The Day the Music Cried

Predator Press

[LOBO]

It’s a little-known fact that Brent Diggs and I weren’t always the bitter enemies we are today.

For instance, I didn’t recognize Brent immediately at Juilliard Music School. In fact I thought he was just another flashy and callow wanna-be rock band frontman.

But one night after my tuba solo, he insisted on meeting me. He was so moved by my performance, as we shook hands a single tear rolled slowly down his cheek.

Now everyone knows the tuba is the backbone of any good band; once I graduated, I probably could have ‘written my own ticket’ so to speak. I was featured in Musician Magazine as the “57th best Tuba Player EVER”. Band members of both Metallica and Van Halen threatened to fracture off in order to work with me on solo projects.

And I was good too: in the recording studio, all women had to be escorted out so the soggy panties hitting the floor wouldn’t mess up the audio.

But there was something about Brent’s youthful exuberance and vitality that appealed to me, and soon we were playing together with other promising underground musical acts.

Then one day Brent comes to me and says, “LOBO, we gotta start our own band.”

To which I replied, “What the hell are you pointing at?”

"Just point at anything and watch what happens."

"Cool!"

“But I am serious,” he continues. “With my golden pipes and your saxophone thingy, there would be no stopping us!”

“I’ll only do it if we call it Danger Couch,” I says.

“Okay,” he says. “But only if we promise the band will never ever ever break up.”

“Deal,” I says.


***

In Brent’s defense, I was already well on my way to a substance abuse problem. I had been “experimenting” –recreationally- with Pop Rocks. Honestly, to this day I think it was the advertising aimed at my generation and colorful packaging.

I ate one packet of orange Pop Rocks during rehearsals. I ate two packets of grape while blistering live solos on my 'Tube'.

Soon by the end of any given day, I would have had consumed thirty-four packets.

When out of my 'supply', I shopped for them bulk online with trembling hands … and paying an extraordinary fee to have them Fed-Exed the next day because I couldn't pick them up at the warehouse that night.

Four months later, when I crashed the 1954 Bentley Type R, the cops found the floorboards covered in Pop Rocks packets.

"Son-" the cop started.

"What dead hooker?" I replied.


***

Brent, watching millions of dollars evaporate due to my rapidly accelerating habit, finally confronted me. And that night I swore I would never touch a single Pop Rock ever again. But at the very next show, through my microphone, everyone in the audience could here the distinct crackling joy.

In the dressing room, Brent found my stash: a thick, tight brick of Pop Rocks sealed in a waterproof ziplock bag floating in the upper toilet tank.

Truthfully, my music suffered. Stuff that was supposed to go "bum bum, bum bum" would come out "bum bum-bwah-bum": the surgical precision required to hit that note with just the right force seemed to escape me, and it was often either far too loud and buzzing or completely inaudible altogether. Worse of all, the sound engineers never seemed to figure out why everything recorded sounded like angry Rice Krispies in violent milk.

I started showing up late for performances, play like five notes, and then leave without explanation in pursuit of the nearest fix. Rather than counting out measures on sheets and sheets of blank sheet music for the notes on page 98, I would sleep through shows missing cues completely. Once I accidentally grabbed the violin sheet music and played the whole venue like it was a Danny Elfman soundtrack. This earned me a promising spot on a hip, irreverent episode of Hee Haw ... but my downward spiral was impossible to mask even from them, and I was fired for calling Tom Wopat an asshole on live television.

My hygiene suffered, and my flesh started to seethe and bubble visibly like a live thing under filthy, neglected clothing.

-The only thing that seemed to still like me was my dog.

Six months later, Brent tracked me down in a cheap motel room. Unemployed, I was pouring Pop Rocks into a spoon and tonguing the inside of the packet. Eyes darting and bulgy, I had a lighter and a syringe, prepared for the Mother-of-All Pop Rocks high.

"I think it's time you faced the fact that you have a problem," said Brent.

"Nonsense," I says through purple teeth, twisting the thick rubber band over my elbow. "I can quit anytime I want. I don't need some goddamned intervention!"

Then, blammo.

Distracted, I let the paparazzi too close; the highly-unstable Pop Rocks in the spoon detonated in the camera flash.

Brent and I survived by some incalculable miracle, having been thrown clear of the blast.

Thank God, I remember thinking.

-I was getting really sick and tired of hearing that ‘You’ve got a problem’ bullshit.


Happy Anniversary Brent and Camille!