Sometimes it's ok to start a band and not want to be bigger than Jesus.
Sometimes it's ok to play music without any message or greater aspiration than to feel the unbridled and simple joy of making a hell of a lot of noise.
Such is - and, about 36 hours from now, will have been - the case with Straight Whiskey Black Coffee, a dumb-as-rocks punk band started six years ago in a living room in Fredonia, NY, and which was never meant to last longer than the end of the college semester.
We were all right. Haggus, our drummer, kept a beat most of the time, but a meth-addled orangutan could have played better fills. I played bass - and still do - like an idiot crab made of thumbs. Travis had no idea how to play guitar. He wasn't much of a singer either, but he was the best of all of us, and he got the job. Our best reviews came when he broke a string and had no backup, so he just started punching people. Or when he wrecked his amp and had no backup, so he just started punching people.
Our first show was a disaster. We weren't ready. We started songs at different points, jumped into choruses that didn't exist or verses that belonged to other songs entirely, and addressed the crowd with weird, jittery banter, like, "sorry, guys, we'll be out of your neck in a minute." Cross-armed and stock-still, they were clearly not feeling us. At one point, I said something like, "I want to see you fucking dance!" To which one replied, "play better music!"
Touché.
According to friends at the show, the best moment came when Travis blew the bass amp he was running his guitar through. That, at least, made the noise less shrill.
So we went back to the living room, practiced, retooled our set, and, by the third gig, we'd hit our stride. The one when Travis snapped a string and punched a kid's glasses off. I'll never forget looking up from my fretboard (because I'm a mediocre bassist and I only stare at my fretboard) to see Travis sock this straight edge dude with thick-rimmed glasses straight in the face. Dude stopped dancing, picked his glasses up from the floor and then stood, wide-eyed, mouth agape, with two halves in either hand. Just when I thought dude was ready to throw down with our singer, his his face curled into the biggest goddamn grin I've ever seen on a perma-sober victim of assault. "That was awesome!" he screamed, and danced on.
Even though we weren't headlining it, that guy later made a point to come to our (supposed) final show - in the basement of 99 Custer Street - a ring of tape bridging the crack in his glasses.
Not bigger than Jesus, but it was about half an hour's drive for him.
That was something.
* * *
This Saturday will be our for-real final show. We've been trying to get the band back together, as nostalgic never-has-beens often do. We had an ok run. But it's time to put this one to rest. This will be our last chance to make it big before Haggus moves across the country, Travis continues his big boy job five hours too far away for a godawful punk band, and I - well, I don't know. I'm thinking of starting an experimental noise project. Crabthumb, maybe? If any of you know an ape with a meth habit, sent it my way. I need a drummer.
Any talent scouts in the audience are sure to pick us up. If that's the case, I'll see you losers later. Buffalo, the West Side smells like farts after it rains and the Bills and Sabres suck. "Anonymous," your comments are generally snide, unhelpful, and pissy, and I never wanted you to read my posts anyway. Mac, you're a tool. I never liked you.
But even if Straight Whiskey Black Coffee don't break out before we break up, I won't be that disappointed. For one, I've got Crabthumb. And a lucrative music blogging career (right, Mac?) And, in the end, we've done exactly what we'd set out to do: start a band, play a few shows, and create a thing that, at least in the lives of a few of us godless heathens, was bigger than Jesus.
That's something.
Besides, we can't all be Lemuria.
P.S. I doubt very much that anyone reading this will want to trek out to the sticks (an hour and a half from Buffalo) for what really is just a filthy basement show. First of all, you'll all be at Duke's for buffaBLOG's summer bash, which promises to be the best damn party going that night (right, Mac?) Second of all, these basement shows exist in a legal gray area and, though this particular venue has never been shut down, we'd like to keep it invite-only to better our chances. If, for whatever reason, you're dying to come, you can email me, josh@buffablog.com, for directions. Otherwise, watch this column for drunken recollections and/or public apologies.
Go Bills.
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