Russell Buddy Helm

Why I am writing so much..Cathy’s mother passed away a few days ago, after pacemaker implant and then stroke. I cancelled my drumming meditation tours and I am in the store all the time, covering for Cathy who is very busy with taking care of her mother and her passing, as well as her brother who is at home in a state of dementia after surviving the effects of AIDS for the last twenty five years. Cathy is the angel here. I am just trying to make the most of my time. Thank you for all your wonderful responses.

Cathy appreciates all your prayers. Me too.

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1997. Candice Bergen was strolling down Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, California. It was a typically sunny day; perfect for window shopping boutiques, sipping triple lattes at trendy coffee shops and getting facials at the outrageously priced salons. I was standing out front of our store with my high school rock n roll pal Jim C. who was visiting from St. Pete. Lily, our gorgeous Great Dane was sunning herself on the sidewalk as she did every day since we got her from Drew, our bad boy friend in Maryville, Tennessee who used to own this piece of property. Drew had inherited this prime real estate from Minerva, a sweet but addled old lady he had helped in her later years. He had asked to buy her vintage Buick sitting in an open garage, but she said “No! My husband said don’t sell anything!” Drew responded matter of factly, “…my friends?…They’ll steal it. Let me put a padlock on your garage door.” She let him do that, then a few odd jobs, then finally he got inside her house and saw a pile of red letters threatening to take all the prime real estate her husband had acquired before he passed. Drew got a lawyer, paid the bills, and turned the homes into shops creating a rival to Rodeo Drive ten blocks from the beach in Santa Monica. Cathy created a gift store and Drew was always her guardian angel when he wasn’t getting into trouble. He eventually cashed out and move to Tennessee where Lily was born. Drew drove back and gave away a dozen Great Dane puppies to his sisters and to Cathy. Lily had more style and intelligence than most of the people on the street. She showed people how to enjoy life; spread eagled on the sidewalk, her rows of pink nipples sticking up in the air, her huge lips falling back while she snored, trusting the world to be kind to her. All the little kids, including Kim Bassinger’s little girl would climb all over Lily and our Lily would never protest, always being gentle and sweet.

When Candice cruised by, she couldn’t resist admiring Lily’s two hundred pounds of statuesque love spread eagled on her back, her long tail demurely tucked up between her thighs, snoring like a drunken sailor in the warm sunlight.

‘What a beautiful Great Dane!” Candice said graciously.

“Her name is Lily.” I responded. She bent over to pet Lily.

My stress related response kicked in…”I knew the real Murhpy Brown…”

She stood up and eyed my suspiciously. Fear growing in her gaze.

“…In Key West. She was a friend of Jerry Jeff’s…She was great. I ran off my mouth to a producer here in LA and voila! You got a hit show…Congratulations…”

Candice stepped around Lily and backed away from me, moving up the street as calmly as she could go putting maximum distance between us.

Jim was aghast. “You just insulted Candice Bergen!”

“I DID?”

Lily was a black and white dane with lots of pink, her mother was albino. Lily was famous and had been on TV, on the E! channel upstaging Oscar Delahoya’s wife who stopped in to buy a little turtle chochkie from us, and the next week we had a run on those turtle chochkies; we only had a few of them, people calling from all over the US wanting one. Montana Avenue is like that; pretty superficial but it is the place where I landed when I left the film biz and Cathy patched me back together. Her store, Seasons, became the first healing drum center, starting back in the eighties. Montana Avenue reminded me of Coconut Grove. It was close, but what we all had back then was special, magical, and a safe haven. This would have to do. One day when I was not in the store, Cathy called me, “You have two friends here from Coconut Grove. Rick and Ellen!”

I felt a twinge of the old magic. Around nineteen seventy, Rick and Ellen met each other at one of our parties in the Bethlehem Asylum mansion on Main Highway.  Ransom School eventually bought the land, and unfortunately cut down the largest banyan tree in North America in the backyard for a parking lot.  Rick and Ellen got married back then in those magical days and were still together these decades later. They were visiting LA and just stopped to browse Cathy’s eclectic mix of handmade gifts; not suspecting that I was involved.

