From the late '50s up until the late '60s, any minor incident--an accident in the kitchen, a complaint about somebody parking a block away, things unrelated to our youth subculture or our music--would trigger a wave of raids on the coffee houses. Gangs of police would burst through the doors and grab everybody in sight--owners, performers, employees, the audience--throw them into paddy wagons and take them to jail. Some of the plainclothes cops saw me so often they got to know me. Once, they even arrested everyone else in the place but ignored me, leaving me alone with my drums in an empty room as the police wagons pulled away.
The cafes were actually quite innocent and the audiences for the most part were law-abiding kids. Their only sin was to be young and to be there. But the city government was convinced the coffee houses were filled with viciosos (drug addicts) and subversivos (subversives). Of course that was nonsense. In the early years, pot was occasionally sold on a small scale by individuals but real drug dealing didn't happen until the late '60s. It was a while before Mexican kids got into drugs like their American cousins.
The real subversivos had their own hangouts where they could plot in peace; they didn't want musicians around making noise that interfered with their conversation. They also weren't about to pay the kind of prices the music-hungry kids would tolerate for an espresso or lemonade in order to listen to some rock music. The revolutionaries could buy a gun and a stylish set of fatigues for what the cafe owners charged a young couple for an evening's entertainment.
Even dancing was estrictamente prohibido. It was really pathetic to play for an audience sitting at tables, doing the jerk or the mashed potato in their chairs, hands waving and necks spasming back and forth, unable to stand and move their feet without being thrown out. Mexicans called this sickening abuse of authority guarurismo. Each government official brought in his friends (guaruras) and gave them some of his power. Then, they brought in their friends and did the same.
One day a promoter asked The Sparks to join a tour with a big Las Vegas-like variety show that included a comedian, dancing girls, a magician and a band. We jumped at the idea, but El Zoa's parents didn't want him to go. When he showed up to join us, we asked him how he pulled it off. He smiled and said, "I went to the store to buy a loaf of bread and I just didn't go back home."
The performers, all top-flight acts, were on a level with the best rumba and salsa bands around. The tour lasted about a month and we worked six nights a week until 1 A.M. for about 50 dollars a night. Along with improving my musical skills, I learned to live on the road, to get along with other people, to deal with all the problems of a traveling troupe. At that age, you don't feel the strain. You don't get sick. If you do, you get better in a couple of days. You can go without sleep. You're a lot more resilient. Even with the hardships, it put the worm in my head that this was the life I wanted to lead, full of experiences, adventures and danger.
There was a lot of wild sex going on in the troupe, but because we were so young and very naive, the other entertainers ignored us--with one exception. One night while I was on stage, someone stood behind the curtain and started giving my back a massage through the drapery. As I continued to play, the hands dropped down to caress my ass and my legs. I was dying. Between beats, I'm whispering: "Please, cool it. Don't do this to me." It was very embarrassing. To this day, I don't know who it was. I suspected, or maybe hoped, it was one of the pretty dancers I sometimes heard giggling backstage.
On another evening, when I was heading back to my dressing room, I was stopped by a distinguished, good looking older gentleman, who was either an agent or a manager, the type that everybody treated with great respect. Out of the blue, he said: "You are going to make it. I have made stars and I have seen them come and go. You will be a star. I just wanted you to know that." Then, he disappeared. It was amazing. I never thought about stardom or gave it any importance.
By now it was the early '60s, The Beatles had swept away the first generation of American rock stars and I was getting even deeper into music. For the first time, I was taking lessons. Before that, I was a natural drummer, playing by instinct or copying what I heard on the radio. Now, I wanted to learn the basics like how to read music. I also started to talk to different drummers, some famous and some not, who performed on the same bill with us. Unfortunately, most of them looked at me as competition rather than as a student, so they weren't anxious to give away any trade secrets.
A notable exception was Vincente Martinez, El Vitaminas. A great jazz drummer, he was a short, funny little guy, very dark and Indian looking with greasy hair. He didn't really want to help me either, but I kept pestering him to teach me how to read music and understand some of the basics like the value of notes. Finally, in exasperation, he grabbed a newspaper, held it up and said: "This is a whole." Then he folded it in two and tore it. "These are two halves." Then he took the two halves and ripped them in half, and then again. "These are four quarters and these are eighths." He kept on until the paper was in shreds. Then he lit up a joint and glared at me: "Don't bother me with this shit. Don't worry about it. Just think of it that way."
This was my first and only formal music lesson.
Music was becoming an important part of my life--more than I ever expected. While the original appeal was the glamour and the idea of getting girls, I now realized there was something much more important and difficult about playing an instrument, about expressing emotions through music, about being an artist.
I immersed myself in jazz because that's where the great drummers were: Joe Morello who played with Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey with the Jazz Messengers, Elvin Jones with John Coltrane, and of course, the masters: Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.
Another tutor was a handsome, fair-haired con artist from Argentina who I knew only by one of his many aliases, "Miguel Casis." He was an ex- con straight out of the movie "The Great Imposter." He was funny and charming and as good looking as he was crooked. He drank a lot, laughed a lot and could convince anybody of anything. He assembled a whole caravan of artists, including me and The Sparks, and decided to go on the road to do "benefits" for the Red Cross. He'd ask the local officials to cover expenses and he'd take care of the publicity that would entice people to donate money. While he told everybody they would make money, we received very little. He kept most of it.
One of his most famous promotions was "the kilometer of pesos," which in those days meant something because one-peso coins were actually made of silver alloys, like old-fashioned American silver dollars, but bigger and heavier. Donors were asked to lay pesos in a line that stretched across the stage of the theater where we played. Of course the "kilometer" never got past about 50 feet because the minute the crowd was out of the theater Miguel pocketed the pesos.
He not only stole from ordinary citizens, but as we wound our way around Mexico, he would organize poker games for provincial bigshots, like the governor of Veracruz, the mayor of Orizaba, and the owner of the Cerveza Moctezuma brewery and he would cheat, using signals and various tricks with his partner, a plump, pig-faced, so-called attorney. Sometimes he stayed up, drinking and gambling and whoring, for three or four days in a row. Then he would collapse for two days, ignoring the phone and knocks on the door as he slept before starting the cycle all over again.
One evening in Tierra Blanca near Veracruz, he came up to us as we were sitting outside the hotel. "Come on, you guys, we're not making any money (a lie, he simply kept it all), but at least we can have a good time. How 'bout a bottle of rum for everybody, all the food you want, and everybody gets laid?"
Of course, we all answered "Yeah, yeah."
Miguel said he'd found a gordita, a nice little fat girl.
The guys pepper him with questions. "Is she pretty? Is she nice like the ones you always get?"
"Let's just say she's a gordita and she'll take care of all of you."
She
