My musical history is drawing toward a close. The story currently recounts the summer of 1971, and though it continues on, my account will stop with the year of 1985.
Playing in a band with Crowbar was the most fun thing. He was totally pure in his approach. The first time he played his brand new Hofner Beatle Bass was at a band practice. Brillo and I would point out the chord changes and direct him toward the root note of each change. There was no slappin or flappin or freewheeling: it was all root note banging at a more or less primal level. And though Crowbar’s, all our, influences were immediately from the psychedelic era, he was punk, all punk, and nothing but the punk, the living embodiment of rock ethos and demonstration. I’m serious. Crowbar had no choice but to go straight at every song that came up. He’d had no time for lessons or study, and not being a natural musician in the traditional sense (Does it count that he played French horn in the high school marching band?), he just took the path of least resistance. He never objected to any outrageous idea, and by his basic nature was prone to experiment. But that’s the essence of rock music: anybody can do it. It’s campfire music with amplifiers; however, instead of sitting around a pit full of burning wood and plucking on a guitar or thumping on a tambourine while passing around a bottle and howling to the sky, the bandsmen gather in basements and garages and spare rooms to assault life with guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, singers, and occasionally horns, until the players become proficient enough on a selection of songs to play in other basements, garages, and spare rooms and howl at and share whatever with whomever shows up. That’s all there is to it. I don’t belittle great players and playing, I love them and that, but no one has to be great to play. It takes all kinds to make a band.
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