Other bands: Smile Empty Soul, local
Picking back up in that dark, claustrophobic van and putting frozen miles between my baby boy and I never ceased to form a granite cyst in the pit of my stomach. It usually lasted about 48 hours, sometimes less depending on how much alcohol I was able to get my hands on and how soon.
Some destinations were easier on the soul than others, but driving north to the rust belt apocalypse of Detroit at the onset of winter was like setting the controls for Conrad's heart of darkness.
The Ritz was on a span of off-highway, surrounded by derelict parking lots overrun with cracks, and like every date on this tour, we arrived in the cold and bleak corpse light of dusk.
There was a feeble humor in naming this club The Ritz. Unlike the Piccadilly hotel, its dark and smoky interior reeked of fried things. Dated sports and music memorabilia clung to the walls, overseeing crowds of pre-diabetic Americans swilling High Life and playing video poker.
We had an interview no-show, which suited us just fine. It was more time to drink. More time to count the merch one more time to give our existence the facade of purpose. More time to sit silently in the stale cigar smoke over a half-pound greasy bar burger evaluating our lives.
Action Reaction was no longer with us. The opening band was a local group of young kids who looked like they were plucked out of 1969 and spat out onto our stage. They wore hip-hugging jeans and black heeled boots. The drummer played an enormous tank of a kit and the longhaired singer carried the mic stand around the stage like a dance partner. For their age, they played a hell of a convincing rage of garage rock. They were the kind of band that could not have really existed anywhere else than Detroit.
It was strange. I felt like those kids must have looked down on us, and I secretly believed they had a right. They were doing something real, something with muscle, sweat and balls.
I wondered how my life would have been different if I'd had the brazen confidence of that 17-year-old singer when I was that age.
1 comments:
"They were doing something real, something with muscle, sweat and balls." Unfortunately, currently, "something real" means art that is tried and true without the input of originality or synthesis.
Nostalgia is real commercial success.
I argue that YOU were doing something real, playing music with integrity and originality; vacant of genre and middle-American definitions. Unfortunately integrity is not what people want.
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