The first show was a 25 minute set opening for The Talking Heads at The Greek Theater. Our luggage had been delayed so we had no stage clothes.

Someone made a run to a vintage clothing store and came back with a huge box full of various sized baggy suits, blazers etc. We all found something close enough to accurate size except for Richard Martin. Richard was a St. Louis legend who could play everything from Art Tatum inflected solo guitar to blues, funk, and flamenco. He’d toured with Jimmy Smith and jammed with the Grateful Dead. A seriously well rounded guitarist.

He was also built like a bouncer, so most of the suits were too tight. It turned out that his only option was a hugely oversized suit that looked like it could have fit a 350 pounder.

We hit the stage and I looked over at Richard and it looked like you could fit a second person in his suit standing next to him.

The suit had structure and stiffness so it didn’t really droop, it just continued off to the side beyond where his body ended, gradually sloping downward. It looked like there were high winds blowing the suit to one side.

A truly cartoonish sight, like he’d been drawn by a caricature artist.

There he was, looking absurd and playing the nastiest funk that you’ve ever heard.

It ended up being the only West Coast trip Defunkt did. We also headlined the Whisky, did another show with the Heads at the Palladium, and played in San Francisco on a double bill with  Nina Hagen.

It’s maybe just a coincidence but when Stop Making Sense came out and I saw David Byrne wearing the giant sized suit I did wonder if it had been inspired by Richard’s vintage mega-zoot.

I joined Defunkt full time in July of ‘81. We were fairly busy from then until fall of ‘82 when the band had a 6 month hiatus while Joe Bowie did a stint in rehab. After a summer tour in ‘83 there was another approximately 18 month break. I’m not spilling any secrets here, Joe talks about it in the excellent documentary In Groove We Trust https://vimeo.com/ondemand/ingroovewetrust

There was plenty going on in NYC and I was involved in some things but I wasn’t making enough from club gigs, being a subpar sight reader kept me out of certain lucrative work, so I began busking as well.

Defunkt reformed in ‘85 but there were still plenty of holes in the schedule so I continued playing on the street when things got lean.

One thing I learned: you can be in the best spot at the best time of day but if you’re not laying it down people will keep walking. It keeps you honest.

I played with a couple of different units, one was hard bop oriented and the other was funk.

The usual spots we played were places like Herald Square, 39th and Broadway, City Hall, Liberty Park, Columbus Circle, 59th and Fifth in front of the Plaza Hotel, Times Square, by the Citicorp building on the East side, etc.

Over time you start to recognize familiar faces and memorable characters.

I was playing funk at Columbus Circle and an older man came walking by.

He looked at me, pointed and winked, and said “heyyyyy Red Rodney!”

We were probably playing a Kool and the Gang tune. Still, a skinny white dude playing trumpet, okay. He was the right age to have been there when Red was on the scene.

Another time at Times Square I was with the hard bop crew and he walked by: “heyyy Red Rodney!”

It happened at least two more times in different locations, it was always funny.

A few months after the last time, I got a call from a friend that they were auditioning musicians for an upcoming movie.

I went to the audition in a midtown office building knowing only that.

In the office a woman behind a desk handed me a script.

“You read the highlighted parts and I’ll read the other character.”

I looked at the script and the two characters were labeled Bird and Red.

It was the scene where Bird offers to take Red on tour down south playing segregated venues. To pull off bringing an integrated band down south, Bird dubs Rodney “Albino Red.”

Besides having zero acting experience and never having done a cold reading, the coincidence of me reading for the Red Rodney part had me suppressing laughter at the absurdity of the situation. Maybe with some prep I would have done better but…

Needless to say it wrapped up quickly with a thank you. No stardom for me.

I walked out thinking that I should have said something but what?

“Hey, some weird dude on the street has been calling me Red Rodney for months, I was born for this part! Don’t you understand?”

Anyway, I liked the movie when it came out, maybe it leaned into the downward drug spiral a bit too much and not enough on Bird’s genius but Forrest Whittaker is always good.

*forgot to mention that Michael Zelniker did a fine job as Red Rodney.