“They just strolled in.” Cathy said to me on the phone. “Rick had a Biscayne Baby Jacket on, and I mentioned that my partner was from Coconut Grove. I told them you were the drummer with Bethlehem Asylum. They both said it together, ‘Buddy Helm is here?!!”

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

www.buddyhelm.com

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

Shel Silverstein was on the phone and he sounded pretty spaced. “Uhhh…this is Shel…What was in Banana’s refrigerator?”

“Electric Sangria”. I said, “It was a joke present last night at her birthday party. She didn’t know what to do with it, so we just stuck it in the frig….why?”

“We came by this morning….right?” he didn’t sound too sure. “You guys were still sleeping so we just left out the kitchen door, as usual, but I looked in the frig for something to eat and saw the wine so I took a big drink and so did Charmaine….Now, I don’t know where we are…”

Lost in Coral Gables…As soon as you crossed Dixie Highway and got into Coconut Grove, everything was OK. You felt safe.  I left that great lute and classical guitar shop one day, turned the corner onto Virginia and saw Kip sitting on the curb in front of the small grocery/liquor store. Dressed in his usual OshKosh overalls, bare foot, sandy beard, with a brown paper bag in his lap, pupils the size of pin heads.

“What’s in the bag, Kip?

“It just rained, man…You know what that means, right?….Magic Mushrooms! I know where to get them. You have to get out into the pasture right away…before the egrets start nibbling on them.”

Bananas and I left Coconut Grove in my van and drove all the way to Sausalito, California and stayed on Roy’s houseboat, off shore, or ‘on the hook’ as the old sailors put it. Shel Silverstein had the most palatial houseboat in Gate Five, the Hong Kong of San Francisco Bay where hundreds of handmade houseboats were tied up to each other, sharing water through garden hoses and electricity through extension cords. There were a lot of Coconut Grove kids; Kevin lived next to Shel on the mud flats, Peggy was on a sub chaser, Estrella was warming up her vocal chords having breakfast at the Gate Five coffee shop, Rocky came and went. The Bethlehem Asylum’s album was selling in Berkeley. Alan Watts had departed this earthly plain and his red houseboat sat empty next to Shel’s pleasure dome just behind the Madonna; a three story handcrafted abstract black barge with plexi bubbles sticking out at odd spots. Shel’s boat was a steel hulled WWII oil tanker that had been refurbished into a floating playboy mansion; complete with Playboy bunnies and Dr. Hook’s rock n roll  band. I was invited into the San Francisco recording studio to witness Shel producing the million selling hit single, “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone.” Apparently the Electric Sangria in Banana’s refrigerator, back down in Coconut Grove hadn’t done too much damage to his brain cells.

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

www.buddyhelm.com

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1971. Jimmy Buffet was a local undiscovered folk singer down on Duval Street in Key West. We were playing out at the airport at the ‘Great Escape Lounge’ where Murphy, a friend of Jerry Jeff’s, would hang out, drink, and dance to “The Christian Ghandi Syndrome”, the last incarnation of the Bethlehem Asylum. Murphy could drink anyone under the table as well as punch out any jerks who tried to hit on her or her girlfriends. She was outspoken, good looking, talented in ways most men would never know and a lot of outrageous fun. Her presence was a vote of confidence that this band was worth it’s salt. We had a horn section, percussion, lots of vocals and two tenor saxes. Christian was the mystery man on keyboards and trombone. Charlie played flute and sax. I sat at the back of the stage next to giant slanting windows extending outward at the top overlooking the landing strip. The airport was so small it closed before sunset. The old man would sweep the nineteen fifties terrazzo floor, stacking curved back chairs on the few tables in the lobby. Dieter would arrive to open his bar. He was from West Germany and was meticulous. His wife was from Miami Beach and matched him with opposites, arguing constantly about anything. Their refrigerator had a bottle of mustard and a bottle of vodka. His bar was his work of art and he would rearrange the whole nightclub almost every day. He would project old smokers on the front of the piano while Christian led our jazz afro rock arrangements of recent hits like, ‘Woodstock’. I gazed out at the tropical jungle surrounding the airstrip while Charlie played long brilliant solos on his saxello. ‘Business as usual’ was when a small plane would descend out of the night sky with no running lights, touch down and taxi to a station wagon waiting in the middle of the deserted landing strip. They would exchange goods, then depart. With no running lights, the piper cub lifted up into the massive star speckled night sky. The station wagon cruising out with lights off, melting into the shadows. Me and the romantic Key West moon, the only witnesses.

