... With Prya Ray of Atlanta's preciously precocious weird rock ensemble,  "Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa" ...

Cash, Jewelry, or Houses

Right now Prya (pronounced Pree-yah) Ray is on the phone for what must be the hundredth time, again reciting the latest in a dismal series of events precipitating their first West Coast Tour. Two weeks ago it was their drummer Tim breaking his pinkie two days before they were supposed to leave and rendering him unable to play their own benefit/ farewell show later that night. 
 Then it was coming up with that extra $500 for their Econoline van. And now, with all that in the past, today – the day they would finally be on their way – their bass player, Andrew, decided to try to pick up some codeine using a prescription pad he found & a doctor’s signature on a rubber stamp. Everyone who saw it told him not to do it. But, sure enough, at 10am this morning, Andrew was arrested for trying to fill a fraudulent prescription and Kreamy singer/ violin-player, Prya, has been on the phone all day & well into the evening trying to find someone with enough collateral to cover Andrew’s $500 bail. Finally, as we arrive, local rocker, Amanda Greene, has volunteered the use of her credit card to post bail. However, at this point the bondsman doesn’t think the 10% he stands to make on $500 is worth the effort, so they’re back to square one. "Cash, jewelry, or houses", he tells them. Yeah. Anybody got any houses? 
 But, believe it or not, this wasn’t what Prya was referring to when she told me she had a crazy road story to tell me. I’ll let her tell it in her own words, as we retired to the front porch of their south Florida house to drink beer & split a doobie (believe me, at this point, she deserved it!). 
 

Beware of shooting stars, and strange girls in cars

Prya: "We were on the road between Chapel Hill & Atlanta, driving down the highway, and these preppy girls in a red hatchback with a "Hole" sticker on the back drove by us and saw the drums - so they knew we were in a band – and started, like, flirting with Tim & Andrew. Anyway, they were acting really goofy so Tim & Andrew ignored them so they sped off. A few minutes later they were driving like two car lengths in front of us when their car started swerving and driving really weird. I started getting kinda scared ‘cos we had just been in an accident. Then, all of a sudden, they SPUN OUT -right in front of us, just missing us and the car in the next lane and ending up on the median facing oncoming traffic. It was really weird, but we kept driving, ‘cos that afternoon we were really looking froward to meeting up again with these nice people who were going to let us stay at their place in Atlanta. They were kinda like hippy- pagan… Not Deadheads, they were more into "Sun City Girls" & "Slayer".

Karrin: They were "Slayerheads? 
"Yeah! Anyway, they drove to Chattanooga to see us and stuff. We were going to stay there and hook up with this old hippy guy named Carl. We were all excited to see him as we drove into town and we pulled the van into this large courtyard in front of the house. We got out and started stretching our legs. Meanwhile, Andrew walked up to the house first and he this red stuff on a leaf and he was like "Oh, what is this, blood?" (chuckles) and he walks in and like two seconds later he walks out with this pale look on his face like, "Uh, something bad has happened here…" And, it turns out that, literally a couple of hours before we got there, this guy Carl we had just met had been MURDERED by his old roommate. But, it ended up being a double murder. You see, apparently Carl owed this guy some money, so the guy decided this night he was going to get the money back. He climbed in the window where Carl was sleeping and started to strangle Carl, who managed to beat the guy off with this leaded sculpture he had next to his bed. Basically, he bludgeoned the other guy in the head in ran around to the back of the house, grabbing a gun, while the other guy ran around the front of the house, and they ended up shooting each other... to DEATH." 
K: So did you guys stay there that night? 
"Tim & Robert really didn’t want to stay there that night. I was kinda neutral like, well, they’re dead now… And it’s not like we did anything so… And they liked us." 

K: They weren’t going to use the beds that night! 
"No. Andrew & Janice did stay there that night, in Carl’s bed. We were stuck in Atlanta to fix the van at that time anyway, and Carl had set aside a pound of pot (!) for us, so… But what was funny was that the local news showed up and tried to sell the story as a "cult murder" just because these people lived together in a big house. So, then the police "Cult Task Force Division" or whatever was sent in and confiscated whatever they thought was weird." 

K: Thieves! 
"Yeah!" 

K: Why did Andrew stay in Carl’s bed? I mean… 
"I don’t know. I guess he’d smoked a lot of pot and passed out. But, then again, we felt a real close connection with him" 

K: I’m sure that just drew you closer.
"Really it did, in a way."