THE QUEST

I called Sorina from the plane. Austin had been strange, somewhat depressing, and I needed to hear her voice, to ground me. I told her about J.D. and what I"d seen, and to change the subject back to her side, added, "I hope all is well with the Quest". "The Quest sucks," she said. "And I was hoping you'd cheer ME up, " I laughed. "Don't worry, baby, you know I've seen that movie…and it's gonna be so nice to take a break together." The static just about cut us off. "I'm so burnt," who knows, I added, "Austin may have been my last gig." "Well I've seen THAT movie before, too," she said, knowingly. "You'll die with a guitar in your hands." "Maybe, but I'd rather die in bed". "Me, too" "See you soon."

The Quest is a daily thing, it's a long distance race, you know, not a sprint, which was one of the verbal salves I'd apply to almost any situation as I ventured into the world of the arts. As a child, I was always curious, relatively happy, but never satisfied. I grew up and became easily bored, somewhat happy, and still, never satisfied. The arts beckoned because with the arts, the search is eternal, and that carries certain baggage, on both sides of the scale. It's exciting and daunting, it's rewarding and frustrating, and ultimately, no matter what you accomplish, with the art itself or the public's perception, you're continually challenged and of course, never satisfied. My choice of canvas was music, my tools the guitar, the studio, the timbre of my voice. I joined with souls with similar, though ever-shifting desires, and we formed a band. And the beast was let loose.

Looking back, I see moments along the way standing out like buoys on an endless turbulent ocean, popping up with color when all around is stormy gray. This particular moment that I'm thinking of right now falls between happy accident and destiny, I suppose, depending on how you figure God does or does not play into the Quest.

It was during the height of fall, the air was crisp, the leaves had turned and the sun shone brightly, it was a perfect day to be outside, bicycling or going on a picnic. So, naturally, we had studio time booked. The song we were working on that day had a sexy tribal groove, if I can be so crude as to describe it that way, and it made your hips move and gyrate in an uncontrollable humping motion. We tried laying the drum tracks down with a full kit, and it translated okay, but ultimately, it was still too stiff, metronomic, heavy. It needed to swing, so J.D., our drummer, pulled out his cymbals and snares and tried playing the beat on toms and bass. Some drummers insist on using all their hardware simply because they can - like a writer who flaunts his vocabulary. They are technique and flash, but for me, technique is a tool, you have to have soul to know how to use it. J.D. had soul, he had taste, and he was a "songwriter's drummer" and in this case went with a bare bones set-up, which got us closer to manna, but unfortunately didn't quite work either. We thought about laying percussion over what we'd recorded, but at its essence, the track didn't feel quite right and there was no sense in hiding it. There's a crude studio cliché that goes "you can't polish a turd". J.D. knew that, too. We took a break and went out back for a smoke and stared up at the clear blue sky and pondered the black tar parking lot and finally, noticed two old oil drums right next to us, slightly dented and worse for wear, but still, begging to be used. I looked at J.D. and he looked at me, and we hauled those suckers into the studio. We tore up a couple of rags and duct taped them around the ends of his sticks, turned the cans upside down. He took a determined look at them as the track began to roll, and then, laid down his part in one take. He sounded like three drummers when he needed to, and one when space beckoned. He constructed and deconstructed. And that was our first hit single. When I say hit, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was the first tune we made any real money on. I cut J.D. in as a co-writer, which some said I shouldn't have, but to me, the groove made the tune. I had some ideas, but J.D. painted them perfectly. The track was called "Upbeat Love Stomp."

There's an old joke that goes like this. Mother to son: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A drummer," he replies. She looks at him, fondly, as only a mother can. "But, honey," she says, "you can't do both"

As soon as I saw those drums, my mind flashed back to my grandmother's house in east Missouri. There were two large oil drums out back by the alley, rusted brown and burnt black. After dinner, it was my job to take out the garbage and burn it, in the days when that sort of thing was common practice. You could look up and down the alley around 7, 8 o'clock and see smoke hovering over a whole series of drums and steel garbage cans, paired in twos and threes. It smelled like summer with all that garbage burning, but it wasn't a bad smell, it didn't cut with the kind of pungency you might expect. Every once in a while, a truck came down the alley, crunching the gravel under its wheels, passing through clouds of smoke twisting through the air. The gravel kicked up and sometimes a larger rock would bounce up and hit a can or drum, ringing clear as a spoon against a glass of water, pitched just right, a sound that filtered through my ears and sank into my bones and holed up for years, waiting for the day it could come out and play. There were a million sounds in those days, it seems, floating around and filling the air and all you had to do was cock your head to one side, lend an ear, and pick them out. The sounds weren't pre-processed or electrified, they existed as part of the human experience, part of the balance of the world. Everything from the cicadas humming in the trees to the crickets chirping beneath the front porch, and a half-dozen melodious birds I could never name. Late at night, I could hear them, one group starting after the other, percussive, not in time, but of it, further accentuated by the third group who held back and covered both in gentle counterpoint. The wind also had a certain sound all its own and sometimes it'd blow through the willow by the side of the house and I could hear the branches step back and forth, move and sway, scratching up against the siding. For better or worse, I believe music was more organic back then, as a result of all those sounds. Or maybe it was just the magic of my grandmother's house.

