The "Incident”

The time frame of this story is around the mid-1990s, and this is how I remember it, although I’m sure that some of the details are getting a bit fuzzy...

So, one of the many things that I’ve done to support myself while making art and music all these years was selling high-end recording systems and synthesizers at a shop here in Dallas that catered to studios and professional musicians.

One day, a local producer came in with two guys I’d never seen before, and they were trying to find a really good piano sound for a project they were working on. We had just gotten in the Kurzweil Micropiano, and at the time it was a hell of a deal for such a cool little box. I think we had them on sale for like $279, which was a great price.

I hooked one up for them, and let them play with it for a while, and they really seemed to enjoy it. The guy who was sitting at the keyboard kept saying “Yeah, this is it, this is the sex!” All the while, they kept hassling me about the price, trying to get it for cheaper than the $279 that we had it on sale for.

I explained to them that it was an excellent price, and that was as low as we were going on those because they were selling so fast. But they wouldn’t shut up about getting a little extra off. They kept asking for the “Portuguese discount,” saying things like “Hey, what’s the Portuguese price on this?” I had NO IDEA what they were talking about.

So, to try to get their attention away from the price, I casually asked, “So, what kind of music do you guys do?” The guy at the keyboard responded, “Oh, pop rock.” I said, “Oh, yeah, really, like what? Does it sound like something I may have heard?” He responded, “Well, do you know Journey?” and I said to him, “Oh, yeah, sure,” with a less-than-enthusiastic tone in my voice. I guess as he picked up on this and said, “What, didn’t you like them?”

Being a very diplomatic guy, I simply said, “No, not really, it just wasn’t my thing,” to which one of them responded, “Well, they were more of a chick band.” I said, “Well, not any ‘chicks’ I hang out with.” They kind of smirked at that. Then he said, “So, you really didn’t like Journey?”

At this point, they’d been hassling me for so long about the price, and they seemed really oddly intent on just giving me a hard time, so I decided to give them a hard time back. I responded, “What are you, some kind of Journey freaks?” They all had a great laugh about that, and the guy at the piano looked at the other guys and said, “Well, yeah, we kind of liked them!”

Then he turned to me and said, “No, I’m really curious: what didn’t you like about them?” At this point, I was in full Smartass Mode, and didn’t see any reason to hold back. So I said, “What, you mean you like that guy’s voice?” And in my most shrill Steve-Perry impersonation I sang “Ooh, he’s lovin’, ooh he’s touchin’, anothaaaaaaaaah!” For some reason they found this incredibly amusing. They were slapping each other on the back, laughing, and I thought that the guy at the keyboard was about to fall off the stool.

When he had calmed down enough, he said, “So, you didn’t like his voice?” And I said, “Well no, I like men that sing like MEN,” which brought on another round of thunderous laughter and backslapping.

I couldn’t figure out why they kept asking me about Journey. Before I could figure it out, he asked me, “You didn’t like ANYTHING that they did?” So I said, “Well, there was that solo stuff that he had,” and sang a few notes of my mock-version of “Oh Sherrie,” to which he replied, “Oh, so you liked that?” I said, “No, that pretty much sucked too.”

It was about this time that I noticed that the local producer was turning beet-red and quivering with anger. I made a lame excuse and excused myself to go check on something in the back room, knowing that I had said something terribly terribly wrong, but not able to figure out what it was. One of the other salesmen came into the back room and I asked him, “Hey, do you know what I might have said to make John [not his real name] so pissed off?”

And it was at that point that he said, “Well, that’s Steve Perry you’ve been saying all those things to.”

I felt like somebody had punched me in the stomach. I mean, I was being honest, I don’t really care for his voice and wasn’t ever really into Journey, but just the idea of insulting anyone so badly made me feel ill. It’s not the sort of thing I go around doing. I have a lot of respect for talent in general, and he’s obviously a talented man… just not my cup of tea.

So I steeled myself and came out of hiding in the back room, and walked up to him and said something completely lame like “I’m sorry, Mr. Perry, I didn’t realize it was you.” And he said, “That’s OK, [XYZ] Record Company has the same opinion of my voice that you do. Maybe you could go work for them.”

He ended up buying the Micropiano… for the $279. And I was thankful that he was very gracious about the whole thing. I only hope that he didn’t take it too personally, and thought it was funny, and gets a kick out of telling the story about the goofy guy in Dallas who was mocking him right to his face.

I’ve NEVER been able to live this down with the people I used to work with, and it came to be known as “The Steve Perry Incident.”