Sarah McLachlan "Into The Fire"

It was 50-50.  Maybe I was going to be fine.  But maybe I was going to have my body dumped in a ditch.

Just in case it was going to be the latter, I wrote a note and left it at the office.

"I got invited out to a listener's house for some beer and food.  If I disappear, this is where I was headed. (address)"

I was the host of my own nightly Alternative music specialty show in rural Virginia.  The program was a little oasis of modern music, for a niche of folks who couldn't find the stuff anywhere else.

Not long after my show went on the air, I started getting nightly calls from the folks in the kitchen of a local restaurant, who'd tune me in as they were winding down their night.

They were always boisterous and effusive, excited to be hearing some cutting edge stuff on the radio.  Also, they were usually drinking while working.  And drinking after work, as they'd call me from whatever house they were partying at, post-shift.

Over a short period of time, we built up some familiarity.  But I figured it was in the DJ/listener kind of way.  Not the "come hang out" kind of way.  Until . . .

"Are you hungry?!  You should come out to the house!  What time to you get off?"

I hesitated.

I was new to the whole DJ thing, the being on-air thing.  And I'd been warned that often the kind of people who religiously called the radio station, and wanted to "hang out" inevitably proved to be weird.

On the other hand, I was hungry.

I was only part-time, just making little better than minimum wage.  There wasn't much food in the pantry.  A free, hot meal sounded good.

I wrote my note and left it for my co-workers.  When my shift ended at midnight, I got in my car and drove out across the Virginia countryside to the outskirts of town.

The directions sent me down an unlit dirt road.  That couldn't be right.

There were the dark silhouettes of cows moving about in the field next to the road.

I was thinking that maybe I should just turn around, go home and eat another bowl of Corn Flakes.

But I could see a porch light.  And then the whole house.  A large, new-ish looking place, set back on a hill.  And I could hear music.

What the hell, I figured.  I'll go in.

There were just 4 people hanging out.  But it felt like a whole party.  Boisterous and effusive and happy and a little drunk.

They were excited to have a new friend to hear their old stories.  We talked about music and food and not much else.

They made me some pasta, and when I started twirling the spaghetti on my fork, one of the girls said, "Oh God, you're Italian!" which theretofore somehow marked me as a gourmand---never again did they server me something as plebeian as pasta.

This house would be the future site of many a good party, a couple of fun hook-ups and the occasional scene of social drama.  But tonight it was just music and food.

"Have you heard Sarah McLachlan?"

I'd heard OF her, but I hadn't heard her record.

We listened to "Into The Fire" and my personal chef/new friend gave me this "One Sentence Review" that was definitely not intended to be Dismissive, though I have used it on later occasions as a criticism not a complement.

The chef said, "It's like Joni Mitchell on Prozac."

And that pretty much summed up the night:  weird and dark, but ultimately smoothed out.  And not in a ditch.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Southern Culture On The Skids "8 Piece Box"

In the Spring of 1994 I started my first radio gig, at a small independent station in Southwest Virginia. I had my own, nightly Alternative specialty show.

I think it's kinda hard to grasp today, just how weird it was to hear bands like Green Day and The Ramones and Sarah Mclachlan and The Cure, on a radio station in 1994. Maybe it was normal if you lived near a major metropolitan area. But for most of the country, those artists were sooo far outside the mainstream, that they just weren't going to make it on any radio station.

So my little "What's The Alternative?" program was, to some, a bizarre, welcome oasis. And the fact that I was the host, opened a few doors for me.

There was a great restaurant in town called The Starving Artist. Great, high-end food, in a casual, artsy atmosphere. Several of the people who worked there were well regarded local painters, visual artists and creators. They had a great scene unto themselves.

And because I got off the air around the time they were closing the kitchen, I'd get invited to the head chef's house on the outskirts of town, for a few after-hours beers, where they'd feed me (because I was an impoverished waif) and where we'd talk about and listen to music.

From the get-go, they were selling me on Southern Culture On The Skids.

SCOTS was a regional, hard-touring rock/rockabilly/country/semi-comic party-band, that was soon to be releasing a major label record.

And The Starving Artist was on the verge of celebrating their 10th Anniversary.

"There gonna play right here!" the chef told me, gesturing to his spacious living room area. "You gotta come."

Well, I think we've all been oversold at one time or another, on how great a party is going to be, only to show up and have it fall miles short of expectation . . .

So I said that Yeah, I'd try to come after work.

Let me tell you what I saw when I walked through the door, shortly after midnight on party night.

The room was PACKED with party-goers. 100 people in the living room? Probably.

The band was cooking, in a groove.

The chef was shirtless, in a tiger mask, doing an interpretive dance right in front of the band.

And then they introduced "8 Piece Box."

As part of their tour rider on every show they play, Southern Culture receives a bucket of fried chicken. It is set aside, for when they played "8 Piece Box." They invite a dozen or so girls up on to the stage and the girls eat the chicken while dancing to the song.

Normally (not that this scenario is "normal" by any standard in the first place), the girls stand on stage and vamp and maybe eat the chicken seductively (sexy carnivores!).

But this night, it was more like Velociraptors tearing into carrion.

I remember the maniacal, greasy faces of women with mouthfuls of chicken, tossing the bones out into the audience.

Now I know the bucket of chicken couldn't really have been that big, but when I see it in my mind's eye, dozens of bones flew back and forth above the sweaty, dancing crowd, like the chickens had been partially re-animated, and were trying (but failing) to fly.

Part of me was thrilled that I had somehow stumbled through the door of a secret sub-culture.

Though the really hungry impoverished waif DJ thought it was a big waste of perfectly good chicken.


Hear the song on Youtube.


See a live version with dancing girls on Youtube.