Everlong - Foo Fighters

Whenever I think of Foo Fighters, I think of testicles. Balls. The biggest balls ever seen. This is unfortunate for two reasons: 1) I'm a straight male with no interest in any balls but my own, and 2) the Foo Fighters seem to be unavoidable, which means that thinking of balls is unavoidable. Allow me to elaborate...

The first time I saw Foo Fighters was at a festival in San Diego.  One hundred bands in 3 days, all out doors in the downtown Gas Lamp district. It was like Woodstock, but with concrete instead of grass. Since Nirvana has been and always will be my favorite band, this was a momentous experience to be in the presence of Dave Grohl.

I'd never seen a set like theirs. The end of each tune was also the beginning of the next. They played for 30 minutes without stopping even to count off the next song.

About half way through the set, a kid got on stage. He just climbed over the baracade placed at the front row and stood up next to Dave Grohl. I've seen many drunkards attempt to tresspass on the stage and instantly fail. The few that do manage to physically stand on the band's turf are instantly taken down by a mob of security guards and dragged away like a topless teenager in a horror movie. 

This guy was different though. Nobody did anything. He stood next to Dave for over a minute as the 5th Fighter of Foo. Dave kept singing and playing guitar, but continuosly glared from the corner of his eyes, bewildered at the fact that nobody saw this guy next to him. After a verse and a chorus, Dave stopped playing. Then the bassist. Next the guitarist. Taylor Hawkins kept punishing the drum kit for another 10 seconds and then got the cue. The Foo Fighters had stopped playing in the middle of a song.

Now security noticed the uninvited guest and started to rush him. Dave Grohl waved his arms and shouted through the microphone: "Don't touch him! Don't you fucking touch him! He's been on the stage so long he's part of the fucking band now! Don't you fucking touch him!"

Dave Grohl - "What's your name man?"

Matt - "May names Matt! Wooo Hooo!" 

Dave Grohl - "Matt, where are you from?"

Matt - "Pacific Beach, fuck yeah!"

Dave Grohl - "Ok Matt from Pacific Beach, I have a question for you. If you have the balls to come up here on my stage ...do you have the balls...to show us your balls."

Suddenly, this wasn't fun anymore. Matt from Pacific Beach started to panic. He looked at his balls, then the crowd, then Dave Grohl, then his balls, crowd, Dave, crowd, balls crowd, balls crowd, Dave, balls....

Grohl crossed his arms and tapped his foot like Bugs Bunny. The smart ass grin on his face silently said "Well, you little fucker, are you going to show us your balls or are we going to stand here all night?"

The crowd started to boo. Matt from Pacific Beach heard the displeasure and brewing frustration of 50,000 rockers that paid good money and sweated in the August sun all day awaiting the Foo Fighters. He knew what he had to do.

Matt shook his head, peering down at his balls, and placed both of his hands in his pants. Some shovelling, some adjusting, and some strategizing occured. To the best of my knowledge, he covered his shaft with one hand, and yanked his balls out with the other, exposing himself to the crowd, to God, and to David Grohl, front man of Foo fighers, drummer of Nirvana. 

Little did the band or Matt from Pacific Beach know, that the camera man had positioned himself center stage.  He zoomed in, filling the frame with Matts manhood. There on the Sony jumbo screen, were Matt's balls, bursting at the seems, being sqeezed by his belt line, with every blue and purple vien, every nut hair and a possible genital wart, in all their detailed 20'x20' Sony high def glory. 

The crowd went wild. Matt from Pacific Beach put his balls away and seciruty calmly escorted him off the stage. "I didn't think he'd really do it," Dave said, laughing aloud into the microphone. "That's guys probably going to jail now. Ooops!"

Plush - Stone Temple Pilots

I was at a basement bar in New York City, one of those seedy underground watering holes with flat beer and red leather everything. It was almost as if they converted a NYC Subway station into a pub. You could smell the years of decay and neglect, the humidity, the sweat and the decades of spilled drinks. This particular bar was closing down, and this was the last night they'd be open. Their big farewell bash wasn't much of a bash, considering it was Monday night and there were only about 20 patrons.

　

The entertainment that night was brilliant, however. A three piece band, guitar, bass and drums, set up on a small stage, but no vocalist. Each table had a list of songs the band could play, and if you wanted to sing, one of their girlfriends would give you a lyric sheet. It was smoothly hosted, announcing each guest singer and giving the next 2 amateurs on deck a fair warning. The MC enthusiastically called you up by name but let the song remain a mystery. I had a drink and put my name on the list.

　

Before I was called up, I noticed a couple of rowdy guys and 2 hot and equally boisterous girls at a dark booth half way between my table and the stage. The lighting was so poor at this place that you couldn't see anyone's face unless they were actually under the stage lights.

　

When my name was called, I casually walked to the stage, trying not to show my complete and utter excitement. During this time in my life, I didn't have a performing band together. It had been at least 2 years since I'd played with a full hard rocking band. I'd performed this song as a solo acoustic act approximately 10 million times, but this was the first full throttle, balls to the walls Rock rendition I'd ever had the opportunity to do. Even on a Monday night in a basement bar for 20 grungy New Yorkers, this was a dream coming true.

