Flashes of Panic

I think I need a “music” category. Not that I’m showing y’all categories right now (and I will, eventually, defend my use of the phrase “y’all” despite being about as Yankee as one can get without being Canadian) but I seem to talk about it a lot.

Some discussion last weekend about the Rock-Off, so I did a quick web search the other day to find that article, which was a kick. I’m a bit amazed that neither Reindeer Records nor the Rock-Off itself has a website, but I think Louis Philippe, the moving force behind the damn thing, has his reasons which may or may not be completely rooted in Luddism. Maybe it has more to do with the shoestring on which he perpetually operates.

Anyway, after establishing that the year in which my band (not an actual link about the band—we appear to have never existed, in Web terms) came in second was not, in fact, the year when the band that won became the band currently known as Rustic Overtones (we lost to Stickfigure, not Aces Wild,) I wondered what happened to everyone. I saw two of the guys at the high school reunion a few years ago, but our frontman I hadn’t heard from. My brother claimed he’s DJing retro nights in Portland, which would fit, (considering that his greatest legacy to me is an enduring appreciation for Brit-pop.) Then a Google search turned up his new band.

My initial impulse is to get snarky reading some of the stuff, even looking at the pictures. (Want to guess which guy I played with? I’d say, pick the goofiest looking one, but they all look a bit goofy, don’t they?) The thing that’s funny is, if I didn’t know him, I’d be more likely to look at the site and say, hey, pretty cool. But I remember him (and myself, and us) when we were right at the height of adolescent self-importance, and we looked pretty damn goofy then. I keep thinking, “He hasn’t changed at all.”

Well, is that so bad? I downloaded a bunch of songs (about five from his “old” solo stuff, three more from the new band) and they’re not actively bad or anything like that. They’re not the second coming of the Replacements, either. Nothing wrong with that. If I didn’t know Shawn back in the day, I’m not sure I’d drop $15 on his CDs at a show, but I might go (with earplugs—see yesterday’s “residual tinnitus” note) and have a good time. And hey, the guy has played CBGB, for Pete’s sake. I believe that’s more than Rosemary Caine (who had a song about the Bird Sanctuary, by the way) could claim.

We’ve gone down different paths, that’s for certain. I left the late nights, loud venues, inexplicable fans, and clothes that smelled permanently of cigarette smoke, which weren’t much to my taste to begin with. I suppose Shawn had a clearer vision of where he wanted to be than I did, which is not a surprise; he probably still does. He doesn’t want what I have, and I don’t want what he has.

Well, maybe I still want to play guitar more than I do now. Odd, that what I’d miss the most would be those callous-armored fingertips.