Bob Bell's USA Band-on-the-Road Memories Continue
All of those years, all of those miles, all of those memories of the Bookmobile … looking back at them now it is hard to figure out which were the worst, the best. The vehicle was really a delivery truck. It delivered musicians to gigs, simple as that. We had to get there, and most times it did get us there, and when it did, well, that fact was unremarkable. To be sure it was a drag that there were no windows, and thus the only vision was through the windshield, which, philosophically meant we were always looking forward, and that rather forced form of optimism kind of defined the band.
(cover photo: Paul Tomasello)
It was cold in the winter, and insufferably hot in the summer. I remember a weekend in Chicago, in the dead of winter, when for some reason, now long forgotten, it wouldn’t start after the gig, and the band split for the hotel in cabs and I stayed, captain of the ship, to keep watch over the vehicle and the equipment. Parked outside the club, piles of frozen snow everywhere, snow plows passing in the night throwing great sheets of snow, ice and slush against the sides on each pass, I lay inside shivering. I raided every bunk for blankets and sleeping bags, but couldn’t get warm. Outside the wind howled - not for nothing is Chicago known as the Windy City - and inside I trembled and sobbed, but came the dawn, and the snow had stopped, and with that cessation came the promise of a new day, and miracle of miracles, the damn thing started, guess the engine had simply flooded, nevertheless still a miracle that in those temperatures the battery still had some juice.
Considering the miles we drove, it was another miracle that we never had a serious accident. On one occasion, returning from upstate New York, when bassist Rory McLeod was driving in an ice storm, he put the vehicle on its side, but fortunately, apart from John Rossi who sprained his shoulder and had to take a couple of days off, no-one was seriously injured. A tow truck was summoned, and the old bookmobile was righted, the band got back in, and resumed the journey, the only damage being a broken mirror, and made the gig for that evening. Winter driving is not a lot of fun - sliding on ice challenges the most experienced drivers, turning the wheel or hitting the brakes usually has no effect, not immediately anyway. You just kinda sit tight and make very slow cautious movements. Memories of long journeys on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in blizzard conditions, with visibility down to a few yards, creeping along at thirty miles an hour, trying to figure out where the edge of the road is, and big eighteen wheelers flying past at sixty, the drivers either blessed with some type of divine sight, or more likely, chewing amphetamines and not caring, charging into the distance, and then a few miles down the pike seeing the marker lights of a big truck, off at an angle by the side of the road, and you wonder was that the truck that just roared by, or has it been there hours, and anyway, it’s behind us now, and just where is the edge of the road, and is this shit ever, ever going to stop?
Another time Doug was driving and pulled into a service station to get gas, and forgetting the height of the vehicle, rammed into the roof over the pumps. I think the pissed off station manager was more outraged by the fact that the bookmobile suffered no obvious damage while his roof was impressively crumpled.
We had a close call running out of gas one day, nearly missing a gig. The gas gauge had broken, and whoever was driving didn’t keep a tab of the miles driven since the last fillup. Gas was somehow found, and we made the job. I took the truck to the Ford dealership in Providence the next day, and asked them to install a new guage. I picked the bookmobile up at the end of the day and collected the band to drive to Hartford. It was for a good paying gig with a promoter for whom we had not worked for previously, and the anticipation was that the gig would lead to more good jobs. The gas gauge showed over half a tank of gas, more than enough to make Hartford and back. Ten miles out of Rhode Island the truck sputtered to a halt. A few minutes later a cop car pulled up and called for a tow truck. We waited, and waited. Anxiety ruled. Were we going to make the gig? The wrecker arrived, and the mechanic rapidly diagnosed the problem. No gas. Not in the carburetor, not in the lines, not in the tank. Happily the wrecker had spare gas on board, and we were on our way, but running late, very late. The cop had stayed with us the entire time, and we begged him for an escort, visions dancing in out heads of arriving for the show in the nick of time in a blaze of flashing blue lights and wailing sirens, but ’twas not to be, his sergeant would throw a fit, no way he could do it, and so we trundled off to Hartford arriving way after showtime, meeting a furious promoter and finding the gig was cancelled. This was the only time I can ever recall that we missed a show due to a breakdown, or weather. We always got through, and we found out later that this promoter had been having qualms about the show for several days, and had used our tardiness to save his money.
We successfully sued the Ford dealer, and so ultimately got paid for the missed gig, but it was a legal action that had some rather farcical consequences a few years later, as will be recounted when I write about the Shuttle Bus.
