A back in the day story, of sorts.
Many years ago, as a rock and roll radio disc jockey trying to get a toehold in television, I traveled to a club in Frankfurt am Main, (West) Germany, to interview a hot at that time Los Angles-based punk band. The names of the club and the band are irrelevant to this story.
We arrived for the interview (the videographer and I) during the gear set-up prior to the rehearsal in the late afternoon (punk in its earliest days like its older rock brother required musicians to hump their own gear and set it up as well. 'Be your own roadie' may have been their mantra).
We interviewed the band shortly after they'd finished setting up and were unwinding with a couple of brewskis, in this case, Budvar Budweiser (the Czech Budweiser beer that everyone else in the world outside of Europe has never heard of).
The folks in the band had worked up quite a thirst and had quaffed a not inconsiderable number of 'Buds' as they kept calling their beer because back home on the patio in the valley they would have been drinking Anheuser Busch Budweiser and calling it the same.
They weren't and aren't, as the drummer found out halfway through their second number in practice when he fell off the stool and crashed through his drum kit. Two of his fellow musicians laughed so hard they fell down and were singularly unstable for some time to follow.
No one connected with the band, from management through performers seemed to have a clue as to what had happened, though everyone connected to the club and their European record label (and the two-person TV crew) were very much aware of exactly what had gone on.
Sometimes it's a fine line between Bud Spencer and Budweiser. And sometimes after all day (and into the night), no one is any the wiser.
-bill kenny
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