We wanted to pay homage to that night through a show that was unpredictable, mildly confrontational, and chaotic. At our next get together with the other two members of Cargo we hash together a framework for our performance. It was not an unusual approach for us. We were by nature an improvisational group who left much to chance. All we really ever needed was a small set of givens and we would make up the rest on the spot.
The performance took place one hot night in the foyer of an office building that housed both businesses and a bookstore called Primal Plunge. The bookstore featured fanzines, magazines, comic books, hardbacks of esoteric interest, and the paintings of clowns by the serial murderer John Wayne Gacy. The proprietor, Mike, organized and publicized the event and it was through him that we had that night an audience of some forty people.
On "stage" (the floor level space in front of our audience) and hanging from the ceiling was a life size black and white poster of Jim Morrison in his iconic leather wearing prime. We had cut out a square at his crotch level and replaced it with the screen of a black and white television set that was hooked up to a surveillance camera zoomed in on the bulging dungaree clad crotch of James. He was otherwise unseen and had joined our band some weeks prior after seeing a mention of us in the Phoenix newspaper. Before that he had fronted his own band called Frozen Hippo Whiplash. The reason why James' crotch was bulging was that he had in his pants a ten inch long and bulbous plastic replica of one of the giant sand worms featured in the movie Dune. To the right of the poster Scott and Huls were huddled on the floor. They had eight different cords affixed with contact microphones that were plugged into a couple amps. Steve was standing to their right. He was dressed in his Postal uniform and donning a policeman's cap and wielding a night stick. I stood at his side dressed in thigh high pants with my crotch bulging obscenely by way of a bunched together bath towel stuffed into my under-ware. A tape deck was also on stage. It was plugged into an amp.
Let the performance begin. Huls turned on the tape deck and soon a 60 second tape-loop was blasting through an amplifier. The tape featured Morrison shouting the "Come on, come on, come on..." introduction to the song Touch Me from the Door's album, The Soft Parade. The Come on, come on, come on was quickly followed by some of Morrison's ranting from the Miami show: You're all a bunch of slaves, What are you going to do about it? What are you gonna do? blah, blah, blah... It was a continuous sixty second loop that repeated over and over in the course of the performance. As this was going on Huls and Scott turned up the amps into which the contact mics were plugged. Now the thing about a contact mic is that it picks up every scrape, tap, scratch, or bump. Our original plan was to have the eight contact mics independent of one another and free for audience members to take hold of and join in the mayhem. Unfortunately however all the cords got tangle up with one another and struggle as they might to free them of one another Huls and Scott just couldn't untangle them. The amplifiers squalled with feedback and jarring amplified, scrapes, bumps, and scratches. It was Hellish. Steve meanwhile was walking through the audience while smacking the palm of his left hand with his night stick and telling folks to behave themselves and otherwise being a general nuisance. As this was going on I was tossing paper airplanes by the score into the audience. They threw them back at us and at one point someone toss one at us that was in flames.
On the television screen a hand kept playing and teasing at the zipper on the crotch in close up. I ventured into the audience and proceeded to prod people with my bulging crotch. I got a number of dirty looks. Morrison ranted on. After several minutes Steve started to badger me, telling me in classic cop speak to move along.
We were now about twenty loud and chaotic minutes into our performance. About that time the sand worm was slowly emerging from the pulled down zipper of the crotch in close up on the television screen. Steve and I were now both on our knees and back on stage. I felt we had shot our wad and I said to Steve, let's end it. He promptly punched me square on the jaw. I went tumbling on to my ass, laughing like crazy, and wondering what the hell that was about. (He would later tell me I thought you said hit me.) Scott and Huls meanwhile intuitively knew it was time to call it quits and the feedback and squalls and drunken taunting of Jim Morrison came to a silent end.
If we were paid for our performance I don't remember it. But it's not like it mattered. Cargo of Despair was never in it for the money. We were in it for the kicks and I know at least for me the hard won adoration. It was a real thrill to connect with an audience and we walked away from the Miami show with the conviction we had done what we had set out to do and along the way we had won over a good portion of our audience. The show was for the twenty odd minutes it lasted the embodiment of the compelling spirit of rock and roll that over the past couple of decades has set ministers in their pulpits to preaching against its uninhibited evils.
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