"So, what do you think?" I asked the engineer. "Should we leave it or lay some percussion on?" I was fishing, see, I was really into those clanky Tom Waits records, so much so, that it created this bad habit of me wanting to put kitchen sink percussion on everything. I think I was also trying to put extra focus on J.D. and his talents, ironic considering the way things turned out.

The engineer nodded his head as we listened back. All we had down was J.D.'s oil drums, a stand-up bass and my scratch vocals, but you could tell the groove was there. The melody was implied within the lyrics and the phrasing, and supported by whatever tune the band could help me carry. Something was happening and all we had to do was run with it, being careful not to step on something and mess it up. The engineer, normally stone-faced and non-committal to his clients, actually began to smile, which I felt in these circumstances was akin to a standing O at his favorite club.

"The drums sound cool, man," he said slowly, "I wouldn't have thought of doing it that way, but they work." Then he paused, "but of course, it depends on what you're going for."

J.D. had been outside smoking, but as he came in to the dark bowels of the studio, he caught the end of the playback and immediately said he thought the take was happening and I took this as the second opinion I needed. He had confidence in this one, especially considering it was his only run-through.

"Alright," I said. "It's a keeper. No sense beating it to death." After roundtabling a hundred bad titles, we decided to call the CD Beating it to Death. We laughed about it at the time, but it was an omen really, a macabre joke that played itself out over the coming years.

We were a Chicago-based band and our first road trip ever was down to St. Louis for a two-night stand at a club called Caesar's. It was a tiny room at the time, downstairs from a pizza parlor, and just down the block from Washington University. There wasn't much going on in St. Louis, but we didn't care, we were "on the road". We got down there early the day of the gig, checked into a Days Inn - with pool - bummed around awhile, and headed down to the club. You could tell the strip around the club was supposed to be the "hip" part of town, but it was basically a few used bookstores, a couple bars, and a great record shop. The gigs went great - both nights there were packed crowds, and since no one knew who we were, we figured the venues must draw naturally and regularly from the college crowd. We didn't have a record out at the time, and we really weren't sure what "going on the road" was going to do for us, career-wise. We didn't care, though, we just wanted to get out there and do it, and playing as much as possible, in as many settings as we could, wherever we could, was part of it.

St. Louis became part of our circuit. If you were planning a strategic attack, you'd put a map on the wall, stick a thumbtack in Chicago tie a piece of string to it, and then make a huge circle. The circle would encompass Michigan (Ann Arbor, Detroit, Grand Rapids), Indiana (Bloomington), downstate Illinois (Champaign), Missouri (St. Louis), Iowa (Iowa City, Ames, Cedar Falls), Minnesota (Minneapolis), and Wisconsin (Madison and Milwaukee). Lots of college towns and "secondary markets". But, people came out, and we got paid decent and we got better.

And so did St. Louis. Delmar began building up a bit, more activity. Caesar's moved to a bigger venue across the street. So did the record store. More bookstores, coffee shops, trees, and a walk of fame listing all the famous folks with attachments to St. Louis, of one kind or another. Miles Davis. Chuck Berry. Harry Caray. A lot of rugged individualists had graced this town.

One night we were down there opening for a national band, I can't even remember who, and after our very short set, I began to get the itch to go outside. The other band were really nice guys and their crew treated us great, but I don't know, we'd been out for about a week and I was already feeling claustrophobic and since the rest of the band was hanging for the night, it gave me license to escape.

So, I wandered out alone, just strolling down Delmar, past the groups of men and women, twos and threes, bustling down the walk on their way to somewhere important. Lots of laughing, carefree chatter and drunken staccato, machine gun bursts in random procession, like the spinning of the dial on your FM player. I love to tune in to snatches of conversation when I can, they give you great ideas for songs. And, there's also something special about those summer nights, it's hot and sticky, but I don't know, a breeze will sweep by now and again and it feels like a cool drink and brings you back to your senses and reminds you that you are in shirtsleeves and things are as they should be, because it's the middle of August and after all, you're in St. Louis, so things are as they should be.