Breakfast at the Carousel on Duval Street was the local equivalent of the Polo Lounge. All the fishermen would eat there. Many of them had made their money during the Cuban revolution when Batista was given three steps by Fidel, so all the rich ones boarded their pleasure yachts and headed across the Florida Straights in the dead of night. Many never made it across but their gold did, resulting in new large shrimp boat fleets. Duval Street runs from the Atlantic to the Gulf and can be walked in an hour if you want to exert that much energy in the tropical heat. Past the Carousel, before you get to Captain Tony’s was a funky little bar with a folk singer doing a solo, Jimmy Buffet. I was rotting in paradise, so I decided to leave at the first possible opportunity and go to the big city and make my fame and fortune. I was not going to waste away developing a drinking problem like that folk singer guy; Jimmy whatever his name was.

The Great Escape Lounge was on the outskirts of town. It was off limits to uniforms, but there were plenty of spooks coming and going, having a quiet drink before they were off to wherever their mission took them. One balmy night, after a particularly good set, complete with Scottish army regulars dancing and flipping up their kilts, I stepped outside to cool off. I was dripping wet from pounding the drums in the heavy, hot humidity. A stranger sidled up next to me. “Good band…You’re a great drummer.” he mumbled. “What’s your name?” I told him.

“Nice night….” I sighed, drinking in the clean trade winds.

He was a little tight, “Yeah. Reminds me of home.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” I answered, “Where’s home?”

“Bangkok….I’m on vacation..my boss told me to pursue some new business opportunities down here….” I sensed he was a man of some intrigue and wanted to talk.

“So what do you do in Bangkok?”

“I’m a pilot..” He paused then added. “The guy who signs my paycheck has the same last name as yours…”

“That means you fly Air America.” I said, cutting to the chase.

He got a little more alert, “That’s not public knowledge.”

“It is, if you want to know.” I have this odd receptivity to intel operatives who have to dump or confess. They have no one to talk to about their deeds. I’ll listen to almost anyone and I don’t judge. This acceptance of people’s secrets evolved eventually into the ‘HelmTone Healing Drum Protocols’ ; a healing tool for many people. I teach therapists how to use rhythm for psychological and physical healing. These are my gifts that I can share.

After leaving Key West, and getting my dues paid, many years later, I pitched a TV show set in Key West. I mentioned to the producer some of the characters I had known, including Murphy.

“…Great name and a great character.” He said, his little TV producer brain starting to whirl hungrily. He made a hit show from that name. Someday, I will be able to keep my own mouth shut. A good friend and big fan of the Bethlehem Asylum who is in Naval Intelligence laughed at me once and said, “Buddy, you could never be a spy. You’re too tall.” She added, “…plus you can’t keep a secret.”

Healing drums may not give me platinum records like Charlie has acquired on his walls from playing with Hall and Oates, but it is something I can live with.

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

www.buddyhelm.com

James Garner was shooting a Polaroid Comercial

excerpt “History of the Groove, Drummer’s  story” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

1978. James Garner was shooting a Polaroid Commercial, and I was second assistant director. Which meant I took care of anything that needed taking care of. If I had joined the CIA when they had asked me back when I was nineteen, it would have been this, get orders, pick stuff up, take care of the talent, make  sure all the elements are delivered safely, and let everyone else take credit.

