The Color of Sound

Suggested listening - The Roscoe’s Wild Child “Hell of a Guy”

“Some of the best shows I’ve ever had were playing to no one.”

Hermosa Beach, CA. 2017

(Some names have been changed)

“Why the fuck are we playing this show?” I yelled from the back seat of a beat up Hyundai SUV. “Who the fuck goes to Hermosa beach?” Driving the car was Pierre, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the band “Los Trucos” a small rock band formed by two brothers from Mexico. Sitting next to me was James, drummer of the band, and my good friend who I had previously started another band with. After our last lineup failed, we decided to play with Los Trucos as we looked for a singer, and a bassist, for our original progressive rock band, All Systems Know.

“Are we even getting paid for this?” I asked. “No,” Rogelio, bassist for Los Trucos, and the brother of Pierre said from the passenger seat. James and Pierre worked together at a large research institute in Los Angeles and found out they were both musicians at a company mixer.

Seeing as we didn’t have a band to play in, James enlisted me to play guitar for The Trucos as we got All Systems Know back on track. It’s always fun to play out, I’ll never say no to playing guitar, but I was in a particularly bad mood that day.

The universal currency that every musician inevitably gets paid in is “exposure.” This simple eight letter word is the sharpest double edged sword every musician gets cut by. It’s not a matter of “if” it’s “when” and if you’re a musician trying to make a name for yourself, that “when” is right “now.” The cut is deep and it never stops bleeding.

“Exposure” is used to manipulate young, but more importantly, naive, musicians into performing for venues and promoters at minimal expense to the powers that be. Being paid in exposure, like communism, works on paper, but in practice is rarely if ever done in earnest, or it’s a grotesque transfiguration made to only benefit people in power. In this case the people in power are promoters and venues. Every musician and band, in Los Angeles especially, wants to make a name for themselves, and they can, and will do so, at their own expense.

The trade off is simple, the promoters/venues don’t pay the bands, but in turn the band gets to play to “large” audiences and make new fans that will buy your merch and listen to your music. That’s your payment. As you can imagine, most of the time, you play to a small crowd, or nobody, and the venue gets free labor. The most predatory example is known as “pay to play” where it’s the bands that pay the venue. It’s quite literally backwards.

Rarely, you will play a great show to a large audience and the powers that be exclaim “See! the system works!” It’s a shallow investment of time and effort on the part of the promoter/venue with no foreseeable or tangible payoff for the artist. Smarter artists know better, the naive perpetuate the cycle.

This practice existed long before I ever picked up a guitar, and will continue long after I’m dead.

However, the silver lining is that you’re put on a lineup with other artists trying to make a name for themselves too. There’s a certain camaraderie to being a regularly gigging musician, that every other musician is in tune with. You’re all on the same proverbial bus, and while your music might be different, you share identical experiences.

Even though you’re set up for failure by the promoters and venues, some of the most genuine friendships I’ve ever made have been people in other bands, playing to no one, the same night as you are.

Such was the case with a band called “The Roscoe’s Wild Child.”

Los Trucos were booked to play at Suzy’s Bar and Grill in Hermosa Beach (real rockstar shit, am I right?). So after sitting in traffic from LA for a few hours and making a last minute pitstop at Guitar Center to pick up some incidentals, I hated everything and everyone around me, including myself.

We walk into the “venue” which is more like a shitty Chilis that happened to have a stage and sound system, to see a few retirees sitting and enjoying dinner. “Fuck this, let’s get this over with” I think to myself. We’re setting up our gear onstage and this very fit, well built man approaches me. He goes “Hey man, I’m Glyn, I’m in the Roscoe’s Wild Child, the band after you. Would you guys mind if I borrow one of your amps for our set?”

My sour mood had atrophied into apathy, and I looked over at Pierre who spoke for me, “yeah man, that’s fine. Whose amp do you want to use?” Without a second of hesitation Glyn points at my Orange half stack amplifier and goes “his.” Done. It makes for an easy changeover and I don’t have to do anything after our set but head to the bar.

We were on first, which is normally a death sentence for bands. It’s when only the venue regulars or friends of the band show up, as the general public usually comes at prime time later at night.

Los Trucos play our set, which is classic rock adjacent, with a Latin tinge. Not particularly original, but not boring either. (“If rock is dead, then we’re zombies.” Their words not mine). James and I really make things rock, we do our best to make everything we do hit hard and loud.

We were raised on Led Zeppelin, and cut our teeth on the Mars Volta, we’re not going to pull our musical punches. We played to a few retirees and Pierre’s friends from work for about a half hour and then called it.

Since Glyn is using my amp for their set, I just take my guitars and walk right off stage and straight to the bar. One of Pierre’s work friends was really drunk, and since I wasn’t driving I was looking to catch up. The rest of Los Trucos finish getting their gear off stage and meet me at the bar.

I look over at the stage and see that they’re already doing sound check. “Where’s the rest of the band?” It was just a two piece, guitar and drums. After a quick line check, Glyn says “Good evening, we’re the Roscoe’s Wild Child” and immediately windmills a chord into his Fender Stratocaster.

As the sound begins feeding back loudly out of my own amp, he takes off his shirt. This was a guy who absolutely took care of himself; rippling muscles, well groomed facial hair, an all around Adonis chiselled from ebony stone. He made everyone else in the room look slovenly, and James is 6’5 and can dunk on a regulation rim.

I rarely if ever hear my own amp on stage being played by someone else, so I ask James “am I normally this loud?” Rolling his eyes James goes “yeah man.” I always have issues hearing myself so I’m always turning my amp up, much to the dismay of sound engineers across the country.

Glyn throws his shirt to the side and only then do I realize he’s wearing tight leather pants, this guy walks the walk, and rocks the rock. What happened next was what I can only describe as the reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix. If you close your eyes he sounds just like Hendrix but he adds his own flair.

But if you open your eyes, he’s like Hendrix too. Playing guitar behind his back, gyrating and hip thrusting, and basically bringing the guitar to coitus. This wasn’t Suzy’s Bar and Grill in Hermosa Beach, this was Woodstock 1969.  

The retirees wake up, and one of the wine moms gets up and starts dancing to the loud, groovy, blues rock. Glyn and the drummer start vamping and he’s telling this story about walking down the street at night in Long Beach all the while playing and having a conversation with the guitar.

In a sultry voice Glyn encourages everyone (all 5 people in the bar and Los Trucos) to get up and groove, so one of the wine moms gets close to the stage. Glyn, while playing the guitar in one hand and walking with the mic in the other, struts over to the end of the stage where wine mom is.

Glyn is just as much James Brown as he is Jimi Hendrix, sexily strutting and charismatically gliding across the stage. He sees wine mom and leans into the mic (again all while still playing guitar mind you).

“Hey baby, come on over here. What’s your favorite color?”

“Yellow!” The wine mom responds.

“I can’t work with that” Glyn says as he takes the mic and walks to the other end of the stage now, away from wine mom.

I’m laughing so hard I’m crying. My bad mood? Gone. Right out the window.

It was easily one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in my life.

The Roscoe’s Wild Child and All Systems Know would share a bill in the years after. I always loved hanging out with Glyn before and after shows, and he would sometimes surprise us at our own shows even when we weren’t playing together.

Maybe the real “exposure” was the friends we made along the way, or something corny like that.

Such is the power of the indescribable disposition of music, and the musician’s diaspora.

All Systems Know with Glyn at the Viper Room. West Hollywood, CA. 2020.