I was taking my time, working my way down the street, reading the names on the stars, with my hands in my pocket. I almost bumped into a tree a couple times. I heard someone giggle, perhaps at me, and I looked up to place her, but couldn't. Instead, I heard a really heavy bass sound and crackling snare coming out of a reggae bar. A small club, it had storefront windows just like a clothes store or something. I could see the band inside, five Rastafarian guys and a woman at the microphone, all crammed onto a tiny stage. A guy in shorts and his girlfriend, dressed in tight pedal pusher pants and a tube top, danced in front of the stage, looking good, but out of time. A few other folks sat at two tables up front, and there were maybe half a dozen men and women at the bar. But, I love reggae music and they sounded like they were on it, so I ventured in. "Three bucks" the doorman said. I dug out a fiver and told him to keep it. I wandered over to the bar and found a seat and sunk in to listen.

I ordered a Red Stripe and found a comfortable seat at the bar. I nursed it slowly, the lightweight I am, soaking into the music. The woman at the microphone said, "here is a song by one of our rocksteady favorites, Ken Boothe." "Whooooo, Ken Boothe, YEAH", a woman screamed next to me. It was loud as hell and the bass player smiled as the band launched into the number. "Why, why baby why, why did you leave me?" The singer sang, plaintively. I was a huge Ken Boothe fan. I turned and saw a girl smiling and shaking her fist in the air. "I lovveee Ken Boothe", she said. "Yeah, me too." "Now I Know," she said "Can't You See?" I responded. Oh yes, definitely. I couldn't believe it. One doesn't want to profile, but she looked like a farm girl, freckles, hair tightly rubber-banded into a ponytail. Her shirt said "cowboy" across the front, and it went down almost to her midriff, where a quick glance revealed a sparkling navel ring. She was wearing blue jeans, no flares. It might not be too unusual to find a girl like that in a reggae bar, but it would be rare to run across one with such intense knowledge of the great Ken Boothe.

We got to talking. People tend to tell me their life stories when I meet them, particularly out on the road. It reinforces this innate belief I have that we are increasingly a world of disconnected people trying to make connections. Either that or I just look like a good listener. She was a pre-med student; studied biology at Washington U, and now was at school in Columbia, U of Missouri. She was visiting family in St. Louis, her mother and stepsisters. Her father was a musician, he left the mom, classic story, and was down in Texas now somewhere with his guitar and his songs, and it sounded like he wasn't exactly successful. She was torn, because on one hand she was very into science, and the idea of helping people through medicine, and was very methodical in her thinking. On the other hand, she had a wildside, she said, she would have tons of piercings and tattoos and would dye her hair blue if anyone would hire her looking like that. She felt like she was a creative soul, but she had nothing to create with. I told her anything could be creative - the best doctors are artists, I said. She smiled. Her name was Sorina. Sorina Johnson. Strange combination. But so was she, a juxtaposition of styles. She gave me information in pieces, as if she was a child with a handful of balloons, hesitant to pass them out.

Finally, she asked what I did, and I told her we'd just played that night. I told her we get to St. Louis and Columbia fairly often and I'd like to stay in touch. I liked her, but I wasn't at the point where I wanted to have some one-night stand, and that was all I could see happening at the time. She wrote her number on the back of a cardboard coaster and I tore it in half and did the same. I finished my beer and reached over to give her a hug and she told me she had a good time. As I left the bar, I felt like we'd been on a date already, like I had just dropped her off at home, only home was still a stool at the reggae bar. Where were her friends, anyway?

Meanwhile, the band kept gigging and Beating it to Death was actually a bit of a hit for us, in the sense it got us a good amount of real AAA airplay on many Channel One radio stations and markedly raised our visibility. Those guys at CO are like Satan at the Gates of Hell and I think the label put something like $100,000 into promotions, which was just unheard of at the time, for a band at our level of experience. It would all come out of our pockets eventually, but we were hungry and felt ready, if not to conquer the world, well, at least to conquer America. Or the Midwest. We should have figured out how to conquer ourselves, first, but that's another story.

