C H A P T E R  T H I R T E E N

" what label are you guys on?"

we had released "LET'S RUMBLE" in the U.K. and we had toured over there. problem was, BMG didn't want to release it in the States. we had no American label. this was our first foray into the Minors, the small Independents, the Lost, the Forlorn, that was Us. we actually got a phone book out and started calling all the little labels, one by one...fuck...HOW HUMILIATING---it truly sucked. no one in town wanted to touch us, what with our much-publicized Fall from Grace. we would send demos of our new music to the Big Labels and the answer would be--  " Well, I'll listen to it, but I know I'm not gonna like it..."

OUCH--that smarts...remember, this was the era of Grunge, cock rock or anything remotely resembling  Traditional Rock was passé , considered UNCOOL. we were uncool, it  seemed.....so , WHAT TO DO? well....GO TO THE MINORS, MY BOY--- there's plenty of Fly-by-Night little bootleg operations ready and willing to trade your dignity and hard-earned songs for a bit o' chump-change. so that's what we did.

our manager found some little guy in New York , some loud talking fuckhead to offer us some $$$  for the Let's Rumble record. we were already writing songs for what would be the HAPPY  record so we said "fuck it, why not ? " let's do it. we signed a deal without consulting a lawyer or anything, our manager said he had OK'd the contract, etc.----MISTAKE----there was no clause in the contract saying when this guy had to release the record, it could be tomm. or next month or DOOMSDAY. our manager had fucked up; we were stuck in a binding contract...again.

we finally met this guy , our " John Kolodner", at a Foundations Forum thing in L.A.---he gives us the news that the  RUMBLE record  which was going to be released that month was now pushed back 'till January--- of course my initial reaction to this news is DIE DIE DIE MOTHERFUCKER----then my manager pulled another blunder. KNAC  radio had a booth there and my manager gave them our record, saying " check it out". now  usually you don't give your record to radio until about 2 weeks before it's scheduled to be released, that's the way it's done---then a most unusual thing happened. KNAC started  playing "Spinning Wheel" , first as an off-track. people dug it. it started  getting really good phone response, it got  played once a day, then twice, then  FIVE  times a day, I kid you not, it went into heavy rotation and not only do we NOT  have the record out but we can't even get our Drunken Kolodner on the phone. this guy, our record guy is M.I.A.---SPEED-FREAK CASUALTY
fuck...just our luck, we finally have a hit on the radio and we STILL  can't get a record deal. the only consolation  was that our L.A. shows were PACKED again, just like the old days. everyone came to hear Spinning Wheel , they loved it. then the inevitable Question... " what Label are you guys on?" 

hmm....that 's a tough one. we're on the Crimson  Junkie Label , Ghost records, NO FUCKING LABEL--it got so surreal that the KNAC DJ's themselves started to make fun of us on-the-air  saying, "here's Love/Hate with Spinning Wheel, they're supposed to have a record out , but WE CAN'T FIND IT..." because of the exposure of the radio people thought we were real happening but the reality was we were like Paper Tigers, we were no further than before...well, I was getting more Pussy than before.

finally another small label, Calibre records based out of L.A. gets wind of us and through some finagling on their part buy out our contract from Junkie-Boy. they put out the record, FINALLY, but it's too late, you see, Spinning Wheel had peaked months before, we lost many 1000's of record sales. but I don't bear Calibre records any ill-will---if it wasn't for their intervention LETS RUMBLE  would NEVER have been put out.

during this time we got rid of Darren and got Jon back. Darren was feeling stifled. Skid wrote all the guitar parts and Darren wanted in on the songwriting. but neither Skid nor I was into collaboration . I had tried to get Skid to help me on a couple songs but he was busy doing his own thing so I learned to play the bass guitar as well and when I had a new song Joey and I would go in and just zip through it. it saved the hassle of trying to deal with other people's creative input. in the past Jon would learn the guitar  parts from Skid and then HIS specialty was embellishment. putting the frosting on the Cake, so to speak. but Darren was not satisfied and I can sympathize. so he didn't get fired so much as we mutually agreed it wasn't working out. it's cool, Darren has remained friends with us and we even did a few re-union gigs this year.  so we're demo-ing new songs, Skid, Joey and I and who should be working at the recording studio but Jon. he played some guitar and one thing led to another and he just sorta came back in. he had been cowed a bit, he really hadn't done anything musically in the 18 months he had been gone. he got married. had a kid, that's about it. so we were back the way we were, for better or worse---turned out for worse.