Tuesday, July 10, 2007

"Space"

The 1 mile square of high-rises called the West End in Vancouver BC, hosts one of the most densely populated areas in North America. There is a hotel in the base of one of the many towers with a pub called Shampers. I call it the living room of the studios as most of the clientele live in the high-rise towers and tend to call bars such as this their watering holes.

One weekend I was performing in the pub with a keyboard player and a drummer.
During the second set I could see a strange man standing by the doorway of the bar wearing a long raincoat and
carrying a garbage bag under his arm. I was in the middle of singing and I noticed him by the door.
He stood by the entrance and listened to the band for a while. He had long straggly hair and hadn’t shaved.
We were doing some mellow early evening songs as there were few customers at that point in the evening.
Shampers was the kind of room that allowed me the flexibility to pick the songs that I thought the regulars would want to hear. Our friend at the door waited for me to finish a song, ambled towards me and asked in a soft low voice
" Mind if I sit in?” “Sure man, what do you play?” I answered. “Well,… I play…. this!”
He said as he slowly pulled a plastic saxophone out of his paper shopping bag. It was smaller than a real saxophone and had a kazoo instead of a normal mouthpiece. The keyboard player and myself exchanged uncomfortable glances and I surveyed the ten or so people in the room, most of whom were playing pool.
What the heck I thought “How about a blues in Bb – ‘Route 66’ ” I asked. Our new band member just nodded his head as I started to sing the first verse. After the second verse I turned to him indicating that his was the first solo.
Now I haven’t heard a lot of kazoo players in my time but this guy could make that plastic sax sound like Mckoy Tynor one of the masters. He looked like his fingers were actually playing the little plastic keys while his voice hummed the sounds of the sax; he had amazing talent. It sounded so good that I rolled my first finger in a forward circle indicating that he should keep soloing while the rest of the band smiled at each other.
After his solos I sang the chorus, repeated the first verse and ended the song. He carefully put the little plastic sax back in his bag and was walking slowly towards the door. “Hey man, what’s your name? I called after him.
He slowly turned around and softly said: “Space” before walking out the door.
After he left I said into the microphone in a low voice:

“Ladies and Gentlemen: “Space”.

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