I told Al we should rehearse anyway. “How the hell we gonna do that? We’re just two of us. Half a band. Guitar and drums.” I responded, “Steve is coming over anyway to take pictures. He plays guitar. He can borrow my mom’s acoustic.” “Yeah, well...” I then added “Isn’t Chris coming down?” “What the hell is he gonna play? ” “I’ll give him my floor tom and he’ll be a second percussionist! We’ll all do some kind of half-assed vocals.”
When I handed Steve my mother’s acoustic guitar he said he only knew three chords. Sweat dripped from our brows. It was hot as hell in my room but my mother wouldn’t allow me to open the windows when we practiced for fear of disturbing the neighbors. I replied to Steve with a smile, “That’s more than enough chords for a Steel Wolf song! Al, which one should we start with?” Al laughed. “Can we have some water? It’s like Africa in here! Look at the condensation on the windows!” The old windows were plastered top to bottom with rock band decals just as the walls were with posters and stickers.
I ran downstairs for water and Al plugged his electric guitar into his homemade tube amplifier. It had two twelve-inch speakers encased in what appeared to be a wooden frame. The frame had black vinyl stapled to it. It looked like leather. Al sat upon it and the sweat that dripped out of his gym shorts made it shiny. A window screen was stretched over the front to protect the speakers. On the left side of the creation there was fastened a ridiculously oversized red light with a single input to the right of it, then a volume knob and a toggle switch with “On” written in black marker on top of it. It was a masterpiece. Besides its look, it had a unique sound as well. Everything Al played out of it had a low, machine-like hum beneath it. Good, bad or otherwise it was our band’s signature guitar sound.
I returned with four glasses of ice water. Chris, Al’s friend, followed behind me. “Hey, Chris. You up for this nonsense?” “Sure, but you guys should open some windows in here.”
Chris sat on my bed. On it was a quilt with what looked like hundreds of rock band patches on it. I took my floor tom and placed it in front of Chris and handed him a pair of mallets. “Shall I shove these in my ass? I don’t play drums.” “Well, Steve barely plays guitar. So we’re all even.” I replied. I got behind my now smaller drum kit. Steve had been sitting silently the whole time trying to positioning his fingers in an A chord on the acoustic guitar. “Alright,” I continued. “Al and Steve play A and everyone follow me.” I banged four counts on my sticks at a speed equivalent to the clicks of a just spun roulette wheel and proceeded to play a beat that a passerby would construe as a single-handed drum roll. Chris actually executed a pretty good drum roll of his own with the mallets on the floor tom creating a thunder-like booming beneath the crisp cracking and crashing sounds of my tight snare and cymbals. Al played at a similar lightning speed strumming his pick up and down, up and down, sounding like an angry wasp. Steve mimicked him. His enthusiasm made up for non-amplification. This cacophony went on a measure and then I slowed down just a tad and banged out four final counts on the snare and tom signifying the din to finally cease. “Good. Let’s try it again but this time when we stop I’ll shout out a single word at the top of my lungs and then count four again on the sticks and when we stop the next time, Al, you shout something-” “At the top of my lungs?” “At the top of your lungs and then I’ll count four again and then Steve will go and then Chris. Okay?” “What should we shout?” “Um…uh…shout…your favorite breakfast food!”
Neither guitarist had continued playing the A chord. Steve simply couldn’t and Al realized it made no difference what notes they were playing anyway. My father then walked in and asked in Lithuanian, “Ar cia dainavymas?”, which means basically, “Is this music?”
Although the song had a playing time for about a minute, the four of us became even hotter and sweatier than before due to the sheer physicality of our performance and the fact that we were playing in an unventilated bedroom the size of a walk-in closet. Upon returning from refilling the cups, I announced that the song be called
A Complete Breakfast. I then reached for my recorder. “Let’s try it again!”
A year later, Al and I, along with Ed, who had since returned to the band as bass player, found ourselves in the basement recording studio of a friend. We were in the process of recording our first demo tape. Although, we had plenty of other original songs to select from, as our final track we decided to record a version of A Complete Breakfast. We felt it would help give the overall feel of our demonstration tape a bit more of a jovial feel if we concluded it with such a lighthearted number.
Later that summer, Al, Ed and I attended a Lithuanian summer camp in Massachusetts. The evening activities for the camp usually included a bonfire during which traditional songs and skits were performed by staff members and campers. I suggested we perform A Complete Breakfast. “What are you? Nuts?” Ed asked. “No, really. You have your acoustic and Al has his!” “We’ll need time to rehearse.” “Dude, it’s A Complete Breakfast!”
After several more vodka swigs, Ed began liking the idea and then we came up with the idea of extending the song by having kids in the audience shout out their favorite foods for breakfast. “We could make’em shout out the foods in Lithuanian! It could go on for twenty minutes! But what about drums?” “Hey, man, we can use that big ol’ spaghetti pot they got in the kitchen and hit it with wooden spoons.” We went to sleep happy campers.
The next night at the bonfire, we ran out and began explaining how this new song works. “We’re gonna play a few notes really fast like and when we point to one of you and ask “Ko tu nori pusryciams?” which means “What do you want for breakfast?”, you shout out your favorite food!” The three of us began the number, carrying on in the same manner that the song was originally written in: counting four and then playing at a furious tempo until the signal for stopping was given. Then, taking turns, we shouted out our own breakfast delicacies in Lithuanian at the top of our lungs.
As I went around the campfire, kids eagerly jumped up and shouted out their favorite foods. The first few attempted to do it in Lithuanian but then when a couple of older boys threw in things that were harder to translate for them – like “Chocolate Waffles!” and “Pizza!”- many others began doing it in English as well.
After the bonfire and on the way back from returning the big spaghetti pot and spoons, Al swiped a can of pineapple juice and some cups from the kitchen. The three of us sat in the woods and basked in the glory of our accomplishment. “That went over so well, man.” Al mixed up three vodka and pineapple juices and passed them around. “Cheers!” After, hearing the story seven more times and having as many cocktails, we chatted more about our demo tape and our hopes for playing in some real rock clubs. “Man, imagine doing A Complete Breakfast at CBGB!”
That year, Steel Wolf performed at CBGB and A Complete Breakfast was included in our set. However, we never played it for quite some time after that show. Not intentionally, but just because other songs were written and they had taken its place.
Interestingly, twenty years after A Complete Breakfast was first written in my small, hot bedroom, Ed and I drove to that Massachusetts camp to pick up our eldest children at the end of their very first summer of Lithuanian camp. We were able to attend the closing night bonfire and relive all the traditional songs and skits performed by the staff and campers. We sat on a log towards the back. The bonfire was in full swing when one leader yelled, “You know what time it is! Ko tu nori pusryciams?” Our jaws dropped. Four young girls equipped with only pots and spoons came barreling out. The leader counted four and then the quartet began joyously banging away until a signal to stop was given and then one of them ran up to a young camper and asked him what he wanted for breakfast the next morning. He yelled out “Pizza!” at the top of his lungs. Ed and I were flabbergasted. It certainly was music to our ears.