“Where do you want this, Buddy?” a production assistant /old friend of mine, who knew Fred Neil, and was a writer in LA yelled at me across the Malibu Pier. Before I could answer him, the Executive Producer from DDB Advertising agency from New York jumped down his throat.

“What did  you call him?” She barked, overenunciating. Ron blinked innocently.

“Buddy….” He said.

“His name is Russell Helm. The assistant director; Mr. Helm to  you. Not “hey buddy!”… She was working herself up into another frenzy. Heads would roll. Ron felt the need to defend himself.

“But that’s his name….”. He tried to be conciliatory.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She growled at him.

“That’s his name, Buddy Helm. He’s a drummer.”

If she could have changed skin tone, she would have turned bright red.

“What did you say?”

“He’s the drummer; Buddy Helm. He’s played drums with ev….”

She whirled on me, anger of betrayal in her eyes. “Is this TRUE?”

I nodded, “Yes. I am a drummer”; as if it were a mortal sin. She simmered on this new fact before making a decision that could cost her the account.

“Alll…Right….Just DON’T.. let the client know about it…”

excerpt “History of the Groove, Drummer’s  story” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert was the first live rock n roll TV show.

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1977. Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert was the first live rock n roll TV show. I had it with pop musicians working on their good hair moves instead of good music. LA is the great xerox machine: good copies but not original.  Wolfman Jack’s art director was in television. “Tommy, get me a job.  I’ve had it with idiot musicians.” He and I had worked on a rock opera called ‘The Last Rock n Roll show’ where I had done all the composing, writing the libretto and recorded all the parts with the lead singer, a Bowie look alike. It was a good piece of work, the producer was Peter Brown from Apple Records in London. But the show did not go because the LA partners didn’t want to make the effort to sign their names. So I had to start all over again. I was getting pretty sad. I was still smarting from Tim Buckley’s murder and the Asylum’s failure to lift off, and many other music projects that foundered. “You want to work on Don kircshner’s Rock Concert?” Tommy asked me. “Sure.” “What do you want to do?” “Anything…” So I became a stage manager/prop assistant, general Production Assistant. Tommy lied and said I was in the New York local. I tried to act like I knew what I was doing. Everybody knew I was green but they let me work. Bay City Rollers, Cheap Trick, Pheobe Snow, Link Wray, Brothers Johnson, Quincy Jones orchestra, Ray Charles, Four Seasons, Natalie Cole, etc…every band that was on the charts. Some of it was good, most of it was forgettable. My contribution to rock n roll occured when I talked with the soundman mixing the live bands. The sound of the bass drum was terrible. The speakers in television were so primitive that the low frequencies sounded like a rasberry. I stood on the stage and looked at the drummers. They would play like they were at a live concert, hard and loud, unless it was a jazz drummer like Phoebe Snow’s. I saw that most of the drummers were now sporting a hole in the front of their bass drum head to get more sound out. I looked around for something to muffle the booming bass drum. A lighting technician was standing by his light stands, being very territorial. I noticed that he used small sandbags to anchor his top heavy light stands. The sand bags were seamed down the middle to hang neatly over each leg of the light stand. It was a union regulation that each light stand had to have three sandbags, one on each leg.  “Can I borrow one of your sand bags?” The union light man sneered at me, “Why?” “I want to put it in the bass drum….to muffle the sound a little.” He laughed at me. “You’re full of sh……” But he let me have an extra sand bag. I asked the drummer nicely but he didn’t agree to it. His sound was ‘pure’. So I pretended to pull rank, and said, “This is the way we do it in Television..’ Reaching into the hole, I placed the sandbag inside his bass drum. “Now hit it.” I walked over to the soundman who was wearing big headphones. He lit up with a big smile. “It works!” History was made. That was the first sandbag in a bass drum and from then on, it has become standard equipment for every drummer in the world.

