Suzanne Slade Suffered an Electric Shock During Her First Show

“I always wanted to front a band, but never had the guts until I auditioned. The guys were awesome, and we wrote very quickly. Within a few months, we had our first gig set up. I was a nervous wreck. Lightside was going on first, and I was worried that I would get hammered and forget all of my lyrics. The sound guy was a miserable metalhead who didn’t share in my enthusiasm when I thanked him for doing sound. With a grunt, he did a half-assed line check of our amps and my mic.

“We started in strong, but I smelled burning and saw people in the audience pointing. My guitarist’s amp and wall outlet were smoking. We played through as the next band’s guitarist jumped up with his amp and got it plugged in. I was amazed at the camaraderie. But suddenly: ZAP! I got a shock through my mic and onto my lips. It threw me back, then we heard a loud pop and saw a black streak from the same outlet that was smoking earlier. My guitarist quickly unplugged the amp just as we heard one of the tube bulbs in the borrowed amp explode.


“The guitarist who lent us the amp ran to the sound guy and started yelling at him. Through it all, the greasy sound guy just sat back as if the pyrotechnics were part of our performance. He just shrugged. My lips hurt. I looked into a sticker-ridden mirror to see what looked like black lip liner around my top lip. It smelled like burnt flesh, and I realized that I had electrocuted my lips. The owner yelled at us about our ‘crappy’ equipment, when clearly it was his crappy electricity. No one else used that outlet, and everyone ended up having a great show. We wound up being known as the band that survived electrocution.”

Battle Pussy and Daenerys and the Targaryens will play a benefit for the Hispanic Federation for Puerto Rico relief on October 22 at the Silver Spur Saloon in Lakewood.


The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz's website to see more of his work.