The Grapes made me do it!

Welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday. It is now edging into December and the last quality traces of domestic grapes are beginning to wane. This will most likely be the last cycle of grapes in The FruitGuys crates for a number of weeks. We should begin to receive fresh grapes from sunnier southern-hemisphere locations toward the end of December and into January.
As grapes are the essence of wine, I would like to offer my appreciation for the camaraderie toasted with the first few glasses of Thanksgiving wine. I would also like to offer my apologies to the select members of my family who endured the Thanksgiving “demo-tape” I played somewhere after the third or fourth glass of wine.

It had previously been a secret in my clan that when I moved to San Francisco in 1992 I answered an ad for a lead singer in a band. I met with three guys in Noe Valley. We played in the living room of Scott’s house. He was the bass player and lived just off 24th street. I’m sure you remember some of our hits like: “I Worry Sometimes, Empress of China,” and the ballad “Call it Wednesday.” Things looked promising for this 23-year-old. Two of the members of the band showed me photos of a nightclub in Marin where Huey Lewis and the News opened for them. Now, nearly 20 years later, they just needed a gifted lead singer who could help them with a new direction and they would be back on track.

During the audition, Scott’s pet Macaw “Randy” bit me on the shoulder after tearing the stuffing out of the sofa while I warmed up. Scott insisted that we only play during commercial breaks while watching Star Trek, The Next Generation. This gave him time to squirt bug spray at the many moths that had cocooned on his mildewed ceiling and flittered around while we rehearsed. “We go through this moth thing twice a year,” he said. “I’ve learned to channel it I’ve got a song called Chrysalis that’ll be perfect for us.”

Amazingly enough, in the few short weeks, we were together, we recorded 4 songs. Thankfully they reside on a nearly inaudible tape that somehow managed its way out for my family during Thanksgiving. My cousin summed it up best: “Chris that sounds good. I especially like the one with the jungle sounding bird in the background. It makes me think of mangos.”

Email me your band, fruit or interesting story at chiefbanana@fruitguys.com.
(And let me know if I can use it in a newsletter!)