In 2002, while Duff, Slash, Matt and Dave were trying out every human possible to front their as yet unnamed rock n' roll extravaganza that would become Velvet Revolver, I was playing next door in the same three room complex (called MATES) in a band consisting of myself, Christian (the last guitar player for DD Ramone's band), Todd (guitarist at the time for Danzig and all around fill-in, hired guy, journeyman), and one Howie Pyro.

Howie Pyro was, at the time, also paying some bills in Danzig, but had made his first musical mark as a founding member of the band D-Generation. I think I can safely say Howie is the most interesting person, with the broadest social tentacles and the most diverse musical history, of anyone I have ever met. Howie knows everyone. And if he doesn't know them, they know of Howie.

Howie is a bit older than I am.  He grew up in New York City - at a time before anyone had even considered cleaning the place up. He was first shot up on dope by Johnny Thunders, and he helped Sid Vicious' mom spread his ashes after he killed himself. All of this while Howie was still a kid. He's the real deal, and you never knew who you were going to meet when you hung out him.

One night, our band, having secured a record deal with Capitol Records, and having just returned from Japan, was at the Viper Room playing a support slot for Metal shop Monday (a band who has since changed its name to Steal Panther and taken over the metal world). The Viper, for all its lore, is a tiny place. If there are 150 people in the room, you feel like you're a king. If there are two hundred, you're hopefully on stage, because anywhere else and it's going to take you a good twenty minutes to get across a room that is about 1o paces across and just a little wider. This night there were easily 200 people, and may have been a good bit more. Duff had come out to see my new thing - actually up on a stage and not in a rehearsal room or through the wall. This band was a fucking machine. It was high energy from start to finish with no time to catch your breath - band or crowd. Duff was stood right up front for the whole thing - which was great, until I dropped a stick in the big four beat drum fill at the pinnacle of our last song.  From the crowd, if you blinked, you missed it. Watching it on video, you have to slow down the tape to catch it. Basically, it was no big deal.

But I was crushed. I DO NOT like making mistakes. Even if it's the kind no one (except your buddy from Guns n Roses) would possibly notice. After the set, Duff was - as always - amazingly complimentary and sincere, and he brushed off any reference to my nano-second fuck-up at the end of the set.

"Dude, you guys killed it," he simply said. It was high praise, but did little to subdue my foul mood.

Another aside about the Viper Room: There are only six booths to sit in, three along each wall coming off the stage. They are highly coveted - at all times reserved.  Even if it's packed, and the booths are empty, if you sit down, uninvited, a few minutes later a large man with a coily thing sticking out of his ear (or more embarrassingly, a hot LA chick with a clipboard) will come over and inform you that Simon did not say sit down. So if you were at the Viper Room and you were sitting down, you were pretty cool.

Our band finished the set and Howie and I finished packing up. We took a quick load out to the car, and were back inside to sit at our booth to watch Metal Shop with a good twenty minutes to spare before the show started. Howie tells me his buddy Tony and Tony's girl friend Sandy had come to see us and were going to be sitting with us. Fine with me, I thought. I'm going to busy myself with drinking my way through the "I ate a big dick on stage tonight" feeling I couldn't seem to shake.

A few minutes later, this guy who looks like a much more together and less scarred version of Gary Oldman's character Drexel from True Romance, walks up and gives Howie a big hug. I am introduced. This is Tony.  And this was his girlfriend Sandy. And Tony was BLOWN AWAY by our performance - he talked about it, in a not annoying way, for the entire evening.

I didn't know who Tony was, but I totally took on the role of host to he and his girlfriend, even after Howie bailed and it was just the three of us and the unending stream of people coming over to the table to pay respects to the slaying we had done that evening on stage, I would introduce Tony and his girl to everyone that came over to say hello. The problem was, I had not internalized his name.  So every third time I went to introduce him I would blank.  I knew sandy. I would always get that one right.  But for the life of me.... Tony...

Anyway, I was STILL stewing about the dropped stick. The last thing you want to hear when you feel your performance was sub-par is how great you were.

This didn't stop me from listening to how "in tune" with what we were doing Tony was. He obviously came from a fairly spiritual place, where vibe meant everything. And he was convinced we had stumbled across something with this collection of guys that was truly special. He wasn't trying to hide the fact we had touched him. He even continued to heap praise after, for the third time, I forgot his name after getting Sandy's right. He just exasperated with an expectant, "It's TONY!"

At the end of the evening Tony mentioned something about having a 'shop' down south somewhere, and having given Howie (who never did come back to the table) a t-shirt. He said something about a three-clawed tiger paw slash, ala Bruce Lee, along with his logo. I told him I would keep an eye out for it, and how nice it was to meet he and Sandy. I considered an apology for my forgetfulness, but he didn't seem overly fazed by it - so I let it go. And we went our separate ways.

The next day, as I walk into our rehearsal room, Howie is in the process of taking off his omnipresent black denim jacket, saying something about a cool t-shirt. There, in white, on a black shirt, in the center of the chest with a tiger paw slash on the sleeve, being underlined with a swoosh, was the one word name of Tony's company.

It also happened to be his last name. It said ALVA