Big Joe Turner stomped his cane

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russel Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1977. Big Joe Turner stomped his cane on the floor, ” Heeya it iz , Budda!”

I matched his tempo and counted off the song. I had no idea where he was going with this one, but the band kicked in and Joe started singing in that barrel house blues hollar that was the mother of all Rock n Roll.

“You don’t miss yo watta til ya well run dry!” He slid into a verse like it was an old friend and started making up a story as we shuffled through the blues changes. The band keeping up with me and Joe as best they could. Now a shuffle is the trickiest drum pattern for a drumset player because it can just die on you if you don’t keep it popping along with subtle little syncopations that don’t get in the way, or worst of all, it can turn into a march if you’re not careful. The tripolet underpinning is not played, it is implied, with just a touch of the first and last note of the tripolet, leaving the middle note open. The hole leaves room for the vocal, which Joe was filling in quite nicely just like he had done for the last fifty years. He was the master of the blues shout and this shuffle was his metier.

When we finished the track, Joe was sweating and smiling that big toothless grin I loved. “Budda! Go in the Kontrol room an git me ma Oly’ I don’t trust any a these other fellas…” I slid out of from behind the drum baffles facing Joe and hopped into the control room, grabbed his green flourescent plastic net bag with a six pack of Olympia beer and brought it back out to the guy who had invented rock n roll. He smiled up at me as they played back the track through the big Altec Lansing speakers in the Chess recording studio in Watts. He nodded his head while he listened. Then he gave me the greatest compliment I have ever heard, “Budda, you got dat beat the kids like to dance to!”

We were getting twenty five dollars per track for the day’s session, and I would have paid him just to be there; let alone be playing with him. The other guys wanted to get on to the next twenty five dollar track but I wanted to hear what the king of the blues had to say about what we were doing. Was it okay? Did we meet his standards of excellence?  I was learning so much from him with every word and nuance I didn’t want the session to end. He was incarnate of a great ancient history of blues story tellers that went back to Africa where they are called Griotte; traveling drummer/story tellers who would arrive in the villages unannounced with a talking drum, telling stories that would be parables, admonishing the adults to not be selfish, and scaring the children into obeying their parents. The Griotte is a living tradition of the drum that channels information and inspiration into the community through song and rhythm. Joe’s gravelly voice was a direct descendant of how the African Griotte would tell stories; in a voice that would scare the self centered  and amuse the wise ones. Big Joe was the living history of the drum. Plus he was channeling something indefinable; a fluid energy that was the essence of life force; survival energy where the blues is not about feeling sorry but getting over, and getting on with life. Celebration with magical wisdom that cannot be put into words but can be felt in our hearts. Joe would make up songs, I would go along with him, keeping the groove smooth and funky so that his muses would be happy and  bless us with song.

“We already got that one down!” The engineer intoned over the talkback. Joe nodded unfazed.  It was all good. The spiritual aspect of the performance is often missed by the technicians watching the dials, but to me it was like being in church and Big Joe was shouting the gospel of the blues for the whole world to pay attention to. We bonded that day in a way that only became understandable to me years later when I had to invent a modern drumming therapy in order to save my own life. Big Joe was downloading into me ‘Baraka’, the blessing of healing wisdom that is hidden in the blues as well as every other school of healing wisdom. Baraka is the only way a student can get the true essence of higher teaching; it must come from the master in their presence. It isn’t acquired in books or indirect learning. It is a physical transference from teacher to student. It came over on the slave ships, but it is also in the Irish Jig, and the belly dance, the Malaysian fighting dance, the Samba, the Quaqanco of Cuba, the American Indian Ghost Dance and every other culture’s mystical, musical drum rhythm that is used to enhance life. Dr. Wilhelm Reich called it Orgone, in his nineteen fifties research for the antidote for radiation poisoning but it is older than any science because it is the life force itself coming into us through the artists humble enough to allow the spirit, the miracle, the unexplainable into our mundane everyday lives. It is rhythm and soul, baby. Without it, there is no life at all.

