So, there I was, walking into the cool-ass hippy school my kids go to, carrying a suitcase with my Pignose amp in it, and with Master Chief, my black Traveler electric guitar AND my new as-yet-unnamed Little Martin acoustic travel guitar on my back. The lady at the front desk looked suspicious. She’s seen me before, but not looking like this. I had my Doc Martens on, and my Harley-Davidson of Reno shirt, and my beanie cap that makes me look like a vaguely annoyed longshoreman. I wasn’t there to pick up my kids or drop my kids off.
I was there to hellbust.
It’s not like they shouldn’t have known what was coming. They asked me to be there. Specifically, Mr. Kurt, who is a blues fan who heard I played and that I’d played in my son’s little-kid “lower elementary” class before, asked me. Kurt’s the kind of guy who plays Howlin’ Wolf for the kids in his class sometimes. He’s good people, you know? So when he asked, well… I said sure. But I told him, we got to do this correct. See, Kurt’s kids are what they call in the hippy school “upper elementary”, 4th thru 6th graders. It’s the big kids. So I insisted they were gonna get the full effect Hellbusters Blues-In-The-School program. There would be no quarter asked or given.
I asked after Kurt coming to fetch me, and he soon did so. Kurt’s looks like what I would look like if I was tall, in shape, and better looking. He marched me in to the room, and I unpacked my stuff, sat down on my suitcase and assessed the audience.
It was about… sixty… 9 to 11 year olds. After lunch.
I ain’t scairt. I’ve been in rougher rooms. Not much rougher, but rougher for sure.
Kurt (and it may be spelled “Curt”, I don’t really know) introduced me and told everybody to behave while I played.
I told everybody to not behave while I played. They looked at me, and I looked at them. I didn’t unleash my customary introduction on them, because it was clear they understood. They were gonna Obey the Hellbusters (well, Hellbuster, since Jack wasn’t available) and that would include interrupting me with questions, because I love that (I really do), clapping, stomping, dancing around, asking more questions etc.
And then I blistered them with an acoustic version of “Shake ‘em On Down”, just to warm ‘em up.
After they quit clapping, I said, “Some say the blues is a depressing music, children! Is anybody sad after that?”
There were many loud squeals that indicated there were, in fact, not.
And then we got into it. We talked about where the blues came from, the African rhythms, the one one-chord songs and the diddy bow, the Delta blues sound, and how it moved up through the south and on to Chicago, were Muddy Waters “invented ‘lectricity” and him and Howlin’ Wolf rivaled each other. And when we reached Chicago, I put down my new acoustic, and picked up Master Chief, and started playing electric. We talked about the various styles, Texas and St. Louis and Detroit and it’s influence on Elvis and the Rolling Stones. And I played song after song that represented each stop along the way. And they asked question after question, about the artists and about the equipment I was using. And they made lots of noise and made the teachers nervous, and they clapped and danced and laughed and so did I and it was a seriously deep spiritual experience being with them.
About an hour later, I switched back to acoustic, and we decided to make up our own blues song, just to show how easy it is to do in the blues, if you tell the truth.
“Somebody gimmie something they don’t like!” I said.
They screamed and shouted and I finally made out somebody yelling “Math!”
“And what are we gonna do about it?” I said.
They screamed and shouted some more, and I finally heard somebody say “Run away!”
“And where are we gonna go?” I said.
And somebody screaming louder than the rest said “Taco Bell!”
So I said “ok, we got our song” and over a little 12-bar Delta style boogie, 1-4-5 in the key of D, I sang our song that we wrote, which went something like:
“I hate math, I hate math… I hate math, I hate math… I ain’t doin’ math no more, gonna run off to Taco Bell…”
And the place erupted.
Oh, it was fun.
But the best part, after we were done, every kid in there wanted an autograph.
I highly recommend, if you ever need an ego boost, go to an elementary school and do something cool and fun for the kids, and then sign autographs for 20 minutes. :)
Yes, this Hellbuster does Blues-In-The-Schools by invitation. If you want some good music and good information dropped on the childrens in your school, contact me. I ain’t scairt. I ain’t even scairt of high schoolers. Gimme 30 minutes, they won’t know what hit ‘em. :)
Tavo
