No. 970 – Killing Floor

Performer: The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Songwriter: Chester Arthur Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf)

Original Release: Jimi Plays Monterey

Year: 1986

Definitive Version: The Monterey International Pop Festival, 1992 (It’s the same)

I remember how geeked I was when I found out that Rhino records was going to release a box set from the legendary Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. It wouldn’t be complete, but considering that it contained the entire performances of The Who and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, that alone made it worth the price of admission. I’m pretty sure that when I bought it at the Genesee Valley Mall, I first put on Disc 4, which has Hendrix’s performance, when I got home—and this song, of course, opens the set.

I ramped up my job search in earnest after Jenna and I split in the fall of 1992. I suppose the desire to run and hide when things go bad is a typical reaction, but it wasn’t much fun to go to the White Horse and see her constantly, and I was ready to move to a bigger city.

Because this was just before the Internet really went public, my job search at the time consisted of driving downtown every so often to the library before it closed at night and poring through the pages of Editor & Publisher magazine to see what was being offered. If nothing, then I’d turn to a publications guide to get addresses of newspapers and send out cold letters and resumes. I got hooks from both the Akron Beacon-Journal and—most notably—the Toronto Star.

The Star would have been nice: After having been to Toronto three times in the past 3 years, I loved the city and would have moved there in a heartbeat. When I spoke with the sports editor there, he liked my credentials and enthusiasm, but he had no openings and all but told me that I’d have to first move to Toronto and establish residency before I could get a job there. Although I was eager to split from Flint, I didn’t yet have the stones to just quit a good-paying job (and one that I enjoyed) and emigrate without any guarantees of a job. So Toronto didn’t happen, alas.