chapter 6
by Andy Green

Late Oct. 1981 I make my yearly trip to New York Cities Palladium to see Frank Zappa. This being my 4th year, I was a veteran and arrived very early for the show and watched the guys in the band arrive. I recognized most of them but there was this one guy that was going in and out of the Palladium and everyone was smiling at him and asking him questions. I noticed a few fans that wanted to see Frank walk in asking this guy for his autograph. I had no idea who he was. I guess as a young kid I assumed he was a guest or another famous guitar player. I stayed back there for most of the afternoon and about 5:00pm I noticed the back door open and there was the guy with a guitar playing scales and warming up. No amp, just running through scales.

I watched him on-stage that night doing very crazy stuff. He cuts his hair on stage, he made sound effects with his guitar, he made Frank play at his best and above all he was the best guitar player I have ever heard. He was light-years beyond what I thought a guitar sounded like. It was Steve Vai and he put on a show that I will never forget. Around the middle of the show Frank introduced him and I knew I had heard his name before. He was the guy that penned my Zappa Transcript book. This was the guy that Zappa wrote the paragraph about in the forward of the book. This was Steve Vai at his best.

CHAPTER 6

Luke Alvino.

Luke didn't go out much. He was overweight, short and he had red curly hair and freckles. Luke was Italian, I guess from some Irish-Italian mix, but he was Italian. He was a bit of a mommas boy and at times he was to heavy to work. Luke played blues harmonica. He played like Paul Butterfield, he was really that good. I met him when he came into Michael's to buy harps. He would get 6 at a time in various keys and would get new ones every few months. He would play in the store for us and after awhile Mike invited Luke to sit in with his blues band on a Friday night gig on Long Island.

You could imagine how Luke felt, almost homebound unknown suddenly being accepted by a great band that was playing shows nightly. Luke was ecstatic, he made them even rehearse a few songs just so he could really kill it. I missed the first night he played with the band but I was there for subsequent nights. I am sorry I missed that first night but I have Lukes story as a one of my fondest and funniest memories, this is exactly as I remember Luke telling the story.

"So here I am in the dressing room with the band, man I am so nervous. I was shaking. The bar was packed and the guys were in a circle going over some tunes right before we walked out on the stage. They were smoking a joint. I am not really a smoker but wanting to fit in I of course took a hit when it got to me."

Luke does the universal gesture for smoking weed by putting two fingers up to his mouth and continued.

"As soon as I took the hit I coughed really hard and a peach pit size piece of shit came out of my ass"

Luke continued to explain what went through his mind from quickly running to bathroom to remedy the situation or going out on stage with what he knows will be a mess and maybe even effect the ozone in the room. I laughed so hard up to that point in his story I honestly don't know what Luke did with his little peach pit, some things may be better left unsaid.