Howdy! My nickname during the “band days” was “the Ledge”.
I have been a professional musician since the tender age of 14 and have had the fortunate
experience of traveling the circuits with many different bands for 7 years during the 80’s.
I attended college on drama and music scholarships. Now days I entertain my self playing
the manager for a group of Pro wrestlers called “the Texas Outlaws”. As the Ledge it has
been my pleasure to not only host my own radio show but also a television show for a local
wrestling organization that was called the WWE or World Wrestling Empire.

After the comments recently concerning the movie “Almost Famous” on  bartcop.com
I offered to share some of my band days road experiences with the readers.
BartCop immediately replied to my offer with an enthusiastic “Yes” and so I sat down to start writing.
As outrageous as they may sound all these stories are true. Some of the names have been changed to
protect the guilty. Koresh knows (a BartCop term I’ll adopt to keep from offending anyone) that some
of these stories are to say the least a bit unsavory to say the most they are outrageous. It is amazing
that no one died during these adventures. It is more amazing that no one ever ended up in prison.
Band members tend to think with an organ that is located between their legs rather than with the
one located between their ears as god intended. In an attempt to provide you with an accurate
account of “Rock-n-Roll road life” I’ll also add a few stories that were passed down to me from
some of the people I traveled with I hope you are at least entertained.

When you travel the club circuits a lot of people offer to take the band home and feed them.
When no one is offering to feed the band the members can usually be found “working”
(A pro wrestling term) the locals for a volunteer to feed everyone in the band and crew.
This would account for the laymans term starving musician. They promise you everything
from Buffalo burgers to steak but it always ends up being spaghetti. I guess that it’s cheaper
to feed 8 starving people spaghetti than some of the gourmet meals we were promised.

I’ve had every kind of spaghetti known to man from Jalapeno Spaghetti to Squirrel Spaghetti
(an Arkansas recipe). Most of the time it was really good if you weren’t already sick of eating
the stringy pasta. As far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t be bothered a bit if I never ate another
plate of spaghetti for the rest of my life.

On one such invitation for a free meal we followed a little girl home to what had to be her
first apartment. It was nicely furnished with what was obviously mostly new stuff. We were
all hanging out drinking beer and smoking away when the girl “Tracy“ handed the sound man
Jody a camera and asked him to take pictures of all the band members.
(It should be noted that beer is consumed in place of water in most bands.
Water tends to change from town to town and can even make you ill if
you’re not used to it. Beer is a universal constant and can generally be
considered safe no matter where you are. This theory has been tested
and proven over the years and includes several trips to the interior of
Mexico for testing. Smoking the evil herb is also a universal constant
among musicians. You can generally make most musicians happy with
a beer a bag and a plate of spaghetti. Again testing has proven that this
diet will sustain life for weeks at a time. It is however necessary to throw
in an occasional bologna sandwich for the vitamins.)

The next thing I noticed was Jody coming out of the bathroom with the camera in his hand.
He handed it to one of the guitar players, whispered in his ear and walked off. The guitar
player then took the camera and headed for the bathroom. When the guitar player came
out of the bathroom he saw me looking. He walked over handing me the camera and said
“Ledge, go take a picture of your .......self."

(Slight edit)

After finishing my assignment in the bathroom I handed the camera to the first person
I encountered as I left and they repeated the “assignment” until everyone in the band
and road crew had their turn with the camera in the bathroom.

I‘m not sure who took more than one picture but when the last member of our little group
exited the bathroom the camera was out of film and Jody took the it back to Tracy who was
still in the kitchen preparing spaghetti. We ate a wonderful meal and after consuming our
body weight in beer we left.

About 8 weeks later we returned to the club where we knew Tracy from and sure enough
on the first night she was at the club just like clock work. Tracy gave each one of us a hug
like we were long lost relatives returning from an extended vacation. Later she revealed that
she had given her mother the film to take to Wal-Mart and have it developed.
“It’s just pictures of all those nice band guys that you met last week, Mom.”

Per Tracy, her mom and the film developing lady at Wal-Mart had quite a talk about those
“nice band boys” at her daughters new apartment. I noticed on the next trip that Tracy had
moved back in with her mom. I’ve wondered if our little photo session might have had
anything to do with the return home!
 
 

Got a true Rock on the Road story?
Send it to  bartcop@bartcop.com