THE MOST NERVOUS I’VE EVER BEEN ON STAGE

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

1977 was a pivotal year for me and my partner. After years of Rick and Ruby working the suburbs, we finally decided “Wait a minute. We live in San Francisco, why are we working Walnut Creek?” We pursued a club on Polk Street called The Palms, run by a guy who had the same name as our previous manager, Lee Shapiro. Fortunately, Lee from The Palms was familiar with us and gave us a night on a total gamble. We did well enough that by the end of summer we were booked there at least several nights a month.

From working at The Palms we met up with a manager who initially was only promising us some decent gigs because he had more or less stolen our backup band, whom he also managed, for another gig, leaving us having to do a gig in a cavernous venue with just the two of us. I remember we were opening for Mary Monday and The Bitches, a local punk band (no, really?). We already had experienced the Punk movement from working SF’s original Punk haven, the Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway. Our soon to-be-manager never saw us there, which was ok, but he did come to The Palms, and liked us, though he never thought about managing us until he saw us at an outdoor concert in July in Golden Gate Park.

That concert, where the featured act more or less bombed, was a pivotal moment where we were finally recognised as something different and dare I say entertaining. What really touched me that day was a line of people asking for our autographs after the show. I heard one young girl say to her dad, “Are they famous?” to which he said, “No but they will be.” Bob Lacey became our manager that day, and he took us out to dinner and drinks to further his cause.

Bob was well connected, and by September, he was fully on board with us, as we also had found a keyboardist, Joshua Brody, who would provide the perfect balance between the cabaret act we were and the concert act that we aspired to be. We no longer needed a backup band, and given some of the prima donna musicians we worked with, this was  a blessing. At the end of September, we were booked to open on a weekend, two shows per night, for one of the biggest US comedy acts of the 70’s, Cheech and Chong.

The venue was The Old Waldorf, the first of about 20 gigs we would do in this 500-seat room over the next year. For some reason none of us remember, it was only the two of us that played that gig, even though Joshua was there. I had always opened the show solo, allowing for Ruby to make a dramatic entrance about 6 or 7 minutes in. For this show, we’d only need to do about 20 minutes total, so my solo time was maybe five minutes. Those may have been the most gruelling five minutes in my entire career.

As the magnitude of this gig was settling in, I got a case of nerves I had never felt before and to my knowledge, have never felt since. As the seconds were ticking down before the lights would dim and the announcer would introduce us, I remember pacing back and forth frantically strumming my guitar but not really playing anything. I had in mind what I was going to do, but no idea what to do if I died on my ass. The capacity crowd had paid a fairly high ticket price, and we were the act that was expected to pump the crowd up for the headliners. It could have been a disaster, and I seemed convinced it would be.

Rick & Ruby were introduced to indifferent applause, and I walked out with guitar on, maybe a good thing in case I pissed myself. After some very stiff “Hi, how ya doin” banter, I chose to open with as frantic a version of Del Shannon’s “Runaway” as I could muster, and kept thinking, “What am I doing here?” That first song done, I got courtesy applause, but didn’t waste time wondering whether or not that was the right song to open with. It probably wasn’t, but I had one more sink or swim tune before bringing my partner out. That was my medley of Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” as done by Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Barry White, KC and the Sunshine Band, and finally The Ohio Players. The crowd got it and liked it, and though I probably sweated off ten pounds in that five minutes, once Ruby was on with me, the rest of the set went fine.

Cheech and Chong were very nice to us, and I remember laughing at them live a lot more than I ever did any of their albums. Since their humour addressed a drug-influenced culture, I assumed that their humour was exacerbated by the state of their audience. It was, to a degree, but there were indeed some very funny moments that you didn’t need to be stoned to appreciate. It turned out to be a lovely two days, and we got more confident with each show.

I never saw Cheech again, but 15 years later, I opened for Tommy Chong in Memphis. We hung out quite a bit over the two days we were there, and he knew Rick & Ruby had some brushes with fame that our 1977 gig served as a bit of a springboard to. He and Cheech had a major falling out, and though he was fine performing on his own, he was also looking at possibilities of a new partner. I wish I could say Rick & Chong was going to be the answer, but after one meeting in LA we both knew it wasn’t going to work. He and Cheech reunited for a tour in 2008, and Tommy had a moderately successful acting career followed by a jail sentence for illegal selling of drug paraphernalia. Both guys are still alive and well, an amazing feat in itself.

September 30th, 2021



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