Life as a Washed-Up Ex-Eff Beeeeeee

"Oh, I thought you guys had broken up like two years ago," said the friend of the girlfriend of my ex-roommate, riding the Blue Line en route to work, coffees in hands, I-Pods in ears, en route to work in the city.

When you get a guitar thrown at your head on the small stage of the Mutiny for the crime of standing up from behind your drums and trying to lead the audience in a show of handclap solidarity, you realize that a. this band you've been in for 5 1/2 years is no fun anymore, b. the differences between you and the bridge-burning guitarist transcend mere "musical differences," and c. there's more to life than stupid punk rock music nobody likes anyway outside of a self-contained little secret club of a clique treating music like Star Wars Action figures preserved in boxes for future e-bay sells.

The record mogul (also pissed because he thought I ruined the musical careers of The Worst for sitting in on guitar with them that same night) tells me they will license our "work" and that he thinks we have a good shot of making lots of money in commericals. He also is deluded enough to believe anybody will give a damn about the band in two years, five years, even thirty years. We're not a long-term investment. We were junk bonds from the beginning, and if there's any future for our records, it will be in the thrift-store bins of 2010, right next to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and Nancy Wilson. All I now is that I have no faith or hope of seeing a nickel from the thousands of dollars I spent on it, on vans, drumsets, gas, etc., and definitely not from some fucking commerical. Please.

I don't really think about it or even miss it. To be honest, I'm glad to be rid of it, of all of it. I have no real regrets; we did everything I ever wanted to do with it, and anything more would have become (ugh) a career. Most of it was fun, but the first 2 years were way more fun than the last 3 1/2, and after those first two years (especially after Nervous left), the fun slowly deteriorated to that sad band of drunks some of you saw at the Mutiny, and nevermind if it was the best, most receptive show we had done in a long long time. The whole thing felt like a chore. For sanity's sake and the perservation of making the good music, I wish I could say that said players were really just nice guys once you got to know them, and that their stupid thug behavior was really just an act, but sadly, it wasn't, and why the guy with the most to lose from ending this would destroy it so thoughtlessly is a question for somebody much smarter (preferably with experience in psychoanalysis) than me to answer.

So now I work a lot and don't go out all that much and when I do it's not places where I'll be recognized by anyone, especially anyone familiar w/ the band in any way. I watch Bears games on Sundays with old Florida friends. I go to work and get paid. Haven't done a talkshow since May. Resgined as columnist from T.B. Listen to nothing but "Hot Stuff" by the Stones and "(You Got) The Gamma Goochee" by Gamma Goochee Himself. Entertain thoughts of starting a band that would just be nothing but fun/funny/dancy (getting people to dance again at shows instead of standing their thinking of pithy comments to make to your friends) and thoroughly disinterested in all the crap that destroyed the fun of the FB's circa 01-03. Hang out with Sarabird and avoid beer.

For right now, I'm the dude Biafra addressed in "Life Sentence," and I like it. Most of the people who "stay a child and keep [their] self-respect," i.e. old punx, make me think of the guys in high school who were still in Boy Scouts. The thoughts then were "Dude, most kids were smart enough to give that shit up after Weeblos, and you're still doing this. Dressed like that?" There's a correlation here.

It's time to move on, and where that is, I don't know yet, but it's the right direction and, unlike the band, it's not floundering according to the spasms and tantrums of a puking musical combo. I accomplished what I wanted here, and had a lot of great times in the process, but it's done. D-O-N-E. The drums sit in my living room in six pieces with a mailbasket full of hardware, and that's where they will sit until it feels right to do something else. (Unsurprisingly, it's not like anybody's beating down my door for me to play drums for them.) That's all I know for now.

Newthing at Newport--err, I mean--Scenes from the 25th Anniversary Touch and Go Concert

I'm going to start this piece of Touch and Go 25th Anniversary Reportage (yeah, that's what it is--reportage) at the end--or, what was for me, the end of my afternoon and evening at the Hideout.

When Big Black took the stage, I looked around at the thousands upon thousands of fellow concertgoers. I witnessed perhaps the ultimate in 21st Century tableau: a glow like pinpricks of starlight, only it wasn't upraised lighters like they used to do at REO Speedwagon concerts and such--it was upraised cel phones--the nanny nanny boo boo in your face of indie rockers calling indie-rockers who didn't get their tickets in time. For a generation so sensitive to Ironic Displays of Rock Action (and nevermind how much the word "irony" was grossly misused by these types), I doubt more than five people witnessing Big Black in the Streets and San parking lot across from the Hideout even realized it.

(I went 0 for 3 in my guesses as to what songs B.B. would play--my guesses "Jordan, Minnesota," "Passing Complexion," and "Bad Penny." I was also 0 for 3 for what the Stones would play at the Super Bowl, holding out hope they would play "Sway," "10,000 LIghtyears from Home," and "Turd on the Run," ignoring common showbiz acumen for what my heartmind wanted.)

The only way I can get this right--at least in my own mind--is to record it as a series of snapshots--totally at random--because I can't quite do this sequentially. Here's why (and this didn't happen first):

During: $20 for 5 beer tickets. As luck would have it, one of my former students was a volunteer at the beer ticket tent. He was a good writer, and we had once discussed the finer points of "London Calling" at George's when the semester ended. I give him the money, and he lowers the tickets and says, "Here," handing me 10 tickets. For two seconds, I'm confused, but then it hits me--I'm actually getting hooked up at this thing. Alright/Oh no! Ten beers.