Now, as I mentioned, this first "hit" I've been telling you about, as well several other songs on the record, listed J.D. and myself as co-writers. As a result, I'd say this CD brought J.D. more attention than ever before, from both our own circle of friends and accomplices to the outside world/media at large. Not coincidentally, he began pushing to take the oil drums on the road with us and using them on other material. In other words, he wanted to recast the bulk of our material, old and new, to work with the oil drum approach, the proverbial tail wagging the dog instead of the other way around. The other guys in the band balked and so did I. The drums were a good idea on certain tunes, but I didn't want to be typecast as some sort of novelty band. Bobby, our guitarist, played electric banjo through a wah-wah pedal on one cut, but that didn't mean we were going to put electric banjo on everything. It would have been ridiculous. Besides, songs are like children in that they often grow up to be what they want to be - they suggest a certain arrangement the way people suggest a certain suit of clothes.

I felt strongly about this, and so did Bobby and Mo. I can't remember exactly how it happened, but the struggle began and J.D. outvoted the rest of us somehow and we wound up taking the oil drums on tour. We were able to draw the line on some material and I guess in retrospect, we thought we were compromising for the good of the whole, but the truth is, the result threw the whole presentation into imbalance, the compromise simply presenting us as a sort of lowest common denominator musical experience.

Looking back, I see this as the turning point for J.D., as he begun a steady erosion of perspective. It's easier than you think, to get thrown off track after plugging away for years, taking shit the whole time for doing this one particular thing, and then all of a sudden waking up to a world that praises you for doing the very same thing. If you're part of a band, and you do get singled out, you might start believing that you are the star of the show and lose sight of your place in the whole. And, if you're not having success, well then, the noble battle can come treacherously close to being a delusional habit. Lots of people versions of these thoughts running through their heads at one time or another, but I believe J.D. had a tougher time than many, sorting them out.

J.D. also had one of those classic addictive personalities, as pop psychology goes. In our early days, it was relatively innocent - picking up a hobby a week, from drying fresh fruit into strips to playing Ker-Plunk all night. Like anyone, he'd have a beer or two during or after the gig, and that seemed to increase, but not in a damaging sense, from what we could tell it didn't affect his playing or his personality in any negative way. He was what's known as a "happy drunk." Then, as the road trips got longer, J.D. insisted on doing as much driving as he could, and even became fiercely protective of the wheel. He wouldn't even let us hire a driver, when we were able. We began calling him "Captain D", after the fast-food restaurant or the pillar of death, depending on where we were headed and how fast we were going. I think reading in the van made J.D. car sick, but I also think he had a bit of a martyr complex. We'd get back from a trip and I'd overhear him talking to friends, straddling between a boast and a complaint as he went on and on about how he did all the driving on our last tour. Which wasn't true anyway, because he'd get in this groove where he'd take uppers all night to stay awake and become so wired that by morning, he could barely see the highway or anything on it. So, he had to sleep then, and in order to do it, he'd crash on a handful of downers. He'd wear one of those blindfolds you see old men wearing in the movies, wrap himself up in a blanket or sleeping bag and doze off on the bench in the back, sweating through all his clothes in the process. J.D. would stay knocked out all day, right up until sound check, and when he awoke, it wasn't in the guise of a happy pill-taker, no, he became irritable and moody.

I remember the first time we played New York, for a midnight show at GB VII. We went into the club for sound check about 7 o'clock and returned to the van about twenty minutes later to get something from Bobby's tool kit, only to find that the lock on the driver's door was jammed. We entered from the passenger's side and sure enough, his tools were gone, along with a PA mixer, some smelly shirts we'd hung on hooks in the back, and J.D.'s backpack, which happened to be filled with irreplaceable tapes from his days as a college d.j. We were so green. I mean, this was the East Village in Manhattan, back in the day, right off the Bowery, it was a rough neighborhood, ominously deserted save for crack addicts and winos. The stuff was probably up on Columbus Circle by dawn the next day, laid out on blankets for sale but loud and steady hucksters. Anyway, J.D. was so wired on pills, I thought he was going to kill one of us, but we stood by silently as his anger shifted and became re-directed at the anonymous inhabitants of what was appropriately called, for J.D.'s sake, the city that never sleeps. Slowly, he began stalking the alleyways of the East Village like a mad vigilante. He found a broken baseball bat laying in the middle of the street and began waving it menacingly, threatening to "kill the nigger" who stole his backpack. It was an ugly sight - I had never heard J.D. use the 'n' word before and believed him to be incapable of such a thing. He may have been saying it just to piss us off, to get a reaction, but as I looked up and down the dimly lit, visibly deserted city block, I feared for him and ourselves. I feared for something beyond the obvious immediate dangers, something murkier and less defined, and more connected to what we were doing as a band, sacrifices we were making to what end. As ridiculous as it may sound, the only comparison I can think of is being stuck in a marriage you know isn't going to work, but you feel obligated to keep trying, because you've grown so accustomed to each other, that you would miss the pain. We followed J.D. through those darkened streets and as showtime approached, we had the excuse we needed to gently tow him back into the relative safety of the club.

