The K-ZAP Short Tail (A Blog) – What ?? The Other Who Story!

The K-ZAP Short Tail (A Blog) – What ?? The Other Who Story!

It is dueling WHO blogs, “K-Zap Short Tail” readers.

The very first blog on this K-ZAP website was posted in April of this year by Chris Miller, one of the co-founders who re-birthed this station seven years ago. His story, here, is an 2800 word epic and is clearly a raging hot memory of his 15-year old boy self in NYC in 1968 at the Fillmore East with The Who. Read it right now before YOU see The Who THIS Wednesday—54 years later!!  https://k-zap.org/the-whos-fillmore-east-debut/ ‎

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Now, my Who story takes place 760 miles west, deep into the amber wave of grain heart of southern Indiana. And eight years later in 1975. My senior year of college at Indiana University in Bloomington. The world was so vastly dramatic within that span–two terrible assassinations of our heroes Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy; the full-throated middle class outrage at the Vietnam War. Gloria Steinem, the National Women’s Political Caucus and Ms. Magazine. The rise of Harvey Milk, the “Mayor of Castro Street” and Gay Liberation. Watergate, then the end of Richard Nixon in the White House. In retrospect, I think we all were shell-shocked from all of this, but I was ticking off the final six months of my college career, taking brilliant films classes from a professor who was one of the world class experts on Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and the whole genre of film noir. I shared a folky clapboard house with two swell girlfriends, just down the street from the little funky IGA on the corner. My future in Chicago was on its way, and on this particular early Sunday afternoon, November 30, 1975, my boyfriend was coming to call. There was the knock on the porch door, and as I opened it to let him in, I could see past his beautiful Afro that a car was slowing down, then stopping in front of our house. Four guys were hanging out the windows, waving, laughing, shouting to Mike. “Hey, turn around, they are calling to you.” I say. Mike sets his guitar case down just inside the front door, turns, looks, waves, turns back to me and says “I have no idea who they are… I’ll go see.”

He leans into the front passenger window, and a few minutes later, I hear him laugh, see him flash his finger with a “wait just a minute” to them and heads back to my porch. The look on his face was priceless. It is then I find out those guys in the car were The Maytals. Yes, of Toots and the Maytals. They had arrived in town, as they were on the American tour as special guests WITH THE WHO, and were cruising, looking for weed. Of course, they would see lanky Mike strolling down a neighborhood sidewalk with a Martin D-18 guitar case. “There’s our guy,” they thought.

“Can I invite them in?” Of course, you can, dear. My best Midwestern hospitality ensues- chips, beer, shiny Red Delicious apples, mine and my Dad’s favorite Kraft sharp cheddar cheese and the rapid fire phone call to one of my roommates best friends, who oddly enough was one of the most esteemed dealers of pot and other fine curatives in the whole town.

“I’ll be over in 15 minutes”, Dr. Tom said and indeed he was. By that time, the turntable was fired up, the mammoth four-foot-high Harman-Kardon speakers were aching to blast out Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Marley’s Natty Dread.

In a matter of minutes, a few more of our close friends arrived. The dining room table had been swept clear of schoolbooks; instead there two open briefcases of Tom’s samples for the Maytals to peruse. Our two dogs, Rue and Sig, were overcome with waggy tails and happy yips, and presented at least two chewed up Frisbees to our new famous musician friends. The whole thing was so amazing and spontaneously joyous. And for them and Dr. Tom, a most successful business deal. Mike remembers one Maytal, “When the weed arrived, he rolled and smoked TWO huge spleefs himself before rolling and sharing a third and  “passes” to the show with the room.”

I can’t recall how long they stayed, but I know they had to get back to Assembly Hall for their sound check. And we had guest passes to their almost sold-out concert later that evening.

Here’s the YouTube of soulman Toots & The Maytals from Winterland two weeks before they came to Bloomington, Indiana and hung out that afternoon with some really lucky kids. You can see they were on fire and in the groove that night, and so were we. I know WHO the headliners were, but really I KNEW who was, in my heart, ON FIRST.

https://youtu.be/EStJv_wsrdg  (The whole concert is here, but for sure check out the awesome “I’ve Got Dreams To Remember” at  0:31:41)

— Mindy Giles