Great Moments in Local Rock (Vol. 3)

Back in the day, I could be dogged and relentless on the phone. These were the days before ubiquitous mobile phones, so finding the time (during business hours) to call club managers and pimp the band was difficult.

I was in Rod Almighty then, and it seemed like just as we were starting to get some traction, a ton of our friends (and much of the Dekalb music scene) made an exodus to Chicago. During this transition period, I was hounding clubs like Double Door, Metro, Riviera, and the like trying to get us some opening gigs.

To my surprise, I got a call back from the Double Door late one December to pick up a Sunday night. It was a sucker bet because it was a day or two after New Year's Day and it had already been a snowy winter.

Not only did our newly urbanized friends brave the bitter cold and an off night to see us, but a legion of pals from Dekalb also made the trip for support. We pulled a decent crowd!

Here's the great moment (in hindsight): I was milling about upstairs when one of the bartenders stopped me and told me that he could smell pot from the dressing rooms downstairs all the way up at his post behind the bar. He warned that if I didn't get my posse to stop, we'd all be kicked out of the dressing rooms. I went downstairs and found the 503 clan (our targets in many a late-night water raid) totally dusted. Worse yet, all the comp beer was gone - nothing but floating empties in the icy water.

Needless to say, they cleared out and caused no further trouble.

Later that night, Wesley Willis nearly dropped Jay (lead singer/guitarist) in the bathroom with a "Say Rah!" moment. Jay survived and turned it on him, telling Wesley to "Say ROD!" and returned the head butt. I swear I'm not making this up - I was standing right there. We gave Wes a t-shirt.

In fact, "Rod Almighty" is a featured track on Wesley's Delilah's CD. Apparently, we whipped the rhino's ass.

We got asked back before the end of the night but we broke up before the end of the month. C'est le vie.