Turf War

It started in the winter.  I was walking back from the supermarket around 6:45 PM on a rainy Saturday and the village was absolutely silent.  Until I heard it, cutting through the darkness like a rusty vegetable peeler - the tuneless wail of an electric guitar.  Seconds later, some bass notes lumbered in and then the out of time thud of a crappy snare drum.  I turned this way and that, trying to figure out where this gloriously pathetic sound was coming from, and followed it to just outside a half-finished log cabin. 

There was a band rehearsing in there!  Light was coming out of the windows but net curtains kept me from seeing inside.  The music stopped, began again in earnest, then fizzled out a minute or two later. I was transfixed, but had to run back and share the news with Eric.  There was another band in town.  Not just any band.  A truly bad band.  I felt like a kid  running back to the garage to tell my buddies that we had some competition.

As the months went by we'd make it a point to walk past the log cabin, and could see that it was on its way to becoming a restaurant, La Cabane.  And, usually on Sunday afternoons, we'd hear the band practicing.  They'd stutter and strain through classic rock chestnuts like Smoke On The Water and Addicted To Love.  The drummer was possibly the worst we'd ever heard.  And between Eric and I we've heard a lot of bands.  They didn't actually seem to get any better.  They just added more songs to the repertoire.

We'd kind of hoped when La Cabane opened that it might be a place we could play occasionally.  After all, it's within walking distance, right?  But when we inquired we were told they had a house band already.  Strangely enough, the place never seems to have any business.

Last week we were scheduled to play the annual local festival.  We'd agreed to do it as a way of making nice with the mayor of the village, since it's good to have him on your side.  He'd been thrilled to have us, real live "professional" musicians living right in his domain.

Well it's been raining a lot around here lately.  And the day of the festival it poured.  They hadn't bothered to get a covering for the stage so it looked like a rainout.  The festival was to feature food, rides and games, horses for the children, some traditional dancers and two musical acts.  Us and a group called Les Papys Rock. 

But by the end of the day, the sun had come out.  The festival area was completely muddy, the stage was soaked.  They decided to move the music into a tent.  We were supposed to play last, after Les Papys (or, grandfathers).  When we arrived the other group was starting up - three French guys, three English guys.  The drummer wore leather drumming gloves, the singer wore a beret.  The keyboard player was frighteningly sunburned with a peeling nose.  The bass player wore high-waisted knee length shorts. The guitarist had a heavy duty effects rack and a greasy pony tail.  The little guy simply played bongos.

They sucked.  But they weren't just some ordinary lousy band - they were the band from our village. There was no mistaking it after the first few screeching notes.  They preened, they paraded, they brought up four or five of their wives to sing backup vocals and look adoringly at them as they plodded and pounded through Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Doors.  Every song you never wanted to hear again played as badly as possible without shame.  I guess you could say they were having a good time.  So much so that they played for two hours.  Our dear friend, the mayor, was nowhere to be found, so there was no one to tell them to stop.

The tent had no lights, the Papys drove the people away, and we never did play. But it gave us a new purpose in life.  A turf war.