Clover July 4th

Its summer 1977 and I find myself in a truck driving through Arizona and Texas on tour with Clover. It was our Route 66 Tour and my first time in the US. We were heading towards my first July 4^th celebration and were scheduled to be in New Orleans that day.

As you may know Arizona and Texas are the perfect states to pick up Fireworks from the many roadside stands. As we were all looking forward to July 4^th we were massing a great collection of the various Bottle Rockets, Roman Candles, Fire Crackers and large colorful things that go “Bang” when the blue touch paper was lit. In short we had a truck full of explosives and we were hell bent on lighting them all up for our own July 4^th show.

Of all places to stay we hit the jackpot, we were booked into the Downtowner Hotel on Bourbon Street, the heart of New Orleans. As luck would have it our show was early that night, we were playing a club on the outskirts of the city. After the show was over and Steve, Mark and I had loaded the truck we started our own firework show in the parking lot of the Club. Within a very short space of time the local Constabulary was all over us. We soon informed, to our dismay, that Fireworks were banned within the City of New Orleans.

We were bummed and set off back to the Hotel. As I walked in the lobby there was Ciambotti, “Sinque” he said “what’s up?” I told him the story about the Fireworks. When that smile crossed his face and he gave me that look I knew I was in trouble. Within a very short space of time I found myself out on Bourbon Street with Johnny a large strange colored drink in one hand and pockets completely stuffed with Firecrackers. It must have been after the third or fourth refill of our Hurricanes that the fun started. It was relentless, singing at the top of our voices, taking slurps of our drinks and lighting Firecrackers from our cigarettes and throwing them wherever we felt like causing havoc.

The first time we were stopped by the Police they had us empty our pockets and hand them the fireworks. We then had to listen to a lecture that would have been considerably shorter if Ciambotti had controlled himself a bit or at least stopped laughing. Back to the Hotel, re-fill the pockets and back out on the street took about ten minutes. By this time we were leaning against each other shoulder to shoulder so we could walk without falling down. We were polluted and completely out of control a typical night out with my buddy John.

As we turned a corner parked at the side of the road, with its rear window open, was a nice black and white car with a nice set of lights attached to the roof. “Hey Sinque, watch this” said Johnny as he took a string of Firecrackers out of his pocket, lit them with the cigarette in his mouth and threw them in the rear window of the Police Car.

All I can remember after this was running and the cold hard feeling of being totally sober in my mind and my body not cooperating with this mental state. I found myself back at the Hotel and in my room looking out of the balcony window to the street below trying to see if there was any action coming from the direction from where I had run.

I can only assume that John did the same as me since neither of us could remember much about what happened once we sobered up later the next day. Hanging with Ciambotti was always fun a combination of a total lust for life coupled with a hint if danger. This is why we loved him and miss him.