Killer Show

by John Barylick

  Nightclub safety was the farthest thing from Gina Gauvin’s mind in the winter of 2003. At forty-two, Gauvin, a single, stay-at home mom, had little time or money for “clubbing.” But when she heard that Great White was going to appear at The Station on a Thursday night, Gina arranged for her son, Joseph, and daughter, Shayna, to stay with their grandparents, so that she could stop in at the club just before the band, one of her favorites, went on. Her eldest daughter, Heather, eighteen, would be on her own for the night. It would be a night out for Gina, whose life had always been light on luxury.

  Gauvin wasn’t often seen at The Station, but she was easily recognizable there by her flaming-red, down-the-back, wavy hair. She hoped to meet friends — perhaps Mike Gonsalves, the radio DJ who’d be emceeing the event, or others she’d known from growing up in Providence. Gina had married young, but neither that marriage, nor subsequent relationships, had survived. She stayed at home, making do on child support from her children’s fathers.

  Years earlier, Gauvin had rented a house in a rural corner of Rhode Island where she kept rabbits and geese. Over time, she developed a fondness for pet reptiles, and expertise in breeding them. Eventually, Gina became the go-to girl for online tips on nursing droopy dragons and lethargic lizards. She was also an art hobbyist, painting detailed, colorful portraits of her beloved pets. Kids and lizards and rock ’n’ roll — not exactly the stuff of song lyrics, but the makings of a full life for Gina.

  Unlike Gina Gauvin and Erin Pucino, others who found themselves at The Station for Great White’s concert were not necessarily fans of the group. Thirty-three-year-old Pam Gruttadauria was normally not even a late-night person. As food buyer and breakfast supervisor for the Holiday Inn Express in Warwick, she began her mornings before 5 each day, so her evenings were not party friendly. Pam was single and lived with her parents and rottweiler-shepherd mix, JD, in Johnston, Rhode Island. When she wasn’t earning one of several employee-of-the-month awards at the Holiday Inn, Pam mostly spent time with her brother’s three kids. Trips to karate class and nights out for pizza with the niece and nephews filled what little spare time she had.

  When Pam’s co-worker at the Holiday Inn, Donna Mitchell, suggested that they go to The Station to hear Great White, Pam was ambivalent. Donna was a big fan of Great White, but Pam’s musical tastes favored easy listening over heavy metal. And the show wouldn’t start until 11 p.m. Still, Pam could take the following day off. She thought, “One late night really couldn’t hurt.”

  So, on Thursday evening, February 20, 2003, Pam Gruttadauria left a note for her father that read, “Dad, don’t wake me up. I have a personal day. Love, Pam.”

  Thirty-four-year-old Joe Kinan had even less interest in Great White than did Pam Gruttadauria. But he wasn’t immune to midwinter boredom, either. Joe worked as a manager at a formal-wear shop in Canton, Massachusetts. An obsessive physical conditioning devotee, Kinan worked out seven days a week, often twice a day, with morning cardio and afternoon weight training by body part. He once competed in a contest to lose the greatest percentage of body fat and increase his muscle mass over twelve weeks.

  Joe’s buddy Karla Bagtaz had two tickets to Great White’s show at The Station and wanted somebody — anybody — to go with her. In truth, Kinan couldn’t have cared less about the band. He had never heard of them. But Joe and Karla had been friends for many years, and tagging along with her to a roadhouse to hear some ’80s band would be small sacrifice. It might even be cheap fun on a bitter-cold Thursday night.

  Three hundred miles north of Rhode Island, Bangor, Maine, was even colder. There, an over-the-hill heavy metal band was doing its best to give the locals their money’s worth — melting the snow, as it were, with volume and special effects inside a small club called Russells. In forty-eight hours, it would be doing the same at The Station.

  CHAPTER 5

  THAT AIN’T NO WAY TO HAVE FUN, SON

  TO THE RIGHT OF THE AISLE, immediately behind the driver, lay a table littered with empty soda cans, a cigarette pack, and CDS. To the left was a sitting area with cracked Naugahyde bench seats. Farther back, twelve bunks were stacked three high, six on either side of a narrow corridor — about as commodious as aboard a nuclear submarine. If groupies were ever invited “back to the bus,” they would have to be contortionists. This was the “luxury motorcoach” that Great White shared with its opening band, Trip, for their 2002–3 tour of little-known venues. Its occupants received $25 per day for expenses, on which each was to live his own rock ’n’ roll dream. The glamorous life, indeed.

