Chapter 1: On Most Surfaces

I knew within five minutes of walking into the room what the trouble was, and I almost decided to turn around and walk out right then and there. But I didn't ... and I nearly came to regret it, but now I can look upon it as a learning experience. Sometimes in life you really do have to eat all of your vegetables before you get to enjoy your dessert.

The Montrose Ravens were a local Houston metal band, better than most actually, possessing a couple of very talented musicians that could have their pick of working for nearly any local band with a snap of the fingers. They were also masters of the fine arts of infighting, backstabbing and other numerous self-inflicted wounds that are invariably fatal to any working band. They were ripe for a break-up long before I walked in the door. Only the presence of a signed contract requiring the MR's to spend the next three months as the supporting and opening act for larger touring band (and the significant cash advance already received and spent) was enough to keep the band even remotely functioning together. This wasn't the big time by any stretch of the imagination, but it was national exposure, and if nothing else a wider area to spread ones musical resume over.

I was to be their new replacement bass player, Carl Hawkins, by name. Veteran of ten years of the pop wars of the 1980's, and at least as many local and regional bands. I hadn't had very good luck finding the right long term fit, but I had built a solid reputation over the years for both professional reliability and my 'progressive' influenced skills with the bass (an instrument of considerable underrated ability in the hands of a master like John "The Ox" Entwhistle, John Paul Jones, or my favorite bassman Chris Squire of 'Yes'). My predecessor, whom in my opinion was an untalented hack that did little more onstage than repeatedly 'bang the root note', had clearly been their musical weakest link but was now he was gone for good.

In a tale that would have been quite funny, if it wasn't really rather sad, he had been caught as part of a late night police sting operation at a popular Houston public park at a spot notorious for nighttime 'pervert activity' with his pants down around his ankles and his pockets stuffed with drugs and paraphernalia. He was now spending his days more fruitfully at a long term drug rehab facility, and was frankly being missed by no one.

It was their remaining weak link, Samantha, aka "The Dragon Lady", that was the main focal point for trouble. Early in the band's career, when they had seemed poised for some success, she had starting to hang out with the band and she promptly sunk her nails into Darryl, the front man, lead guitarist, and main songwriter for the group. Once ensnared, she then committed the most selfishly evil act I'd ever heard of, by deliberately getting Darryl hooked on increasingly powerful narcotics in order to better manipulate and control him. Yes, she was exactly that sort of evil manipulative witch.

He was now an addict and utterly dependent upon Samantha to do virtually everything in his life. Her ego unchecked, she was now pretty much the 'face' for the band and had taken center stage performing most of the main vocal duties. Not well in my opinion, even for the light demands of metal rock. I started to call her 'Linda', after the late Linda Eastman who had a similar ego and often sang and played keyboards (both excruciating badly) for her husband Paul McCartney's band 'Wings'. (Don't believe me? If you look hard enough on the Internet you can find soundboard recordings from concerts of just her singing track. It raises the challenging question of demoting Yoko Ono from her throne of "Worst singing Beatle Wife who just wouldn't shut the fuck up".)

Darryl had been very talented, and the driving force for the band in its early days. He played lead well, in an extremely unhurried and understated sort of way that imparted a good deal of emotional tones to his songs, which used to be quite first rate material. He was no Clapton, Page or Beck, able to rip off blistering riffs but he didn't want to play like that anyway. If he could be straightened out he could vague resemble something like a 'lite' version of David Gilmore or better yet, Eric Johnson. There are much worse things.

Darryl, being the primary songwriter, controlled nearly all of the music rights; they were mostly all his songs, and he also had the technical ownership of the legal name-rights for the band. Samantha, however, controlled him ... and thus by proxy the entire band. She set the band's schedule and controlled every single band expense to the last penny. She blatantly was skimming the cream off of the top and making every else below her beg to even receive gas money.

Voting her out was an utter impossibility. Darryl was essential to the band and she was essential to Darryl. The only way out was for everyone else to quit — which every other band member was quietly (or not so quietly) planning to do after the end of this final three month tour.

I was brought in to be temporary hired help only. Kind of like a long term session player. No 'shares', just a small signing bonus if I accepted the job and a flat rate per diem once we got out on the road. There were vague promises of 'reevaluating the situation' at the end of the tour, but nothing in writing. From the looks of things most of the band wouldn't even be around by that point anyway.

The drummer Irv (he hated Irving), was a spacey gangling galoot who tied his long way past shoulder length red hair into a pony tail and abused his drum kit nightly like a man possessed by the furies. His hero was Ginger Baker of Cream, and he must have watched 'Goodbye Cream' at least ten thousand times. He made a habit out of destroying his apartment and hotel furniture everywhere he went by constantly beating out rhythms with his drumsticks upon anything that wouldn't move ... and some people and things that could.

Irv may have been a total head case, but he came by it honestly and not via chemical additives. I never saw him once with his eyes opened while playing, he felt the music and let it flow within him. He had the true musical instinct needed for good improvisational playing, and more importantly he listened well onstage to what I was doing and he soon became able to anticipate melody changes. Soon our rhythm section could almost effortlessly anticipate the others changes from one pattern to the next. More than anything, it was my first jam session with Irv that convinced me to accept the temp job and stay. Separately we were each very good musicians; together we began to show signs of creating an entire new (and much improved) foundation for the band to build upon.

Simon, our keyboardist was old school 70's Progressive rock all the way. He had a formal education in classical music and had trained in that genre fervently since childhood, but now he found it much too limiting. He admitted in private to me that it really sucked and killed his ego to hear little ten-year-old geniuses play a classical piece far better than he ever could). His rock music influences were primarily Keith Emerson (ELP) and Rick Wakeman (Yes), in other words way over the top bombastic Mellotron and Moog synthesizer eruptions. It was pure Prog masturbatory wanking excess ... but it was occasionally pretty good Prog wanking. The problem was it just didn't mesh well with the stripped down and subtle style that Darryl was playing on lead. He needed to listen to the rest of the band a bit better and not just follow one of his random whims of excess. Despite these faults there was no disputing that he was talented and sometimes, even in his excess, there were moments that showed potential for better things the band could do in the future. Next to Irv, Simon became my closest friend within the band, and the three of us started to hang together and jammed together at every opportunity.

Eric was our rhythm guitarist and the source of our 'signature sound', a pounding whine of non-stop power chords. There was nothing subtle about his approach whatsoever, and from his on-stage posturing (next to Sam he was the flashiest performer) I can only guess that he spent his childhood chain-playing KISS Alive II and pretending he was Ace Frehley. As the 'pretty boy' of the group he was always fighting Samantha for face time with the local music reporters and he tried to bang more than his fair share of the groupies. Fortunately, he couldn't sing worth a darn and that helped keep his ego somewhat in check.