livin' in the band

now playing: eagles, "after the thrill is gone"


on the subject of joe walsh, i found this little tidbit from an old post earlier....enjoy.



ok, so here's the big secret.


this past sunday a longtime friend of both the band poco and the extended poco family had a surprise 50th birthday party...he was duped into thinking it was a work function, and six months of planning by his wife and children and a lot of the poco folks somehow managed to go undetected until the moment he walked in the room.

a little backstory, though...

i had agreed to provide a sound system, PA equipment, and backline gear (amps, etc) for the party. i had spoken to a friend about borrowing some of their gear to add to what i had, and since borrowing their gear would be reason enough to justify bringing him along, i thought of him first...because there was definitely reason for him to want to be there.

well, first the van died...it decided last week to refrain from shifting gears (as we've discussed), so i called my buddy mitch dieghan and we discussed using his truck...until such time as i heard from the chief party coordinator jon rosenbaum that the weather was supposed to suck on sunday. so ok, scratch the truck, then.

shit.

ok, call mike...

oh, wait - there's another problem. now, mike can't make it on sunday, either...some band business has come up, and he's not going to be able to go. ok, forgivable...i can respect his position.

but that leaves me without either PA or transportation on the day before this gig.

so i made a couple of calls, charlies' wife dorothy made a couple of calls, and we managed, through enticing third parties and mixing and matching equipment from other folks, to get the necessary gear in place for the party. literally, just in time to open the doors to people.

now why, you might ask, was it so important to have all this gear?


because POCO was playing the party.

(those unfamiliar with the band and with my ties with them can go back here for a not-so-short refresher course)


dorothy and her family had really pulled out all the stops for this. and it was contingent upon there being a sound system for them to play through.

well, we pulled it off. and i had enough room (since i'd managed to get help with some of the bigger items) to bring my drums along. since the band was playing as a trio (without a drummer), i floated the possibility of sitting in on drums...and got the thumbs up.


i was going to be playing with my heroes.


after the equipment was set up, we did a short soundcheck - after which paul looked over at me with a big grin on his face and said, "there's one for your bio!"

we chuckled for a bit, then dissipated to wait for the guest of honor to arrive - after he came in and stumbled around in a stupor for a few minutes absorbing what was happening, the band played a few songs as a trio, and then we all broke for dinner. after dinner, the band played "happy birthday" to charlie as they cut the cake, and then we did a rather long set together afterward...started with cajun moon...relatively easy song, good one to start....

then rusty mentions made of stone and how i cut the song on my album and asks me to sing it! so he summons me over and sets me up with an acoustic and we do made of stone together with the guys singing harmony while i took the lead.

i think i remembered all the words in order this time...the first time i ever played the song in front of rusty, that wasn't the case (this was at the in-store at the nashville tower records location mentioned in the linked entry above.)

it was a moment, to be sure.

after that, rusty asked me to do another song...i blurted out "indian summer" and headed back to the drumkit...he meant for me to keep playing guitar, i think, but i was more comfortable behind the drums for this show. it was rather low-key, and there were certainly enough capable guitarists in this band as it was. i was enjoying playing drums with them - it had been in the back of my mind ever since jon called me from springfield when george fell ill, and i had felt that, since that time, i would have had a shot at filling in for george during his illness if i'd gone to the show with jon when he invited me.

but, all that aside - we finished the set some time later after having trotted through a handful of poco classics and a couple of songs that i don't think too many people have heard them do - "twist and shout" and "what i'd say", for instance - before we called it a night.

lots of handshaking and smiles later, the car was loaded and wendy and i were on our way back south through the insane new jersey traffic.


as the adrenaline settled in a bit and we were able to relax, i told her, "i'm really glad you came along tonight."

"thanks,", she said. "why?"

"because you understand this. you get how important this was to me. and frankly, i don't know that it's really hit home with me yet...but i know that you know. thank you."


wendy is very much a part of the extended poco family - people know her when we show up at events or at parties, and the band remembers her...hell, we went to a poco show on our honeymoon...and we'd entertained thoughts of asking richie furay to marry us at one point. this poco family is as much hers as it is mine now...



it's now 1:30 am, and i must, must, MUST go to bed.