The Heavy Metal Parade

I'm sitting in a sort of large auditorium/gymnasium seeing a large scale, multi-tiered performance with family. It is a show with heavy Christian overtones and message, and it's sort of a mixture of a passion play and a high school cheerleading/pep rally. A teenage boy is sliding around dancing and seeing, stopping to cough sometimes due to physical strain. CD is there, seems to him I go to these fascinating shows all the time. JSW is also present.


Show turns into a solo Jack Bruce concert, much to my joy. I go upstairs and around to find a closer seat nearer to the stage, and end up in a small balcony briefly. There are some other JB-related remarks heard as I try to find seating; someone (MI?) likes the composition of the cover (and/or his sweater on it) on a certain JB record, possibly Harmony Row. As I come out, JB is playing a note-perfect version of "Jet Set Jewel." No seats; cushions. I'm down on the floor again off to stage right. My family is still in the back, dead center. JB is waiting to play the bagpipes at the end of the current song. Should be interesting.


At some point MI goes over close to JB where there is a merchandise table and buys a CD. I want to tell her I probably have all the records, but I'm too far away and too late. Later, at that table, I see a sheet that makes it appear she bought the new U2 record which appears to have the word "metal" in the title.


Next, somewhat faintly over the PA, come the strains of an apparent early demo version of Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again." Some of the crowd recognizes it giddily and sings along, but JB makes a gesture to suggest he's not actually going to play that song. And another song starts playing on top of it; the audience is shocked at such unprofessional sound mixing. But all is explained...


At some point JB is replaced by Adrian Vandenburg, and David Coverdale and the rest of Whitesnake enter the stage, clean-cut in tuxedos. The gist is that when they reformed they had to change their band name due to loss of trademark (now it's something like Masters of Reality), but oddly, to make sure everyone knows who they are, they play a tape of "Here I Go Again" before coming on stage. Even worse, the first song they play live that overlapped the tape, is a shallow rocker with the repeated shouted chorus proudly insisting: "We're Whitesnake! We're Whitesnake!"


Somehow the song ends quickly because an entire parade of 80's metal stars are about to traverse the stage, just a walk-across presumably to show they are here to support their idol Jack Bruce. I see Ronnie James Dio close by and flash him the devil hand-sign. He does it back, and I consider reminding him of the real life time I met him and took his picture doing that, but there's no time - the parade cross-stage has begun. Ozzy is there with his current guitarist, a Twiggy type who gives him a lascivious kiss on the cheek mid-stroll. Marilyn Manson follows, solo, to much crowd adulation; he takes a bow in his fishnet stockings.


The last character is some "new" metal star that I've never heard of before. He is, or is dressed as, a satyr type i.e. legs of a fawn, bare chest, horns - he's basically a devil. Instead of traversing the stage he sits on a throne to watch the rest of the show. He points over to a monitor so I can see the name of his hip band: Healing With Lifeguards. He also makes some joke to the crowd about being late because he had to empty out his leg of something, implying heroin.

Thanksgiving Tragedy

Thanksgiving at my parents' house; many many relatives milling about as I'm leaving, in driveway. I spot my father's mother looking around, and am happy to see her, and go over to say goodbye. The hug goodbye doesn't work right, she's as confused as I at first, but as we hold arms she seems to stumbling backwards; eventually we traverse the neighbor's lawn this way. She says something about a defect and might be implying the problem is her shoe heels. We unclasp and she lies down in the driveway. She is clearly not the same: smaller, thinner, balder, unwell. Someone goes for help. I feel like I should be doing something, but there's nothing I can do. Wondering where my father is.


My car is parked out across the street due to relatives. I go there to retrieve my Les Paul guitar and bring it into the house. All the relatives have cleared the lawn as I walk straight up it to the front door; they (mostly kids) are being corraled to the right of the front stoop so they don't see what's going on in the driveway. I look in that direction as I walk up, and see possibly my father waving me on, like "don't look." As I reach the door, I try to console one of the kids by talking of fun things we are going to do.


I go upstairs to see how my mother is faring. She's cooking at the stove with her back to me. I try to get a read but cannot see her face and she doesn't turn around.


A week ago: Hiding in Paul McCartney's basement, looking for something. His house is on a upper middle class suburban street - big basement, nighttime. He and entourage/family are arriving - I have to get out or hide.
Also: The worst gig ever: technical problems, noisy crowd. I leave the microphone for a second and someone else gets up with a guitar and starts singing. I patiently wait.

Stolen Song

I'm somewhere, indoors, with MI, and possibly on TV or radio, there's the end of a program (or an ad), and the music in it is a variation on an actual song of mine ("O.D.W.C.") I'm amazed as I hear it and start wondering how it could have been stolen like that and by whom. It's just the chorus but enough of it to be a clear infringement. Vocals are wordless but melody is distinct.

Sound Gun / Knife the Cat

Ok, it's a been while. Here's a couple of dreams remembered from over the last couple of months...



My parents' house is under some type of armed siege. I'm looking out the back door, regretting I didn't spend more of my recent free time in target practice. There are some guns downstairs I'm perusing; one of them more or less goes off in my face. But it's not a regular gun, it's some type of sound gun, and I'm momentarily dazed and discombobulated by this brassy deafening sound that hits my ears very closely.



Also, indoors, one cat is tormenting one or more other cats. The cat is very dangerous and evil... I need to stop it from hurting the defenseless, so I attack it with a knife successfully. I wake up with a very disturbed feeling for having done this.