THE COLOR MACHINE

                                                                THE COLOR MACHINE.

No sooner had my apprentice to the grand master adventure come to a close before I was jumping headlong into a new role as a Roadie and PA hire man.  With no prior experience in the game I figured the quickest way to come in contact with any potential customers was to hang out in the local music shops and keep my ear close to the ground.  The strategy eventually paid off when a Maori Disco band came into one of the shops looking for a rig they could take on tour to Queensland.  The proprietor of the shop informed them he was all booked out and he sent them looking for me.  I was drinking coffee with Brad the resident guitar repair man in his workshop when the doorway was suddenly filled with cheerful of native faces. The band were called ‘The Color Machine’ and they were desperate to hire a PA and operator so they could hit the road.  They had tried every hire company in town to no avail and it was quite evident that I was their last resort. 

'Strike  one'. 

The band wanted to leave for Queensland in five days, which meant a hell of a lot of organizing to do if we were going to take the gig.  A tentative deal was negotiated whereby I would provide the rig with a van and two operators if they agreed to pay me six hundred dollars a week, plus fuel and accommodation for a three person crew.  I had worked out the basics of operating the system but as far as the finer points of sound scaping go I had a lot to learn.  Joy’s younger brother Roy was a sixteen year old, sound enthusiast and a technical whiz who was busting to leave high school.  It seemed like a logical step to invite him along, but it would take some skillful diplomatic maneuvering to get around his old lady.  After the incident at the lion park in England Joy’s mother thought that I was a complete and utter madman who couldn’t be responsible for himself let alone any of her off spring.  By the time we were scheduled to leave for Queensland the old cow had been sufficiently persuaded by Joy and the rest of the clan that her blue eyed boy should come on tour and further his sound engineering skills.  It was agreed that I would pay the lad one hundred and fifty dollars a week plus meals and accommodation and I would do my best to protect him from the drug crazed side of rock and roll. 

'Strike two and  smoking'.

The bands first booking was in Newcastle at a place called Jolly Roger’s Nightclub and from there we had a series of dates on the Gold Coast.  By the time we completed the third gig Roy and I had settled into a reasonably smooth running work routine.  Joy started helping us out with the loading and unloading of the gear and she also started getting into the sound mixing thing with Roy.  She operated the lights for most of the shows and became quite proficient with time.  Once the band were on stage shaking their booties and crooning the late night disco crowd there was nothing for me to do but get stuck into the top shelf bourbon and try to stay sober for the load out.  I was itching to be on the stage myself, but travelling with these guys I had the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the music game and get a first hand experience of fuck ups that can occur. The PA hire thing was the smartest move I could have made.  I was getting less than a hundred bucks a week renting out the flat and there was a host of bullshit things to attend to like rates, insurance and ongoing repairs to the property.  As a result of our new enterprise we were saving at least two hundred dollars a week and it was all coming in tax free.  Mind you there were a number of recurring expenses that came with being the guy on the winning end of each gig.  No sooner had the band handed over their PA hire fee they were in my pocket for loans and advances which were rarely ever retrieved.  I didn’t mind because I considered it easy money and I was selling a pile of pot to their disco dancing audiences.  The band played mostly in tacky Gold Coast tourist dives that cater to the needs of the unselective masses.  The gigs were so predictable that you could just about set your watch by them.  The guys would be set up and playing by nine to a room that was empty except for the nightclub staff and ourselves.  Then the tourists coaches would start rolling in one after another.  They delivered an instant audience of mostly senior citizens who were wearing name tags and marveling at the swirling disco lights.  It was one drink at the bar like budgies at a watering hole, then one dance around the flashing dance floor before they were herded off by a tour guide for their next 'Surfers By Night’ experience. 

After just a few weeks of this artistically stagnant routine I decided that my mentors were correct in their assessment of the entertainment industry. I concluded that the glamorous world of show business is a tragic myth which only exists in the imagination of star struck punters who wish they could be celebrated notorieties. I’m quite sure that Lenny Bruce summed it up perfectly when he said, “We are all victims of the Pop Culture”.  I don’t think it would really matter if you were playing one night stands in down and out bars or travelling the world with a runaway hit, the principal is the same. Tapping your fingers and waiting long hours for the next curtain call is the most boring past time any self respecting adventurer could engage in.  

