I once did a gig at an office Christmas party in the showroom floor of a friend's father's home appliance shop in the suburbs of Melbourne. It was to a much older crowd. Without a microphone. Or a stage. With the queue for the buffet behind me.
In the old days gigging was everything. The whole of life was about gigs. Everything was about waiting for the gig and then doing the gig and going nuts and then afterwards the party and all the stuff that goes with it. And then that party continues through your twenties and thirties. I'm now 51, and it's still very much in my blood, but I'm really hard pushed... the gig is the party for me now.
The suburb in the 1950s was a bedroom community. The father worked in the city, and the mother stayed home. Now people live and work in the suburbs, and businesses have grown up or moved from cities to certain pockets of what was once the suburbs and created these places that are like cities.
I once got my stiletto caught in my horse's tail on stage and went flying into the audience. It was a mental gig, so I think the crowd thought it was part of the show.
The Divine has loved me as mother, as father, and as friend, behind all friends. I searched for that one Friend behind all friends, that one lover whom I now see glimmering in all your faces. And that friend never fails me.
I throw a Christmas party at my house. It's not really a Christmas party, because I don't want to call it a Christmas party. But let's just say I put a lot I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.
It's not sufficient in the internet age to communicate through the media; you have to be able to do it on the ground, door by door, coffee shop by coffee shop, shop floor by shop floor. You really have to do that as well.
Speaking of stage freight. I was terrified! It was in NOLA at an all ages show. I was wearing Jeans, a Van Halen t-shirt, and a bandana on my neck. Once I gripped that microphone stand, I did not let go! I plugged my microphone into a guitar FX pedal. Then at the end of the a Black Sabbath song we were covering, I hit the guitar pedal. It was horrific!
I throw a Christmas party at my house. It's not really a Christmas party, because I don't want to call it a Christmas party. But let's just say I put a lot of Christmas trees around the house, so it smells good.
My grandparents, one Christmas, they did not have anything. They did not have money to buy presents. So my grandmother went to the orange tree outside her home, and so her boys did not go without for Christmas, she took oranges to her sons as presents.
My father never played with me. I can remember my father picking me up - once. I can remember my father telling me behind a closed door that he loved me - once.
I shop online mostly. I like to shop from the comfort of my own home without a sales person bugging me.
One of my friends was a stage hand at a Bob Dylan show in the mid-90s and I remember him telling me that somebody crowd surfed during the gig. And this friend of mine was an old punk rock guy - he was totally humiliated by it. But some of Bob's people were there and they said, "Oh, Bob will be so excited! This is the kind of energy we want at his shows." That's where the old school was at.
As a kid, there was not much I could do to stop the violence in our home. When I got older, as a father, I did everything I could to raise my children with a father that loved them, protected them, and made them feel safe.
I fell through a stage once. I was doing a truly African dance, and all of a sudden, I hit the ground with my foot and went straight through the stage. I guess they didn't have much money, so the floor was kind of rotting.
I shop once in six months. My friends often point at my shoes to tell me that they've worn out. It's embarrassing, but it doesn't affect me too much. I shop when I have to.
I used to be good with kids, but as I get older, I'm grumpy and terrible with them. As for doing a gig at a 6-year old's birthday party, you couldn't pay me enough.