Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Muddy's Mojo Hinge Pins - A Five Guns West™ Story

Grand piano lid hinge pin, yesterday

I
t must have been 1980 [avers Five Guns West® - Ed.]. I was wintering in front of Lita Ford’s place on the island of Navarre between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach FLA. An English friend of mine, Billy Putnam, husband of punk model Wendy Tiger [below left - Ed.], and I went up to see Iggy at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta, GA. He no-showed and instead it was the Swimming Pool Qs with local punkers The Wankers headlining. Some of The Wankers become new wave band the Producers [I've known a couple of producers who were wankers - FT3].

Out of sheer boredom I drove the 5½ hours back up to Atlanta the following week, riding the draft behind semi trucks and doing 85 mph on average. I got there late at night and checked into an old hotel, it’s still there but the name eludes me. The Moulin Rouge strip club is still on the 1
st floor. The hotel is over a hundred years old, in impeccable shape, claw foot tubs. Black bellboys in velvet monkeys suits, elevator operators.
 
Turned out the Johnny Van Zandt Band was opening and closing for Muddy Waters at the Agora that night. I’d been a Muddy fan since I was eight years old.
 
I got up early that morning and to my surprise it was snowing out. It’d been nearly 80 degrees the weekend before.  It may have been April. I couldn’t get in my car through the doors and really had to try like hell to open the hatchback and then kick the drivers door open from the inside only to decide I didn’t want to drive with ice all over everything.

I went and got a huge coffee
[left - Ed.] and stood out in front of the Agora. Kids had camped out all night in front of the Fox Theatre to get into some show but I can’t remember who the act was. Needless to say there were a lot of hallucinatory delights to be found in the crowd.
 
The Agora had a long entry way, very deep, almost like a tunnel. I was standing up in there and there was a red light on the street in front of the place but no cross street. A pick up truck with some really sketchy dudes in it were, I thought, giving me some hard stares and I thought they were going to give me some trouble. The light changed and they left.
 
Ten minutes later or so they were back, pulled up on the sidewalk, got out and were walking towards me. I clutched my stiletto but when they asked if I worked for the Agora and could they bring Muddy’s band piano in that door I replied “No, you got to come in the back.”

We got to the back door and the Agora team thought I was with Muddy’s band and the piano guys thought I worked the Agora. We hauled the piano up onstage … a grand piano mind you … and the guys left. The Agora workers were plying me with Heineken and pizza
[left - Ed.] for a couple of hours when the sound guy asked me to remove the piano lid. I silently freaked the fuck out but had carpentry skills and removed the hinge pins and put them in my leather jacket pocket ... where they still reside to this day. Not my fault.
 
Johnny Van Zandt came out to play and I went and hung with Muddy and the band. Muddy played and some of the kids from the Fox Theatre came to my table and hung out. Johnny Van Zandt band played again after Muddy. Having driven all night and being wrecked out of my skull I “fell asleep” at my table. Whoever I was sitting with had moved everything around in my pockets, as a joke I guess, but everything was still there. Van Zandt was gone when I was awoken by wait staff telling me I had to go. I protested that I had the hinge pins for the piano and they had to be reinserted … I didn’t even know where the lid to the thing was. The bouncer was there by this point …. I wasn’t making a scene, I never do, I’m a pretty quiet guy but he didn’t believe me and made me leave. So, I have what I consider a mojo from my favorite blues musician.


Thanks to FGW™ for this fragrant nosegay of reminiscence!





 

17 comments:

  1. Say, fellows! Have you purloined something belonging to a favorite artiste? I had Richard Lloyd's guitar pick, but he gave it to me so that doesn't count.

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  2. One of my favorite songs
    https://www.facebook.com/wondermints/videos/531459022373884

    I don't need optical nerve
    I don't believe I'm a perv

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    Replies
    1. Not sure what this has to do with anything at all, but okay. Sign your comments with a nick, fercrissakes, and keep to it for future reference (your own, as much as anybody's).