The bands Gold Coast gigs were booked by a Queensland Entrapanure who was an obese and equally greedy pig of a man.  He wore outlandish tropical shirts and smoked expensive Cuban cigars while most of the performers in his stable couldn’t afford to buy a drink after the show.  He didn’t give a flying fuck about the comfort of his bands let alone the roadcrew and if ever there was a complaint it was quickly silenced by the threat of a contract termination.  Most of the time our accommodation was a single room which wasn’t even big enough to shelter the boys in the band.  More often than not Joy and I would end up sleeping in the van near the beach and Roy just crashed out wherever he landed.  Eventually we were accommodated in a building that was one of the promoters many real estate holdings in the Gold coast area.  Wherever possible the money grabbing parasite used to stick his touring bands in the houses that he bought and sold, thus saving a shitload of cash on their accommodation.  Being the fat poonce he was the promoter never thought to take ancient tribal friction’s into account and he made the near fatal mistake of housing a Samoan show band at the same address as the Maoris.  The Color Machine and crew had the use of the downstairs apartment and the Samoans were on the upper level.  Joy and I slept on a foam mattress at the base of the stairwell and we had to contend with the God awful racket coming from just up the stairs.  On one occasion the Colour Machine had just finished a gig at Burleigh heads where barely a soul turned up.  We were as relieved as each other that it was over and all we wanted to do was sleep.  The Samoans were pissed out of their brains and they stayed up till dawn singing and jamming in full gusto.  ‘Three Times a Lady’ had just been released onto the airwaves and it seemed they had adopted it into their repertoire.  They must have sung that friggin song thirty times before I politely called up the stairwell and asked them to keep it down.  The following morning we were abruptly woken by the sound of shouting upstairs.  The next thing I knew there was a big, ugly Samoan conga player standing over our bed hungover and mean as a junkyard dog.  He was in a vein bursting uproar and screaming,”If I did not respect this lady bro, …I would kill you, . right now”.  The monster standing over us said in a matter of fact way that he had two more gigs to do before he finished his bookings and he didn’t want to risk damaging his fingers.  When however the gigs were done he declared that he was going to rip me into to little pieces.  He suggested if I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t be around when he came back down the stairs then he turned on his heels to leave.

'FREAK OUT! AH HA!'

Big Mark the lead singer in the Maori band must have been woken by the early morning racket and a disgruntled,“Shut the fuck up” came thundering down the hall from his room.  The Samoan increased his step up the stairs and Joy now much whiter than her normal fair toned self said, “let’s go and stay in a motel until those idiots are gone”.  At morning coffee I described the scene that took place between myself and the conga player not quite realizing the explosive wick I had ignited.  Nui the muscle bound kit drummer was the first to fire up and the other band members weren’t far behind him.  Robbie who was the oldest and most stable of the lads sensed there was trouble brewing and suggested that Joy and I make ourselves scarce until the feud blew over.  We were only too happy to take his advice so we gulped down our coffee and split the scene.  We spent the day just hanging around on the beach and killing time, waiting for the Samoans to leave for their show.  On our return to the house we found that all hell had broken loose and a full blown tribal brawl had taken place in our absence.  The house both upstairs and down resembled something that had been caught in the path of a hurricane.  Apparently Nui had raced up the stairs with a knife and slashed his arm which in the Maori culture means a formal declaration of war.  The conga player was thrown out of an upper story window along with his belongings and the rest of the Samoans were evicted like wise.  The promoter on hearing the details of the clash billed both bands for the damage to his property and all concerned parties were put on notice that if there was any more trouble our bookings would be scrapped. It’s quite funny in a way because that fight guaranteed employment for the band beyond their existing series of dates.  None of them could afford to hand over any consequential amounts of cash so it was agreed that a percentage would be deducted from their future earnings.  The Maoris were given the use of another building at Currumbin beach which was known as the Newcastle flats and it was not inhabited by any tribal foes.  Currumbin is where the boys first discovered goldtops or magic mushrooms as they are more commonly known.  Every second day or so the lads would get me to drive them out to the cow paddocks where the mushies were growing and they wouldn’t come home until we had filled a whole bucket at least.  The mushrooms were boiled up in a big pot and the highly concentrated liquid was used to make coffee for the crew and their guests, all day long.  There were people tripping left right and center and the place took on a sort of festival vibe that was spiced with spontaneous jam sessions and much jovial abandon.  The Maoris were a great bunch of guys and excellent musicians who often played for the pure pleasure of it between their gigs.  They welcomed my vocal input when they were jamming and through those sessions I discovered the magic of funky indigenous rhythms. 