  It had not always been so.

  Great White, originally called Dante Fox, was formed by singer Jack Russell and guitarist Mark Kendall in 1978. A self-described “backyard keg band,” the group drew a following in Southern California during the early ’80s. Great White’s 1989 album, . . . Twice Shy, was the high-water mark of the band’s success. Certified double-platinum (two million copies sold), the group’s third album contained a Grammy Award–nominated (Best Hard Rock Performance) single, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” which would become Jack Russell’s anthem for the next twelve years. That song reached number five on the 1989 singles chart, and its video was an MTV staple — not bad for a “surfer stoner guy from Whittier, California,” as Russell later described himself.

  The year 1990 saw Great White appear on MTV Unplugged and sell out the LA Forum; however, it was all downhill from there. Throughout the ’90s the band’s popularity faded, along with that of most heavy-metal groups. One of Great White’s albums released in the 1990s, Hooked (1991) and one single, “Rollin’ Stoned” (1999), may have described Russell’s personal lifestyle, but they did not capture the public’s imagination or its pocketbook. Pressed for cash, Russell sold all his copyright interest in Great White recordings in 1996. In 1999, he sold the rights to any royalties from post-1996 CDS. In mid-2000, Mark Kendall and the two other original members left the group.

  By New Year’s Eve 2001, Great White had completely lost its bite. The band briefly surfaced that night for one “farewell show” at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana, California, then went belly-up, seemingly for good.

  Lacking a broader skill set, Russell tried touring as a solo act, singing mostly “adult contemporary” numbers with four session musicians; however, even with some Great White tunes thrown into the mix, audiences stayed home. His new solo album, For You, was, alas, not for many, selling 770 copies nationwide. Russell, forty-two years old and a decade past his MTV prime, had ridden his one-trick pony into the ground. By March 2002 he was hopelessly in arrears on lease payments for $86,000 worth of sound equipment. In July of that year, Colonial Pacific Leasing Company obtained a judgment against him, seizing the last $6,687.93 in his savings account and repossessing his mixing console.

  When Russell filed for personal bankruptcy on August 21, 2002, he had less than $20,000 in assets and over $200,000 in debts. He owed money to the IRS, to a finance company, to a credit card company — even to his dentist ($160). Nevertheless, his promotional bio still waxed optimistic: “All I want is for the people to decide. . . . There’s nothing worse than a song you believe in and no one hears it.” It’s doubtful that Russell’s creditors were whistling any of his tunes when his debts were discharged by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California.

  It is a music industry convention that unless an act has at least two of its original members, it may not tour under the original band’s name. Laws have been enacted in some states to ensure this. So, it was not surprising that Russell, once freed of his debt burden by personal bankruptcy, contacted Mark Kendall in 2002 and suggested that they tour with some of Russell’s session musicians from his short-lived solo act, calling themselves “Jack Russell’s Great White.” Kendall had been no more successful than Russell in garnering a solo following, and his day job as a newspaper telephone solicitor wasn’t cutting it. So he agreed to join Russell for a tour of marginal venues in late 2002 and 2003, riding a bus f
rom city to city with another band, Trip, and a sound man, Bob Rager. The tour would be budget conscious, to say the least. It would be road managed by Dan Biechele, the same fellow who ran W.A.S.P.’s tour in 2000. Biechele would not only control costs, but he’d also operate the tour’s single extravagance, pyrotechnics.

  Rock concerts featuring pyrotechnics first took hold in the 1970s with bands such as KISS. Heavy on makeup and stagecraft, metal bands of the KISS ilk safely fired pyrotechnics in stadium-size venues. The pyro usually consisted of “gerbs” and “flashpots,” electrically triggered effects that, respectively, showered a fountain of sparks or created an instantaneous vertical tongue of flame. Either could be synchronized with music, creating a flux of radiant heat intense enough to be felt by the audience. Sometimes “fire-breathing” by the performers was added to the mix. Unfortunately, lesser-known bands would follow suit in smaller, indoor settings — without the precautions taken by professionals, such as site planning and ample fire extinguishers.

