Been Caught Laughing

Back in '01 when I was bass tech for Jane's Addiction and hadn't gotten fired yet (I was too cool and it made the band look bad when all the girls came after me was the problem) they were rehearsing for a KROC thing at SIR on Sunset. Dave Navarro had a sour stomach and wanted antacids. I of course had Tums in my rig (along with their regular preferred medicines) and laid a couple on the Navarrmeister.

He didn't know what to do with them. He honestly didn't know how these were taken. Wouldn't that be great? To live enmeshed in that degree of Fauntleroyism?

I suggested to this fella, a veteran of some of history's toughest cold turkeys and then clean as a whistle, that maybe they could be armblasted.

He was as amused as Martyn LeNoble was every time I smoked his ass on bass. "Here, dude, your bass is ready."

Wonder why they didn't keep me on.

Next: I piss off the dillweed road manager Frank Stedtler by playing the lick from "Been Caught Stealing" at a festival soundcheck in front of 20,000 people.

Eat shit, Stedtler. I've been yelled at much worse by much bigger guys than you.

Li'l pussy. I see ya again I'll work ya. But we've been through all that. That's probably why you pack heat. Old bass techs gunning for you.

Then- I pick up a bass and start playing along brilliantly one day when they're warming up with "Something". It was like a beggar had grabbed Marie Anoinette's ass. It was awesome. I think that must have been pretty close to the end.

I should have mined this vein sooner but I didn't want to be mr. rock 'n' roll roadie wanker. And sound men- jesus. What tosspots THEY are. With their gay little flashlight-on-the-belt-thingie. People always laugh when I use a zippo to illuminate tight spaces, but I just can't be like that. And no, there isn't any fucking gasoline or compressed explosives in sound gear so don't start w/ that tripe.