After about a week of constant tripping I found the distinction between night and day became irrelevant. They were merely passing events in one continual unfolding  party.  The band had another six days before they were booked to start gigging and at the rate we were going it would take that long for us to come down.  I was started to ease back on the dosage but the others just kept pouring down the mushie juice like it was lolly water.  Their favorite game when we were out searching for mushrooms was to play spot the creepy crawly.  In New Zealand there isn’t the variety of reptilian wildlife that we take for granted in Australia, so the first one to spot a stumpy tailed lizard or the like would call the others over to huddle around and view the creature.  One time I spotted a big green tree frog perched in some branches near a creek.  I called the lads over to have a look and they were so blown away by the animal they kept it as a pet.  It seemed the most fun the guys could have when they were at the peak of a trip was to play with that damn frog.  Like wonder struck children they took turns to hold the thing and all would laugh in a hearty chorus as it dangled by a sticky green fist from the finger of a chuckling Maori.  With only two days to go before our first gig I decided it was time to pull right back on the mushie’s.  As we charged up on morning coffee I declared to the crew that it was going to be my last day of tripping.  I advised all present that they might start thinking about doing likewise and instantly became the target of the collective scorn.  As a reward for my straight assed little comment I was forced to drink another cup.  They all leaned around me at the breakfast table chanting, “Drink it all up Freddy” and giving me affectionate little prods until it was gone.  I laughed off the sudden and unexpected doubling of my dosage but two hours later the effect came thundering home like a daytime nightmare.  Previous bouts of excess hinted that I might be in for a bumpy ride but what I experienced made everything else look tame.  I was laying on a bean bag in the front room listening to records and riding the first waves of phsyllisiben as they started to wash in.  My eyes were closed and I was seeing how long I could hold the bright mandala like image that remained after I pulled down the blind.  The final flash of sunlight flickered before my minds eye for what felt like an eternity and it assumed a variety of shapes and forms before fading to a distant point of light.  From the vanishing point to which it had gone the orb of pulsating light changed to a tone of pale blue then bright purple.  As it came back towards me it assumed a deity like form which was the horizontal silhouette of my own body levitated in a psychedelic prism.  I was floating inside a pyramid of swirling colors surrounded by ever changing ‘Escher’esqu’ shapes.  They hovered above my suspended form like animated, crystalline beings who were trying to communicate. It was as if a software package of computer generated images had decided to procreate and I was the chip which contained the psychedelic seed.  I was immersed in a secret hidden dimension of beauty and spectacular glory where my physical being and the levitating silhouette were one.  I guess I must have been so preoccupied by the swirling images in my head that I stopped paying any attention to the external environment in which I sat.  The music changed from the comforting cosmic tones of Tangerine Dream to the provocative and menacing poetry of young master Dylan.  With a sudden jolt I was dragged away from my hallucinogenic hideaway and transported back to the realm of thoughts, concepts and ideas.  Among the lyrics Dylan emphasized the word, ”You” with a greater theatrical passion than I had previously noticed.  With each statement by the screaming bard I was separated from the floating silhouette and once again it became a distant fading light.  As before the orb returned but this time it was changing to dramatic shades of red, orange and purple as it emerged closer into view. 

Gone were the pretty pastel colors of the psychedelic spectrum and now my internal vision scape was on fire.  A monstrous entity loomed into the foreground and held me terror struck by the ghastly magnitude of his form.  It was a ten foot high Chinese dragon with about thirty heads and twice as many lashing claws.  Whenever the word, ... “You” came bellowing out of the record player the beast pointed straight at me with a cluster of sharply clawed fingers.  The outer coat of the dragon was covered in red scales but for some strange reason there were pink strawberries growing where it should have had knuckles.  They were oozing a bright yellow, sticky slime that smelt like mushrooms and made me almost throw up.  I opened my eyes with the expressed intention of deleting the image out of existence but the terrible apparition of my accuser was still there.  A fleeting particle of reason must have blown into my ear and I made the conscious connection that I had been staring deep into a Chinese lantern.  It was covering the overhead light and reflecting happy little dancing dragons all around the room.  As this was taking place something moved in the corner of my eye.   I shifted my gaze to witness the hydraulic door stopper popping out metal legs like some kind of robot lobster or alien crayfish.  It dislodged itself from above the door and proceeded to circumnavigate the room like a hungry mechanical insect.  After it’s little wander around the room the creature returned to the door and resumed it’s normal function, as I observed in awe and tried to ignore the first nagging ache of strychnine poisoning.  

