An Artistic B&E
It was a winter tour, and not just any old winter, but a Canadian prairie winter. Canadian musicians trying to pay the rent and keep food on the table one gig at a time have no choice. -40 or not, the show must go on.
That’s why my friend Marie-Josée and I were heading north,18-hours from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Grande Prairie, Alberta, a backwater town that could keep Jeff Foxworthy rolling in ‘you might be a red neck’ jokes for years.
After set up and sound check the promoter led us to his place, which is doubled as the band house where he put up touring musicians like us. John lived upstairs but told us that because it was so f**ing cold out, he’d let us park in his driveway so we could plug our little import car in overnight.
OK…so we played the show, had a couple drinks and headed back to the band house. I was driving as we pulled up in John’s driveway. Our plan was for MJ to grab the guitars and hightail it for the door while I plugged the car in.
As I’m digging around in the snowdrift like an arctic mole looking for the electric socket, Marie-Josée is rattling away at the back door with the keys. Eventually I get the car plugged in and join her at the door. Together we’re pulling and pushing on the lock, jingling and jangling the keys, lifting up, pressing down. All the while I’m talking crazy s#% like you do when something’s not working. Then it dawns on me that John might have given us the wrong key, and this set may be for the side door. Piling even more guitars in MJ’s arms I promise to be right back and dash around the side of the house. I get to the side door slip the key in the lock and it opens, success! I let myself in, feeling a bit uncomfortable that I’m in John’s place, especially as there is a dog barking somewhere, but as I tiptoe through the kitchen I console myself with the knowledge that this isn’t technically my fault. If John hadn’t given me the wrong keys I wouldn’t be sneaking through his house. At which point I reached the back door and nothing was familiar. There were no stairs where there had been when we left, the door opened a different way…and as MJ and 70 pounds of musical gear crashed through the door I suddenly realized…we were in the wrong f**ing house!
We started giggling nervously, and shushing each other, which as one of the loudest possible sounds a person can make, made us giggle harder. We tried to sneak out quietly, but were suddenly unable to turn around without banging guitar cases against doorframes and boot cupboards. The deep resonant overtones from our guitars sounded like Tree Beard and forest of drunken Ents after a kegger.
When we got outside when I realized we couldn’t just run away cause our car was parked in the frigging driveway. As I’m struggling to get the keys out of my pocket, Conan the boxer-brief wearing barbarian burst through his side door. MJ, showing athleticism I didn’t even know she possessed just…vanished. With his large, he-man body glistening with he-sweat and nostrils flaring like a Stallion he bellowed, ‘WHAT THE F#% ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE!’
I tried to assume the most unimposing, frail, waif-like artistic form I could and begin to talk in a high, girly register at 100 miles an hour. “Oh I’m sorry sir that was me we accidentally came to the wrong house and it was a total accident and I didn’t mean to walk through your house.”
“WHAT WERE YOU DOING!’ he screamed, scanning the frozen tundra for my accomplice. ‘It was the keys man! The keys! We thought the keys were for the side door,” I splutter lamely.
“AND WHOSE F#%KING CAR IS THAT!?’ he points at our little import dismissively. ‘That’s my car, I know it’s an sh#%y little import.” “I’M CALLING THE COPS!” he said heading back inside.
I took that as my cue to stop bowing and genuflecting and start running away. I backed the car out of Conan’s driveway, pulled in NEXT DOOR, where John actually lived and ran for the door. Of course the keys worked just fine this time and we slipped inside quietly. Neither of us could find the light switch in the entrance way but I headed down the stairs with guitars in both hands as we started to relive the events of the past few minutes in that giddy, post excitement way, which was right about the time I missed the last two steps. Suddenly I took flight, arms outstretched, each clutching a guitar case spread wide like the wings of a majestic swan…until I came down with a sound I’m sure even Conan heard over his frantic 911 call.
I landed my Olympic dive with a spectacularly agonizing belly-flop-face-plant, my guitars droning in each case. Insult, as they say, to injury.
The next day I confessed to John what happened. He thought it was hilarious and headed down to the club where he started telling his staff the story, which is when the bartender said, “Oh yeah I heard about that driving to work.” A confused pause ensued, “they were talking about a break and enter on the news, apparently the guy startled the intruders who took off…in a shitty little import.”
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