One Halloween night in the early 90s, my band at the time, Tainted Angel – (I know, the name is far from wonderful) – were playing at a small bar in the Midwest called Hoorahs and we ended up setting a record that night for number of people in attendance: 365. We also made more money than we ever had previously (the cover charge was only a dollar per person, so we didn’t get rich). It was our third gig together as a band and we were getting a great reaction from the crowd. A large group of college students were slam-dancing violently in the tiny dance area and causing quite a scene. They would applaud and yell after each song and it made us feel great and gave us plenty of energy since the physical conditions of the bar were pretty harsh.
The air was filled with too much tobacco smoke and the large crowd made the bar cramped and the temperature must have been well over 100 degrees. We also didn’t have a stage to play on – we had to set up our equipment in one corner of the small dance floor. Our singer was having coughing attacks between songs from the abundance of nicotine floating through the air and at one point he came over and said he could barely breathe and that his eyes were stinging. I handed him a towel from my guitar case and he quickly wiped the sweat and smoke from his face, then went back and grabbed his microphone.
Only fifteen minutes into our first set, my amplifier overheated and completely shut down. We asked one of the waitresses carrying drinks if she could bring us a fan. Any kind of fan. She searched in the supply room and found one, carried it back and we propped it up behind the head of my amplifier to keep it cool.
The people we hired to run their sound board for us, a very nice middle-aged couple, became quite worried about the slam-dancing students in the dance area. They thought they were going to damage their expensive monitors setting at the edge of the dance floor. So they decided to stand directly in front of us with their arms held out and hands clasped together, their large bodies forming a barrier as we played on doing our best not to laugh since they had such worried looks on their faces and their bodies with their arms sticking out seemed both sad and humorous.
By the third set, I had already played the Eric Johnson instrumental "Cliffs of Dover" about eight times since many of the college kids in the audience were requesting it (even though they never tipped me once). Then after the third set ended – we always played four, 45-minute sets – I felt exhausted and a little relieved that the gig was almost over and I began making my way toward the bar for a cold glass of water.
At the half way point in the thick drunken crowd, a hard-looking woman of about 40 came up and complimented me on my guitar playing. I said, "thank you very much, ma’am" and suddenly she raised her arms and tried to hug me while puckering her lips and moving forward to kiss me. She was obviously intoxicated and I placed my index and middle fingers on her forehead and gently pushed her lips away and continued walking toward the bar for my water.
Our bass player, Mike, was soon standing behind me at the bar and as I took a long drink of the cool refreshing water I heard one of his friends whom I had never met come up and begin talking to him. His first two sentences to Mike were, "You guys sound great tonight, man. And your guitar player is from hell."
It was the best compliment I had ever received.
That is the story behind the title of this book.
My main goal is that after you finish reading it, anyone who hears you play will also think you’re a guitar player from hell.
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