55
I’d seen quite a few load-ins at Club Soda. I’d seen our little load-in back when we opened for Kick, but this was our show being grunted up the back stairs of the club. It felt a million miles away from the high school jazz band.
Seeing our stuff being set up in Club Soda was—in the big music business picture—a small victory. But make no mistake, it was a victory. Soda was a premier club in Vancouver, and Vancouver was the most important place in Western Canada for a band to succeed. In a sense, we had arrived.
Last time we played here, we used Randa’s office as our dressing room. This time, the real dressing room was ours. For months we’d been playing clubs that were in or attached to hotels, so there was no need for a dressing room. Club Soda was a stand-alone building that often hosted one-night shows by smaller recording acts. A place to get ready was a requirement.
The room was behind the stage. It was hidden by the band’s backdrop. We all had one. It was a giant black curtain that often had the band logo on it. The musicians could enter the club through the back doors and get into the room without being spotted by the crowd. That didn’t matter too much to us. We wanted to be seen.
Despite it being the hotspot that it was, Club Soda wasn’t any different than any other live music club. The early part of the week was slow. Randa was always trying something new to attract customers from Monday to Wednesday. Her latest thing was ladie’s night on Tuesday, when she’d bring in male strippers. They’d perform for a couple of hours before the band went on.
It was a good idea. It pre-loaded the place with drunk and horny women, so when the doors opened up for guys to come in, the vibe was set. Tuesdays were more lively than at most clubs.
The male strippers used the dressing room. We didn’t know that. I guess Randa thought it was obvious, so she hadn’t mentioned that important fact. We arrived about an hour before we were supposed to go on, and walked in on a guy who appeared to be jerking off.
Now, being in a band means you experience things of a sexual nature that most people do not experience. But I have to say, finding a dude with an abnormally large wiener stroking himself when I walked into a room is one of the more notable things I’ve seen.
It turned out he was just trying to get a semi so his abnormally large cock would look even larger for all the ladies. He didn’t even flinch when we walked in. He kept going for about 15 seconds until his desired inflation was achieved, then he tied off with an elastic band.
Tying off means wrapping a rubber band around the base of the penis so the ballast stays put for the duration of the show. The guy we saw ran the final wrap around the base of his bag with a figure-eight twist. This pulled his sack further forward so the ladies could see it better.
The guy looked at us with complete disinterest and said, “Time to go to work, I guess.”
“Break a leg,” I said.
When it was our turn to show off our figurative dicks, the place was humming. Interesting fact: Club Soda had a video screen that lowered while there was nobody on stage, just like at Uncle Charlie’s, and just like at Uncle Charlie’s, someone had spray painted “Pieces of Poo” in big pink letters.
In the ‘80s, spandex, four-inch heels, and hairspray were mandatory for band-aids. They liked to dance in groups of two or three right in front of whichever guy they wanted to spend the night with. It was just one more little thing that gave us confidence and made us feel like we were on our way to being rock stars. Seriously. Hot groupies don’t fuck shitty bands.
Nige and Dean were fully immersed in the lifestyle. Their pump tents got a lot of use. Itch and I weren’t as interested. We liked watching them, but that was the extent of it. Itch said they made him want to take a shower. I was already dating the hottest woman on Earth.
Stef called in sick on Thursday night so she and her friends could come down. She figured that was less obvious than Friday or Saturday. I doubt if she actually fooled her co-workers. They were nurses. But even so, the classic “I have diarrhea” is something that nobody really wants to ask a follow-up question about. Nobody except her supervisor, who asked her what colour it was.
“What’d you say?” I asked.
“Mostly brown, but with streaks of green.”
“What’d she say?”
“Say hi to Weave for me.”
We had become a really consistent band. There were very few mistakes. All of us made individual mistakes, of course, but Mr. Walker’s method of making a mistake twice so everyone thinks you did it on purpose was something we’d all become pretty good at. We didn’t have many bad nights as a band. We didn’t just get better, we got smarter.
Stef and her friends got up and danced in front of Nigel, just to bug me. It didn’t work. I thought it was funny, and I laughed as I watched the girls dancing in front of me. Next song, she worked herself into the group in front of me and put on a good show. Most of the time I had pretty much stopped wondering why she loved me and just floated in it. But at moments like that, on a purely physical level, I could not figure out how I ended up with her.
Oh! I forgot to mention that we had a new light tech named Ian. He was an old pal of Spencer’s and was available on very short notice. It turned out that Skinny Dan didn’t go camping on our off week. He joined the Hare Krishnas. I have no idea how or why it happened. He probably did it for a girl.
