Johnny Thunder

A Repressed Memory

As we boarded the plane, Michael turned to me and shared the itinerary. “No law tonight.  After we land in Jackson, we’re going to drop our shit off at the hotel and then head over to a bar to see a band that Brooks wants me to check out.”  He then had a bourbon and rolled his gigantic head against the window and snored until we landed in Atlanta to change planes. 

As soon as we landed, Michael opened his Blackberry and checked his e-mails.  

“Yeah, this is not good.”  He tried to keep a casual air, but I could tell there was a problem.  “So, Brooks is close friends with the guys in this band, and I have a feeling he’s going to have them call us up on stage to play a song or two.” 

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

Pointing to his Blackberry: “Because he said so.”

Brooks knew that Michael and I both played music and had separately played in random bands over the years – Michael the guitar, me the keyboard.  But, whether we had told Brooks this or not, Michael and I knew that we had never played music together, that our musical tastes ran in quite different directions, and that you don’t just stand up and start playing music in a public setting without some level of common understanding and preparation.  No, this was not good.

Why were we flying to Jackson, Mississippi?  At that time, Michael and I were litigators at a big New York law firm, and had a massive antitrust and breach of contract litigation pending in Mississippi state court.  We had been working together for about five years, always with one foot in the firm and the other in unrelated creative endeavors.  It was the only way to make it through this law job, which included things like flying to Mississippi to litigate antitrust and breach of contract cases.  Brooks was part of our team, but at a Mississippi law firm.  He was a generous and boisterous man who loved to find reasons to celebrate.  Tonight, we were to be his honored guests from the Great State of New York.    

The flight from Atlanta to Jackson was about 80 minutes.  This was in 2006, so our available technology was not going to be a big help.  We each had a Blackberry, a shit-ass flip phone, and Michael was the proud owner of a new iPod (Generation Zero). This meant no You Tube and no ability to go on the internet and suck up every last ounce of pertinent information about a particular thing.  What’s more, Michael was sitting two rows behind me, so our only means of communication was to call out to each other as we plotted our strategy, pretending the whole time that we were cool and aloof and good enough at playing music that we could do something in front of a few dozen strangers in Mississippi if we absolutely had to. In the back of our minds, we were confident that we could also talk our way out of it if we really wanted to.  We were supposed to be big-time lawyers, after all. 

But because we didn’t want to be caught unprepared, in that moment, there was only one question on our minds: what song would we play?  We each wrote down a short list of songs on a piece of paper, songs that each of us knew cold and that we would be able to perform live without any fuss or preparation.  They had to be either popular or catchy songs—and ones that we could passably play in a bar in Jackson, Mississippi in the Year of Our Lord 2006.  Thankfully, one song was on both of our lists: American Girl, by Tom Petty.  Tom Petty was from Gainesville, Florida.  Close enough.  It would play.  It was five chords, good hook, good backup vocals, no solos, and best of all, it’s not too hard to sing—at least as well as Tom Petty.  If you ever have to perform a Tom Petty song, you can always loosen up the audience by saying, “I apologize if I don’t sound like Tom Petty.  I also apologize if I do.”  It would work.

Not content to rest on our laurels and simply prepare to play the widely known and much beloved American Girl, Michael apparently had a more ambitious plan.  He handed me his iPod, already dented and riddled with wax. He looked me in the eye, “I just heard this great song.  It’s called Johnny Thunder, by the Kinks.  It’s unbelievable.  I think we should play it.  Listen.” 

The plane doors closed.  The lights went out.  For some reason, there was snow falling outside.  I put on the headphones and listened.  Sure enough, the lyrics rang out:

Johnny Thunder

Lives on Water

Feeds on Lightning 

It’s a cool song (you should listen to it).  But despite being a cool song, I had never heard it before. It was a bit complicated, musically and vocally.  Lots of chords.  Chords that move briskly.  Some songs are original enough that they take multiple listens to even remember how the song goes, and this was one of them.  I listened to it once.  I listened to it twice.  And then Michael motioned that he needed his iPod back because he wanted to write out the chart with the chords on it.  These guitar players and their “charts.” 

