Its as though your're carrying a mystery bubble of LA or Montreal consciousness along on the road. Inside this bubble, strange thing begin to happen. A particularly memorable road trip was with Frank Zappa and the Mother s in the fall of 1971.

At one point we stayed at the Holiday Inn, in downtown Manhattan. For starters, all the rooms got robbed while we were over at Carnegie Hall. When we got back to the hotel, we found the security guard that had been assigned to our floor almost passed out from the effects of a bottle of whiskey that he had hidden in the ice dispenser. We did our private investigation and ended up chasing robbers and a few stray mice down the eleventh floor hallway at a time when ordinarily the third nightmare is just coming round.

And there is, of course, the expensive food that is as insulting to the stomach as a kick in the gut. Leaving New York, we missed the plane three times and ended up sitting in the airport bar for hours and hours...

It's all part of musician's life as well as a part of those much-spoken-about dues that have to be paid. But when an artist hits the "bigs", it all becomes well worth it, as witnessed by a fairly typical converation between promoter and manager of a big act. The following is an alleged conversation between US promoter Don Fox and Bruce Allen, current Brian Adams manager and the former manager of BTO :

" The biggest crowd in history was 10,500 with Chicago. We did 12,800. Oversold. There were people..."

"They won't let me sell anymore tickets in Lincoln. The gig sold out yesterday, and guy won't let me sell anymor tickets to save his ass. He won't do nothing"

"What's the gross? It comes to about 44 thousand after taxes.Sell those other tickets in the parking lot. The capacity of the hall is 7500. He's already sold 8000. I'm trying to get him to sell 8500 but he won't do it. Keep pushing him. Especially if there are kids waiting outside."