Most musical performances I have been involved in are not featured in my memory banks very prominently. I know there are memories in there but I seem to process my appearances on stage when they happen and the hows, whys, and starts and fits, go away as soon as I roll up my cords and go. Of course, there are a few bad experiences that show up in my late night introspections. And some funny ones as well. And a cold one.

I went to Arkansas with the band in December one year for a two-week run. We played in Mississippi a few shows and we drove around down South in the cold, snow, sleet, wind, and rain, broke the van, got arrested, and played a ton of music. We played at a friend’s house in Northern Arkansas one night. This guy had a farm and a big house and tons of friends, and we had a mini-festival out in his back 40 in a tent. It was a crisp seventeen degrees at show time. But we were in a tent with one of those gas-fired heaters and it was full of bodies dancin’ and wigglin’. It was probably up to thirty-seven degrees in there, sweltering by Rogers, Arkansas norms during an ice storm.

We voiced concerns about playing in such dire concert weather but were assured the tent was designed to hold the heat in and the cold out, and “Naw worries, we have heaters.” And there was one of them, yes and it heated. We started our set which lasted well into the night warming the stage for our Arkansas gig buddies, The Damn Bullets.

It was never warm in the tent, but it was bearable. I had on two jackets and long johns, felt like a snowman, but I played. It started getting colder, even though the tent was full of dancing bodies. I finally had to take a little break and fashion some fingerless gloves out of my nice pair of leather ones with some scissors. The heater was out of fuel and by then the party was raging and I don’t think anyone was capable of remedying that. At any rate, it wasn’t warm.

We soldiered on and finished our set. When Damn Bullets played we all got on stage and played a few at the end, and then it was over. I was freezing and tired and the van was running with the heater blasting so that’s where I went. The party, though, raged on without me. I slept the sleep of the dead and I don’t know how long it was until I was awakened by commotion and sirens. There were people inside the van now, it was smoky of the cannabis sort, and there were red and blue lights flashing. A big bust, I suppose. I went back to sleep.

I never really knew what the fuss was about. I woke up the next morning, freezing again, (the van was shut off). There was a large contingent of sleeping hippies in there, otherwise, I might have froze to death. I went into the house to find coffee and heat, a shower, and food. I asked a few people later what all the fuss and ado had been about the night before. I never really got a straight answer, no one seemed to know why the cops were there. But nobody was hurt or arrested, so all’s good if all is.

Later that trip we became acquainted with a Texas Trooper who didn’t like our California plates, attitude, or us, but that is another story. Winter travels.