The Southern Drawl Band used to play every Thursday night at a pretty cool club and restaurant named Easy Streets Café in Hyde Park, NY in the historic Roosevelt part of town. On one particular night, we were set to go on (always after dinner was done), but we noticed there was a big group of people at two tables that were still being served food. This was strange, but our deal with the club was to go on at 10:00pm. So, we rolled through our first set with a bang! Our crew decided to blow off a flash pod during the opening number, which, of course, made some smoke. During intermission, we were sought out by the owner of the club, who owned another six other restaurants and, for whatever reason , decided to show off his Easy Streets Café to a bunch of his rich friends (which explained the never-ending dinner party).
Apparently, the flash pod and surging rock music upset him and his guests. He threw a fit and pulled the plug on the rest of our remaining two sets. It then turned even uglier when the club manager – who we happened to know from our run of playing Thursday nights – started attacking us. And this crazy brute who was working the door, who also happened to be a friend of ours, took our side and wanted to get even. So, he grabbed one of our guitars and demanded that I turn up the Marshall to ten so he could blow the walls down. He was PISSED! I asked him what he was planning to play and he said “some Hendrix!” We appreciated his sentiments, but we immediately unplugged the guitar. The evening got very ugly with a lot of shouting and shoving.
In the end, we had to pack up and leave, ending our Thursday night run. Too bad; it was a nice club. We later found out from the booking agent that this was the first time that this rich restaurant owner was ever at Easy Streets Café. You can’t make it up.