There's another familiar joke that goes something like this. "What do you call a guy who likes to hang around musicians". Answer: A drummer. Insert canned laughter. It's all context, though, isn't it?

I must admit, though, J.D. was a great drummer, and as anyone knows, a great drummer drives a rock and roll band, the motor, and the foundation.

After New York, my brother copied me on an e-mail he received from my aunt. She asked if I enjoyed playing all those gigs. Then, before he could answer, she added, "Oh yes, he must, that's what he wants to do someday." I don't know which more depressing, my aunt tossing off my life's work in a sentence or my brother ccing me on the e-mail. I'm not saying this to be dramatic, but sometimes I think I'm too sensitive for this world.

I had phoned Sorina as soon as I got back to the hotel after our parting. She wasn't home, of course, but I guess she was impressed at the message I left and before long we were talking regularly. We had a lot in common, I found, and I enjoyed talking with her, though typically, she still moved from being very warm and flirtatious to a distance that seemed self-imposed. That makes sense, I thought, we're just friends talking on the phone. Then, the next time we were in St. Louis, I called her ahead of time and asked her to dinner after soundcheck. I didn't want her just hanging out at the gig, because although I didn't know what context our relationship would take, I knew she was much more than a groupie or hanger-on.

Dinner was great, we'd developed a comfort zone from our conversations, and we were able to even share various frustrations of life, the pressures of med school and all it entailed for her, and my latest ups and downs with J.D., and life in the world of the Quest, as I liked to call it. She liked that and began to use it herself, when speaking of her goals and ambitions. She couldn't make our gig, as she had to get back to Columbia, but I was okay with that. Glad, even. We kissed for the first time that night, after I walked her to her car. The kiss lingered longer than most, and her lips felt warm, and comfortable. She moved away quickly, but smiled, and again, told me she had a nice time.

Somehow, the band made it through all connected to Beating it to Death, oil drums included. The disc had decent sales and airplay and it was moving us along, but it became clear it wasn't going to break us - that would be up to the next release - if we were lucky. A logical move would've been to improve upon al the key elements that got us there in the first place, the great group interplay, good accessible (yet not lightweight) tunes, and both solid and quirky rhythm glue. We had a very hot indie producer lined up to work the next project, and we were all ready to turn it up a notch, as the expression goes. I should qualify that - when I say all of us, I'm excluding J.D. This was the beginning of his "rock star" phase, which in my opinion, sadly belied our relatively fringe status. Unlike his erratic but dependable tour behavior, J.D. began showing up late for recording sessions, often sloppy drunk, sometimes too tanked to play. Other times, he was just plain strange. Once he came to the studio dressed as an ice cream man, with a cooler under his arm, and spent the whole night sitting on the floor by his drums, eating Eskimo Pies, one by one. Another time, he was about four hours late because he refused to miss his high school buddies' annual Halloween party. We worked on vocals that night, on tracks we'd already finished and when he finally showed up dressed as Fred Flintstone, we let him collapse in the corner with paper mache club in hand. Bobby had a talk with him after that and he became coherent for a time, at which point, we began hurrying to get his parts down before he wigged out again. Finally, as if to throw us another loop, he insisted that all he would ever play again was the oil drums - on each and every song. Rather than argue, we agreed and cut them to a click track, thinking we could hire someone else to put real drums on later. That's how bad things had become.

Now, if this wasn't enough, Morris, our bass player began having personal problems. His Dad had been fighting cancer for a couple of years, but chemotherapy wasn't working anymore and he had begun slipping away. Morris was having a hard time getting through the sessions and while we wanted him to finish his parts, it was his Dad, a musician himself, who pushed the hardest. I think he thought that great things were about to happen, so he encouraged Morris to spend less time at the hospital and more in the studio. We hope and prayed Dad would hang on at least through Morris' parts -- if he checked out later while we were mixing, then Morris would be clear and free to fall apart.

