I***@aol.com
2007-10-18 19:00:12 UTC
I'm trying to post this to the current Zevon thread in Springsteen
group, but I keep getting an error message, so I thought I would give
it a shot here...
Garry
______________________________________________________
Yeah, lets...he was so fantastic. I first got hooked on him after
"Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School." When I was in high school we
used to have an FM station, WWWZ, near Charleston, SC, and they
broadcast from a dumpy trailer beside Highway 61 in Summerville, about
20 miles away. You could only pick them up when the weather was
clear, but they were one of the first stations in our area to
broadcast in stereo, so when you could get them, the sound was great.
One of the DJs there was a huge Zevon fan and played him a good bit.
I had heard a couple of his songs done by Linda Ronstadt, and my
parents had her "Hasten Down The Wind" album, but I think I was more
impressed by the cover pic of that than by the Zevon material on it
(what can I say, I was a teenage boy...). WWWZ also hooked me on
Elvis Costello (they played a lot of Bruce too, but I was already
hooked on him)...damn, I owe them so much.
Anyway, I used to turn them on when I went to bed, turn out the
lights, and let them play me to sleep. They were really laid
back...we always thought the DJs were high...I remember when one of
them fell asleep one night and there was dead air until somebody
called the station and the phone woke him up. So, if they had a
really interesting night, I would get hardly any sleep because the
music was so varied and good...they saw nothing unusual about playing
Lou Reed after Miles Davis or George Jones.
Tuesday at midnight was the best, though, because they would play a
new album all the way through from start to finish. The two I
remember most vividly are Fleestwood Mac's "Tusk" and Warren's "Bad
Luck Streak..." After hearing "Bad Luck...," I went to my
grandparents house the next day after school, knowing that that always
slipped me five or ten bucks when I dropped by, then I went straight
to the record store and bought two Zevon albums. Wow, what a
treat...I don't think I listened to anything else for weeks. Then
"The Envoy" was released a couple years later...same story.
In 1985 we still got few good live shows here, so I almost fell out of
my chair when I found out that Warren was playing two nights in a row
oddly enough in Hilton Head, not exactly a rock'n'roll hot spot, but a
mostly golfing and retirement resort island, about midway between
Charleston and Savannah, GA. They had this pretty small club that
held maybe 300 in an old post office building called appropriately
"The Old Post Office." Immediately I planned on going both nights,
the first night with a college buddy of mine (he was a photographer
and took some great pics that night), and the second night with my
mom, who liked his music from hearing me play him all the time.
We got there early the first night and when I mentioned to the girl at
the door that we had driven from Charleston and that I would drive
back the next night as well, she said "you must be a big fan, follow
me..." She put us at a reserved table front and center, we were like
five feet away from the stage, and Warren was fantastic. It was a
solo show, and toward the end of the night after we had exchanged
brief banter with Warren between songs, he was playing a rocking
version of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," and one of his guitar strings
broke.
He was trying to keep playing because the crowd was really into it,
but the broken string was getting tangled in the others and he was
having a hard time. So he walks to the edge of the stage, leans down
and yells "can you help me out here? Pull the string off...." I get
up, he's still keeping the song going by playing the good strings, and
he could tell I was afraid I was going to break the head of his guitar
(a black Ovation, for any guitar buffs out there), so he yells "dont
worry, pull it hard...." Anyway, I did, the string came off, and
after the song he came back over, shook my hand to a nice round of
applause, and thanked me. Then, after the show when most of the crowd
was gone, someone was delivering a huge shrimp cocktail to his
dressing room right next to the stage. When he looked out the door
and saw we were still there finishing our drinks, he asked if we
wanted some shrimp. We chatted briefly, but didn't have any
shrimp...I didn't want to seem like some blubbering idiot fan...so we
told him we had a long drive back to Charleston and I would be driving
back the next night, then we left. I saved that broken string for
years, hanging on a framed pic of Warren my friend had taken that
night.
Anyway, my mom enjoyed seeing him also, and I saw him six or seven
times after that, and everybody I ever took to see him enjoyed him.
He did a great show with the Canadian band The Odds on his birthday in
1992 here in Charleston...we were front and center in a club here
called "Music Farm," the a/c didn't seem to be working, the place was
jammed and sweaty, and somebody passed up a birthday cake, candles and
all, all the way from the back of the club for him...he looked pretty
stunned when he saw it being passed over the heads of the crowd. He
was in a great mood, he blew out the candles and sampled some of the
icing with his fingers, complimented the baker, and even signed a
number of autographs between songs.
I also remember one night when I was in law school in Columbia, SC, he
seemed really cranky during the first few songs at a show during a
snowstorm, when only 50 or 60 people showed up. The television over
the bar in the back of the club was still on several songs into his
set, and he yelled "somebody turn that fucking TV off!" Then, I think
he realized he was being a jerk, he looked up with a big smile, and
said "unless I'm on it, of course." He lightened up after that, kept
asking questions and joking about the name of a local restaurant chain
he had seen driving in called "Lizard's Thicket." The last time I saw
him was here in Charleston after "Life'll Kill Ya" was released. He
was touring with Jill Sobule opening, and she came out for a couple of
songs with him after he had come out during her set for an amusing
duet of Jill's "I Kissed A Girl." It was a great show and I became a
big fan of hers, too.
I met him one other time when I got to present him and his roadie/
driver/assistant with t-shirts from the local arts festival I was
working for. He signed a couple cds for my girlfriend and me after
his show that night...I wish I had taken hers back before she left
me...oh well. Anyway, he remains one of my top five (maybe even top
three) artists of all time, and his death was a real loss.
