Too Sick to Jam

We were going to have band rehearsal last night, but Joe, our singer, stayed home from work because he wasn't feeling good. Rehearsal was going to be from 5 - 7 at his girlfriend's studio and we were all looking forward to reconnecting. It ultimately came down to Joe bailing on rehearsal.

I didn't really mind that - I donate blood on 1/29 so I want to be healthy between now and then. What I did think about was an incident during the Old Stew days, 21 years ago. I know that it's kind of silly and counterproductive to think about life 21 years ago and to think that if you replay the situation in your mind enough times, you will not do what you did or say what you said.

What I recall, quite vividly, is that Old Stew was going to play a gig on a Sunday night. Someone was having a party and had asked us to play at it. I had not been feeling good that day. I had a cold. This was when I lived with my parents. I had graduated from Mount Mercy College. The band members had called and said they were coming to get me.

When the doorbell rang, I was in my bedroom. I walked down the hall, through the kitchen, through the family room (and past my parents) to the front door. The four of them (Shoebox, Bulldog, Catfish, and Dave) were standing on the porch. In turn, they each said three words to me, "Are you ready?" It was, obviously, rehearsed. They had thought about how to persuade me to come with them.

I remember thinking, "Okay. I'll go. I'll load up on drugs to help me feel better and I'll go." It was important to me to go because we had been rehearsing and rehearsing and this was a chance to 'play out' and that's what I really wanted to do. Old Stew, at the time, had gone months without a gig. I had noticed, when I looked at the car in the driveway, that they had loaded my drums into Bulldog's truck. They just needed me to play.

I said I would go. I shut the door and went to get my shoes on."Where are you going?" my mom asked.

"We're playing."

"You can't go - you don't feel good."

She might have said more and she might have not said those exact words, but the gist of the conversation was my mom was telling me to not go with them.

As a college graduate, I still listened to my mom. I went back to the front door and said, "Hey, I can't go."

Their eyes looked authentically sad. There had been joy in their eyes when I had accepted their request. It was now replaced with the emotion at the other end of the spectrum.

I don't remember if they ended up going and playing the gig without me. I don't remember if I ever asked.

I do know that the five of us, as Old Stew, never played a gig. I left the group in mid-November 1992. I'm not sure when Dave left, but eventually, he wasn't part of the group. After I left, I've never seen Shoebox again. There have been stories that he was living in Colorado and was in bad shape (drugs?) but I don't remember how to spell his 'real' last name to even do an Internet search for him - I just knew him as Shoebox.

The point of all this is that Joe called off rehearsal because he didn't feel good and it made me think about Old Stew.

Editor's Note: There were many ideas for a band name for this band, including "Hairy Eyeball" and "Scary Robots." We eventually settled on Lou's Classic Ride.