It’s impossible to distill the essence of rock-trivia expertise. So much relies on those tiny chromosomal circuits that drive the mainsprings of our personality that it’s difficult to say why one person can live an entirely normal, well-calibrated life–healthy relationships, balanced meals, a new pair of shoes now and again–while another person feels compelled to spend hours scrutinizing the liner notes to a Mott the Hoople LP on the slim hope of discovering who supplies the backup vocals for “Jerkin’ Crocus.” But if you have that trivial touch, earning fame and fortune is almost pitifully easy. Want a little extra cash? Name the Brothers Gibb. Need a new stereo? List the Waterboys albums, in order.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Midweek we schedule a practice dinner, something to oil the joints before we grow up in public. It’s difficult at first to downshift from academics; regurgitating rock facts isn’t exactly like tracing metaphors of recursion in Ulysses or unpacking Nietzschean rhetoric. We start with simple drills (Who is Cynthia Plastercaster? An artist-groupie who takes plaster casts of rock stars’ penises. How did Tim Buckley die? Overdose. What was the Infidel Sharks’ biggest hit? “Hard Currency.”), and then move on to our favorite apocrypha: Faith No More’s Mike Patton, terrified of toilets, leaving onstage packages for Axl Rose before the Gunners’ sets; Marvin Gaye’s father, furious over a missing letter from an insurance company, emptying a round into his son’s angelic throat. As the captain I reserve the right to tell the final story, and I pick something inspirational: Sly Stone in Fort Meyers in 1983, passed out on a hotel bed with an underage friend, the coke a faint white dust upon the pillows when the police arrive. “Did you have drugs here?” asks the cop. Sly–dreaming of the Garden stage, no doubt, Kathy Silva in an ivory train–twists open one reddened eye, slurs “Yeah, man, but they’re all gone,” and slips back into sleep.
“This punk singer,” says Mario, “began her career as a poet and is perhaps best known for her cover of Van Morrison’s ‘Glo–‘”
As part of ongoing research into the lives of our sea-dwelling pals, marine biologists have conducted experiments that compare the reflexes of baby squid and adult squid. Here is a brief summary of the results: The babies blazed through their time trials, twitching at the speed of thought. The adults, on the other hand, sat there stumped, blinking their wide eyes. I mention this study because it may help to explain the stunning early dominance of Cleveland State, the way the Finger has us under his thumb. We’re being crushed, beaten worse than the crowd at Altamont, and when the digital lightning does lag San Jose State picks up the slack. It isn’t that we don’t know the answers, only that we can’t get in the game. “Butterfly, Doodlebug, and Ladybug make up this hip-hop trio,” says Mario. “Name the band that released the album Pork Soda. This former Go-Go’s guitarist reached the top ten only once as a solo artist, with the song “Rush Hour’ off the album Fur.” We pound on the buzzer to no avail as the answers whistle by–Digable Planets, Primus, Jane Wiedlin. Midway through the round, with the score 140-120-0 (we’re the zero), we catch Cleveland State on a technicality: to a question about the Public Image Ltd. frontman, they answer Rotten when they should have said Lydon. Though the judges subtract the points from Cleveland, they won’t award them to us. In fact, Mario mocks our desperation openly, and though we manage to ring in for a 20-pointer–“This folk musician translated or extended many songs for other performers, including “If I Had a Hammer,’ “Guantanamera,’ and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”‘ (Pete Seeger, for Pete’s sake)–we’re all but mathematically eliminated from contention. Members of the audience are writhing in empathetic embarrassment, and even my table of faithful fans has stopped cheering. I drift into a private fantasy in which our inevitable defeat is rendered palatable by high production values, fancy Dutch-slant camera work, and a hipper-than-thou sound track. On the cerebellar stage, our humiliating performance is shrouded in azure fog, and we drop out of sight with artsy grace chaperoned by Cheap Trick’s “Downed.”
On the way to dinner we check out the Howard Johnson ballroom, where our contest will be held, and then we zigzag under the main pier. In the afternoon glare the stanchions of the boardwalk cast shadows in the shallows; further out, where the water clouds to green, the sun gems the cap of every wave. All around us French-cut suits and thongs command the beaches; the average Daytona tan, like the average Daytona body, is a beautiful distortion. We spend the evening filling our eyes with oiled curves and searching for the perfect jukebox–something where Ian Hunter slow-dances with Teena Marie and Hank Williams coughs himself to sleep. At about 11 we return to the Marriott patio bar, where a lone guitarist wows the crowd with good-timey acoustic stylings–lots of Buffett, Eagles, Jackson Browne, and bland blues. Half-drunk and wholly disrespectful, we take up a strategic position and begin to heckle the performer, whom Steve has dubbed Tony the Troubadour (he’s not grrrreat!). “Cold Sweat!”‘ we yell. “96 Tears!”‘ Tony ignores us, and soon we’re talking only to ourselves, imagining limp folk covers of “Tattooed Love Boys,” “When Doves Cry,” “Can I Get a Witness.” At the stroke of midnight Sky Saxon’s spirit crop-dusts the plaza, howling “Talkin’ Barnett Newman Blues” at the top of its spectral lungs.
