“… So I lied to the lady to get booked in there, where I was going to bite the head off the rat, and when we got there, I said, “Look. The Giants of Jazz can’t make it tonight. We’re the Sandbox Pimps.”
All right, story number two. Fourth of July, and I’m playing at Bamboula’s. The guy had told me, “Look, turn it down. More jazz.” That’s what he’d told me the gig before.
So I get drunk, and I’m just going to blow the gig up. Go in there and punk it out. No one tells me what volume to do it at or how to do my crap. I’m gonna revolt.
On the way there, I happened to find this really good trumpet player I know that plays jazz and a guitar player that does too. It’s like, “Yes, you sons-of-bitches want jazz? I’ve got some jazz for you.”
I fake a whole jazz gig.
[Interviewer expresses doubts.]
Jazz, man. We improvised. The first song went something like this [loudly]:
“Fourth of July morning, I was drunk. Found me a cool jazz band to play the Fourth of July set. I was bent and twisted, didn’t know how I was going to get through the gig.”
That’s how the whole gig went. I pulled it off.
Okay, you want to hear my favorite story?
Me, Lissa (“Washboard Lissa” Driscoll), Tom Chute, and this piano playing kid that lived downstairs from us were playing the Apple Barrel. I’m all fucked up. It’s the early hour, but I’ve never played the early hour. So I’m not being quiet, I’m being really loud and crazy, and abusing the guitar, and the lady turns off the amplifier 15 minutes into the gig.
I go up to her, and I say, “Do you see all these people over here? These are my friends. They work on the railroad. If I snap my fingers, they’ll fucking destroy this place. I want to be paid now.”
She pays me.
Well, then Lissa starts a fight with her about screwing over—what the heck was his name? Famous New Orleans musician. I can’t remember his name, but anyway. While she’s fighting with him, I order a cab. The lady was going, “Call the police.” She was telling the bartender to call the police on Lissa. The bartender said, “Lissa, I don’t want to do it. Please just go.”
While this is going on, I’m loading all the gear in the cab. The piano player was, “What do I do?” and I say, “Keep playing.”
I knew if I said anything to Lissa, she’d just attack me, so I just grab her up and throw her in the cab. Just as I’m sliding the door, three New Orleans cop cars pull up… and we’re pulling away.
Lissa goes, “Fuck, we didn’t get paid.”
And I said, “Jonnie Two-Time always gets his money.”
We played 15 minutes, and I got paid.
