Shorly after that I joined a band called... oh hell I dont even remember the name of it but it sucked...I told them that I wouldn't join the band unless they changed that stupid name. (already I was becoming an asshole). So the new name was Stonehenge....come to think of it, that's not much better than what they had.
We were the part of the Heavy-Metal stronghold in Detroit at the time... Stonehenge had built up quite a name and we were bringing in pretty good money for a bunch of kids doing heavy metal music. Our shows were sold on the radio and we packed every club we played at. We had this killer stage show, complete with flash pots, fog machines, and gothic decor.
I played with Stonehenge for several years before we finally split up. We used to jam at the guitarists' house, he was living with his mother and younger sister. One night mom came home way early and found her daughter involved in a manage e' trous with an unnamed band member in her front room....she wasn't impressed, she withdrew basement privileges from that point forward and we eventually disbanded. The lead singer now sings for L.A. Guns.
I then got into a band called "Majick", All of our songs were quite heavy and dealt with metaphysical subject matter, it was during this time that I started singing lead vox while drumming, The first 2 songs I ever sang live were "Master of Puppets" and and original called "Enchanted Lands" Which I wrote after a strange experience with Some crystal t and a bottle of tequila. Glad those days are behind me.
The old lead Singer of Stonehenge and I went to meet these guys for the first time and audition for the band, it was originally going to be a 5-piece thing. Well once we got over to the house, we played 2 or 3 songs together before we were inturrupted by the phone, it was Mike's (one of the 2 guitarists') Wife and she was freaking out because someone was trying to break into her house. So Mike asks us if we would come with him to go check up on her. Actually he bribed us with a few cases of beer..."um yeah I guess" we hesitantly replied.
So there we were... all 5 of us jammed into this old Nova drinking beer, this dude then reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the the biggest chunk of cocaine I have ever seen, it was a single rock that was bigger than a golf ball. He then proceeded to pull out a knife and carve off a sizable chunk onto a tray mirror he convieniently had in the glovebox.
He had mentioned that he was pretty sure who the person was trying to get into his house so we were going to his house first. Upon entering the general area that was his neighborhood, Mike reaches under the seat and pulls out this .45 and is loading it as he's driving.... So were driving around with open intoxicants, and enough blow to get us all the rico act, and now a loaded gun too, not to mention a psychopath at the wheel. We drove around the city for hours looking for this dude. Every time we would stop at a place, this guy would put the gun in his pants and go look for him, the rest of us just sat in the car and never said a word to each other...well except for maybe an occasional... "dude... pass me the tray". Thank God we never found this guy.
Since we never really got to audition proper with these guys we decided we would do it the following friday, although after the previous adventure I must admit I was somewhat hesitant. But I agreed to do it anyway. Come friday when we got there Mike wasn't there, no one knew where he was, so we just started jamming anyway and it sounded even better without him. We decide to join the band although privately I think we all shared the same thought that a 4 piece is better than a 5 piece. Later in the evening Mike finally calls from the car phone of a new Corvette that he had just stolen. He stole the car and then was making calls on the cell phone. After a 45 minuite high speed chase, the police finally caught him and put him in jail. I never saw him again, Majick was now a 4 piece band, I think we were all relieved.
We stayed together for about 2 years. Exsessive Drug use and a particular incident with a fog machine eventually broke this band up. We produced some really good material though.
The first band that I was ever in was called "Coven", This was back in the early 80's right around 9th grade or so. It was right around the time that Motley Crew came out because that was about all we played. Basically we sucked. But we still thought quite highly of ourselves anyway. I was eventually kicked out of the band for kicking the singers ass...oh and also trying to put Double-bass drumming in all the songs. We once played 6 Motley Crew songs in a single set. Where was my head?
There was this bar called the Falcon Lounge which I believe now is a rather fashionable Burger King. It was burned down 2 nights after the last time we played there. It was a great slingshot for any band wanting to break into the scene. So many good bands had come out of there, including us. When it finnally died, so did many of the bands that it supported. The Detroit Music scene was never the same. All the bands knew each other, It was a real tight music scene.
