The face took up the entire cover, and in the days of vinyl LPs you could see it from a mile away in a record store. Sadly and oddly Barry died of a massive heart attack when he was really young and at the peak of his career. He was in his early-20s, and he died before the album was even released, But his artwork lives on, to cause nightmares in the best of us. If you're not familiar with the image on the cover of the LP you can Google it, but do so at your own risk.
The face at the top of this page is on the inside, so you didn't see it until you opened up the gatefold cover. Ahhh...the smell of fresh vinyl in the morning. There's nothing like it. Anyway while I was a bit repulsed by the cover image I loved the one on the inside of the jacket.
I loved to draw it. I made a t-shirt from it, and with what art and Architecture skills I had, plus acrylic paint and a lot of tedious hours I totally nailed it. I ended up giving it to my first love, Jean. It looked really good on her. It made a great Jack-o-lantern face and I carved several at Halloween. It's always stuck with me. The vibe on the inside of the LP is just a tad more relaxed than it is on the cover.
Back when I played in Bud Greene we played a lot at a place in Sheffield, Alabama called Club XIII. It was north of here near the Tennessee border, and it was typical of the "On the way" clubs as I called them. We played a lot in Virginia, usually both weekend nights, and our booking agencies would book us weekday gigs that were on the way there, such as Huntsville or Sheffield, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, etc. We almost always played Thursday, Friday and Saturday (and occasionally every day of the week), but many times the agencies would offer us a Wednesday night club gig that might not have a huge guarantee, although we did break the guarantee with cover charge quite often.
Frat parties were a set fee but clubs could be iffy. Some were great and some we played to the walls. They always guaranteed (paid) less than a frat gig or a bar gig where we were established, but more often than not we'd take them. We might only be guaranteed $150 or so a man, or even $100 (we never went lower than that), but it was enough to come close to paying for our fuel, motels and most of our food for the next four days, and most of the money from the next three gigs was pure profit. We started out playing at Club XIII on Wednesday nights.
It was slow at first but after we'd played there a few times we started attracting better crowds. The great Spooner Oldham, Long-time keyboardist for JJ Cale, songwriter, producer and all would sit-in with us, as well as Pat Hood, who later founded the band Drive-by Truckers. As usual we'd stay at a Best Western or wherever, but one time, out of the goodness of his heart, the owner, or possibly a friend of his, offered to put us up for free at a motel he owned. We agreed but we were always suspicious when a private individual owned a motel, and this was no different.
We followed someone over to the motel and before we pulled into the parking lot we could see that was the same old deal. There were weeds growing up through cracks in the pavement. That says a lot. It was one of those deals where they buy a shitty motel that's in a shitty location and it's going out of business and they get it cheap. They occasionally rent a few rooms cheap to the local bums who didn't give a shit, or put up unsuspecting bands, but mostly they use it to store their shit, or for partying or as a real-estate investment or a tax break or whatever.
We were offered two rooms I guess but we mainly hung out in one. Luckily there was power and hot water but that was about it. It was cold and there was no central heat, only a tiny space heater that wasn't nearly enough to heat the room but threatened to blow the circuit anyway. There was no TV. We never watched TV anyway except for maybe weather, but still it was weird. There were no towels, so we either had to skip taking a shower or dry off with extra t-shirts, which I did. There was no soap, and certainly no mints on turned-down sheets made of fine linen. Room service? Nah.
We already knew that mercifully this would be our only night there, free or not. It wasn't like we were broke or anything. Free rooms are always good though, and sometimes they were actually functional rooms in functional motels but sometimes they were like this place...decrepit. I've told a few of the "Motel Hell" stories. This place wasn't the worst we ever stayed but it was still pretty much a total shithole...run-down, cracking paint, rusted fixtures, rooms occupied by various critters, drunks having a party a few doors away...things like that.
