Thunder. Lightning. Hail.

I’ve been asked to tell a story… one that I’ve never told before… this is a challenge.  I like to tell stories.  I’d love it if the first thing people think of when they hear my name is, he’s a story-teller… not in a bad way, not in a lying way, just in a Prairie Home Companion kind of way… that would be neat.
ANYWAY… a story…
Once upon a time I had a friend named Shawn.  He lived directly behind me and the trouble we got into could fill volumes.  One summer Shawn and his dad made and amazing tree fort in the huge maple that shaded his backyard.  We were 8 or 9 years old, I suppose, and it was the greatest thing ever made.  I don’t know where we got the idea, but that same summer we decided that we wanted to start a band.  This posed a fairly significant problem because neither of us played any instruments.  For his birthday, Shawn got a super-sweet fake electric guitar.  It was chrome and it was awesome.  I think I grabbed some coffee cans and buckets and I became the drummer.  His brother Dan was going to be the lead singer, and if I’m not mistaken, his sister was our manger.  I’m pretty sure that Wayne’s World has just come out, thus our desire to shred.
So all the pieces were together, but the fact that we lacked any sort of skill was still a major hindrance.  Then 4th of July happened.  Back in those days KS95 would have a soundtrack to the nightly Taste of Minnesota fireworks.  It was pretty cool- you could sit in you car and the booms and flashes were more or less choreographed with the music playing.  We would go down Rice Street and park our wood-grained diesel station wagon and watch the fireworks pump up the jams on the radio and "ooh" and "ahh" while wearing footie pajamas.   Life was good.  I remember the finale that year was Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A.   I knew we had to cover that song.
The lack of talent was still a hindrance, so a cover wasn’t possible… but an all out super-sick leather-clad lip sync… that was right in our wheel house.  We spent days in the tree fort practicing our stage show.  I brought the karaoke machine, Shawn brought the chromed out fake guitar and pleather jackets.  We drove a bunch of little polished nails into the fort and employed some younger kids to wave around flashlights as to have a light show that Eldridge Ave would be talking about for years.  Finally, we were set.  All that was left was to get the word out to the good people in the Har-Mar neighborhood.  Shawn and I went door to door telling the whole neighborhood about our concert in his back yard.  We sold tickets for 10 cents.  (later his mom found out we charged people and she made us give all the dimes back… tough live being a musician…)  One lady gave us a glass of Diet Coke.  It was my first exposure to saccharin.  I was not a fan. 
It was show time and the nerves were running high.  Shawn’s older sister Lisa introduced us.  We were called Storm Thrillers (all of our albums were going to be storm-associated.  Out debut was going to be thunder, followed by lightning, etc)  There was a dozen or so neighborhood moms and dads sitting in lawn chairs dying to see us perform.  Sadly it was 3 in the afternoon, so the light show was less than stellar, but we owned the Boss.  Shawn, in a moment of rock and roll passion threw is pleather coat into the crowd and the moms went nuts.  Hid dad kindly walked over and picked it up so it wouldn’t get dirty.  Grass stains are so not heavy metal.  We faked our tune and that was it.  The one and only Storm Thrillers performance.  One for the ages, to be sure.  That tree fort was the greatest thing to ever happen to our childhoods.  It really wasn’t anything special- just a big piece of plywood and a 2x4 ladder, but being 10 feet up meant you were on top of the world.  So many memories…
After the tremendous success of Born in the U.S.A., we fell into the slump that most megabands fall into.  We just couldn’t follow it up.  Shawn wanted to go to Metallica’s  And Justice for All, while I was feeling a little more family friendly with the Beach Boys or Raffi’s Baby Beluga.   The official story is we broke up due to artistic differences… what could have been?  In high school Shawn was in a couple of bands.  He bought a couple of real guitars and became quite skilled, actually.  But none had the magic intangibles of Storm Thrillers.  Someday I’d like to get back on that stage… time will tell… time will tell.

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