In the meantime, Mo struggled along, and about mid-way through the record, "caused" another incident I'll never forget. This time J.D. was actually present and coherent and we had set up our gear and began checking levels, when we realized something was amiss. Morris wasn't there, and he was a man who was never known to be late for anything, his punctuality and good breeding as much a part of him as the perfectly styled hair swept back across his forehead. We silently speculated amongst ourselves as to the reason for his delay, hoping for the best and skirting the obvious out of superstition, save for J.D., who began pacing, mumbling and cursing. "I've got cancer, too, you know...I'm dying of cancer, too." J.D. repeated this over and over as he spun around the studio, directing the words at me, the engineer, Bobby, and a couple of techs who stuck their heads into the booth in the midst of the chaos. "I'm dying of cancer too, where the fuck is he? I'm dying of cancer...." J.D.'s speech continued dark and clipped in the controlled ambiance of the studio, hitting hard against the dull padded walls that surrounded us. The room filled quickly with the worst of vibes, a thick tension incompatible with the whole creative process, ironic considering we had planned to start with the basics for "Love thy Brother", a somewhat tongue-in-cheek ska song about tolerance and acceptance.

When Morris finally made it, only fifty past the hour (maybe twenty minutes late in real time), he looked as tired and haggard as I'd ever seen him. A diminutive strong man, Morris was the gentle soul of the band, a class act who immediately apologized for spending so much time with his dying father. He opened his case, slung on his bass, and began to tune. I'll always have a mental picture of him from that night, forlorn and sad as he bent over his tuner and peered into the LED lights with hazy red eyes. His hair was unusually tousled and his shirt was wrinkled and stained, with giant half moons of sweat under the arms, odd considering he was the only guy in the band who took an iron on the road. Actually, I think he was the only one of us who even owned an iron. Bobby cracked open a beer and set it on Morris' amp as he tuned. Morris whispered a "thank you". I patted him on the shoulder and walked over to pick up my guitar, strapping it on in silence. We were trying to clear up the fog and start over, back to the beginning of our musical lives, when we were locked in with a collective joy that would impossible for me to describe here, other than saying it was our reason for being, a something special that could rid a room of all its demons. But, sad to say, as soon as J.D. came out of the bathroom and saw Mo standing there, we knew the night was doomed. His eyes bugged out exaggeratedly, as he slowly approached Morris from behind, whispering in a low, steadily rising voice, "where were you, mannn? I've got cancer, too, you know...."

Morris picked up the beer bottle and emptied it over J.D.'s head, suds cascading majestically down the length of his dirty blonde hair. J.D. was stunned, but before he could react, Morris reached out one hand like an officer stopping traffic, toppling him backwards and more importantly, removing him from his personal space. Mo watched him fall and then stormed outside. We couldn't blame him, really. "Love thy Brother" never made the record.

We worked long and hard on Pounding the Pavement, the working title for that CD, and despite all our conflicts - or perhaps because of it, we all managed to agree on one thing. It was a great piece of work. In fact, I still listen to the rough mixes, and I don't do that with any of my past efforts. However, the man who had signed us at the label had since been fired and his replacement did not share our enthusiasm. The label kept pushing the release date back, a few months at a time, until after about a year, they finally informed us that they were dropping us from the label. Since they paid for the recording and owned the master to this one, it'd never see the light of day. Unless we had great success elsewhere. And you must remember, it's all about context.

"What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?" Answer: homeless.

Naturally, the Quest took a different shape when we were dropped. On, one hand, it was sobering and depressing, all the time and energy spent building this something that had suddenly vanished into nothing. On the other hand, like anything in life, when one door closes, another will open, and sometimes new opportunities will arise. I was conflicted, though, between optimism and realism. I was also conflicted between continuing with Sorina and cutting things off before they got too serious. We were spending more time together, as schedules permitted it, shuttling back for quick weekends, occasional she meeting up with me at third-point destinations on the road.

We had always been close, it seemed, but now our intimacy had reached new depths and along with the shakiness of the band, I was contemplating whether or not this was the logical conclusion to one phase of my life, or the beginning of another. I was like that guy in the movies, the old slapstick numbers, who has one foot on the dock and another on the boat and the boat begins to drift and his feet start to widen and he can't decide whether to jump back on the dock, or over on the boat. His indecision gets the best of him, and he finally falls into the water with a splash.

The week we were dropped - there's a touchstone -- I immediately called her to see how her schedule was and as it turned out, we were able to hook up in St. Louis for a 4-day stretch. I was pretty quiet and withdrawn when I arrived, but she pulled me out of it, over a nice Italian dinner down by the river. Afterwards, we went back to our hotel room and took a long hot bath together and talked about everything in both of our lives and between us. After that, we slipped into silence. And, then we slipped into bed. And, then we poured out our anxieties through long slow deliberate motions. And she never pulled away again.

