MUSIC (DEMOS)

WORLD OF GOOD

My friend LeeLee told me this was a torch song. I had to look that term up. Ok. It’ a torch song alright. I must’ve been expelling more frustration at the things I was experiencing around that time. This version was recorded by her husband Christopher. He had a really nice microphone. I wish I had a better voice!
This was a song that had a purpose, and it wasn’t out at fun places or acoustic shows. I learned that the hard way. It’s place, however, found me one day. (And it of course has a bit of weirdness involved, which means Peter Fagan was there).
One day at work, a coworker told me someone was there to see me ‘about a band’. It was around 2012 I think and there was no band. (People refused to believe me all the time, but the bottom had just begun to fall out of the music industry, and it cost more to go out and play than the venues were paying. I just got out quicker than everyone else. See today’s music ‘scene’ for evidence.) I came out to the front and was confronted by a frustrated guy named Wayne who said he’d heard about this guy in town who had a good band that worked at a restaurant. Nobody knew WHAT restaurant, so Wayne had been running around town. I hated to tell him that I didn’t have a band anymore after all of that, and told him yes, you’ve most likely found the right guy.
“What’s up?”, I asked him.
“We need a band for a charity even for Cancer. Can you guys do it?”, he asked.

How the heck am I supposed to proceed here? I just laid out the financial difficulties of keeping a band together in the financial climate we were in, so here’s a show we’re definitely doing for free. I told him OK and then started to sweat.
The last thing I heard Wayne say was “Hartford Convention Center, or something like that…we”ll call you.” I gave him my email and phone number and got back to work. I pulled a Noah’s Ark strategy of getting musicians to play. I emailed or called two of each instrument. Two drummers, Two bass players, Two Keyboard players, etc. etc. Once we had the spots filled, we would practice a couple times and it would be a fun one-off gig that we could record and then go about our lives like nothing happened.

Christopher Eddy said he’d do it, Tim Mayock did too. Greg Marshall was in. Peter Fagan was in. OK. I told everyone I’d call them when they got back to me.

Except they never did.

The closer it got to the deadline date, the angrier I was getting. Come on! We’re already doing this for free! The band was getting antsy, and as of the week before I just told them the thing must’ve fell through, or they got a real band or something. Forget about it, and if they happen to call us a day before and say the show is real, I’ll just go do it acoustic. It was too much to let everyone flap in the wind waiting for the call.

Then, one day, Tim Mayock called me at work and told me that he’d seen the Ad in the Hartford Advocate and that we were playing. I said WHAT? Where!? Tim, in his calm very Pepperidge Farms Remembers manner, said it’s at the Hartford Civic Center. I SAID WHAT?!?!? That’s insane. I looked online, and it said “XL Center”. I was beside myself with fear, but surely that’s the Convention Center that used to be the old BJ’s Warehouse! Tim assured me that they’d just changed the name earlier that year to the XL CENTER.

Well that’s FUCKING GREAT!
Now I was freaking out. I had to call all the guys and beg them to show up. We were all half laughing/half freaking. Tuesday night. 7PM. OK.

We were instructed to pull into the ANN ST entrance to the tunnels below the XL Center, and there we were with our little combo amps and our little economy cars in this HUGE parking garage meant for tour buses. It was hard not to laugh, and we did.

The rest is a blur. I only recall a few moments of it, and one of them is that this song, WORLD OF GOOD went over the best with the crowd. Considering why they were there, that made sense.

Never played since.