This little story comes from Doug Howard of Stun Leer, also known as "The Touch guy who swallowed a bee"!

"EXIT STAGE RIGHT" by Doug Howard Of Stun Leer

I was touring with Edgar Winter and had become quickly the best of friends with the crew as a result of a certain "reward" system involving their redeeming backstage passes worn by eager young ladies that managed to make it all the way into band member's hotel rooms... great idea Dave!!! ...ummmm....yea... ahem.... anyway....

We had a keyboard player at one time by the name of Lloyd Landesman. Now Lloyd was a very nice guy and a fabulous player, however Lloyd was known to be a tad too serious sometimes. He also had a bit of a quick temper and we could never get him to lighten up. I remember we were once held at customs, not being allowed to board a flight out of Venezuela because of some tax crap and Lloyd was reading the customs officials to total filth. He was barking about his being an American and that they had no reason to do this to him, and we could not get him to shut the fuck up. So later, we decided that we had to do something to mess with his grey cells.

(There is another story however about three incredibly drunken girls in Alabama somehow getting past security into our inner dressing rooms while we were changing and asking us if we had any jews in the band. Lloyd being the good jewish boy said proudly , "I'm jewish"... The girls then asked to see his tail as they had heard that jews had tails and they wanted to see it.... AND they were fucking SERIOUS.... Welcome to Alabama. I'd never saw Lloyd laugh so hard.)

Anyway.... I arranged for the crew to progressively, from show to show, move Lloyd's riser approximately one foot give or take, to stage right. I figured Lloyd being very attentive, would notice this immediately and it would be good for a quick laugh. However, this went on for about 5 shows before Lloyd started complaining about the lighting on stage right being really bad and could the lighting tech's give him some more so he could see what he was doing. We immediately started ragging on him about his being a "star" and a primadonna, wanting more lights and broke his balls about this being Edgar's band and Edgar was the star... yadda, yadda, yadda, ... all the while giggling like idiots as he was clueless about what the real problem was. Poor Lloyd still had no idea what was going on despite the fact that he was slowly moving futher and further away from the rest of us.

So we started a pool, $25.00 a bet, picking the show off the itinerary when Lloyd would finally figure out what was going on. It became more and more hilarious as Lloyd was slowly, from show to show, moving completely off stage and not noticing what as going on. It got to the point that no one could look at Lloyd on stage without cracking up as he was practically in Siberia and in the dark. Of course Edgar didn't notice what was going on as his eyesight was so poor, but everyone else was in stitches.

(Of course there is another story of Edgar accidentally locking himself out of his hotel room in his underwear and scaring the crap out of a guest as he went down the hall feeling the numbers on the doors trying to find our road manager's room. Imagine this lady hearing scratching noises and opening her door to a very polite, half blind, naked albino.)

Anyway....finally ...FINALLY.... Lloyd walks in for a sound check one day and his entire rig has now made it completely offstage and in the wings. Lloyd goes ballistic at the stage crew and everyone starts laughing hysterically as it took him weeks to figure out what the hell was going on. Lloyd stomps around the stage yelling... "What? ...What? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?!", while everyone is rolling around on the floor in tears and our guitar tech walked away with about $500.00.

Next installment... "You Can't Make A Quick Exit When The Limo's Wheels Have Been Stolen"

All My Very Best,
Doug Howard
www.stunleer.com

[ Photo by Jean Renard ]