Monday, November 28, 2005

The Milky Way


I know there are hundreds of bands that start every year in every corner of the surburban nightmare that America has become. Usually kids looking to get famous, rich or laid, they flame out rather quickly and are never seen again, the band remembered only as an idle fancy of an errant youth as breeding and bill paying become priorities.

In my ongoing discussions with Bobby Beausoleil it always comes back to the MUSIC. Sure he fucked his life, okay fine, yes he has been in hardcore jail for almost 35 years, okay that Aryan Brotherhood wasn't exactly accurate, and he loves his daughter and his wife...but did you hear his CD? He is all about the music. I guess that is what keeps him sane in an insane place. The Col spent several weeks in a maximum security prison in the early nineties (as a guest) and believe you me it SUCKS ASS.

So today's post is a reflection- what must it have been like to hear one of the three performances of THE MILKY WAY? They played the Longhorn Saloon at Spahn three times in early 1969. Bobby on guitar with Charlie on bass, Clem on drums and the girls singing along. The first time it was only ranch hands, the next two times it was paying guests. There was beer, there was singing, there was leching, with everyone involved about to make history in ways they never intended to.

Can you imagine what one of those evenings must have been like?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i feel bad for bobby. he had/has so much talent and it just seems like he tossed it all away on a midget.

ColScott said...

Ahhh Larry you are just sad

louis365 said...

To have been there....with a 7 dollar tape recorder. Seems, for a time, they called the Longhorn Saloon the "Helter Skelter Bar". They sold beer to the locals, but it only lasted a very short time. The cops shut it down as an illegal bar. I guess this is the time these shows were preformed. I was aware that Cupid had a band called "the Milky Way", but I thought it was a group he was in before he arrived at Spahn. These shows sound like they would have been very early on in '69. Probably during a time Charles "formally known as 'Tex'" Watson was not around.