　

About 2 notes into it, the Rowdy Table recognized the tune and got even rowdier. They were rocking out and banging heads. About 2 bars into the first verse, I hit my personal comfort zone and knew I'd nail this song. During the hard hitting bridge, one of the guys from the Rowdy Table stood up on the seat and slam danced until the end. When the song ended, those 4 people made more noise than the rest of the bar could handle. You would have thought they were front row for the real Stone Temple Pilots at Madison Square Garden.

　

Walking back to my booth, I had to pass them. I was honestly a little hesitant. As I approached their table, one of the girls got out and kissed me on the cheek for a job well done. The wildest of them all, the guy that stood up on the booth, was still standing. He walked over the table, knocking over a few drinks, and hopped off it into the walkway. "That was the best fucking Plush I ever fucking seen man! You fucking rocked that shit! You owned that STP! You're fucking awesome and we love you!' he shouted as he gave me a high five, a bro hug, into a real hug, followed by a series of half a dozen more high fives.

　

I sat down in my booth and the host announced to everyone, "Up next we welcome Jimmy!" The extremely enthusiastic, hard rocking, booth standing, bro-hugging guy jaunted to the stage. Apparently he was Jimmy. When he got under the stage lights though, we all realized that this wasn't your average drunken rock enthusiast dude named Jimmy. It was fuckin' Jimmy Fallon.

　

He did a great rendition of 'Killin' in the Name of'' by Rage Against the Machine and left shortly after. That night it dawned upon me that a professional entertainer with millions of fans was also a fan. My fan. He was a Stone Temple Pilots fan too, but Jimmy Fallon was my fan. I've played this song at most of my own concerts ever since this date, and each and every time I do, I think about that exhilarating feeling I had the first time I got to play it with a full band, and the quiet satisfaction I get by knowing that somebody who's somebody thinks I do it well enough to kick over some $9 Jack n' Cokes.

　

I try not to concentrate on the fact that I didn't have a demo CD to slip him.

Hunger Strike - Temple of the Dog

I first heard this song during the summer of 6th grade. My parents used to take us camping at Lake Skinner, in the dry and blazing inlands of Southern California.  They had a pop up trailer which was part tent, part trailer, part inferno. As a younger kid I used to love these trips. My brother and I would be free to aimlessly ride our bikes through the dirt for hours during the day, and to throw things in the fire pit at night just to watch them burn at night.  By the time I was 12 though, the fun was gone. A weekend at the lake became a 72 hour prison term with no Cd's, no MTV, no possibility of parole and most of all, no Rock n Roll. 

My mom used to have a small, portable black and white television set that plugged into the cigarette lighter for electricity. I wasn't interested in anything that would be on stations 2 through 13 at that time, nor am I now. This contraption did have an FM radio on it however, and that was intriguing. There were no rock stations within 50 miles of the lake and the reception was terrible.  Inside our trailer, I crafted an antenna matrix using anything that was metal. Beer cans attached to wire coat hangers, held together with paper clips connected to soda cans wrapped in aluminum foil. Anything. It looked like something Dr. Frankenstein would have designed, awaiting a lightening storm to bring the monster to life. After hours of amateur electric engineering, I got a San Diego based Hard Rock station to come through. 

The moment the static cleared, it gave way to a haunting and soulful chord progression. It was simple. It was dirty. The tone of the guitar fascinated me. At that time, I didn't play guitar yet and my young mind was running rampant with inquisitive thoughts. 'What kind of guitar sounded like that? What would a guitar that sounded this good look like? How much would it cost? How long would it take me to learn to play like that?'

The opening lines, 'I don't mind stealing bread from the mouths of decadence' were captivating. For years I contemplated what that meant. The soaring vocals on the chorus, "I'm going hungry" sounded shockingly convincing. The singer actually sounded hungry.  I knew there was a deeper meaning taking place that I couldn't yet understand. 

As soon as the song ended, I dashed outside to find my brother. I told him I'd just heard the best song ever written and that he had to hear it. 'What's it called?" he asked. I guessed it was called "I'm Going Hungry." "Who's it by?" he wondered. I did too, since I had no idea. 

For 3 years that song haunted and eluded me. This was before the wide spread availability of the Internet. All the wonders of the world weren't a Google search away. Then during the fall of 9th grade I saw the video late at night on MTV's Alternative Nation. Kennedy (who I found to be extremely attractive) introduced the video as a masterpiece. I couldn't have agreed more. I was shocked to see the singers from two of my other favorite bands, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Chris Cornell of Soundargden. Everything was making sense now. The song was 'Hunger Strike' and the band was Temple of the Dog. She told the brief story of how members of both bands were originally in the same band. After their singer died, they split ways and found success separately, then came back together with their new singers to make the tribute album.  

For 2 more years I chased that CD. Most record stores didn't seem to carry it, and on the rare occasion I did find it available, my wallet didn't permit the purchase. When I finally did get my copy during my Junior Year of high school, the album became an instant classic in my personal collection. Sophomore year of college, my truck was broken into and the disc was stolen, along with 20 or 30 others. Temple of the Dog was replaced first.  I've owned two more copies since, and probably always will.