How do you get a guitar player to turn down his amp?

Put music in front of him.

I fretted the whole trip, thinking nothing about the actual litigation we were there to work on, but rather steadily coming to the realization that absolutely nothing about the song Johnny Thunder had stuck.  My brain hadn’t retained one note.  When we landed, Michael handed me a folded-up piece of looseleaf.  The page had a bunch of random letters, intending to reflect the chord progression of Johnny Thunder.  Some were crossed out and replaced with others.    

Intro D; G, D, F, C, A, D

That was just the first line.  I studied the letters and tried to remember how the song went.  I listened to it one more time before the iPod ran out of charge.  Michael said it was okay, though.  I had the chart. 

We arrived at the bar, and it immediately became obvious that we were not actually going to play. Thank God!!  This is because the scene was much more than we had expected.  There had to be over 200 people there, all a bit liquored up and all listening intently to the band. The band had been massively undersold. It was comprised of two musicians, scratch that, two Musicians, capitalization and other emphases warranted. Sure enough, they were a guitar player and a keyboard player.  They played rock and blues, and they were out-of-this-world good.  The keyboard player in particular was a bona fide prodigy.  He couldn’t have been more than 18 years old.  I haven’t seen a better piano player in person before or since, and I’ve actually seen a few piano concertos at Lincoln Center. 

We met ol’ Brooks and his then-wife at the bar and said our hellos.  He already had quite a few drinks in him, so we were a little behind and had to catch up.  And catch up we did.  We exchanged pleasantries—the flight was a little bumpy because of the weather, blah, blah, blah—but I was focused on the band, who just rocked the place.  Michael for his part took Brooks aside and made the hard sell for why there was no way we were going to go up there and play.  Brooks just grinned and shook his head.  Was that an agreement?  It was hard to say. I was feeling uneasy—the potential “surprise” heightened my senses, and I knew there was no way we could possibly play the same instruments as these fellas.  Michael, for his part, must have been pretty confident that we were not going to have to play, as he drank three or four beers in rapid succession.    

Then it got quiet, and the piano player announced that the band would be going on a quick break.

But then he called Brooks up to the stage, who eagerly grabbed the mic.  “Ladies and gentlemen, while the band grabs a few drinks, we actually have a special treat tonight.  They just flew in from the one and only New York City, and are here to play for us tonight.  So let’s give it up for Michael and Brian!”

Energetic cheers. 

We could have run.  We didn’t.  We could have begged out in front of the crowded room.  We didn’t.  What we did do was walk up on stage and sit down in the same seats formerly occupied by those musical giants.  Hot lights shone on our sweaty brows.  I turned to Michael and whispered, with no saliva in my mouth, “American Girl?”  He nodded back. 

Enter the nightmare.  You know the one.  Sitting down for the final exam when you had not been to the class all semester, did not study, and did not know there would be a test. Well, there we were. 

We were hoping that the crowd would disperse and buy another round and resume their conversations and generally ignore us, but for some reason—and God knows why—they stood there staring at us, probably wondering why the guitar player was wearing a button-down shirt, khakis, and loafers.  Maybe because he’s a corporate fucking lawyer from New York City?  Which, by the way, is a different occupation from the professional musicians you were just listening to.

Michael counted “one, two three, four…” and played the opening chords.  This was a song that both of us claimed to know well.  Admittedly, we did.  Michael sang and played guitar.  I played the keyboard and chimed in with some background vocals, “make it last all night.”   We played fine… but just fine.  No big mistakes that I can remember.  Again, it’s not a difficult song on any level.  And it’s short.       

To be clear, we played it not nearly as well as the other guys would have played it, and thankfully they were not in my field of vision during the song. But the crowd was classy and appreciative, and even made a whoop and holler or two. Since the original recording just fades out at the end, we had to coordinate a final chord, which we did, clumsily, but we did.  The song was over and the crowd knew it was over.  We not only survived, but received a generous round of applause from the locals.  

I stood up, smiled, and exhaled a sigh of relief. 

Michael did none of those things.  I turned around and for some reason Michael started plucking at the guitar, preparing for the next song.  What “next song?” His eyes widened and he whispered, “Johnny Thunder.”

