Behind Garage Doors (excerpt from chapter 7)

One of my guitarist friends prepared to join or start a band and decided to run a newspaper ad to find more guys to jam with. One Saturday, he called me to say that his parents were not at home and that another guitarist and a keyboard player, found through the ad, were coming over! "Bring your ax, man, and you can sit in. We may even get a band started!" he exclaimed. Reluctantly, I agreed, and joined the players in my friend's living room, where all the furniture had been pushed aside. Amplifiers and "pre-amps" were set up along with microphones and stands. No drummer, but it still looked cool. The two older kids from nearby Hammond were ready to play, wearing paisley shirts, somewhat long hair and definite rock n' attitudes.

I pushed my short, curly hair over the tops of my ears and opened my cardboard guitar case. The invited guitar guest and I plugged into the same amp as the room buzzed in feedback. He looked at my cheap guitar suspiciously and said "Let's try this" as he hit the first chords of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild." The others joined in and I followed along but it clearly wasn't working. Our guitarist invitee was getting irritated and harshly asked "Can you sing, man?" as he swung the microphone in my direction. We then attempted Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love," sharing the vocals. But I was no Jack Bruce and the other kid was no Eric Clapton. My friend, on bass, and the keyboardist jammed along without singing but any vocals were inaudible over the amps anyway.

That experience in my first jam session was not really a good memory. Too much time was spent hauling equipment, setting up, blowing fuses, tuning guitars and trying to find out who knew certain songs (and could play and sing all the way through). The result was more of a distortion of sound through crackly amplifiers and fuzz tones in a crowded living room. The want-ad volunteers were okay musicians but we could all sense that it was going nowhere. There were no screaming, admiring girls outside the window, either. When my friend's mom arrived to abruptly halt the loud music, everybody dispersed without plans to take this another day.