Thursday, September 22, 2011

RIP

In what I’m guessing was about 2004, my band was on tour with our friends in Hot Water Music. Our roadie for this tour was one of my best friends, wealthy international playboy Sean Nader. The entire tour was a massive whirlwind of great times, and a lot of the shows were absolutely spectacular. One show that shit the bed, however, was in Athens, Ga. at the legendary 40 Watt club.

For those of you who don’t know, essentially the entire reason you know of Athens as an arty little liberal enclave in the middle of a hugely conservative state were because of a few pioneering bands that came out right around 1980 and received a lot of international attention after getting their start playing at the 40 Watt club. It’s a cool place. It’s big for a club and it’s HUGE when the promoter has dropped the ball and no one knows that Hot Water Music and the Lawrence Arms are showing up and as a result only about 30 people come to the show.

Okay, so you get the idea, right? We’re at the 40 Watt in Athens. We can tell we’re in for a rough night. We have seen the presales and we are witnessing the emptiness unfold before us. Jason Black of Hot Water Music is turning red and freaking out. He’s going into cardiac arrest. He’s talking really fast and nervously laughing about how the show’s gonna bomb. Everyone feels it. It just happens sometimes to smaller bands. Regardless of how dedicated of a fanbase you have, sometimes shows slip through the cracks and you end up sitting there backstage looking out at six weirdos just going “Really? This is what I’ve dedicated my life to? This is the worst. This is the actual manifestation of what my parents’ friends must imagine my life to be like when they ask me at cocktail parties if my band actually plays shows in clubs or if we just set up on the street. Time to go to electrician school. Sigh.”

So anyway, Nader and I bailed and went to a bar where we decided to do a bunch of whiskey shots and drink a lot of beers. We found ourselves wasted before we knew it and right around the time that shit started getting kind of sideways, Nader looked at the clock and said, “dude, we gotta get back. You go on in about ten minutes.”

We stagger out into the afternoon dusk of Athens and first thing we see is an old black guy in an amazing brown and yellow suit. He had that air of being impeccably dressed that somehow didn’t preclude the notion that he may ask for some spare change, and in fact, that’s exactly what he did. When we mentioned that we didn’t have any change, he asked Nader for a smoke, which Nader happily gave to him.

Then he said “hey, you all goin to the 40 Watt? Yeah? You working there? Man, lemme tell you guys a story…”

We were in a hurry, but we weren’t going anywhere. The guy pulled out a little flask and took a sip.

“One day I was out here just hangin out like I am right now, and this dude came running out of the 40 Watt club. He was panicking. He said ‘oh man, I need a guitar! I got a show, I’m in trouble!’ So I said, hold up, I got a guitar back at my house. I ran back, got him my guitar and brought it back to the guy and he ran inside and played. Afterwards he came out and hugged me and said it was the best guitar he ever played.”

The old guy paused and took a drag of his cigarette. His eyes got wide and when he next spoke it was in a near whisper.

“and that man’s name…was R.E.M.”

It was awesome. We high fived the guy and then went back and played a sloppy show to no one. Now REM is dead. I don’t believe it. I bet there are some teary eyes in Athens this morning.

I’m going to Colorado right now. See you fucks later.

16 comments:

jbody said...

michael stipe nudes leaked.apparently we can indeed see him naked.boom!
nightswimming joke yall..hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

BEEXtrix Potter said...

Awww cmon B, "I fart in your general direction" is something in my experience said by hipsturr gurls when they've been utterly bested in an argument or debate and have nothing left to fall back on but pure spite disguised as playful cattiness. It wasn't even funny when monty python used it

Christopher said...

Colorado? Dude, are you gonna test out any of the new tunes in front of a crowd? You should play a show in denver while you're out here.

Dissent said...

BSC definitely needs more tour/HWM stories.

Ben said...

YO..WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY DVD YOU BASTARD COCK LICKER. ITS BEEN 2 FUCKING YEARS! MOST EDITORS CAN TAKE A WATERY FART AND MAKE IT SOUND LIKE ELVIS. THERES NO WAY THAT YOUR SHITTY VOCALS CAN BE THE CAUSE OF THIS DELAY. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE HOLD UP?

jbody said...

come on the blog holds up and im interested in the solo shit but you really want to hear some LAAAAAARY arms songs played pre beexs obligatory earlyish 30s 17 pound weight loss?NNNNAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOO LLLLAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jayzilla said...

everybody hurts

BEEXtrix Potter said...

Brendan next time some kindly ol street urchin with a flashy suit come atchu with some bullshit bout comin to michael stipe's aid back in the day n shit, you GET IN DAT ASS BRENDAN. You GET in dat ASS. Open 'is asshole up, step into dey asshole, close it behind you. Spraypaint BRENDAN. WAS. HERE...WASH ME...aaaaall that shit. Eassum snickerz barz, throw da wrappers on the floor, take out a newspaper n relax, crumple up the newspaper n throw the crumpled newspaper on the floor...fuck his whole asshole up. Leave that mothafucka wiiiiide open, so everyone know you was there

Robb said...

Bren has there a recent Zeitgeist turn re: REM that prompted that tweet? I really have no idea. Someone die? If folks are in fact suddenly feigning acute interest in REM then that is indeed annoying.
Oh, what Benny said. Hehehehehe.
But seriously what the fuck. I know you're not the proper target for that negative energy but its not like 'crankstrap productions' (...) has a blog or tweety. Least I hope not. 'Magine that thing.
"Dont eat the new taco bell conchito wrap 'less you're in the mood to fat all DAY, yall" etc

Robb said...

'conchito' spanish slang for little cunt? Swear I didnt know that before. Maybe subconsciously. Just beautiful

Robb said...

Perhaps not - person who wrote the urban dictionary entry appears to be a fucking retard. Inconclusive

Anonymous said...

in fact, it's "conchita" with an A, and yes, it means little vagina.
beautiful word indeed.

Anonymous said...

"que rica conchita"
you hear that a lot around here in argentina, mostly from disgustingly old creeps towards school teen girls.

Anonymous said...

we also have the best sounding word for penis, ready?

PORONGA

say that aloud, many times, you should also tweet it, the world needs to know.

Mi_73 said...

Hi everyone; i´ve been reading this blog for years but i never got to write over here. I´m Miguel, from Spain. I recall that 2004 Fat Tour with The Lawrence Arms, Hot Water Music, Rise Against and some other bands. It was HUGE. By that time i was 17 o 18, and it was one of my first shows ever, and still one of my favourites.

About the "conchita" thing... as Toto said, it sounds really south-american-Spanish, which is great, but they hava a lot of different words than we have over here. I knew the meaning of it, but you never get to hear that over here. What i never ever heard before was the Poronga thing, hahahah. Sounds beautiful lol.

Robb said...

Thanks for the confirmation studmuffinz. Yeah there seems to be no global shortage of excellent cock euphemisms. A European dude on here shared a really good one awhile back, can't remember. It's there in the ol archives