A lot of music happened in Al's Gray wonderland. Some of it was good, some of it wasn't. That's natural, what with so much music happening. When stretching out like that there's going to be bits of music that only happened once and never again. Of that one-off music, some of it was better than some other of it. Then, there was the one-off stuff that was worth keeping forever. Let's just be grateful that the machines were on most of the time. Here's a collection of the more memorable of those one-offs from those years that Big Al gave us wretched blues carnies a place to call home.
One-Offs
Down With the Tax Man
Death and Taxes. Both suck and both sit there and stare at you from the moment you wake up until the moment you fall back down and black out again.
If you make anything of your life, both are there just waiting to take what they can from that life. Or maybe even take it all away.
Death is the big unknown, and who knows, maybe it's like getting let out of a cage, but taxes...there's no mystery there. No one's writing poetry in celebration of the wonder and majesty of taxes.
Even so, it wouldn't be so bad if there weren't people whose whole lives were devoted to chasing you down and putting as much of a hurt on you as the law allows over the bits and pieces of you that the law lets them take from you. Sure, it sucks to pay, but it sucks worse to watch those assholes have their way with you. It's especially bad if those shits put their target on you over being an ex-con.
Al and Kevin got miserable one night on this bitch of a number. It was in June of 2011, which just goes to show that there are some things that you don't outgrow.
Like ever.
Tax Man
I WAS GONNA PLEAD INSANITY, BUT MY LAWYER SAID I'D BE NUTS TO DO THAT.
Jailbait
Coup Died
See the player over there to the right? Go ahead and click on the play button. Hear that crazy shit? That's a live recording of Alan telling Jimmy Coup - for the first time ever - that he (Jimmy) had just gone dead from a cocaine seizure, and that he (Alan) had just dragged his runaway soul back from the ether a few minutes ago.
It was on a Friday night in 1987, and a big storm was blowing through upstate NY. The guys who were up at Gray were locked in deep under several feet of violent winter freeze, so Big Al decided to open the reserves and let everyone go nuts for a little while. There were free-base cook-off competitions, ounces of high-test dope being microwaved in crystal goblets, iron-lung, super-hit death matches, and all sorts of shit that only a house full of 10 yr old crack heads would dream up on the spot.
And then, wouldn't you know it, Coupie goes and times out on everyone.
A few quick spasms, and he was gone – laid out in concrete gray, and staging the ultimate buzz kill. "Fuck that" said Al, as he blew Coupie's air back into him and ordered his heart back to work. It was Al's house, so his word was law, and Coupie was back on line in no time. All that was left to do was for Al to take the mic and document it all.
You know this story has to be true. Seriously. Who would be fucked up enough to invent it?
So, in the book, "Black Flies in the Backyard With Snowshoes", Chetty is the one who steals everything. Even when he's not there, if it gets nipped, he's the one who took it. And that's how it was throughout all those years. "Chetty took it" and that was that.
The truth was that there was more petty theft in that place than oxygen, and everyone took their turn at lightening Big Al's load whenever the opportunity presented itself. And another truth is that Al knew it all along.
He knew it and he used to bust balls with it now and then. In this little clip, Kevin and Al are sitting down and clanking around on some 4AM guitar blues. Check out when Al starts the lyrics. You can hear Kevin chunk a chord or two right away. Oopsie.
Guilty conscience? Hell, Chetty got up from the drum kit and walked right off when Al started his shit. You needed a thick skin up in Gray. If you couldn't get that together, then it was no place to play music or to do much of anything else for that matter.
Steal From Me
Big Al had his own inimitable style when it came to women. I once asked him about how it was that the women went for him in such a big way, and he told me "It was a cinch. I'd take out a hundred dollar bill and eat it at the bar while I'm talking to some broad. She'd be so eager to go home with me, she'd forget her purse."
No verifying that story, but there definitely were swarms of hot little fuck-dolls everywhere, and the run-off was appreciated by those of us who could never have had one of these spinners give us more than a quick macing and an extended restraining order under any other circumstances.
Here's a quirky number that includes the whole band giving Al a chance to show his appreciation for all the cute little tinker-toy chicks that littered those years with twinkly voices, tight perfumed bodies, and a fun way to get rid of all those extra ounces of world-class dope. God forbid that any of it go unconsumed by such eager little vacuums.
Yay ladies!