I hesitated. Was he serious? Did he believe our rendition of American Girl left something on the table, some unfinished business?  Did he believe Johnny Thunder was somehow going to raise our standing among the crowd? Did he believe he was Bono after dazzling the crowd at Live Aid? How was I going to dissuade Michael (technically my boss, by the way) from embarking on this ill-fated madness?  In retrospect, I should have stabbed him in the neck.

He nodded toward the music stand, and I knew exactly what he meant.  He was serious.  I took it out of my pocket and placed the slightly crumpled looseleaf paper on the stand, a paper which contained random letters intended to “chart” the chord progression for Johnny Thunder.  It was clear that in his mind we were prepared to play this particular song.

You know in the movies when the star stands in front of a band and says things like “all right, fellas, this is a blues riff in B, watch me for the changes, and try to keep up?”  Or when Bill Murray starts playing Rachmaninoff in Groundhog Day and the band somehow joins in for a jazzy version of the song?  I’m not sure whether musicians like that exist or not, but, rest assured, I am not one of them.      

In any event, Michael started strumming the opening chord.  I played the first chord as well: D. We played it together, which happened to be the last chord we played together all night. Then it went completely off the rails. Michael started singing and flying through the chart.  I was somewhere else entirely.  Still am.  The issue with Johnny Thunder is that it does not follow any standard rock-pop music format.  Each chord in the verse, as I now know, is only two beats.  Except the last one, which is eight beats.  How was I supposed to know that?      

Since I didn’t know how the song went, and because Michael and I were literally playing different notes, notes that were not at all intended to go together, I turned the keyboard volume down.  This wasn’t my first live performance.  I know how this works.

How do you get a keyboard player to turn down? 

Put a useless chart in front of him.

My ploy of turning down the volume, however, was not very effective.  First of all, there were only the two of us, no bass, no drums, no rhythm section, so it’s impossible to just hide and pretend to be playing an instrument.  Second, and this I didn’t sign up for, Michael didn’t seem to know the song all that well either!  You know why?  Because it’s a hard fucking song that should not be played by two New York lawyers in a Mississippi blues bar.

No one in the audience knew the song we were supposed to be playing, but they sure as hell knew that we weren’t playing it.  I glanced up through the lights at the crowd and there he was, standing right in front of me.  The keyboard prodigy, watching my fingers on the keys, and not hearing any sound.  I turned away in shame.              

If I was in the audience, I would have immediately rushed into the bathroom and drowned myself in the toilet.  It's bad luck just seeing a thing like that.

Sensing the universe closing in on us, I turned to Michael.  At that moment, he did something that was either incredibly brave or utterly cowardly — to this day, I’m not sure which.  He just stopped playing.

Mid-phrase, mid-line, mid verse, whatever, the sound just trailed away.   

The crowd was confused, but also relieved.  How could they not be?  The Longest Minute in the History of Music was over.  Two instruments playing different notes for 60 seconds, while a middle-aged lawyer in a button-down shirt sang the wrong lyrics to an unknown song. 

This time there were no cheers, just a few awkward claps.  Michael and I walked back towards Brooks and our beers, but Brooks was nowhere to be found.  Smart man, that Brooks.

Michael stared down into his drink, much like Daedalus must have done after Icarus came crashing back down to Mother Earth.  I watched the fateful hubris melt away. For my part, I took no satisfaction in the fact that I saw this coming from the Atlanta runway.  A squirrel could have seen this coming.          

That trip was the first and only time I stepped foot into the State of Mississippi.  In the almost twenty years since that night, I have never returned.  I assumed I was not invited.

That was also the last time I heard the song Johnny Thunder in public.  Despite our efforts, I guess we failed to bring it back.

*******

As you might have noticed, I was joined in recounting this horror story by Michael de Leeuw, who also happens to be the ill-fated Michael from the Mississippi performance. Only by jointly accepting full moral responsibility for that debacle can we truly let the healing begin.

This piece was inspired by our old friend, Brooks Eason, who has written several acclaimed books about his life and his family, including an upcoming book about his adventures as a lawyer. Smart man, that Brooks.