The Bobby Rock Newsletter #73 (8-27-22) - Revisiting Italy: This Time It’s Personal!
The Bobby Rock Newsletter #73 (8-27-22) - Revisiting Italy: This Time It’s Personal!
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What’s Up, Everybody?
Back home in LA for the weekend, catching up on all that’s neglected when I’m away! Hope you guys are good. Thanks again for scoping this Newsletter. I never take that shit for granted. Let’s jump…
In This Issue:
- The Last Show: Remembering the volatile occasion of the final VVI show, 34 years ago this week.
- This Time it's Personal! Revisiting a recent trip to Italy with one of the most extensive travel blogs I may have ever done.
- Capturing North Africa, Spain, China, Scandinavia... - While we’re hot on the subject, reference a few of my past travel blogs right here…
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The Last Show
This week, our good friend, Pat Lucero, texted a special momento from the VVI days to Mark Slaughter, Dana Strum, and me on the 34th anniversary of the final VVI show in Anaheim, CA.
Pat has one of the most extensive collections of VVI and Slaughter memorabilia and merch out there, and I felt like this piece really encapsulated the particulars of the gig…. which then prompted me to wanna share an excerpt from my memoir, The Boy Is Gonna Rock, in celebration (?) of this solemn occasion. These were hard times… but necessary for all of us to endure so we could get to the other side and move on.
Dig it:
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Early afternoon, on August 26, 1988, Mark, Dana, and I were on the bus, just about to clear out the last of our belongings from the bunks. It had been a difficult summer run, and we were all feeling like we had been through a war together. We had one more show to play that night in Anaheim—which is about thirty miles south of LA—then we would be “free at last…” But first, we had one final, glaring order of business to discuss: how and when would we be paid for the weeks of wages we were owed?
Dana had a clear take on things:
“We have to tell Vinnie and Nigel that either we’re all paid in full, in cash, before the show tonight, or we don’t play. End of discussion.” Mark nodded in agreement.
“What? Are you guys serious?” I asked.
“Yes!” Dana said. “If we don’t settle up with them now, we can kiss the money we’re owed goodbye after tonight.” Again, Mark nodded.
“C’mon, Homeys! You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!”
“No! I’m telling you!” Dana insisted.
“Man, there’s no way these guys would just blatantly rob us like that. I mean, they know we’re owed weeks of back pay. They know it!” I said.
Dana shook his head from side to side, with that signature grin of his, and just said, “Bobby…” I think he was actually amused by my naïveté at this point, as he continued the head shaking.
“Bend over, my friend, because if we don’t get paid today, let me tell you what you will be getting,” he said, making reference to some prison cell-style unpleasantries. More nodding from Mark.
But somehow, I talked them out of making a pre-show scene. Or maybe it was just that they reluctantly dismissed the idea of a stand-off because I wasn’t on board with it. In any case, we would be proceeding with a fair amount of blind faith that Vinnie and company would honor our agreement and square up with us, despite all the bad blood. I mean, we did do our respective jobs, right? There was an accounting somewhere of what we were still owed, right? Clearly, they wouldn’t shaft us, right?
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We played the Celebrity Theater that night, delivering, as I recall, somewhat of an emotionally flat show. We just hit the stage, played our asses off, and did our best to set aside all of the unanswered questions and heavy vibes that were looming. Once the set was over and the backstage well-wishers thinned out, we all dried off and began to think about buttoning things up and heading home. It was then that we stepped into a whole new level of icy discord.
The first clue was that Vinnie himself was in the back parking lot load-out area, supervising and directing what gear went where. He had planned to have all of “his" stuff—or at least what he thought was his stuff—loaded into “his” truck and taken to “his” storage locker. Of course, some of “his” stuff would include tour supplies like drum sticks and drum heads that he had supposedly paid for (which we found out later that he hadn’t), and, by God, all of that shit was going to “his” locker, as well. It was a sad, chaotic scene, and a somewhat pathetic conclusion to what had been a difficult, but civil, final few months.
The three of us band guys had some real last-second shuffling to do to ensure that our gear got safely back to storage—a different unit, obviously—and to sort through the wreckage of this whole “your stuff and our stuff” thing. It was quite a clusterfuck.
In fact, in a poignant reflection here, I can recall the last time I would lay eyes on Mr. Vincent in person: it would be a day or two after that last show in Anaheim, at the very location where we first met at my audition—SIR on Santa Monica Boulevard. But in this case, he was hovering around the door of his storage locker, trying to ensure that none of us went rummaging through his shit, looking for more of ours, I suppose. Things were cordial, but tense. I don’t recall much about our actual banter that day, but I doubt either one of us would’ve guessed that we would never see each other again (although we would talk on the phone a couple times over the next several years). We had gone full circle, in a sense, ending things at the same place where we started them three years prior. It was an awkward, regrettable place to leave things, but in retrospect, I don’t know how they could have ended any differently.
Grab your autographed copy HERE.
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Revisiting Italy: This Time It’s Personal!
As some of you may recall, I took a 10-day trip to Italy in May and talked about it in a subsequent newsletter, with the promise of a more extensive blog to follow. I’ve always loved capturing key trips and tours in blog form, especially since this format allows for the use of multiple mediums (writing, photos, and videos) to convey the unique particulars of each adventure. The challenge, for me, has always been to find that balance between what I'm personally hoping to memorialize about a trip vs. what I’m hoping my dear readers might find engaging. It can be tricky… especially when and if the trip was life-altering on a personal level.
Well, this 2022 Italy excursion would fall firmly in the life-altering category (more details on that soon) and so, I found myself having trouble deciphering between the above two points of challenge: what was important to me vs. what might be interesting to you! I’m sure it’s leaning heavily in the former, but I hope there’s enough of the latter.
That said, I have something that’s close to finished that I will be publishing far and wide soon (on social, etc). But, as per usual, I wanted to share it here with you guys first.
Enjoy:
Which leads us to….
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More Adventures Await…
Speaking of travel blogs, if you’re feeling it… scope out a few of my other ones here:
China 2019: The Solo Drumming Tour
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Chasing the Muse into Spain and North Africa: Writer’s Retreat – 2015
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Scandinavia – Road Report: July 2013
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Thanks again, everybody. Connect next week! Until then, BR
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