More Born Ready

So I joined the band and withing a couple of weeks we were in the studio cutting a six-song demo. It was my first time in a recording studio and the experience was more than just a bit intimidating. All of my limitations as a musician were captured on tape. Luckily, what I heard as ham-fisted guitar playing, the rest of the band heard as solid rhythm guitar.

When the school year ended we all pitched in a rented a loft in Hell's Kitchen. The space wasn't much more than a big rehearsal room with space divided up for individual sleeping quarters, a common area and a kitchen. I am convinced that if we had never moved into that loft, Born Ready would have been huge!

The plan for Born Ready was simple - record an album, have a hit single, dominate the world. Here's what really happened:

Born Ready played exactly three gigs. Our first "show" was in the rehearsal space where I had auditioned for the band. Our manager worked for Atlantic Records and the label was having a party in the rehearsal space. We turned out to be the entertainment. Actually I think the party revellers were much more entertaining than we were. The second show took place in a field. I can't remember why we were there but we had been asked to come out to play a huge field party in upstate New York. there were a thousand people on hand and we were the only band. We played all of our songs while the crowd restlessly called for The Doors and The Stones. We had never practised other material as a band but we culled together enough songs that we all knew to make it work. Thank god that our lead singer Nat had the charisma to distract anyone from our obvious flubs. Our final gig was at a New York club called Trampps. The NY scene at the time was New Wave pop and we were a straight ahead rock band. I know that our friends liked us that night...I can't say the same for the rest of the audience.

In between these gigs Born Ready continued to practise in our loft. But put five guys with five personalities in one living space and you get a reality show. That's exactly what happened. We argued about rent, food, rehearsal times, the band name and girlfriends. the last two owed more to Nat than anything else. He had started dating our manager, Ginnie, and their relationship got in the way of the band's name change. You see, we found out that there was already a band called Born ready and we were going to have to change our name. When Nat and Ginnie came in one day with the suggestion of Natty and The Squirrels, all hell broke loose.

A verbal match turned into a shoving match between Nat and the bass player, Steve - both of whom had had more than their share of the beer that had been stocked in the fridge. Steve was a smoker who would never respect anyone else's request to keep his habit out of the loft. During one particularly animated moment in the argument, Steve flicked a lit cigarette at Nat. The butt slid down behind the pillows of a couch, quickly melted a hole and started smouldering. A fire quickly erupted and Joe, our lead guitarist jumped for a pot in the kitchen which he filled with water and threw on the couch. The fire was doused but the loft was now filled with smoke. I quietly went to my room and packed up my belongings. Within an hour I had crashed on a friends floor. Born ready never played a note again.