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END (THE HISTORY OF DAISY GLAZE, CHAPTER 6
BEGIN: THE HISTORY OF DAISY GLAZE, CHAPTER 7
In the absence of any commitment to the band from anybody but the core members, we continued playing with different people, most only once or twice, trying to see if we could get something different going.
Frankie Camaro (the alter ego of a guy named Paul Jova) was a surf guitar player who'd once appeared on a Rykodisc compilation titled Big Guitars From Texas that was nominated for a Grammy and who led local bands with names ranging from Shanghai Cobra to Rocket 88 to Go Mango; he sat in with us on drums once or twice. It didn't quite work, but we gave it a shot anyway. Later he formed another surf band with a shifting lineup of assistants called Dragstrip that released a record through Shredder Records.
We met another guy named Ryan Hasan through Abby Sachleben, who both Carla and I had known back in Columbus; Ryan talked like he wanted to join but was unable to come up with anything the couple of times we tried it out. He ended up playing bass with Virginia's Scrapings, a local Dead Boys/Wipers type of punky rock trio led by the notorious Phil Traicoff--reportedly over 60 people had been in and out of the Scrapings over the years, and the Scraping were a three-piece band.
The weeks dragged on, and soon months had gone by without a firm drummer and with only a few sporadic appearances with Bill. It became even harder to keep everything going when Carla and I were in a traumatic automobile wreck while up in Indianapolis, ironically enough to see a Pink Floyd show--the last stadium-rock show we'd attend. We both sustained back injuries, and the car was totaled. Another little quirk of fate was that one of the first people to arrive on the scene of the accident was Brian Gardiner--the first Daisy Glaze drummer! Plus, he also knew the moron who hit us! Brian had graduated from school, and was doing some sort of entry-level office work. He asked us how the band was doing, and we made small talk; mainly what I remember was the hideous 'Star Trek' tie he was wearing. We were completely shellshocked, but managed to drag ourselves to the Pink Floyd show, mainly because we were meeting a friend there who could hopefully get us home. The show was a weak, puffed-up spectacle, more Las Vegas than psychedelia--Carla actually fell asleep a couple of times, I think as much to escape the misery she felt as much as anything. This was the beginning of a dark period for us all.
The car wreck and its attendant medical, financial, and emotional problems accelerated the demise of the Bill-drumming lineup of the band. All tentative workings with other musicians guitarists and drummers, were similarly ended or never really got going to begin with. Our last show with Bill was an outdoor show, an 'Eloidfest': Eloid Ruiz was a witty, charismatic guy who happened to be kind of short. He parlayed that into a regular shtick, appearing to MC local shows and on local cable access TV. Most people got along with Eloid because he was often a pretty funny guy. People in bands tended to like him, as did we. He hung out with us a few times, and us with him, discussing the crucial points of bad movies. The Eloidfest was sort of his tribute to himself, but it was also a good focus on local original music, and a gig we were happy to play. Our slot was on the last day of the Eloidfest, an outdoor show in a parking lot. I played sitting down so as not to aggravate my back, but we put on a decent show. I was glad to get the chance to play out my newest song, "I Lost", and to show people we weren't going away. Arson Garden, probably the closest thing to an internationally recognized underground band in Bloomington back then (well, they got to play a John Peel session for BBC Radio, anyway) was supposed to play with us, but I think they broke up before the gig. Instead Phil Traicoff's Virginia's Scrapings closed the show, which was fine with me since I thought they were a better band, but probably resulted in a slightly lower turnout. Either way we were back to having no drummer at all after the show, which was always a downer even though we'd been limping along with only Bill for months now. We'd had one guy come in who we'd hoped would work out, a young guy named Mike Lipe who talked like he was really into joining the band--he just had to get a new kit and get his chops back up. He seemed to like the music really well, although his taste in music didn't really seem very good: he liked Black Sabbath, which was good, but he also liked Phish and other lame stuff not even that good. Still, we didn't have any other options, so we were willing to give him a try. He bought a brand-new set of drums--we saw the receipt for them--brought them down to the basement and set them up; we set up our equipment, and we started to play. It was then we realized that Mike had never played the drums before in his life. Yet he'd strung us along with this story, and actually gone out and bought the drums, carrying out as if he was telling the truth! It was as though he was hoping that lightning would strike and he would just be able to play them all of a sudden. He couldn't even find the rudiments of a beat, though--it was totally obvious. After a little bit we called practice to a halt and I suggested he go home and practice, or even come over to our place and practice on his own. I wanted to give him the complete benefit of the doubt--I thought it still might have been possible that it had just been too long, and he needed to get his strength up or something. Nope. Next time he played just as badly. It was ridiculous. Finally we told him to go home and that it just wasn't working. Later, when the next version of the band was playing in a bar, he showed up with a couple of his friends. They wanted us to sit with them when our set was over, but we were busy moving our equipment off the stage. After finishing, we did go over and sit with them briefly, but the friends didn't actually have anything to say--they just looked around to see if anyone was noticing them with us sitting at their table! Pretty gauche. Mike had a few drinks and basically admitted trying to pull one over on us, saying "Yeah, I almost fooled you, didn't I?" as though he would have gotten away with it had God only gone along with the scheme and granted him immediate inbred drumming skills upon setting up his kit.
It was frustrating not having a drummer and dealing with jerkoffs like Mike, but the band problems and the back problems and the legal problems all combined into one huge, depressing mess. Our lawyer was an incompetent boob, State Farm was jerking us around, and we hurt every day. It sucked. We couldn't work for months, so we had no money. Our relatives were less than understanding, which shattered the last of my battered faith is the family unit. We were slowly going insane. Finally while we were out posting our 'DAISY GLAZE NEEDS A DRUMMER' flyers, we spotted a flyer posted by a drummer looking for a band. His taste didn't look all that great, mentioning Nine Inch Nails, the Pixies, Skinny Puppy, and Jawbox, but at least it wasn't all classic rock or something; most importantly, beggars can't be choosers. It was more relevant to us that he'd gone to the extent of making and posting his flyers. We took a chit off his flyer, and when we got home, we found a message on the machine waiting; checking the number against the chit, we realized that he'd already called us. We took this as a sign and quickly this young guy became the new Daisy Glaze drummer. His skills were a bit rudimentary, but he didn't claim to have anything other than what he actually had, so we got to work.
END (THE HISTORY OF DAISY GLAZE, CHAPTER 7
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