Dave Ball Becomes “Bub”

#118 / Flood Time Capsule: 2003

Nineteen years ago this week, retired city firefighter Dave Ball became the newest Floodster, but not before getting an alias.

As we noted at the time in the weekly FloodStage electronic newsletter, “Sharp-eyed regulars in the crowd have begun to notice a new face in the back row of the Flood ensemble. Who's that on bass? Why, it's Bub! And there by hangs a tale…”

Dave had first heard The Flood in October 2000 when the guys were invited by Mayor Jean Dean to play at a ceremony announcing the big Pullman Square downtown project.

The Kazoo Plan

Flash forward three years and Ball was still having Flood notions, when, as head of the men's organization at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, he was in charge of the 2003 Mardi Gras event to raise money to send a surgical team to Belise. Contacting Flood manager Pamela Bowen, he asked the band to perform during a fundraising dinner; he also asked for some CDs, kazoos, a cap and T-shirt to put in a "Flood bucket" to auction off during the event.

“Another auction item,” the newsletter noted, “was the chance to play kazoo on stage with The Flood during the upcoming Huntington Museum of Art's Hilltop Festival.” Dave really wanted to win that one himself, he later confided, and the bidding got up to about $70 before others dropped out. By this time, Dave already knew The Flood’s repertoire, because he had been attending the weekly practice sessions.

About this same time, Doug Chaffin had done his due diligence as our bassman for four years and was ready for a breather, wanting explore doing some guitar and mandolin leads with the band.

That meant we needed someone else to play bass for a while. “Who better than a loyal groupie?” said the newsletter. “So Dave Ball borrowed an upright bass, started taping the practice sessions and began playing along with the recordings at home several hours a day.” He made his Flood on-stage debut at the Hilltop Festival that year.

But first there was a little problem to be solved.

The Flood already had a “Dave,” our famous “Duck-Flying Backward” Autoharping David Peyton — meaning that when Bowen yelled ‘Take it, Dave!’ there would be some confusion.

‘So,” the newsletter reported, “Dave Ball had to be called something else. But what? He vetoed ‘Sparky’ — and ‘Not Sparky’ just had way too many syllables — so the band voted to call him by the nickname his grandchildren gave him: Meet Bub.”

The Bub Years

Bub played with the band for the next nine years — on bass, on guitar and on vocals — and he was always up for jokes and good times. Like what?

Like when he took a turn on (and a spill from) a mechanical bull during an intermission at a gig atop Snowshoe Mountain. Or the time he joined Peyton and Sam St. Clair as hula dancers at Joe Dobbs’ 70th birthday party in 2004.

Or check out this 2008 video that Pamela shot at the Bowen House in which Bub attempted to combine those bass and guitar vibe:

Bub even occasionally stretched his composing muscles. We wrap up today’s report with this video, in which fellow Floodster Sam helped out as Bub gave the debut performance of his timely 2009 financial commentary, Palm Beach Blues (Even the Rich Boys Are Singin’ the Blues).