“Wheels up at 8 AM”, said Joe as he locked the back door of The Upside Down Bus. We groaned like a bunch of 9 year olds. Joe knew that if he said 8, it’d be closer to 11, which is when he actually wanted to leave. We trudged up the stairs to our rooms and hunkered down in our crab bags for a couple of hours of sleep.
At about 10, I dragged my duffel bag down the stairs like a caveman drags his club and put it in The Upside Down Bus, then headed back in to grab some breakfast. It was payday, and I had $200 burning a hole in my pocket, and I planned to spend $50 of it on waffles.
At 10:57, I went to join the guys, reeking of maple syrup. “Almost too late. I would have left without you” Joe said. He would have too. Joe was a pirate.
Donny had apparently sleep-walked downstairs and sleep-put-himself-to-bed in one of the bunks. Nobody else wanted to sleep there because Donny and Rose…because Donny and Rose. Since The Upside Down Bus was not equipped with a barrel of bleach, we readied a hairspray flamethrower to sanitize the bunks. Joe stopped us just before we could set Donny on fire.
Two week supply. It was the 80’s.
The sky was bright blue, and it was a windless -10° day. Nothing like what we partially drove and partially rolled through a week earlier. We were in great moods when aimed the The Upside Down Bus south towards Stettler, where our next gig was. Joe was driving, singing a cappella versions of songs he had written. He was a really talented guy, and that Tom Waits growl sounded mean. Jack was telling Johnny and me, in graphic detail, about his week with Little Paige. Donny was snoring and grinding his teeth.
We were about 50 Km outside of Edmonton when there was a loud crack that even woke Don. It sounded like The Upside Down Bus has been hit by something big.
‘WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” yelled Joe.
“Maybe we hit a dog” said Johnny.
“JAYZUZ H KEE-RYSTE” yelled Joe, as he hit the brakes hard and pulled over. At this point we had left Highway 63 and were on 28, which had multiple lanes and wide shoulders which were safe to stop on in an emergency. We all got out to investigate.
There was no dog or anything else dead in the middle of the road. Jack walked back up the road a bit to see if whatever we had hit was in the ditch. No blood, no carcass. Nothing. We had no choice but to chalk it up to a mystery, and jumped back on The Upside Down Bus.
When we got back up to speed, we noticed it was colder and windier inside than it normally was. That’s when we discovered the source of the crack; the A pillars had disconnected from the roof. They’d been badly damaged when we rolled, but hadn’t completely severed until now. The roof was now peeling back like a sardine can.
We pulled over again. The A pillars would need to be welded but since we obviously couldn’t do that, we did what anyone would do; we got out the duct tape. It was too cold outside for it to stick, so we worked on the inside. First, vertical strips about 30 cm long to hold the roof and windshield together, then about 17 overlapping horizontal strips “for reinforcement”.
There is not a hope in hell The Upside Down Bus could be considered roadworthy in any way, but we were pretty close to Edmonton and really didn’t have any other option but to give’r. If we’d been spotted by the cops, the bus would have been taken off the road and immediately towed to the junk yard.
Mama Soundman lived in Edmonton, so Jack suggested we go to her house until we could get the pillars welded. It sounded like a great idea, until it wasn’t. Mama’s face was a study of every emotion simultaneously. She was thrilled to see Jack, horrified at the condition of the bus, confused and disgusted by the rest of us, and mad as hell that we’d showed up unannounced and parked our death trap in her driveway where all the neighbours could see it. Jack told her if she fronted him the money for the welder, we’d leave as soon as possible. Mama immediately went inside and phoned her brother, who was an oilfield welder. He knew his stuff, but he couldn’t get to us until the next day.
Mama said we could stay overnight if we slept in the garage – it was heated and had no crabs – but insisted the bus be parked in the mall parking lot a few blocks away. Jack was allowed to sleep in his old room, which still had a Farrah Fawcett poster hanging above the headboard. It was a weird location because he had to turn around and put his feet on his pillow to masturbate. I had a Lamborghini Countach poster above my headboard. My Farrah Fawcett poster was on the wall facing my bed so I could crank one out like a normal person.
Sidebar: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been laying on my back in a band room and asked myself “I wonder how that stain got way up there?”
