I've told this story at least once before but who cares? It's a good one to me anyway, and something I just heard reminded me of it. It got me wondering how many people think that Voodoo is real. I guess we can safely say that those who practice it think so.
There's a video from the last Super Bowl that shows a woman sticking pins into a Voodoo doll that represented someone on the team she was against. I didn't see it so I don't know if she was serious or not, but either way is there anything to it? Several ex-Satanists including John Ramirez say it's absolutely real and I believe it is too, though I don't know if it was real in this case. If you're interested in learning more about it search John on YouTube. It's quite interesting no matter what you believe.
In this case what happened could totally be coincidence. I'm not one of those people who say that there are no coincidences although I lean that way. I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and if that's true then it would negate most coincidences.
The Bud Greene band played a weekend in New Orleans. On Saturday we had some time to "unalive" so we went to a Voodoo shop. If I were Catholic I reckon I'd have crossed myself but I did say a short prayer of protection, for the rest of the guys more than me. In my belief system I'm protected by the blood of the Lamb, and I know the name that's more powerful than all darkness put together and even the Devil himself.
I certainly didn't expect to buy anything but I saw something I couldn't resist. They have all sorts of potions and powders that supposedly do everything under the Sun, from attracting love or money or whatever to more nefarious purposes.
I saw a can labeled "Do as I Say." It showed a guy on his knees begging, with a woman standing above him pointing and shooting lightning bolts from her eyes. It cracked us all up and I had to get it.
Fast-forward to a few months later. We were playing at some little bar somewhere in Alabama where we'd never played before. Most of the time our agencies wouldn't book gigs that paid below a grand, but 2-3 times a month they'd offer us a gig that paid half that or less, and we almost always took them.
It'd be at some small club somewhere we'd never played before and nobody knew us, so they'd offer a much smaller guarantee. Frat and sorority gigs were our bread and butter and were a set fee. With clubs they'd have a guarantee vs. the door. We might be guaranteed $500 or whatever, but if they took in more than that at the door we'd get the difference.
We called them "gas money gigs" because they'd pay for our fuel for the whole week, even when we drove all the way to Virginia, which we did quite often. It was cool because the first time we played a new place there might be ten people in the audience, but they'd tell their friends and the next time we played there we'd get thirty people, and so on until after playing there half a dozen times It'd be packed. It's called paying dues.
We looked at it as a paid practice, and we'd work on songs we were learning or we'd just jam for half an hour. It was fun even with nobody there, and it was cool to see the crowd build over time. We built our fan base one fan at a time and when it was sadly all said and done we'd built a considerable following.
On the way to the gig this night we weren't quite our usual jovial selves. I hate to say it but it was largely because not a one of us had a speck of weed, and thet maybe happened three times in the existence of the band. Usually we'd be laughing and cutting up the whole way to the gig, and oh yeah...smoking pot. The band was called Bud Greene after all.
I felt that it was up to me to lighten the mood so I pulled out the magic suitcase. I'd put together a "boredom kit" for those times when we'd have several hours to "unalive" before the gig that evening. It had stuff like fireworks, cards, games, girlie mags and whatnot.
We called having to sit around before the gig "Hurry Up and Wait Syndrome." That was a big deal and I believe that it was an unlikely cause of the demise of some bands. Luckily we were very good at entertaining ourselves in reasonably healthy ways but some bands weren't, and they'd resort to alcohol or drugs to ease the boredom, and they'd be wasted before the gig even started. For us thankfully that was a no-no.
I opened the suitcase and saw the Do as I Say powder. I'd forgotten about it. I laughed and figured it was time to whip it out...the powder that is.
The instructions said to sprinkle the powder into a candle flame while saying your desires. That seemed easy enough. The things we were up against were a low guarantee, the likelihood of a lame crowd and therefore not many women to look at, and the biggie...we were out of smokum.
Luckily I had some candles because we were into them. I laid out some foil, let the candle drip on it and put it in place in the middle of the floor of the van. The rest of the guys didn't know what was going on but I had their attention.
The powder had a spongey, sawdust-y texture and a sweetly funky aroma, like they'd swept the floor at a combination pencil and incense factory. It also had some gunpowder or something that made it sparkle when it hit the flame. That was a nice touch.
