That is a pic from your very first gig with Battershell - New Hampshire State University...a frat-house party.

You waited by the Clearview Expressway in Queens - your first gig with the band would take you on a five hour drive in chilly, autumn rain to New England.  You went up with Tammy, Jamie and Steve, a friend of the Phoids (who were also playing the frat gig).

You had been playing in NY bands since the late 80s and the farthest you had ever traveled to play a gig was the Bronx no less.  Now, here you were sitting in a car that was making its way up to New Hampshire to play your first show with Battershell.  Five hours is a long time so you pulled out some papers to grade.  Yeah, that's right.  You were a teacher in Brooklyn and nothing says "career change" like pulling out a stack of essays to grade on the way to a gig, but I leave speculation on that for a later blog. 

Tammy looked at you like you had just shit yourself and was asking someone to clean up the mess.  She couldn't believe she was in a band with a teacher who was grading papers.  You tried to laugh off her disbelief, but you could tell she was pretty grossed out - as if somewhere deep in her past she had experienced some horrible school-like trauma...examinations? recitations? molestations?  You had no clue.

After finally getting there, you met up with the frat brats and started playing in a small barn with a tent extension.  The rain was torrential and there was only enough room in the barn for the band and the equipment.  The frat had constructed the makeshift tent to shelter some of the audience.  It wasn't Radio City, but it worked...until the cops came and shut down the gig because of the noise after only 3 or 4 songs.  Fuck.  Battershell was using the Phoids' equipment so we all grabbed stuff and carried it into the frat house and set up shop in a small, dirty living room.  The Phoids jumped on their stuff and started blasting out some raucous melodies that soon had college kids slamming and body surfing all over that damn little room.  Kids were crammed in tight and loving every moshing minute.  Battershell re-took the "stage" and thrusted out the rest of the set and more.  It was a great first gig.  The vibe was so good from behind the kit that you psuedo-ironically wound up sleeping there on the floor after a post show night of partying.  Hey, nothing says you love drumming like waking up the next morning with your arms and legs wrapped around your drum stool.  But there is one def. thing that you learned that has stuck all these years - El gato negro esta fumando en el mailboxio.  'Nough said.