[Harp-L] Remembeing Dan Lynch (alcohol and harp mixing)

[dennis moriarty <dmoriarty@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     I go back a bit further than Dan Lynch's. One of the first harp  
shows I saw was Bill Dicey and Robert Ross playing on top of a pool  
table (I believe) in Mill's Tavern on Bleeker Street. Later Danny  
Russo would take me into bathrooms for the reverb wherever I would  
see him. The sounds he produced made me feel faint. I was a vacuum  
for the sounds of the instrument back then. I met Victoria (even  
played with her) and Len and saw Sugar Blue in Washington Square Park  
playing in a different language. Got on and off stage with Louisiana  
Red. My problem back then (not to get too confessional) was what  
Edgar Allen Poe called "the fiend intemperance", i.e., drinking. I  
was a kid in love with harp specific blues and alcohol and they  
didn't mix well. By the time Dan Lynch's came around and in it's  
later years they didn't much care for me. And when you have long red  
hair and call yourself "Big Apple Red" your quite florescent. I once  
vaguely remember threatening to drive my car through the front of  
Lynch's and Bill trying to placate me about not being allowed in. I  
also remember being segregated and playing from the basement  
staircase behind a door to the left of the stage as a result of the  
Mayoral rule that only so many musicians could be on stage  
simultaneously- I had my mike behind the door while the amp was on  
the stage (phantom blowing).  So while I have great nostalgia for all  
the characters (some of them almost Coltrane like in their verve and  
dedication) blowing harp back then it still gives me a bit of a  
hangover to remember how self-defeating I could be during those teens  
and twenties.   dennis

http://www.myspace.com/blowintheblues