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  3. hypnolove is here: https://workupload.com/file/ua7PXmdeHmd

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  4. I don't remember swiping nothing but back when the Potatoland album came out I was working in the mountains at a YMCA youth camp. Inside the album was a flyer offering me the chance to purchase Potato merch. The camp staff decided we should all have Kapt. Kopter T-shirts. So we mailed away for T-shirts, buttons and a photo of the secret hideout. When the package arrived at camp there was a note inside and a refund check Written and signed by Randy California saying he was sorry but they had no more Secret Photos. I kept the check and the note for years until I can't find them anymore. I thought it was better than an autograph.

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    Replies
    1. Here's Spudworld '73, Spudworld '81, and The Complete Spudworld Bonus Disc:

      https://workupload.com/file/enJgNZ5Ww5M

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  5. But I did snag a glass from The Roxy in Hollywood. It had a circle with an R in it. I thought my friend Roger needed it.

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  6. Only by proxy...some of my friends boosted some speaker cabs from the yard at the Marshall Amplification factory. They were stenciled with DEEP PURPLE and this was the classic line up with Blackmore. I was given an empty 4x12 cab which I stupidly gave away when it became difficult to store.

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    Replies
    1. Why, ya doofus! That cab would of made a swell drinks cabinet and conversation piece!

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  7. Only thing I've got, when I went to see Robin Trower in 1980, the support band were called Samson, their singer (Bruce Dickinson) had lots of badges on his trousers (pants), many fell off, I was able to grab a few, he went on to be the singer with Iron Maiden.

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  8. Cool story, Five Guns West!

    In 1997, at a Sonny Rollins show, in the green room of Tramps (a Manhattan club) before the show, Sonny was writing on a note pad. When he finished, he tore the page out of the note pad, and in a loud voice said "Gentemen" this caused sidemen Stephen Scott, Clifton Anderson, Bob Cranshaw, Al Foster and Victor See Yuen to stop what they were doing and focus their attention on Sonny, who continued, "We're gonna do (reading from the page) Biji, St. Thomas, H.S., Prisoner Of Love, Duke of Iron and Everyday I Have The Blues". Sonny put the set list on a side table next to the couch he was sitting on. Later, the set list was just sitting there, so I thought I’d give it a home.

    The handwritten set list looked like this:
    4/12
    Biji
    St. Thomas
    H.S.
    Prisoner Of Love
    Long Ago And Far Away (this was crossed out)
    Duke of Iron
    Everyday I Have The Blues
     

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Babs. Love your story.

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    2. I have a Sonny Rollins story - as it's the only Sonny Rollins story I have I probably told it here already.

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  9. I took a large clay candy corn from Captain Beefheart after his show. He used it to keep track of the songs that he would perform. He moved it down a piece of paper each time he did song. I feel so guilty.

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  10. Don't feel too bad. He doesn't need it anymore.

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  11. No, but we lost our lead singer's leather jacket at the Mabuhay Gardens, and our lead guitarist's Stratocaster at Mills College. You take your eyes off your stuff for a second and it's not your stuff anymore.
    -----
    One o' my jobs is SOLVING ROCK n' ROLL mysteries, and a line like "Kids had camped out all night in front of the Fox Theatre to get into some show but I can’t remember who the act was" makes me put on my deerstalker hat and search for a solution.



    From the Atlanta Constitution, March 1, 1980:

    Agora Ballroom, 665 Peachtree St. N.E. Club opens at 9 p.m.; music begins around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, March 1: Veteran bluesman Muddy Waters. Opening are Johnny Van Zant and the Austin Nichols Band. Advance, $4.50; door, $5.50; free with Molly Hatchet ticket stub.
    ...
    Molly Hatchet. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. 8 p.m. Saturday, March 1. Opening is .38 Special. Two Southern bands that crank it up pretty loud. SOLD OUT. 881-1977
    -------
    Now...why was the Agora letting you in for free if you gave them a stub from the sold out show next door?

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    Replies
    1. Th' Skynyrd's live album One More From The Road ('76) was recorded at the Fox. I imagine there was a sleepover line for those shows.

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