On a cool night in August, an unassuming man walked into O’l Tom’s Backroom to take part in an open mic. This wasn’t unusual. Open mics happened all around the city. It was a staple of the music venues to open their stage once a week to the amateurs, the wannabes and the up and comers with a guitar and a song to sing. John ‘Whitey’ Burnett was no different. He had a song and a dream. What made this night different was what transpired that evening and the subsequent fallout in the audience.

John Whitey Burnett was the fictional persona adopted by Dwaine Marsh. By all accounts, he was not a very good player. Some even describe him as torturous to listen to. He was somewhat known in the indie music scene for his disastrous renditions of the only two songs he ever played and his dream that he told everyone he spoke to. His greatest dream was to “wake the devil and make him cry.” After years of being part of the open mic scene, he disappeared. Some say for several months, others say for a couple of years. No one knows where he went or what he had been doing. There are a few reports that he spent time in the delta and found a voodoo queen that gave him magical ability with the guitar. This, of course, is just stories, but they all agree the night he reappeared was a night that destroyed the lives of nearly all that were there. 

Now, all these years later, very few people know who John ‘Whitey’ Burnett was. The few that do mostly wish they did not. Knowing him means they were probably at the open stage that night and it haunts them and will for the rest of their lives.

Many of the audience could not be located, and of those we found, most refused to talk about what happened to them that night and the days, months and years afterwards. What follows is the testimony of eight of the individuals who have agreed to relive that night, some very reluctantly.