  When “Jack Russell’s Great White” set off on its ill-fated tour, it consisted of Jack Russell on vocals, Mark Kendall on lead guitar, Ty Longley on rhythm guitar, David Filice on bass, and Eric Powers on drums. All but Russell were salaried session musicians sharing no part of the tour’s profits. Powers was still owed over $3,000 from Russell’s abortive solo tour. The drummer agreed to come along if he were paid a little extra on top of his $1,100 weekly salary to gradually pay him back.

  Session musicians were definitely second-class citizens on this tour. Their contract with Jack Russell’s Great White specified that as session musicians they were not part of Great White and could not represent themselves as such (presumably to keep them from pairing off and later touring as Great White themselves). They were also forbidden from consuming alcohol or nonprescription drugs, a particularly ironic proscription in light of Russell’s admitted personal habits.

  This tour of Jack Russell’s Great White has been referred to by one rock historian as the “Fake White” period. Starting off in Honolulu, Hawaii, the band played three nights at a club called Gussie Lamour’s. Word of mouth was either ineffective, or very effective, because each night’s audience was smaller than the one previous.

  At 9:43 on the morning of January 20, 2003, the rear doorbell rang at Shark City, a sports bar in Glendale Heights, Illinois, where Great White would next appear. Club owner Karen Hruska opened the door and signed for FedEx delivery of a single box, about two feet by three feet in size, addressed, “Hold for Dan Biechele, Great White, c/o Shark City.” On its side was an orange label: DANGER — EXPLOSIVES.

  Shark City’s night manager, Terry Barr, had handled the advance for Great White’s show and, in an earlier conversation with Biechele, had rejected pyrotechnics, explaining that a permit would have to be obtained. When the ominously labeled package showed up at Shark City, Barr phoned Biechele, who again urged pyro for the show. When Barr stood fast, Biechele offered no argument. Upon arriving at the club, he stowed the box in the band’s bus for future use.

  The tour moved on to Hewitt, Minnesota, where Great White appeared at a club called Checkers. Biechele set up his pyro there on a homemade stand consisting of a board with broom clips to hold the tubular cardboard gerbs. He placed the stand on the floor in front of Powers’s drum kit, but behind the other musicians. With two gerbs angled outward at a forty-five-degree angle and two facing upward, they produced a fan of sparks across the stage for fifteen seconds. That night, the fountains of sparks produced by the gerbs were so bright that drummer Powers recalls not being able to see the crowd through them.

  The next stop on Great White’s 2002–3 tour, Louie’s Sports and Bowl, in Sioux City, Iowa, was a far cry from the LA Forum. An actual bowling alley, it had a small bar where the band set up — and set off — their pyrotechnics. As with all other stops on the tour, Biechele informed the band just before they went on whether pyro would be part of the show. According to Mark Kendall, when pyro was not used, Biechele would tell them it was because the venue would not give permission. Where permission was given, Biechele would open the show by flipping a switch, temporarily blinding drummer Powers and thrilling the small-town audience.

  Subsequent stops on the tour included Altoona, Wisconsin; Lemont, Illinois; and Evansville, Indiana. Sometimes Biechele would use pyro; sometimes not. Each time he would advise the band which it would be. Clearly, some venues would not permit it. Others welcomed it, or simply didn’t care one way or the other.

  The tour moved on to Florida. When the Ovation club in Boynton Beach said no to pyro, it was not used. Great White then worked its way up the eastern seaboard to a gig at the Stone Pony Nightclub in Asbury Park, New Jersey. At none of the venues where Biechele shot pyro did he secure the required pyrotechnics permits.

  Moving northward, the Great White / Trip tour bus arrived in Bangor, Maine, for a February 18 appearance at Russells, a sports bar holding about two hundred people. That morning, as he had at other stops, Jack Russell gave a promotional interview to a local radio station. Urging his fans to come out that night, he told Chris Rush, WTOS-FM’s program director, that the band “had a new pyrotechnics guy” and that Great White would “be melting the snow tonight.” It almost did, as Biechele again set off his pyro without a permit. The gerbs’ glare prevented drummer Powers from clearly seeing whether or not sparks actually grazed the club’s fifteen-foot ceiling.