Woodstock of the South, it was called.

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1969. Woodstock of the South, it was called; the Palm Beach Pop Festival. The helicopter landed on the perfectly manicured putting green at the back of the Colonnades, where the game show, “Treasure Island” was filmed.  A fifty gallon oil drum with a simmering fire currently sat on top of the hole in the classy putting green reserved exclusively for the rich patrons of the Colonnades.. Only this week, it was taken over by hundreds of crazy long hair rock and rollers. The limos pulled up in front, the hotel valets watched with amazement and disgust; Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly, Stones; every great band in the world. I managed to get us a room; “Hello. This is the Bethlehem Asylum, we just arrived from Europe, and are at the Palm Beach airport and expect our rooms to be ready when we arrive at the hotel…What? No reservations!!! Let me speak to the manager!…You’ll hear about this…OK…one room? That’s all you can manage? Welll…alright.” Christian, Charlie, and Mike, decided to stay in the school bus out with the great unwashed crowds of hippies at the festival site where Governor Claude Kirk personally came in and busted a hippie. The National Guard was mobilized, stationed behind the Pratt and Whitney aircraft engine plant across the road from the swamp/festival site. In an attempt to shut down the festival, the sheriff’s department actually tried to herd alligators onto the festival grounds but like trying to herd cats; gators will do primarily what they decide to do. The nights were cold.. The helicopter came and went as if in a combat zone all day and all night. The Colonnades is a tall hotel surrounding the putting green/landing pad on three sides including an arrangement of water canals where contestants would paddle franticly in little plastic boats, competing on the national TV game show, ‘Treasure Island’. But now, there was intense partying in most of the rooms overlooking the chopper landing site. Hell’s Angels had taken over the suites reserved for the Rolling Stones who were delayed, people hanging on the railings, flashing strobe lights, screaming, yelling, laughter, a loud clutter of every music.. We were in the Chambers Brothers room witnessing the height of anarchy occurring all around the hotel. I was feeling anxiety about our future in the music business where  money was made off of artists, who like soldiers, payed the ultimate price of sacrificing their own sanity and lives. The older resident guests were overrun with parties in the halls. Jim, dressed as Yancy Derringer,  kneeled politely, comforting an elderly couple trying to have dinner while Janis’ band jammed with Spooky Tooth on a tiny stage; the usual dinner music trio was long gone. The doors to the suites were open, displaying wild partying and live music. Jim, Danny and I dropped in on Johnny Winter playing for a rapt crowd of kids sitting on the floor in his suite. They were offering him drugs as religious tokens of their adoration. He was albino white, placid, other worldly. His chrome Dobro gleamed in the candle light “You guys must be doing something right, if you’re here..”  The helicopter continued dropping off wounded, fried rock stars and picking up fresh ones to fly out to the front. As the nights wore on it became more demonic. Our road manager almost lost his face when he walked around the back of the chopper when it was our turn. Flying out over the swamp was like transporting instantly from rich conservative Palm Beach into the jungle swamp of Viet Nam. We touched down backstage blowing sand everywhere, covering the sleeping hippies with propwash. It was more hallucinogenic than Apocalypse Now. We climbed the steps onto the gigantic stage overlooking thousands and thousands of music fans nestled in the morning mud, a young hippie came up to us backstage, “You want some hash or acid, before you go on, Man?” “No thanks,” I said, “We’re ego tripping.”