She nestled into me in the pitch darkness of the hotel room. I love hotels with shades that are like black carpet and I'm always sure to tuck the edges in around the window to make sure as little light as possible creeps through in the morning. I hate the light, but I love the darkness. My name means gray murky sea in Latin - or that's what some publicity person once told me after a show.

What do you call a drummer in a suit? The defendant!

I felt as if J.D. was standing trial for the world the last time I saw him onstage. It was two years after the band split up. I was down in Austin doing a solo gig at a big well-known music festival, where lots of bands and musicians from around the country go to play for free in the hopes of furthering their careers, via contacts or exposure. Some do. Most don't. Regardless, the people running the conference, the clubs, the radio promoters, the publicity agents, the hotels, the record labels, and just about anyone else involved, profits handsomely. This is the corporate entity rock and roll has become, and my brother and I contemplated the thought of whether old-school pioneers like Robert Johnson and Charley Patton would have ever ventured to participate in such an event, had it existed in their day. We'll never know. My guess is "no".

Anyway, at the time I was in the midst of launching solo career, writing a lot of songs, and planning to record them fairly soon. I thought in this case, it would be good to go down to Austin and run into people and let 'em know what I was up to. Apparently JD, or someone close to him, had the same idea. I'd played my set the day before and it was Saturday, the last night of the festival. I was wandering up and down Sixth Street, dodging sailors on leave and winding around an endless stream of fraternity boys and sorority girls out for the night, aimlessly poking my head into a bar now and again for five minutes of music. The strip was relatively free of music executives - they were all in their hotels watching the NCAA basketball championhips on T.V., earning their tax write-offs for "scouting" bands. Anyway, along the way, I spotted a well-lit neon sign next to the entrance of Joe's Rock Club, advertising Jumping Jack Flash and his Pavement Pounders. J.D.s real name was Jonas Brazinski, and sometimes he liked to call himself Jack Flash. As I read the sign, I immediately knew at least two of the songs he'd be performing.

I walked in and I was even more surprised to find the club somewhat crowded, and judging by those waiting, there were few regulars, but lots of people with official "laminates" around their necks, the badges of honor that industry types wear. Must all be baseball fans, I thought, but regardless, it was cool that they'd come to see J.D. It's a good thing, I thought, I guess one's reputation does precede you. I ordered a coke from the bartender and found an empty table near the back of the room, where a high window looks out on the crowded street. Outside, the masses moved back and forth, occasionally brushing the glass like the ocean at high tide. Through the dim lights of the club, I saw the stage set-up was obviously designed to focus on J.D. There was a boom stand with microphone up front, a stool, and three large oil drums, cords and mikes protruding like the arms of an octopus. A bass rig was positioned to the right, and a battered upright piano to the left, it looked like cherry wood to me. I nursed my Coke, chewed on an ice cube and waited. The room filled up some more, and finally, the stage lights came on. A large fat man with a black Harley t-shirt came on and gave a lengthy introduction, greatly exaggerating the accomplishments of our band, and J.D. as a solo artist. During this spiel, the bassist and piano player took their positions. Would you please welcome, he asked, and everyone responded, scattered but enthusiastic applause for my old friend Jonas Brazinski.

A curtain opened at the back of the stage and two hefty bouncers emerged, holding J.D. upright with his legs suspended in the sitting position, as if he had been lifted right off the toilet. His arms were draped around their shoulders as they hauled him across the stage and brought him to the stool in the center of the stage. J.D. smiled a tiny woozy smile when they set him down, like he was thoroughly enjoying himself but lacked the energy for further expression. Everything about him seemed smaller that it should be - even his hair, while long, seemed brittle and prematurely aged, falling like broken icicles around his shoulders. I had heard through the grapevine about his m.s., but his frame seemed terribly withered and thin and it was sad for me to see that his legs weren't even functional. For a moment, I wondered how he was even going to play, but then, I remembered, musically J.D. was always game for anything. The two men positioned him further on the stool, wrapping each foot and ankle around the rung of the barstool, to help fix him in place. J.D. pointed to the floor, after which one man picked up a bottle of whiskey sitting there, unscrewed the cap and handed it to J.D., who took a very long swig. He smiled again, this one directed at the audience, and set the bottle down on the drum in front of him. Then, he picked up two large club-like sticks, exaggerated in appearance by his spidery hands, half-turned over his shoulder to the bassist and shouted the count, leading with a short roll on the four. The band picked it up and slid into "Upbeat Love Stomp," as J.D. and the bassist locked into a familiar groove. His whiskey bottle fell to the floor with a crash and one of the bouncers hurried to the bar for another. The rhythm section was smooth and syncopated, holding on tight while the piano player dropped a series of jazz runs in and around the beat, a nice addition to the original arrangement. We had been strictly a guitar band.