  The Great White tour bus rolled out of Bangor after 2 a.m. on February 19, 2003, and drove straight to West Warwick, Rhode Island, for the band’s appearance on February 20 at The Station. Its occupants were dropped off at the Fairfield Inn motel, a few miles from the club, where they spent a day off. Biechele, the tour manager, would print from his laptop computer a “day sheet” specifying when the band members had to appear the next day for load-in, sound check, and meals at The Station. The day sheet also had a space for Biechele to check off whether or not pyro would be shot at the venue. Opposite the single-word question, “Pyro:” Biechele typed “Yes.” If he recalled his March 2000 W.A.S.P. experience at The Station, Biechele would not have been concerned about pyro’s acceptability there.

  Great White’s contract with The Station provided that the band would be paid $5,000 for its appearance — $2,500 in advance and the remaining $2,500 “one hour before show time in cash or cashier’s check.” The document also recited a capacity of 550 for the club. Food and other amenities to be provided Great White by The Station were dictated by the contract’s “hospitality rider.”

  In the pantheon of has-been rock gods, the resident deities run less to the Homeric than to Homer Simpson. And nowhere is their silliness more apparent than in the hospitality riders they attach to their touring contracts. Great White’s contract had one. Every band has one. These wish-lists detail everything the venue must provide for its visiting rock dignitaries. Frequently, the demands appear to be in inverse proportion to the acts’ star power. The hospitality rider for Jack Russell’s Great White carefully instructed, “A nutritious meal shall be served, including salad, chicken breast or prime rib, baked or mashed potatoes and freshly steamed vegetables.” It continued, in a more practical vein, “Please provide all utensils required to stop the crew from eating with their hands.”

  Rock band Warrant’s hospitality rider to its Station contract required one case of Coors beer, one case of Coors Light beer, one twelve-pack of Corona, one twelve-pack of Sam Adams, one small bottle of Crown Royal, one bottle of chardonnay, a twelve-pack of Mountain Dew, a twelve-pack of Coke, a twelve-pack of 7-Up, a twelve-pack of Diet 7-Up, and a six-pack of V-8 juice. Water was to be provided in the form of two cases (forty-eight one-liter bottles) of Evian brand bottled water. (A schedule was provided for icing down the drinks prior to and during shows.) After the show, Warrant’s rider specified “one huge tray of deli meats,” “two large pepperoni pizzas,” and “on Sundays, 2 large buckets of KFC Fried Chicken.” It would appear that touring groups not only tank up for the show, but stock th
eir (hopefully, restroom-equipped) bus from these lists.

  The first clue that you’re getting to be an over-the-hill rocker (Dokken) is when your catering rider calls for “1 box of Zantac 75.” And your strangeness quotient (Black Label Society) is definitely hyped if your rider demands, in addition to the requisite liquor and snacks, “6 PAIR OF BLACK ATHLETIC SOCKS, MID-CALF.”

  W.A.S.P.’s contract for The Station specified, in addition to “1 bottle of Mumm’s Cordon Rouge or Piper Heidsieck Champagne,” “1 medium-size jar of creamy peanut butter and 1 large-size jar of SEEDLESS blackberry or boysenberry jam.” Blackie Lawless must be either a picky eater or a very fastidious flosser.

  One measure of clout in the rock touring world is how firmly a band can insist on the provisions of its hospitality rider. Englishman Mick Taylor had been a guitarist with the Rolling Stones in the late ’60s and early ’70s, pursuing a solo career thereafter. In 2000 he was still touring with backup musicians. Taylor’s proposal to the Derderians for a September 3, 2000, appearance at The Station demanded “7 return tickets to London, 7 single rooms in a first class hotel, and transportation to and from the airport in an air-conditioned mini-bus.” The revisions dictated by the Derderians were, “No 7 return tickets to London, no 7 single rooms in a first-class hotel, and no transportation in an air-conditioned van from airport.” Instead, they would provide Taylor with “5 single rooms at the Super 8 Motel.” Deal. It’s a long way down from the Royal Albert Hall to The Station, Mick.