The summer after high school I and a bunch of my friends were between bands at the same time. Our musical taste was different enough that we didn't want to start a band together, so we just got together regularly and jammed the most mindless random experimental drug induced stuff.. "whatever came to mind" you might say.

At the same time an old derelict guy decided he was our manager, and proceeded to book us at the absolute worst places... the kind of places where they have a peekhole in the door to make sure it isn't a raid when somebody knocks and doesn't use the secret code... Then once you're inside, they lock the door behind you. Yeah. THAT kind of place associated with police reports in the newspaper..

In fact I suddenly realize that I can't tell you that story. But here's another one booked by the same old derelict manager:

It was a hard core country dive out in the mountains in a town I had never even heard of and where I learned later the local police were afraid to go. It was in the days before political correctness made it hard on people who are haters... and we were exactly the kind of young 'uns this crowd hated. It was their civic duty to stir up trouble. And they did.

I don't think we made it through one song... but then, those guys never really stopped playing between ideas, and the first song could easily have been two hours long. I don't remember much about it actually. Except that they kicked us out very quickly and didn't pay us. We were probably lucky to escape unharmed

On the way home driving back down the mountain we found an all night restaurant in the middle of nowhere that had the best steak & cheese sandwiches, and life was suddenly good again. We were 18.