Road Crew

…also known as the Cirkus Drill Team
 

No working road band is complete without their road crew. As such, no work such as this would be complete without acknowledgment of their efforts. No matter what any of them may think, we truly appreciated everything these guys did for us. Road crews are an essential part of a touring band. They are the first ones in the club and the last ones to leave; tired, hot and sweaty. They make sure that all of the gear works and they take care of the band as needed. They are the unsung heroes of touring bands, not only having to schlep the stuff from town to town but also set it up, tear it down, and know how to run all of it. Moral of the story? Always pay your road crew…they can make you or break you.

These are the various members of the road crew over time. If we've forgotten anyone, we're very sorry! If any of you are reading this, let us hear from you!


Mason St. Clair — manager and lights. "Got any buddy?" (we could write a book about Mason—maybe we will some day)

Early in 2016, Mason passed after a long battle with his personal demons. Although we had not been close to him in some time, we are saddened at his loss.

Dave Savage — aka Lunch. Soundman/wildman. His real name was Kelly Wood, which he chose not to use for some unknown-to-us legal reasons—we didn't ask. Once got drunk in Nag's Head at 10 a.m. and spent the day bellowing Ramones tunes at the top of his lungs. Most of us went somewhere else.

Sadly, in recent years Dave became a tragic casualty of the lifestyle which he had chosen and is no longer with us. We miss you, Lunch.

Poopsie — Lunch's brother. Lightman with dyslexia. We actaully can't remember his real name. We think it might be Alan Wood, but that's just a guess. He was always Poopsie to us. About the dyslexia…how shall we put this? You know how dyslexics reverse things? Well, if the lead player was on the right side of the stage when he started playing a lead the spot light would immediately point to the left for a while, then swing over to the right about when the lead was finished. That was Poopsie!

Jim Gentry — aka Stiv, aka Master Bators. Seriously, we don't have a clue where he is or what he's doing. Anyone?

Bob Knight — the singing soundman and future band member. "Just take those old records off the shelf!"

Barry — aka Boner. Survived numerous 'accidents'. We don’t remember his last name. It's a wonder Boner didn't kill himself. Every time we turned around, he was doing something goofy like taking the horn drivers off the top of the PA stack while standing on one of those plastic stacking chairs on a hardwood floor. Needless to say, Boner and the horn driver went boom (and this was his first official day on the job). Married Miss Rudolph.

"Let's say we don't mix standing water, a screw driver, and a 220 line service any more…Okay?"

Jimmy Bailey — stage manager/bodyguard. "Honest, officer. I was weaving like that because I have a steel plate in my head that reacts to lightning."

Wesley Lynn Pittman — stage manager/bodyguard. "How about some WIIIINE?"

David Schmidt — soundman. Also known as Twitch for reasons which we aren’t telling. David wasn't with the band very long, which is too bad. He was a pretty good soundman and a fairly nice guy, but we never thought he appreciated our sense of humor. Such as why we called him Twitch.

Johnny Morton — "Everybody rock 'n roll the place!" Soundman after Bob became guitar player. Johnny looked like he should have been playing high school football. The girlies liked Johnny and the feeling was enthusiastically mutual.

Kenny O'Neill — lights. "Okay, Kenny, party's over. Time to puke!" Kenny was with us until the bitter end. It is rumored that he still has that neon sign, and if so, what the devil does he do with it?

Joe Yanulevich — aka Po Joe. "One time when I was with Shotz, man…" Po Joe stole our truck with all the equipment in it once. We were in Greensboro, getting up and ready to go to Greenville, NC, when we discovered he and the truck were gone. He did leave us a thoughtful note, though, telling us where he was going and where we could find the truck on the way to Greenville…where he left the keys hanging in the ignition. Luckily for us, nobody else wanted to steal a semi-ratty, old green truck.

Ronnie Allen — stage manager. "It's my belief that herein lies the Phantom." Known to enjoy blowing up lead vocalists, intentionally.

Carmine Colantuono — the dancing soundman. "Hey, Carmine! How's the bass sound?"

Mark Grossmann — aka The Incredible Bulk. Soundman/bodyguard. Mark is the 1998 Cammy Award winning and current soundman for Band of Oz. We would whole-heartedly agree that it's certainly a well deserved award. He also had the best pure singing voice of anybody in our band.

Joe Whitsett — soundman and Neil Young fan. "Beer NOW!" Joe was a great soundman who became dangerous when we allowed him to have a microphone at the board. You never knew when the lovebirds were going to come calling through the vocal monitors while you were playing.