On the eve of another tour the bookmobile developed a problem with the brakes, and I took it to a mechanic in North Providence that someone had recommended. It was after the gas gauge fiasco, and I knew I was a bit unpopular at the Ford dealership, so I thought we could give this guy a shot at being the band mechanic. Lucky feller. He was an odd chap, dark-haired, rather taciturn and walked with the upper half of his body at a slight forward angle to the lower half. I think his name was Eddie. For reasons that are completely beyond me, the way he walked conjured up the sounds of massed oboes, a ponderous, measured and reverberating sound. I’d taken the truck in two days before we were to leave on a trip down south, and had no reason to think the brake problem could not be identified and resolved in time for our departure. Well, so much for being an optimist. The afternoon before our departure early the next morning, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to fix it in time. I was convinced that his problem lay in the fact that he wasn’t bleeding the brakes in a certain order - the wheel furthest from the master cylinder first, and finishing up on the closest one. I spent most of that day in his shop, and we came close to blows , he derisively snorting his contempt at my suggestions. Of course, he was just as frustrated as I was, and the more he strode about the shop the louder the oboes became. I called Greg and told him he’d better lay on a van and couple of hired cars for the next day, as the bookmobile obviously wasn’t going anywhere. One of the Providence guys turned up at the shop towards the end of the afternoon and we loaded the equipment into a hired U-Haul van, and made plans for me to catch up with the band as soon the brakes worked. It was not a happy day.
The mechanic’s wife worked in the office, answering the phone, doing accounts, basically running all the non - greasy stuff. She was a sweetheart, bringing us coffee, and commiserating at the hassles we were having, all the tie diplomatically staying clear of the arguments between to two of us. Finally, a day and a half later the problem was fixed, and the bookmobile could stop again. For the life of me, I can’t now recall just exactly what the problem turned out to be, but whatever it was, it had caused me to leave two days late, and so there was a lot of catching up to do. I was in a foul mood by then - the cursed bookmobile was running my life, and of course the expense it was incurring was staggering. At least three days of one-way rentals of two cars and a van, plus a large mechanics bill. I understood that mechanical problems are theoretically linear in nature, that by following a certain set of procedures one can theoretically resolve an issue, but I also knew, mainly from bitter experience, that a certain dedication to theory led to madness, to failure, great wailings and beatings of the chest. Nevertheless, four days in a shop to fix what should have been a simple problem to track and identify, was just too much. God knows what the mechanic thought of me, as I raged, gave him half the money for the bill saying I would talk to him about the balance later, and drove the truck out of the shop, towards 95, south and to the band. Being the asshole of the band wasn’t a great pleasure, but was sometimes necessary.
As I drove away the sound of massed oboes slowly diminished, and faded into silence.
On a tour through the south, I was driving in the wee wee hours, the band in their bunks asleep, and I noticed the headlights dimming and the engine temperature rising. As luck would have it we were close to a service station and I pulled in, gassed up and checked under the hood. The bracket holding the alternator was broken, so the belt was slack, turning neither the alternator nor the water pump. I asked if there was a mechanic on duty, and no, there was not, he only worked during the day. Shit, now here was a dilemma. I asked if there would be a problem with me driving the truck into the shop over the pit and using their welder to fix the broken bracket. It was one of those questions one asked knowing full well the answer would be in the negative, but has to ask all the same. To my astonishment, the attendant said sure, go ahead, and guided me in, the bookmobile straddling the pit. The band slumbered on, oblivious to the latest crisis. The shop had an ancient stick welder, a tool I had not used in several years, not since working on the farm on the Brendon Hills in Somerset several years before. I was never much of a welder, but understood the basics involved in getting two pieces of metal to stick together. And at the same time knew how easy it was to apply too much amperage and blow through the metal and destroy the job at hand.
To my dismay the shop was out of welding rod - there was just a two or three inch stub of stick left in the holder. Just enough for one shot at it. I climbed down into the pit, and looked up through the gloom at the underneath of the engine, and the fractured part. The trouble with welding is that you really have to protect your eyes - using a visor with the appropriate darkened glass is absolutely essential. Without it you lose your sight. And of course with the visor on you can’t see anything until you complete the arc, and then you can see the work and hope, oh how you hope, that you have started the arc in the right place. It ain’t easy.
So there I was, teeing my self up to get in exactly the right position, the stick a fraction away from the break, the visor pushed up so I can see clearly, and then satisfied that this was it, the one and only chance to fix the problem, with the one and only couple of inches of electrode available, and this being the one and only chance of making the next gig in time, I pulled down the visor and touched the metal with the stick. As I watched the arc through the visor’s darkened glass, I felt warm water on my arm holding the welding cable. ‘Hey! What’s going on?’ And I heard Porky mumbling. ‘Bell, where are we? And what are you doing down there?’
He’d woken from a deep sleep, needed to piss and had stumbled out of the truck, unzipped and peed right there. Had his stream been just a few inches more to one side and hit the arc, Porky would have become Bacon. Sizzlin’ bacon.
By some miracle, I had welded in exactly the right place, and covered by the same miracle, Porky had avoided being electrocuted. Plus we made the gig …