Garry
group, but I keep getting an error message, so I thought I would give
it a shot here...
Garry
______________________________________________________
Yeah, lets...he was so fantastic. I first got hooked on him after
"Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School." When I was in high school we
used to have an FM station, WWWZ, near Charleston, SC, and they
broadcast from a dumpy trailer beside Highway 61 in Summerville, about
20 miles away. You could only pick them up when the weather was
clear, but they were one of the first stations in our area to
broadcast in stereo, so when you could get them, the sound was great.
One of the DJs there was a huge Zevon fan and played him a good bit.
I had heard a couple of his songs done by Linda Ronstadt, and my
parents had her "Hasten Down The Wind" album, but I think I was more
impressed by the cover pic of that than by the Zevon material on it
(what can I say, I was a teenage boy...). WWWZ also hooked me on
Elvis Costello (they played a lot of Bruce too, but I was already
hooked on him)...damn, I owe them so much.
Anyway, I used to turn them on when I went to bed, turn out the
lights, and let them play me to sleep. They were really laid
back...we always thought the DJs were high...I remember when one of
them fell asleep one night and there was dead air until somebody
called the station and the phone woke him up. So, if they had a
really interesting night, I would get hardly any sleep because the
music was so varied and good...they saw nothing unusual about playing
Lou Reed after Miles Davis or George Jones.
Tuesday at midnight was the best, though, because they would play a
new album all the way through from start to finish. The two I
remember most vividly are Fleestwood Mac's "Tusk" and Warren's "Bad
Luck Streak..." After hearing "Bad Luck...," I went to my
grandparents house the next day after school, knowing that that always
slipped me five or ten bucks when I dropped by, then I went straight
to the record store and bought two Zevon albums. Wow, what a
treat...I don't think I listened to anything else for weeks. Then
"The Envoy" was released a couple years later...same story.
In 1985 we still got few good live shows here, so I almost fell out of
my chair when I found out that Warren was playing two nights in a row
oddly enough in Hilton Head, not exactly a rock'n'roll hot spot, but a
mostly golfing and retirement resort island, about midway between
Charleston and Savannah, GA. They had this pretty small club that
held maybe 300 in an old post office building called appropriately
"The Old Post Office." Immediately I planned on going both nights,
the first night with a college buddy of mine (he was a photographer
and took some great pics that night), and the second night with my
mom, who liked his music from hearing me play him all the time.
We got there early the first night and when I mentioned to the girl at
the door that we had driven from Charleston and that I would drive
back the next night as well, she said "you must be a big fan, follow
me..." She put us at a reserved table front and center, we were like
five feet away from the stage, and Warren was fantastic. It was a
solo show, and toward the end of the night after we had exchanged
brief banter with Warren between songs, he was playing a rocking
version of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," and one of his guitar strings
broke.
He was trying to keep playing because the crowd was really into it,
but the broken string was getting tangled in the others and he was
having a hard time. So he walks to the edge of the stage, leans down
and yells "can you help me out here? Pull the string off...." I get
up, he's still keeping the song going by playing the good strings, and
he could tell I was afraid I was going to break the head of his guitar
(a black Ovation, for any guitar buffs out there), so he yells "dont
worry, pull it hard...." Anyway, I did, the string came off, and
after the song he came back over, shook my hand to a nice round of
applause, and thanked me. Then, after the show when most of the crowd
was gone, someone was delivering a huge shrimp cocktail to his
dressing room right next to the stage. When he looked out the door
and saw we were still there finishing our drinks, he asked if we
wanted some shrimp. We chatted briefly, but didn't have any
shrimp...I didn't want to seem like some blubbering idiot fan...so we
told him we had a long drive back to Charleston and I would be driving
back the next night, then we left. I saved that broken string for
years, hanging on a framed pic of Warren my friend had taken that
night.
Anyway, my mom enjoyed seeing him also, and I saw him six or seven
times after that, and everybody I ever took to see him enjoyed him.
He did a great show with the Canadian band The Odds on his birthday in
1992 here in Charleston...we were front and center in a club here
called "Music Farm," the a/c didn't seem to be working, the place was
jammed and sweaty, and somebody passed up a birthday cake, candles and
all, all the way from the back of the club for him...he looked pretty
stunned when he saw it being passed over the heads of the crowd. He
was in a great mood, he blew out the candles and sampled some of the
icing with his fingers, complimented the baker, and even signed a
number of autographs between songs.
I also remember one night when I was in law school in Columbia, SC, he
seemed really cranky during the first few songs at a show during a
snowstorm, when only 50 or 60 people showed up. The television over
the bar in the back of the club was still on several songs into his
set, and he yelled "somebody turn that fucking TV off!" Then, I think
he realized he was being a jerk, he looked up with a big smile, and
said "unless I'm on it, of course." He lightened up after that, kept
asking questions and joking about the name of a local restaurant chain
he had seen driving in called "Lizard's Thicket." The last time I saw
him was here in Charleston after "Life'll Kill Ya" was released. He
was touring with Jill Sobule opening, and she came out for a couple of
songs with him after he had come out during her set for an amusing
duet of Jill's "I Kissed A Girl." It was a great show and I became a
big fan of hers, too.
I met him one other time when I got to present him and his roadie/
driver/assistant with t-shirts from the local arts festival I was
working for. He signed a couple cds for my girlfriend and me after
his show that night...I wish I had taken hers back before she left
me...oh well. Anyway, he remains one of my top five (maybe even top
three) artists of all time, and his death was a real loss.
Garry