420 GONZO REPORT
Rio Bisbee.Band, the motorcade, arrived on time at Purple Company, Odlin Road Bangor. It is one of many newly sprouted cannabis dispensaries now to be found in every corner of urban, and rural Maine. The unpretentious violet-painted building, formerly an auto repair service-bay garage, nestled cozily into its treeless industrial surround of shabby pre-fab shipping warehouses, container yards, and auto sales parks there beside the roaring international jetport. A lengthy CSX freight with alternating cuts of long center-beam flatcars loaded with brand-name building supplies logo-wrapped in plastic, and grimy, stubby tank cars full of toxic chemicals destined for various customers along the line, rumbled, horns blaring, across a nearby grade crossing in a trash-littered gully down behind the building. The festival grounds presented as a grim, fenced-in, gravel-covered commercial back lot with a couple sagging tents sheltering merch tables, We surveyed the dismal scene, bored merch girls ignoring us. Despite the gay event being held in what is patently used as a parking lot every day of the week, when it comes to Rio Bisbee.Band, it is forbidden by the management to move vehicles closer than 50 yards to the “stage”, in order to eliminate any possibility of vehicular casualties among the half-dozen or so apparently oblivious partiers - chubby chicks with purple and green dyed hair-don’ts, 20-something neck-beard fatsos in XXXXL Ts emblazoned with gruesome depictions of decaying human skulls. The perennial presence of cast-off military garb was vaguely reminiscent of 60s hippie culture. But no Fool on the hill are today’s youth who packed themselves into a grubby outbuilding with no accommodation whatsoever except a deafening DJ PA set-up and thick roils of previously-inhaled cannabis smoke which wafted in billows out of the bay door, sole opening in the dingy structure, drifting lazily up into the darkling sky. The only food available was snack truck: ribbon fries - $7. As they say – not quite fries, not quite chips. Lucky we brought along a couple of our own chairs!
The “stage” offered us was nothing more than a flimsy platform of ½” plywood tacked to rotting shipping pallets sinking in crunchy mud. Its surface retained a shallow pool of standing water – amazing how watertight cheap construction can be! Water burbled up through a knothole. Down stage center was a muddy puddle. The platform, barely larger than a king-size bed, was partially covered by a teetering pop-up rig just big enough to cover the drum set, with all other equipment exposed to the elements. Indeed, the previous band had quit early after a shocking experience when a shower came through, wetting their powered gear. That’s no joke! Happened to me once! Fortunately, as is so often the case, Rio Bisbee.Band brought out the Sun. Clouds parted briefly to admit some watery sunshine from the setting sun as we were setting up to play. All the while, the multi-various cacophony of the modern urban wasteland was overwhelmed acoustically by the jagged, arrhythmic burping of hop-hop rap coming from the metal-sided storage shed adjacent to the “stage”. At around 130 dB, the bass completely drowned any hint of instruments, or vocals in the mix, shaking the very ground upon which we stood with flabby flapping of agonized short-throw speaker cones driven well beyond their design voltage parameters.
The thumping bass quit, a wire was extended to the “stage” so we could plug in. Girls were packing up their merch as we did sound check. Rio Bisbee.Band began the show with hard-hitting original rock numbers to barely a twinge from the few puzzled passers-by. Perhaps they could not hear anything below 110 dB? Oddly, the buzzed-out stoners were more intrigued with Selim’s mini-set of traditional Turkish music, which he sings in Turkish language, accompanying himself with an electric saz, traditional Turkish folk instrument. The second half of the Rio Bisbee show was cut short because the next DJ was ready to start. Bye the time we finished our truncated set with a rousing version of Be Thankful There’s Rock ‘n Roll! there were 2 people watching us. Only a few months ago at closing time there was but one. How to double the audience in only a few months! As soon as we played our final note, the plug was pulled and the BOOM BOOMBOOM incontinently recommenced, louder than ever. I perused the dispensary’s offerings: THC-free herbal products in plastic packages, and divers intoxication apparatus in glass display cases. The bleached-blonde punk at the register asked Was I there for the party? Oh! Didn’t you notice I was playing bass guitar for the “party”? I chuckled at the sad fate of this new generation. Callow youths turned their backs on musicians humping gear and instruments across the scared no-man’s land of the back lot around to the other side of the cyclone fence by the equipment return portal of the local U-Haul franchise where the waiting Rio Bisbee.Band fleet of ultra-modern highway vehicles was poised to speed us home to our snug, sylvan Studio 455. Another classic Rio Bisbee.Band performance enters the anals.. uh.. annals of our bizarre Bisbee career. Ah! The ineffable glamour, and charm of a long lifetime playing rock ‘n roll music.
But I ain’t giving up yet!
Op-hoy!
Yobassman
