"Debra," Soter said, "May I call you Debra?" "Sure,
whatever!" she said, throwing her arms in the air. "There are three kinds of
fish you can catch in the Great Lakes: big mouth bass, whitefish, and perch. Now
here's the question: What are the three kinds of fish can you catch in the Great
Lakes?"
Silence. The girl looked confused. Soter
dangled the Foam Rubber T-shirt in front of her. The girl looked to the crowd
for help. She laughed nervously, and said "I don't know." Soter said, "Listen
carefully, there are three kinds of fish you can catch in the Great Lakes," he
ticked them off with his fingers, "big mouth bass, whitefish, and
perch. What are the three kinds of fish you can catch in the Great
Lakes?" She hesitated. Then guessed, "Big mouth bass, whitefish, and perch?"
Soter yelled like a maniac, "That's correct! You win! Thanks so much for
playing, Debra, here's your shirt - don't stretch it out." Then Soter rolled his
eyes and made a face as if he couldn't wait for her to get off the stage.
The band closed the show with Prince's "Purple
Rain." Mark, the sound guy, got a little crazy with the volume and we blew a fuse in the middle of the song. There was no more sound
coming from the microphones, no guitars, no keyboards, just drums. Instead of a
proper, climactic ending, the night petered out with a drum solo.
When Soter started packing up his gear, the manager
came up to him and said, "You're not done! You have to play until two o'clock."
Soter was dumbfounded. It was about 1:15 am. "Well, that was our last song, and
besides we blew a fuse, so we're done." Soter said. "No you're not. Check the
contract," she said. "There was no contract. We did this on
a handshake," he replied. "Besides we started early. We brought the opening
act." She wasn't hearing any of it. "You have to play until two. That's what we
agreed to!" Soter pointed out that the microphones had all been taken down and
the fuse was still blown.
"The fuse is back on. You
can play," she said. "Well everyone else has put away their stuff," Soter said.
Then he offered jokingly, "I guess I could do some finger-picking." She was
still adamant. So Soter strapped on his guitar and started playing. She walked
away.
Without a microphone, Soter had to shout. He
looked like a kid who had to stay after school serving some weird musical
punishment. He had to stand there and entertain. Everyone else around him was
packing up gear or talking with friends.
No one
more than five feet away could hear what he was singing. But this was probably a
good thing because he was singing in a hillbilly accent shit like, "Y'all better
check yer contracts / when you play this bar! Cuz yer s'posed to play 'till two,
and she won't have it no other way…"
The moral of
the story is, never miss a Foam Rubber show.