So there we were, sitting around in a shitty motel room, and it was the dreaded "Hurry-up-and-wait" time, where you've set up, eaten dinner, and now you're just killing time waiting to go play. That can be an issue for some bands but luckily we were still a bunch of adolescent goobers, well, most of us anyway, and we always managed to find a way to entertain ourselves. That's more important than it sounds. Some people can't handle it, and granted it's a weird feeling. You start getting excited, or totally bored in some cases, way too early. Some people deal with it by drinking or drugging, and by the second set they can't make the chord changes. We always found a way to avoid that.
I went into the bathroom to shower and shave. There was a single fluorescent bulb that barely worked. It put out a very dim light that was a funky yellowish color, and I noticed that it made my shaving cream glow bright purple. It looked so cool that I drew the smiling face on the mirror with shaving cream. It looked pretty badass. If you stared at it for a few seconds and then turned out the light you'd see a green afterimage. I called O' in, and we tripped-out on it for a while...turning the light on and off and laughing our asses off.
We got to the club and started our first set. I could've sworn I was hearing people talking about "kicking the drummer's ass" or something. I thought I was just tripping and hearing things, but when we took a break, Pat and a couple of guys who worked there came up and told me to be on the lookout for the guy, because he was saying that he was going to kill me. Apparently he'd called the bar to make sure I was there, and told someone I'd fucked-up the room and he was going to kick my ass. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "I don't know" somebody said. "He said something about you trashing the motel room." "That shithole?" I said. "How can you trash a place that's already trashed? I didn't touch a thing."
The I remembered the face. "I drew a face on the bathroom mirror. Is that what he's talking about?" I asked. "Yeah, I think that's it" said the guy. "Seriously?" "Seriously." "It's shaving cream" I said. "It'll wipe right off. That guy's crazy." "That's what I'm telling you" said the guy. "He's pissed, and if I were you I wouldn't go outside by myself for a while." "Damn" I said. "Yeah, no kidding. He's on the way. We'll keep an eye out for him." "Thanks man" I said. "Sure man. Sorry about that." "No problem."
I was concerned but not to the point of hiding or letting it ruin my night. With the band and a few other people on alert I wasn't worried about him coming in and kicking my ass in the bar, although I have no doubt he could have. He was around 6'-4" and outweighed me by a buck-fifty at least. He dressed like a Cowboy. He was hard not to keep an eye on. I knew the guys wouldn't let him attack me in the bar, but for all I knew he might have a six-gun or something. If he was the sort to get crazy over some shaving cream on a rusty old bathroom mirror he was capable of anything..
I was standing there wondering if he had potato chips up his ass or something when he walked into the bar. He made a beeline straight for me, and the band and a few other guys locked into formation between him and me. He got the message and backed down from coming after me but he lit into a tirade. His face turned crimson and he started screaming "You piece of shit! You trashed my motel room, you asshole. I give you a free room and you trash it. I oughtta call the cops! I oughtta sue you! I oughtta KICK YOUR ASS!" "It's shaving cream, pardner. It'll wipe right off" I said. He continued to yell at me for another minute and then he left. I'm glad that's all it came to and that nobody got hurt. I dedicated the first song of the second set to him but that was just about plenty of drama for one night. No good band wants their drummer's ass kicked.
I figured he probably had a meth issue, or coke at the very least. I wouldn't call it normal to get upset over stupid shit like that. Plus the face was artistic- the Crimson face immortalized in shaving cream. Glowing green and purple shaving cream no less. I guess it just wasn't his cup of tea. We finished playing for the night and we didn't stick around. That psychotic fuck wasn't worth fucking with, and he'd probably be at the "motel," so we got the hell out of Dodge as soon as we could. We loaded the equipment and ran by the room to grab our stuff. Two guys went in and the rest were lookouts. We drove to the nearest motel and got rooms. It was worth the peace of mind to pay to use a room for six hours rather than worry about a psycho at Motel Hell. Happy Trails, Cowboy. I left the face for you.
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