If you've ever been in a band before, you've probably plastered at least a portion of a wall inside your memory bank with posters depicting the rock and roll dreams of your youth. What you remember happening versus what actually happened might not entirely match up 100%, but no one can argue the fact that the bright lights, the flashed titties, and the face melting guitar solos somehow made you who you are.
Granted, you wouldn't have those memories without a supporting cast, and even though you might've been more of a supporting cast member than a lead role, you made something fucking awesome once upon a time. But you made that something awesome with people who were gracious enough to allow you the privilege of creating alongside them.
The people you have made or make music with hold a special place in your asshole heart whether you like it or not. Regardless of your current gripes or former animosities, present relationships or previous intoxicated experiences, they're an infinite part of your life.
I can still remember some of the people I made music with when I was fucking 14 years old. My parents dropped me off at some other parent's house with my guitar and shitty amp. I'd run into the opened garage, the garage would close, and that garage was where an hour out of tune jam felt like a month in the fucking studio. Sure, in that confined oil stained space I was making myself deaf, playing the same simple bar chords over and over, and the lyrics the "singer" was "singing" didn't stray much past the adolescent angst we didn't really have, but that was my everything at the time. Faux angst and everything Peavey.
All I ever really wanted was to make noise.
When you're one of those guys scrawling the names of bands you love on your trapper keeper instead of collecting baseball cards and going to some sports practice, you can easily spot someone else with the same obsession. You quickly form these little cliques with the only real connection being your disconnection from anything but wanting to either make that noise or listen to that noise, and somehow you end up forming these adorable little rock bands through these cute little pods of rebellion.
Having been in and gigged with over a dozen bands in my lifetime, I have trusted the members of those bands in a way I don't trust regular friends, family or acquaintances. With these assholes, I have to trust them with making me sound better than I actually am. I have to put my entire fucking all into something and blindly trust people who have no other vested interest in me other than I'm going to put all that fucking all into trusting them completely. Sure, it's like a football team, but in this story you get to try to achieve something you can't just win or lose, there is no final score. If you're extremely lucky and mature enough to be open to it, you can reach a level of goddamn motherfucking enlightenment or holyshit awareness that will fucking change you. (I remember the exact moment I felt that the first time (it was on Hardin Avenue in Aurora, IL in like 1996 in Ben's basement). I remember the people that helped me get there because I still get fucking weepy thinking about it, because that changed me.)
I'm not fucking god's gift to the rock and rolls, but on a handful of occasions, these delicious people have allowed me the distinct pleasure of feeling like I was. As corny as it sounds, I consider these assholes sort of like the structural pillars of my history as a human. Without em, I'm just a guy who can play a few chords and noodle on three scales and act like I know what the fuck I'm doing. But seeing as how my history is because of these assholes, I've got a van load of stories only half of you would believe, I've made music in a lot of cool motherfucking places, and I've had the pleasure of feeling something not many have.
Well I found out today on the golf course that I lost my drummer from three or four bands ago.
I haven't talked to him on the phone in a while. I haven't messaged him on facebook since he wished me a happy birthday last November. Ain't seen him in person in a few years. But he is a part of my history and I love him and I would never want anything even remotely painful to happen to him and I fucking hurt. One of my fucking pillars is knocked the fuck over and I don't even know if I'm more angry than sad. One of my friends, shit, your friends, one of our fucking friends is dead and we loved the dude.
I don't want to stop looking for the feeling I felt that one time with my guitar in some basement, but the world just lost a guy who has skillfully assisted so many other musicians in trying to touch that feeling, and I think we should all get the fuck in here for a group hug before I cry onto my macbook or some shit. I don't know.
Fuck.
I see a few people I've been in bands with around my little enclave of freshly spread manure and alternating soy and corn fields in bumfuck Illinois quite often, and while we might only be saying hi from the gym or in the parking lot of the daycare where we both happen to drop our kids, I know I can trust the guys. I know they I know that I know they know we know how fucking awesome that unexplainable thing we created together is. That means something somehow.
I guess.
Jeff, Squeak, wherever ye may be, fuck you. I love you. You fucker.