on the following Thursday evening’s show. Just like that. I started warming to the idea of playing on television, but what could THOR do? We spent some hard thinking and rehearsing time trying to come up with something good. Dusty had been told that he wasn’t going to remain in the band, and none of us thought we would win the competition, so we went for something really safe, and lame, by choosing Sleep Walk to launch our television careers. Brillo tried to get me to sing on telly, but I was too scared of screwing up.
When the band arrived at the studio on Thursday night, the newscast was still going on. That was very interesting for me to see, even though I was totally distracted about performing in an hour or less. We were rushed in and stuck into our little covey and stood around until Hop introduced the band and the cameras pointed at us. We knocked off Sleep Walk, went home, fired Dusty, hired a new drummer, and discovered we had won the competition. What a shock! The Heroes hadn’t even won. We were a bit stunned.
Dusty’s dad telephoned and asked if his son was tossed out of the band. When he got the answer he didn’t want, he threatened to pull the plug on the entire Talent Parade thing. None of us really cared, which made him even madder. On Talent Parade, if an act won, it was invited back for an encore the following week, and then to compete against other winners after a cycle that played out every six weeks. With its new member, THOR showed up for the encore. While standing behind the organ in the glare of lights, I saw Dusty and his family enter from the darkened far end of the studio. They sat on the bleachers of The Good Ship Lollypop while the show went on, topped off by Wipe Out, a song equally lame to the one of the previous week, to feature the band’s new drummer. It must have felt like a kick in the teeth to Dusty, and I guess that’s what it was, and I have to say that I’m sorry we did him that way. He was one of the hardest workers when it came to putting the band together and was shown the door after a triumphant moment he’d been instrumental in engineering. Shit like that always hurts, but the band continued.
Bolstered by television fame, THOR was booked to play a dance for The Young Republicans at the Farm Bureau in Madisonville. Like all dances at the FB at that time, it was poorly attended, though the band was paid $25. That performance was followed with another at the same venue a week later, but this time sponsored by THOR, and thereby responsible for the rent. Like the YR gig, this one generated no revenue and the money we’d made the week before was spoken for. That’s what we had decided to do with that money, though we’d foolishly hoped to make a couple of bucks.
THOR finished its obligation to Talent Parade soon after that FB gig. We stopped at a restaurant and celebrated on the way home. Brillo’s dad wondered who would be paying for our dinners, but Brillo said he’d take care of it. “Where’d you get the money” I asked. “It’s the rent money for the Farm Bureau,” he answered. We giggled and enjoyed our deserts.
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