The song's finish was greeted with scattered but enthusiastic applause and J.D. nodded in acknowledgment, as the bass player kicked into the lead-off riff of "Pounding the Pavement". I scouted the crowd and saw at least a few well-dressed types nodding in appreciation, looking good, but out of time. J.D. righted himself and grimaced slightly partway through the first chorus, something most in the audience probably didn't notice. But I did. His drumming was solid, but it lagged in this song It looked to me as if he was having trouble gripping his sticks. Somehow, the band pushed him through it, but as I sat and watched, I saw each song leading J.D. further down the steps of debilitation, musically and otherwise. After the hits, the material grew thinner, with some weak new stuff and even a couple of terribly lame cover tunes. The set ended with a reprise of "Upbeat Love Stomp", after which the bouncers came back and carried J.D. off, as he waved over his shoulder to the crowd. About a quarter of the club was empty now, but those remaining were satisfied - in a sense, J.D. had always been a consummate showman and he certainly gave his fans what they wanted. I wanted to let bygones be bygones and go backstage for a congratulatory greeting, but frankly, I didn't have the heart. The whole scene was just too depressing. I started to think about all the folks we met through the band and its attendant business, and the many friends we made. There are a handful I still see, but it's a small percentage, considering. Most have disappeared, the currency of favors gone bankrupt a long time ago. I didn't see any familiar faces at J.D.'s show and I began to wonder who was handling his affairs and for a second, I thought about checking things out and getting involved. But only for a second.

The next morning I checked out of my hotel and hopped a plane back home. Though it wasn't really home - I'd put all my stuff in storage in Chicago before heading to Chicago and this time, home was going to be St. Louis. Sorina had begun a residency and we were going to share an apartment together. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of my face, so I reached up to turn on the little round fan and point it directly at me, cool me down. I was nervous, I was never afraid of flying, but I was afraid of what I might do when I landed. And I had a feeling that's what J.D. had a hard time with, and it's what I thought about as stared into the bright blue sky that remains suspended for all time above endless waves of clouds, outside endless airplane windows, to cover me between an endless string of unclaimed destinations. Finally on the ground, I gathered my bags and walked down the long tunnel, white light at the end, just like one of those late night television testimonials on near-death experiences. At the very end, it opened wide and it wasn't Jesus, but wonderful noise and people, staccato bursts, and I heard sounds that could be stories and I passed an initial gathering of people holding flowers and signs, and I thought about writing a song about people waiting for people at airports. Then, I saw Sorina standing in front of me, leaning one hand against a pole, waiting for me, and I thought how, that too, would make a good song. She jumped up and hugged me, tightly, without reservation.

"And how was the Quest?," she asked. And not for a moment did I think about my gig in Austin, the sadness of J.D.'s performance, highs and lows of past shows, or future challenges. No, the minute I saw Sorina all I could think of was she and I together, the commitment, and a strange combination of fear and wild yet desperate exhilaration. "I'd say the Quest has just begun." "Really? I thought you were going to quit," she said, goading me. "Never. You know that when I'm in something I'm in it for good." "Oh really?," she said, smiling. "Of course," I responded with exaggerated confidence. "And you?" We were booking through the airport and I was hurrying to keep up with her, though her strides were considerably shorter. "When I called from the plane, you said it sucked."

"Oh, I was just messing with you," she answered, grabbing my duffelbag from one hand so I was free to use the shoulder strap on my guitar. "I mean, the residency is gonna be a bitch, but it's a good challenge, you know, and anyway, as of right now," she stopped, pausing, completely in time, "the quest is over." I stopped cold before the automatic doors.

"Come on," she said, forging ahead, motioning. I'd always had a hard time living life not expecting the worst. "What do you mean," I asked, reading all sorts of disaster into her words. "For me," she continued, as we headed into the parking lot, "the quest ended in a little reggae bar on Delmar Avenue, so many nights ago.."

More poetry than I'd ever mastered in one of my songs, she was always right, and it made me sick sometimes. It also made me realize that nothing was ever in vain, that no matter where things were headed, or where they are headed, the Quest was all one, it wove together incrementally and magically pushed me into places I never would have gone. It was both a beginning and an end. And one followed the other. And as we loaded our luggage into our car, readying ourselves for the drive to our new home, I thanked all there was for the Quest.

© DOUG HOEKSTRA 2002