Moons Over Miami

There will be a lot of stories about this band, again I won't mention any names. Let's just say that the leader, and lead singer, of this particular road band was the biggest "Tool" that I have EVER met, and that is saying something! For the sake of the blog I am going to call him Ken! Mostly because he had about as much personality as a Ken from the Barbie and Ken doll collection!

The band was centered around this singer (although calling him a singer is far-fetched) and we got to do several songs without Ken while he rested his "golden" pipes. One of the songs we did was titled "Shake Your Ass Off". It was a funk tune where the horn players (sax and trumpet) would be called down to the dance floor so do a solo while the band chanted "Riky shake your ass off" etc. We would then launch into a 16 bar solo (all that you were allowed because it may make people leave the dance floor). Although, for this song I never remember too many people actually being on the dance floor, because we were on it!

We were at this very posh show club in Miami Florida and we (me and the trumpet player, who was my musical brother and fellow Eastman grad) got the idea to moon the very upscale Miami audience while the band chanted the "shake your ass off" mantra.

Now this sounded like a grand plan while it was being hatched at a Denny's at 3:00AM over pancakes and bacon, but would we do it? You bet your ass we would do it! Mostly for the shock factor and mostly because we loathed Ken so much. After all it was HIS name on the marquee outside EVERY club we played. We were just the backup band. Ken WAS the STAR!!

So yes, we did it! And I must say that the audience kinda dug the whole thing. By today's standards this was pretty tame. In fact, I think we may have actually met more girls (not the type you want to take home to mom) by doing our "Moon Over Miami" routine for this song.

Did Ken like it?? That would be a big NO! Even though he was never there to see it. We only did this particular tune so that Ken could go back to his dressing room and change into another outfit for his next big "vocal" feature.

But I have to say that I "loved" the expression on Ken's face when I informed him as he was leaving the stage to change outfits, that "The moons were coming out tonight." The look of Sheer terror on his face was worth every dollar that we were later fined for this particular show stopper.

And you may also ask why Ken never fired us? Well, let's just say that we wrote all the arrangements for Ken, rehearsed the band, and made Ken look like he actually knew what he was doing. And on top of all that, we WERE a kick-ass horn section. So I guess he could forgive us once or twice in a blue moon...

As for the fines...this was the first of many that Ken would put in place because of the horn section!

Later!

rp