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

www.buddyhelm.com

The Wolfman Jack Shock n Rock Review

excerpt “History of the Groove, Drummer’s story”

Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1977. Wolfman Jack and his Shock n Rock review at Knott’s Berry Farm family amusement park was an annual Halloween event. He had a cracker jack big band with Elvis’ horn section and a lot of guest artists like Booker T and Johnny Rivers. I was on conga drums and percussion, looking like Desi Arnaz. Wolf was a big man with a black manicured beard and thick black hair making him look like a real wolfman. He wore a rich long black velvet robe covered with silver magical symbols. Tonight he had a live falcon on his arm. Just before we began the show, the Knott’s Berry Farm bird wrangler carefully removed the cowling from the regal bird of prey’s golden head. His eyes flashed aggressively. Tethered, his claws dug into Wolf’s leather protected forearm. The Wolf was always game for coolness such as a falcon perching on his arm. The stage set was a graveyard inside an old radio with a glowing tuning dial running along the top of the red and gold teaser curtains.  A large white snow owl with a six foot wingspan, a large raven, a vulture and an eagle were tethered to tombstones around the beautiful, scary graveyard set. Big gnarly old trees made out of tumbleweeds from the Western shoot out attraction set the tone for Halloween night at Knott’s Berry Farm. The big band was on risers around the graveyard; Jimmy, one of Elvis’ guitar players, Motown bass player, Jr. Walker on tenor sax, two trumpets, trombone; the full compliment. It was a great honor to play in Wolfman Jack’s band. He had launched successful careers for so many musicians. I was down in the graveyard, dry ice fog curling around my wellingtons, facing piano player John Herron, veteran of every great rock n roll band from Electric Prunes, to Flo and Eddie to Hoyt Axton. He was Wolf’s musical director and had also been with Tim Buckley. Wolfman Jack was famous for introducing rock n roll to the world from XERB back in the early sixties and he played himself in ‘American Graffiti’. The theater was packed with parents and children dressed in Halloween costumes. We started with ‘Monster Mash’. Wolf didn’t really sing but his gravelly voice was world famous as a DJ. Lyrics were hand lettered on grey gaffer’s tape stuck on the stage floor down front where Wolf worked the crowd with his funny rock n roll jive talking. We then pushed into ‘Fire’ by Arthur Brown. The three vampirella backup singers floated around the stage, threading through the gravestones, avoiding the edgy birds of prey who were trained and used to crowds but something unexpected started happening. The pyro crew had been overzealous preparing ‘flashpots’; small dishes of flash powder timed to ignite during the songs, sending up clouds of smoke as the girls danced by.  There was too much gunpowder in the mix and the flashpots exploded like incendiary grenades. The musicians were busy reading music charts that had been rearranged up to the last minute before curtain. Sparks jumped higher into the curtain teasers above the set. I was standing up, playing conga drums and watching the whole scenario unfold. The first flashes scared John on the grand piano, he ducked away from the flying sparks, looked irritated, but kept playing. Jim Helmer, Patti Labell’s drummer, was intent on reading his charts. I was the only one to notice sparks float up and settle into the branches of tumble weeds above everybody’s eyesight behind the teasers. The dry branches caught fire immediately and flames erupted but still nobody noticed. I was trying to send a psychic message to John but he was directing the band, and hammering the 88’s with his free hand. The flames grew, then burning embers dropped down on my conga drums and on the backup singers. They faltered in their harmonies. Wolf was down front getting it on with the happy crowd. The falcon on his arm smelled the smoke, spread his large wings and tried to get airborne but was caught on the short tether, pulling Wolf’s arm up in a ridiculous salute. The rest of the birds tried to fly but where tied down on short tethers attached to the gravestones. The great Snow Owl fought against the rope, his six foot wings whipping the air. All the birds’ wings beat frantically. John finally looked up. He followed my eyes up to the flames as I continued pounding on the conga drums.  He went ashen. “What do we do?” I gave him the ancient show biz circling hand signal; “Keep it rolling.” I heard a child in the audience, “Mommy. I smell smoke….” A wave of fear swept through the hall.  Wolf was down front and felt the change in climate, he backed up, casually glancing at John, who nodded subtly up to the flames. The band played on.