Now tell me ... how does it feel?

to be on your own ... like a complete unknown ...

with no direction or home ... like a rolling stone.

                                                        Bob Dylan.

There was a poster hanging on the wall which depicted the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding through an ancient mist and charging into battle.  The mist began to swirl and the characters became animated and even more sinister as they rode towards me.  I ducked out of the way of a swinging bludgeon only to be narrowly missed by a fast moving spear.  I made it to my feet and headed for the door which had become the gaping jaws of a pre-historic reptilian predator.  The boxed in confinement of the room was left behind as I made my way down the stairs at the speed of a Valium affected sloth and stumbled towards the ocean.  I dived into the surf and surrendered to the calming embrace of the water, but I didn’t stay in long for fear of hungry, lurking perils.  The lads were further down the beach and it looked like they were playing touch football. As I got closer I saw that they were throwing mock karate blows to each other from about thirty feet away.  As each received a blow he would go down in a deliberate fall and all would laugh in chorus.  They were having so much fun so I joined in the game and ended up rolling in the sand with them. I laughed until I vomited and what had started out as a bum trip became a rollicking, physical beach tumble.  The intensity of the trip subsided with the dawn of a new day and I greeted the morning light more fragile than the web of a micro-scopic spider.  As I drifted back into normal consciousness I searched for the meaning behind the experience and came up with some surprising interpretations. The image of the big red, many fingered dragon was the symbol of my, ... ‘Alter Ego Policeman’.  He was only spitting accusations at me because that’s his job and I wouldn’t have created him if I didn’t need it.  The crawling mechanical crayfish was the symbol of my self doubt and that’s why he appeared as a sneaky, scavenging parasite.  The four horsemen who chased me onto the beach were the symbolic representations of my lower being and the destructive aspects of self that could cause my fall.

                                                                                 Anger ... Indulgence ... Insincerity and Jealousy.

 That trip brought home the unescapable truth that the role of rock and roll roadie was not a vocation I could dedicate my life to. Each of the shows we did had been a thankless task and I drank like a trooper to dull away the mundane slog of my working life. Sure I had become an enterprising young businessman who was carving a path into the music game but the routine of constant gigging made me feel like any other mug who is trapped in the slow moving treadmill of the daily grind.  As I pondered my reality further it occurred to me that I had already achieved my purpose.  I had explored behind the scenes more than enough to know what sort of a shitfight I would be letting myself in for and now I was just hanging around getting more artistically frustrated by the day.  I guess the threat of physical violence just comes with the territory of travelling with a working band but the big tribal battle weighed heavy on my soul and made me seriously question weather the money was worth the grief.  The brawl with the Samoans was the climax to a series of explosive situations caused by life on the road and my instincts told me that I needed to find a new adventure.  A new romance might be on the cards as well.  Joy was fed up with living out of a suitcase and our normal mode of solidarity was lost in a minefield of volatile emotions.  Instead of offering each other sanctuary against the stresses of the day we started having more and more of those niggling squabbles that all discontented lovers tend to engage in.  I tried to console her as best I could but the growing distance between us was becoming more evident by the day.  As these revelations came thundering home I started making some firm decisions about my next move.  I kept to myself for most of the day just formulating plans and trying to work out the best way to break the news to all who were involved.  In the end I just came out with it around the evening meal and told the whole crew that I wanted to go to Sydney so I could pursue my own musical career.  The guys were pissed off by the news but I offered to pay for the first two weeks hire of a new PA which helped to settle the tension.  Joy had not been consulted at all on my decision and it caused friction between us the likes of which I had not endured before.  Like a hen pecked husband I assured her that we would get more gigs in Sydney and Roy would’nt be out of a job but they didn’t hide the fact they were annoyed by the sudden change of plans.  With our assistance the band scored a new PA and operator the very next day and a no hard feelings vibe was present as we exchanged friendly goodbye’s. 

Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha! ... Stayin Alive ... Stayin Alive ...

Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha! ... Stayin Alive ...