Fisher Price: My First Concert

I was reading bulletins over on myspace and one caught my eye, entitled "1st Concert." People who replied had listed their first concert experience. I added Lollapalooza 92 as my entry. I had just turned 14 and went with my buddy Andrew and his brother Clinton, who years later actually became my brother as well... in-law, that is.

But then I started thinking about it. I was completely skipping over two of the defining moments of my young life. At age 3-6, not sure which one, but sometime around there because I remember I had one of those big UVa bandages on my head, one of my "Egyptian turbans" as my Mom called them (I was big into Egypt, ninjas and dinosaurs as a kid), I saw the man himself, Ray Charles at Danville's Harvest Jubilee. I remember 2 songs in particular, "Georgia on my Mind" and "Baby, What I'd Say" and he wore a white tuxedo while the Rayetts wore their trademark slinky black dresses. I think this was right before the infamous Diet Pepsi commercials. Anyways, I left the concert that night and immediately envied the piano lessons that my sister received. I still sat at the piano picking out little tunes, etc., and when I was old enough, age 7, I joined Ray and my namesake muppet as a pianist and never once looked back. When I was 17, I bought my first vinyl record, a 45 single of "Baby, What I'd Say" with "I Got a Woman" on the B side from Sammy, the Downtown Record Man. I almost wore out the grooves with my dad's old 45 portable player, which was the classic 1970's brown-on-beige. I owe a lot to Ray. He taught me that handicaps ain't shit and for a kid like me, that was a big lesson to learn. I even liked the movie, although I think it glossed over some of my favorite Ray stories, like when his mistress scratched scars into his legs with her fingernails while he recorded "Georgia" because he was numbed up on heroin and needed to feel something in order to play, even if it was intense pain, or another about how the pilots used to let him fly the tour planes, basing his steering on the difference in sound pitch between the wings.

However, there's another first concert, about six months before Lollapalooza '92. C.O.D. at Playground Pizza, Danville, Virginny. I was a 13 year-old burgeoning skate punk who'd just discovered Mad Dog 20/20 (on a Boy Scout camping trip, no less) and Newports. It was New Year's Eve. My mom dropped T, Jay and I off at 8PM and one unlucky parent was going to pick us up on their way home from the grown-ups' party at 12:30AM. Where does one begin to describe Playground Pizza?

Do you remember the scene in "Dazed and Confused" when Mitch first goes to the Emporium? That's about as close a comparison as I can make, but in 1992 instead of 1976. Restaurant booths and pool tables full of hustlers in the back with the all important cigarette vending machine, arcade machines off to the left and a small but serviceable stage in the middle, back-dropped by a huge ball pit, in which several kids I now know were probably conceived. The entire place was painted yellow and red, like some kind of Chuck E. Cheese/Mickey D's nightmare. I forget which bands played but the headliner was C.O.D., fronted by the aptly named Sparky. He used to babysit me when I was a kid and no one else was available. Seth, the neighborhood cool kid/dealer, who we called "Dragon Man" due to his gnarly leg tattoo, was on drums.

Now, imagine me, the little brother of the high school's captain of the cheerleading team/soon-to-be salutatorian/goody two-shoes, hanging out with neighborhood's bad kid royalty and others I didn't know from across the River. To me, these guys had their own mythology growing around them. I was in all ways seen as the "good" kid, no more than a wee pup, but now I was smoking cigarettes, wearing my best flannel shirt (1992, people), talking ollies and kickflips while taking little baby hits off of Fast Johnny's stolen bottle of Wild Irish Rose. I'd been listening to grunge and was really into Nirvana and what not, but I'd never experienced it first hand. That night, I moshed for the first time, letting the primal angst of the 3 chord punk wash my sins away (I know, corny, but I was 13, people.) I was introduced to some of the bands that later became my best friends, Afghan Whigs, Mudhoney, Motorhead, L7, Picasso fuckin' Trigger, Pavement, The Ramones, it was an eclectic mix. Some rednecks tried to squash me like a bug in the pit and I later found out that Sparky and his little brother Matt had chased them off in the parking lot after Spark pulled his boot knife out for show and tell. I'd never felt so honored in my entire life. The older kids really took care of us pups, looked after us, hazed us when we got out of line, taught us how to wash our hands with really hot water so the smoke smell would come off and how to jig our wallet chain so it wouldn't snag on chairs. But the music just went straight to my head; it was almost what I imagine heroin to be like. "Oh shit, this is IT!" I don't think I ever experienced it in that pure form again but I've been in love with rock and, er, roll ever since. I consider that night to be something of a birthday in a different sense. My life as an underground punk kid became almost a second persona in the years to come.

Last time I was in Danville, I saw a flier advertising a C.O.D. reunion show on a Sunday. I talked to Spark, now a bluesman extraordinaire, and he said that yeah, it was happening, but unfortunately, I was unable to stick around long enough to see them play. I can't say I'm always the brightest boy...