Previous Episodes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Newman’s drummer, “Nu” was awesome.  He could do things that I’ve never even heard anyone talk about doing.  The first time he sat down to play with us, we got into a jam with a really complicated rhythm.  It took us all a while to settle into it.  Once I had a handle on my part, I looked over at him, and he’s just sitting there playing along with one hand, smoking a cigarette with the other. 

Nu was a really smart guy.  So smart, that sometimes he was a little hard to understand, because he was 3 steps ahead of you.  He graduated from University of Wisconsin, but traveled back and forth to Italy so often that he couldn’t have a steady job.  So, he worked as a substitute teacher.  He was consistently called by a local high school to fill in for a history teacher (I think). Nu wasn’t a typical clean cut substitute teacher, by any means. Kids probably didn’t get away with anything in his class, not because he’s strict, but because he stayed three steps ahead of everyone. Nu made friends with one of his students who was really into music. He came to any of our shows that would allow underage patrons. Apparently, we were pretty popular with the high school crowd. So we had that going for us, which was nice.

So, one day we found out that Nu’s young friend had signed us up for a battle of the bands. The winning band got $1000, 10 hours of studio time, a radio interview, and an opening spot at Friday Cheers, Richmond’s version of Friday’s After Five. We were definitely excited and learned a new crowd pleaser, the theme song to Fat Albert…. “nah, nah, nah, gonna have a good time! Hey, hey hey!” We put together a perfect 45 minute set for this and rehearsed the hell out of it. This was gonna be our big break - all the exposure we’d been hoping for.

The “battle” was being held at Richmond’s Alley Katz, a great venue, which gave a lot of credibility to the event. The sound guy was “BJ” from the Blue Circle Festival. This battle of the bands was actually before the BC Festival, so we hadn’t had our falling out yet. Straws had been drawn, and we were gonna be the first band. So we got there a little early, and sound checked. BJ worked efficiently, setting up mics and monitors around us as we set up our own equipment. He had us do a sound check about 20 minutes before our starting time. This was good for us, as he was able to fine tune all the sound before hand. All the other bands would have to take their adjustments on the fly. We really considered this a big advantage.

After we sound checked, we went to the bar and ordered ourselves a round of beers and started scanning the room for potential competition. Nu’s student had shown up with a couple of friends, after all, this was HIS idea. The rest of the crowd there looked pretty young, as well. A small handful of our friends who happened to be in the neighborhood stopped by. We hadn’t brought a large crowd as we had just played the night before and everyone had gone to that show. A few minutes before we were supposed to play, we spotted a group of high school kids hauling their amps into the room. I figured there was no way a high school band was gonna be any competition for us. We had all been out of college for at least 3 years and had been playing together since before any of these kids could even say “rock ‘n roll”.

Finally, it was time for us to play. We opened with the Fat Albert jam, and slid right into a set of our six best original songs. We nailed ‘em all. Perfection. Never had we played a more perfect version of every song. As far as I was concerned we had already won this thing, and could go ahead and quit our day jobs, grow our hair out, and buy ourselves a van, as we were gonna be touring the rest of the year.

After clearing our stuff from the stage, we met at the bar for a few celebratory beers and to watch the next band. The high school kids that we had seen earlier were up. They were very impressive for a high school band. It wasn’t anything too complicated, but they were in key, had good lyrics and vocals, hit the changes, and had a good stage presence. But, compared to what we had just done, it was just another bunch of inexperienced kids beating around on instruments their parents had bought them to silence the whining. While they were playing, another high school band had showed up and was waiting side stage for their turn, and the room was filling up with more high-school aged music fans. It suddenly dawned on me that we were the only ones in the room drinking.

About this time, BJ caught my eye, and he was waving me over to the sound booth. I went over there, and he said, “Hey, man. Awesome set, but I gotta ask… what the hell are you guys doing here?”

“Whatdaya mean?”

“You know this is a high school battle of the bands.”

“Wait, what?”

“Ha! Yeah, man. High school. This thing is for high school kids. You guys can’t win it, unless you have a high school kid in your band.”

I felt so stupid, but I couldn’t help laughing. Buncha idiots we were. I went straight over to Nu, patted him on the back and broke the news that as a bunch of 25 year olds, we had just blown the roof off of a high school battle of the bands. “Yeah, man. I knew it was a high school battle of the bands.”

“You knew that? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I figured we’d definitely win.”

So, I explained the rules to Nu. He laughed and then appropriately offered to pay the tab. Turns out the only reason we were even allowed to play is because we were signed up by a high school kid who also didn’t know the rules. Oh well, I guess it was good practice.

After that first band was done, I liked them enough to congratulate them on a good set, trade numbers, and offer them an opening spot at our next show. They were really excited about it. But as it turns out, not only is 10 pm really late for high school kids on a Wednesday night, but the bar wouldn’t even allow them in cause they were underage, anyway.

We stuck around to hear half of the first song from the next band, an awful grunge metal group who’s singer sounded like a dying wookie. We quickly grabbed our equipment and left, ears bleeding and prides slightly broken.

I never did find out who won, but I know it wasn’t us. I sure hope it was that second band, though. I’d really like to find out what ever happened to them. Hopefully someone out there has a clue.

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