Before That: $40. Fast cash. C'mon, Chase Bank. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes, and by new pair of shoes, I mean money to drink and eat for just today. Nobody's in the little ATM room near the corner of Damen and Divison. I rub the tan piece of plastic above the machine for good luck. The tapes hiss; the computers access my account. It's a nine-month pregnant pause. I might not have the money, because, like an ass, I have a habit of using ATMs with "convenience" fees. Just be my friend today, ATM. Spit out the money, and I'll never bother you like this again. Please. Please. Please. (In this unknown moment, I never feel more 2006 American.)
The machine's money door opens and whirrs. I exhale. I take the money, take the card, and catch the Division bus, walking the rest of the way down Elston.

Later on: How I get "caught up" with Spat of Tampa: Haven't seen the dude in many years. "Hey dude, heard that podcast interview you were on with your band.....I got in yesterday....oh hey, I gotta go--that's [some terribly important indie-personage] over there...I'll talk to you later..." (Punctuates all this with an Isaac the Bartender point.)

At some point: "You know Chris Campisi?!?" says the Chicago garage rock label head woman, the Chicago garage rock label without the charming British accent. I say "I do," smiling, buzzed and forgetting that this same woman went to great lengths to write about every single thing I've ever done wrong to anybody on a message board over some joke I had made involving a button that read "I LOVE ROLLIE ST. BACON." (Unbeknownst to me, this woman had copyrighted this joke, and again unbeknownst (is that even a word? "unbeknownst?") to me, the original button wasn't a joke after all. Chris's band passed through Chicago in the early 90's and that's how they had met. The "small world" of this situation has me amused, for sure. This non-British garage rock label head wants to be friends again, in spite of this post that climaxed in a very dramatic "FUCK ROLLIE ST. BACON." Today, reunited with old friends, and seeing practically everybody I had ever known in Chicago since 1997, I'm too happy to care either way.

Later: Sally Timms finished playing and we were waiting for Scratch Acid. The crowd was filling up, and like me, they were filling out too, and many were even graying up, bulging out their old circa '95 concert tee for whatever T&G band they were especially there to see.
At shows, after a few beers, I like to yell. The sillier the yell, the better. Silly yells, in fact, was one of the things that endeared me to my girlfriend when we met. So, bored and kind've annoyed with the aging hipster (of which I'm only kind've one...) standaround snootiness of the audience, I yelled out, "INDEPENDENT! ROCKNROLL! ALL RIGHT!!!!"
Nuthin'. My friends laughed. A couple strangers smirked. That's it. So, I tried again:
"ALL! RIGHT! PAAAAAVE! MENT!!!!!"
No cheers. No laughs. I pretend to be uncomfortable with myself by pulling out my collar, Rodney Dangerfield-style. I pullout an old favorite of mine for yelling:
"LET'S GET A PIZZA! YEAH!"
Nothing. Too damn cool, and too damn annoyed with my obnoxious crap. I milked it further, even though my friends now are no longer finding this funny. I turned around and stared at people, trying to get a "MALK! MUS! MALK! MUS!" chant going.
Nothing. Of course. Even with thousands of people, Chicago can be a black hole of indie-rock anti-matter...and surely, the desire to messaround played a big role in falling in with the HoZac hedonists.

Before That: The Didjits. They didn't play "Dad," but besides that, they were pretty damn perfect. Out of the loop anymore, I didn't know they played The Mutiny earlier in the week until it was too late. In fact, the whole show had this feel of the Newport Folk Festival when they trot out the Museum Pieces from the Original Scene who everybody missed out on the first time because they were too busy doting over A Flock of Seagulls or whatever...these weren't, after all, bands accustomed to playing for thousands of people in an outdoor setting. The Didjits, with Rick Sims's arena rock antics, were the most ideally suited for these kinds of numbers. For me, the music holds up--much better, in fact, than all the "ahead of their time" 90's post-whatever explorations. Lots of "Hey Judester" and "Full Nelson Reilly" Prime Cuts. Songs I hadn't heard since leaving Florida. Ryan says he's now writing musicals about "Antigone." Anybody heard about this? I haven't--but it's time to dig out or repurchase the Didjits' records...uh-fuckin'-huh.

Earlier: I blamed the thick gray clouds in the sky on all the Gen-X shittalk. Wocka. Wocka. Wocka.

Later: For some reason, Killings found this funny. I was wearing an orange 3-day pass bracelet, an over-21 bracelet, and my watch. "Look at all that jewlery around your wrists," he said, walking by. "I wear this cause I'm in a garage rock band and I gotta look good!" I slurred. Killings laughed at this. I don't know why. It's not that funny. Or, maybe it is funny, especially because I wouldn't be in a garage rock band 3 days later.

Earlier: Uzeda. I thought about Touch and Go. I thought about their handshake deals, and their 50/50 split of the profits, and how they've proven that this can work. I thought about the labels we've dealt with and how they don't really model it this way. I wondered if, say, our band actually sold a decent amount of records (just for the sake of argument, you understand), would I even see a penny? I doubted it. Maybe it's my own paranoia; maybe it's a gut-feeling of distrust I can't shake. I felt played, like a Negro drummer circa 1940 brought in between drinking binges to lay down tracks for some obscure blues record (obscure, the moment it was cut, in fact) that others would steal, and steal, and steal again. Deluded? Probably. Nervous? Kinda. Exhausted? Most definitely. No fun, and when something you're supposed to be doing for fun feels like a chore, it's time to find something better to do with your free time. You can always go back to it when it starts to feel like fun again, and in the case of the FB's, that won't happen for me until the big Criminal IQ 25th Anniversary Show in 2027, if even then, and who cares, because a. there won't be a CIQ 25th Anniversary, and b. who's going to live that long???