Wolfman Jack, the ultimate showman and professional entertainer instinctively knew what to do. “Alright everybody! I want you to clap your hands together. On the beat, just follow Buddy and Jimmy.” Helmer slammed his right foot into his bass drum pedal and smacked the snare drum hard enough to hear it in Arizona. The Wolfman stayed on top of the situation.

“Everybody! Stand up! Keep clapping your hands! Move to the beat! Now get into the aisles. Keep clapping to the beat!” Everybody stood up, the smell of smoke was everywhere now but Wolf’s voice commanded attention. “Everybody move to the beat, Come on now, move on up the aisles. Keep clapping to that beat. Keep clapping your hands everybody, keep moving. Now get on up the aisles. Go on, keep moving nice and easy. Keep the beat going now!”

The doors to the auditorium were closed from the outside where the seating attendants were standing in the lobby preventing anyone from entering without a ticket. The parents and their kids kept clapping, smoke burning their eyes, they pushed the doors open, clapping their hands and burst into the lobby. Everyone kept the beat going and very orderly, considering the circumstances, got out of the burning theater.

The Knott’s Berry Fire department eventually arrived and put out the fire. The birds of prey were taken to a safe place and we regrouped for our second show. Wolfman Jack, the hero of the night, stepped back and tripped over a pipe and broke his ankle, the only casualty. He did the remaining shows from a  wheelchair and using a long walking stick like Gandalf the wizard..

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

www.buddyhelm.com

Rick Springfield was shooting a music video

excerpt “Drummer’s History” Russell Buddy Helm copyright 2013 all rights reserved

1978. Rick Springfield was shooting a music video, the production coordinator, Anna Rita, called me up, “You want to be in the video? We’ll pay you.”

Various vignettes were set up around the gigantic soundstage; a funky old bus, a classy cocktail party, some surrealistic pedestals for the rock chicks in leotards to pose on, and a couple of real nasty looking hogs.

“Who owns the hogs?” I asked as they made me up to look like a teddy boy; long black Carnaby coat with velvet collar. I had my red roots shoes on. They gave me a stingie brim black hat.

I walked over to the refreshments and saw a big ugly biker with greasy long blond hair. He was sitting on a folding chair sucking on a Bud and watching the hot rock chicks in leotards working out. He had some of the crudest prison tattoos on his large biceps I had ever seen. An illegal length buck knife hung from his Harley belt like a sword. I stood next to him in my teddy boy outfit.

“Nice tattoos…” I said. He sneered at me then went back to watching the girls. “Where’d you get them?”

“Q…” he muttered, referring to that resort in Oakland called San Quentin.

“Papa John worked for me.” I said with that smug attitude that I had somehow acquired.

He looked at me comtemptuously, “What did you say?”

“Papa John. He used to work for me. In Miami.”

“My partner rode with Papa John. Come with me.”

He stood up and towered over my skinny six foot two height, scuffled off in his biker boots across the sound stage, I followed.

His partner almost looked like Papa John, we got to talking and they turned out to be really nice guys. Turned out they met at San Quentin. The one who rode with Papa John was a guard and the other one with the buck knife had been inside. They decided to ride together when he got out. We laughed and had a cigarette. The director yelled, “Buddy! You’re on!”

I walked onto the set, in my teddy boy outfit, a nice looking girl appeared on my arm, and suddenly Rick comes charging up and runs into me. I ‘m still in the biker mode and almost punched him out. He dodged by me and jumped up into the old bus.

“Cut!  That was great,…Buddy! That was perfect!”

Rick’s band was in the video. Jack, the drummer, blond, good looking guy,  came up to me and shook my hand, “I really wanted that Tim Buckley gig. I auditioned twice  for it but they said I couldn’t play like you so I didn’t get it. So I got this gig with Rick instead, and I’m glad. But the Buckley gig would have been so cool. They told me right to my face that I couldn’t cut it after they had played with you.”

The Rick Springfield video is on youtube.

I’m glad Jack got the gig with Rick, I don’t think I could have done it.