I started sprinkling the powder into the flame and chanting "Break the guarantee...see some Modulators (one of our terms for hot babes), score some weed...break the guarantee..." and so on. We didn't take it seriously of course but we got a good laugh, and we arrived at the club in a better mood than we would've otherwise.
Sure enough the place was in the middle of nowhere. It was a fairly small building with a lighted sign with plastic letters. It said "BUD GREENE TONIGHT." At least they'd spelled it right. Lots of times the venue would leave off the e and spell it "Green." When I named the band I added the e to make it "legal," ha-ha.
We set about loading in our equipment. We thought it'd be a typical gas money gig but luckily we were wrong. After about five minutes two gorgeous young ladies in tiedyes rode up on their bikes. That was a good sign...we'd take two young Modulators any day. I said hello. They both got huge grins on their faces. One of them said: "Y'all aren't going to believe this but it's going to be packed tonight. "Really?" "Uh-huh." "Cool!"
It turned out that there was a school in the next town that we'd played, and they told everybody about us. So far, so good. The band's mood was improving by the minute.
Since it looked like fate was smiling upon us I decided to press my luck. I said: "Umm...do y'all think there might be some smoke for sale?" "Oh yeah" they said. "So-and-so will be here and he has some killer. How much you want?" "Can we get a Z?" "Sure. We'll tell him to bring it." "Fantastic, thanks!"
They hung out and chatted a while before they left to get ready. "Just wait...it's gonna be a blast!" "Heck yeah" I said. "Y'all are on the guess list. See you soon." "We'll be back shortly." "Fuckin' A" I said to myself.
Sure enough as soon as we started playing people started piling in, and before we finished the first set it was packed to the gills and people were having to wait to get in. Screw the fire code. In a way it was even more fun than a typical night at a packed club because we hadn't expected it.
Right as we finished the set it hit me...with all the excitement of seeing everybody and knowing we were about to get some weed I'd forgotten about the powder. "Guys," I said, "we got exactly what we wished for!" We all got quiet and stood there grinning at each other. "Whoa..."
It ended up being one of our best gigs and we got our guys to book that club as much as possible. It ended up being a great band story, and a hilarious comment that came from the weed guy sort of summed up the essence of the band.
The guy with the weed was a real old hippy. On the first break we piled as many people into the van as we could, and fired up several Js. The funny thing about our name was that we thought the meaning was obvious but lots of people didn't get it.
They thought that there was an actual guy named Bud Greene in the band. They'd go: "Which one's Bud?" We'd point to Doug every time. We thought it was hilarious. The weed guy got it immediately though. He saw our name on the sign and said" "Haw-haw...why didn't you just call it 'Big Ol' Hit of Acid?'" That was classic. He was on the guest list for life.
It goes to show that you just never know, and that keeping a good attitude about things is the way to go. We never saw it coming, and nothing like that ever happened before or after. Was it the Do as I Say powder? Probably not but it sure freaked us out.
There's an epilog to the story. A few weeks later we played in Memphis and about 15 of our friends drove up to see us. On Sunday we all went out for brunch.
After the powder incident I'd decided that I wouldn't mess with it any more and so I gave it to our friend Bruce that weekend. I forget the restaurant but it's famous and it was packed. We had at least three servers taking care of us.
For some reason Bruce had the powder with him. We ordered a round of drinks, except for me because I hardly ever drank in the daytime. Bruce ordered a Bloody Mary. They brought everyone's drinks except for his.
Another round was ordered and again Bruce ordered a Bloody Mary but again they brought everyone's but his. Unbelievably it happened a third time and Bruce was getting thirsty and impatient.
He remembered the powder, which was in his girlfriend's purse. He asked for it and started sprinkling it into the candle on the table, going: "Bloody, bloody, bloody..." As soon as he did that, three different servers all showed up at the same time with three Bloody Marys. That was nuts, and again the powder made us fall silent.
Was all that due to the Do as I Say powder? Probably not but you can't rule it out with total certainty. If it was just a bunch of coincidences then they were batshit crazy ones. I guess it's a good thing we didn't try to put a curse on anyone.
That was the only time I ever messed with Voodoo, kidding or not. My advice would be to be careful if you want to do that Voodoo that you do.
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