Uncle Neil showed up at about noon on Monday. We all went with him to the parking lot of shame, curious about whether The Upside Down Bus could even be fixed. Neil looked at the bus from all angles, inside and out, and finally said, “how are you guys even alive?”. We shrugged. Joe asked him if he could fix the A pillars so we could get to our next booking on Thursday. “Yeah. I’ve seen worse, believe it or not”, he said.
It only took him about 15 minutes. When he was done, it resembled the brake reservoir in that it seemed far more robust than it was when it came out of the factory. If we’d hit a pothole too fast, The Upside Down Bus would have crumbled like a Jenga tower…but the roof would still be attached to the A pillars. We went back to Mama’s house to thank her for her help and hospitality. She seemed a little surprised, I presume not expecting the dirty long-hairs to have manners. Joe stopped at a flower shop on the way out of town and arranged for Mama Soundman to get a dozen pink roses.
“Why pink? Did she give you a boner?” asked Donny.
“She did”, said Joe, looking Jack right in the eyes.
“Offside” said Jack.
“Pink because they mean admiration, gratitude, and grace, you uncultured wanker. I’ll send her red roses later after she confirms the pregnancy test is negative.”
‘OFF. FUCKING. SIDE”
“Relax. I pulled out. Is it ok if I call you son?”
“OOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFF. FUUUUUUUUUUUUCKING. SIIIIIDE!”
“Let’s hit the road. I don’t want to drive in the dark.”
• • •
The gig in Stettler was what’s known as a “back three” because it was only Thursday/Friday/Saturday. Most of the time, the club owner would let you stay from the beginning of the week. It was not altruistic. They knew we’d be spending money on food and booze all day because there was nothing else to do. He couldn’t rent the band rooms to anyone anyway, so it was a net gain for the club.
The last couple of weeks had caught up with us physically and mentally. Our first set on Thursday was atrocious. We sounded like a junior high school marching band and Jack didn’t have the skills to mask it with audio effects and/or volume. To be truthful, the soundman for Van Halen wouldn’t have been able to make it sound less shitty. At the end of the night, the manager told us to pack up and be gone by morning. He was generous. I’d have fired us after the first set.
I had nothing left in the tank. I phoned my dad and asked if he’d come pick me up. On the ride back to Calgary, he never once chastised me or made any angry or judgmental comments at all. I guess he could see that I was defeated and saw no point in making me feel worse. When we got to my parents’ house, I went straight to my old room that didn’t smell like urine, and passed out in my own bed. I didn’t have the energy to have one off-the-wrist to Farrah until I woke up 14 hours later.
Post Mortem
You’d think that a shared experience like the one the Artful Dodgers had would create lifelong bonds, but it didn’t. I never saw or heard from any of the guys again. They drove The Upside Down Bus back to the lower mainland and scattered.
I sometimes think about how different things would be if I had died in that bus crash. My kids wouldn’t have been born. My parents would have grown old, heartbroken that their only child had passed away in his 20’s. I’d be the “whatever happened to that guy?” topic of conversation at high school reunions.
I stayed in the Vancouver music scene for a few more years, and never heard any mention of Joe Singer, Donny Drummer, Johnny Guitar, or Jack Soundman. They were phantoms. I played briefly in a couple of underwhelming cover bands until I formed my own band that played original music, Marshall Law, in the fall of 1989.
We were a power trio with a singer, the same as the Dodgers, and we got to be really fucking good over the next three years. The three of us that were up front (singer, guitar, me) were all 6’5″ with incredible long blonde hair and a rolled up sock stuffed into the front of our pants. The drummer, Wayne, is still one of my best friends 30 years later. I just had lunch with him a couple of days ago.
Marshall Law, left to right;
Wayne (drums), Nigel (throat), Aye (bass), Roy (guitar)
Word got around about this hot-shit new band, and we started selling out venues from about 600 people like Club Soda on Homer street, to almost 1200 at the 86th Street Music Hall on the old Vancouver Expo site. We did a couple of radio interviews, recorded a demo EP in an actual professional studio, and even signed one or two autographs.
We had a manager come up from LA to check us out. He was full of promises, and it was really starting to look like something big might happen. The dream might actually be coming true. Then Nirvana exploded and bands like us fell by the wayside almost overnight. That’s when I cut my hair off and quit the music biz for good. I was 30 and I had a couple of kids. Playing in a club band was not going to pay the bills.
Which reminds me; did I ever tell you about the time I almost became a rock star…