A memorable scene is during the tour down south, it shows Bird jonesing without any supply of dope, meanwhile Red finds a doctor and Eddie Haskells his way into a prescription for dilaudid. White junky privilege.

*Just realized that I first posted this on Red Rodney’s birthday, September 27. Another coincidence.

I moved to the city (East Village) in 1980, and was amazed at the relaxed attitude around it. This was before Guiliani and Broken Windows Policing got implemented. That’s not to say cops were all sunshine and rainbows, they just weren’t as focused on casual weed use. At least for white hipsters that is.

There were illegal stores that managed to stay open for long stretches, a lot of casual open air smoking etc.

One day a couple of years later I stepped out to go for a walk and carried the last joint of Thai Stick that I had. On the corner of first street and second avenue on the edge of a gas station lot I tried to light it but the wind kept snuffing it.

I stepped around the corner to the Second Avenue side to get out of the wind and as I was attempting to light it a cop car appeared coming down second avenue. They spotted me and immediately turned into first street (one way the wrong way) and rolled up on me.

Years of paranoia around cops and weed made me dread what was coming but I also vaguely knew that there wasn’t too much they could do beyond a fine.

I stood by the driver side window and the cop looked up at me: “What are you smoking?”

“This,” I said, and handed him the still unlit jay. He handed it to his partner and got out of the car where he towered over me and puffed himself up: “What are you doing smoking weed out here on the street? Let me see your i.d.”

I handed him my passport and he got back in the car and opened it. “Where do you live?”

“Right there across the street, 31 East First Street.”

“This address says Connecticut.”

“That’s my parents’ house, I used to live there.”

“Why should I believe that you live in that building?”

“Go look at the mailbox if you like.”

He leafed through the passport, I had been touring and there were lots of customs stamps.

“What the hell were you doing in East Germany?” he barked.

“ I’m in a band, we were on our way to West Berlin to play a show.”

“A band? What kind of music?”

“Jazz and funk.”

They looked at each other.

It kind of felt like they were just screwing with me at that point, and a few seconds later he handed me back my passport and said “don’t be smoking that stale ass reefer on the street” and took off.

“Those mfers kept my weed” I muttered.

Two weeks later I was checking in at JFK on British Airways and the check-in agent asked me for my passport.

I handed it to him, he opened it up and the joint fell out.

In his polite British accent he said: “you might want to get rid of that before you get to Heathrow.”

So I did.

The band came out of a hiatus in ‘85 with a European tour. Ronny had filled in on one show in DC in ‘83 with us prior to the hiatus, but without any rehearsal. That meant that since I was on his side of the stage I called out keys to him during the set and during the tunes. Bill Bickford was on the other side of the stage holding down the parts that were mandatory and Ronny was inventing parts on the spot. The thing is, he was so quick that within 8 bars he would find a part that locked in and sounded like it was written that way. Not just comping, but a real part. On every song.

Making up parts on the spot was part of the job description for everyone in the band and was done well by all, it was an improvisatory concept through and through. Ronny just had this extra layer of pop sensibility on top of the harmolodic/funk/jazz/groove thing that was unique.

That was a useful talent because in ‘85 without any rehearsal we met at the airport to fly to Amsterdam. As it turned out because of flight delays we ended up not having a sound check so we were completely winging it. It was at The Paradiso.

Behind the curtain before we went out Joe briefed Ronny.

“Just watch me for cues, I might do anything out there so stay awake. I mean I might do ANYTHING so be ready. Shit, I might drag that chair across the stage (pointing to a wooden chair) You know what? As a matter of fact I will. Stay here and come onstage when I let you know.”

He grabbed the chair and parted the curtains and walked out on stage, where he proceeded to do a 5 minute mime routine dragging the chair across the stage like it weighed 1,000 pounds. Groaning, sweating, pushing, wiping his brow. We watched from behind the curtain cracking up.

He ended by smashing the chair to bits, grabbing his trombone, and playing an insane cadenza, then we came out and played the set to a crowd that was already going nuts.

That was the beginning of an an old school Eurail pass tour that lasted 5 weeks.

Fun times.