Tag Archives: Memories

longarmslocker 11:07 pm on April 16, 2018
Tags: Acoustic, , , , , Lou Barlow, Magnets Coil, Memories, Mixtape, MOTO Richmond, , Sebadoh, The 90s, , Vespas   

Lou Barlow Plays Among The Vespas

How do you write down your thoughts on something that you didn’t realize you had been waiting to witness for almost twenty-five years? I’m still not sure, but I will attempt to do just that. First though, a bit of history.

At some point in the mid-90s, I was introduced to the music of Sebadoh by way of a mix tape from my friend Jenne. The song was ‘Rebound’, and while I was not really a fan of ‘lo-fi’ recordings, lead singer and songwriter Lou Barlow’s lyrics hit me like a bullet. I remember soon after hearing that first mix tape, a trip to Sam Goody at our local mall where I went with the express purpose of buying a CD EP that had acoustic versions of ‘Rebound’ and ‘Magnet’s Coil’, although I did not voice this out loud to my friends (at least I don’t think I did). Sam Goody had only one copy (in hindsight it’s remarkable they even had one copy) and one of my friends claimed it before I got there. That friend made sure that all of the acoustic tracks from that EP were included on the next mix I got from them.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, I saw Sebadoh three times in concert. Each time was very memorable (especially a 2004 show at The Khybr in Philadelphia). Each show, while memorable, never included ‘Magnet’s Coil’ in the set. I wasn’t disappointed, because those shows still rocked, but I kept hoping with each successive show that ‘maybe this time’ would be the night when I would hear a live take of ‘Magnet’s Coil.’

Fast-forward to March 2018 when Patrick posted on Facebook that he had just acquired tickets to see a solo acoustic show by Lou Barlow in Philadelphia. I had no idea Lou was touring so, after reading Patrick’s post, I saw that Lou had a Facebook page and there was a list of tour dates. Two nights after the April 9 Philly show, Lou was going to play in Richmond! I had never heard of the listed venue, but even without knowing anything else about the show, I immediately bought a ticket.

About the venue: This show was booked at ‘MOTO RICHMOND’ which is in fact a scooter store, so the backdrop for the performer was a line of Vespas along with many motorcycle/scooter accessories and lights. I can’t say enough about how great the staff were. They made sure I had a chair, although I was more than prepared to stand for the entire show. When I walked into the performance area, it wasn’t very crowded. Thankfully a few minutes before show time when I looked behind me, the room had filled to probably seventy people.

Mic? Check. Guitars? Check. Vespas???

As pre-show music blared from the PA system, Lou nonchalantly walked out dragging a suitcase of merchandise. He stowed that behind a counter at the front of the venue, then he began to set up his three guitars. By ‘set up’ I mean he took them out of their cases and leaned them against a hardback chair in a way that if someone had sneezed, they would have fallen.

‘Doesn’t he have ‘people’ to handle the merch? Doesn’t he have stands for his guitars?’ I asked myself in humorous amazement.

Just past 8:00pm Lou sat down on a stool and asked everyone else to sit down. ‘I would stand up, but you’re still not going to be able to see me unless everyone sits down.’ Since this place was a store and not built for live music, the performance area was all on one level so having everyone seated was the only way for anyone not up in the front to see the show.

After tuning his guitar, Lou surprised us by opening with ‘Cold As Ice’ by Foreigner. He followed that with a verse and a chorus of Bryan Adams’ ‘Run To You’ before he messed up, stopped abruptly and announced, ‘Okay, now I’ll play some of my songs.’

Then he started playing the intro to ‘Magnet’s Coil,’ an intro to a song I have listened to thousands of times over the last twenty-plus years.

From that point forward, the rest of the evening is a wonderful, nostalgic blur. I remember snippets of moments, and I remember telling myself ‘Don’t lose it, keep it together!’ As each song washed over me, I was filled with memories of friends that I haven’t seen in too long, hours spent talking and playing cards while these songs played in the background. Memories came fast and sharp: The night I quoted a verse from ‘Rebound’ at a Waffle House during a discussion about dating; the morning where a friend left the lyrics to ‘Magnet’s Coil’ written in ink on four sheets of folded paper in my mailbox, and the time a friend gifted me three mix CDs of Sebadoh music. As I remembered all of this and tried to take in the actual show, it all became the aforementioned wonderful, nostalgic blur as the forty-something year old me melted away to reveal the twenty-something year old me. And I was okay with that.

Here is a partial setlist from the website setlist.fm with a few additions based on my blurry memory:

April 11; MOTO Richmond

Cold As Ice

Run To You

Magnet’s Coil

Imagination Blind

Rebound

Not a Friend

Repeat

Love Intervene

Skull

Too Pure

Wave

Natural One

Ballad of Daykitty

Back to your Heart

Vampire

Brand New Love

This show had everything I could’ve asked for: An attentive audience (minus the intoxicated guy who kept asking Lou to play songs he didn’t write), Lou telling many stories about songs (especially a detailed explanation on how ‘Ballad of Daykitty’ was written) and, as the partial setlist shows, the songs that I wanted to hear, that I didn’t realize I had been waiting to hear, the songs that I needed to hear. The only thing that could’ve improved the evening was to have seen it with those friends who made me a Sebadoh fan in the first place. While that didn’t happen, I did see this show with a friend, Christi, who attended even though she had not heard a note of Sebadoh music until the ride to the show (she did know Dinosaur Jr. though and I had completely forgotten to mention that Lou was the bassist in that band when talking to her about the show). By the time the evening was over and we were walking back to the car, Christi announced that she ‘would definitely see Lou again if he returned.’ So, like my friends made me a fan in the 90s, I’ll take credit for making Christi a fan.

In closing, a quick sincere thank you to Jenne, Jesi, Patrick, Tony and Kurt for exposing me to the music of Lou Barlow and Sebadoh, and for being among those who ‘get’ why this guy is so great. You were thought of fondly on this night. Thanks to Kati for taking a friend’s advice and coming to the show literally minutes before Lou started. And special thanks to Christi for being there to share a show that I think I can safely say neither one of us will ever forget.

Thank you for reading (indulging) my attempt to describe an evening that left some sobbing, and left me truly speechless. But again, perhaps Lou sums it up best:

‘If there’s a right thing to say

I’m sure I missed it by a mile.’

–‘Too Pure

–Barry

longarmslocker 7:44 pm on July 17, 2017
Tags: Anniversary, Baseball, Dad, Escape, , Memories, Vodka   

The Great (Annual) Escape

“July, July, July! Never seemed so strange”–“July, July!” The Decemberists

 

More than any other month, July has been, throughout my life, full of milestones; there’ve been memorable events, wonderful evenings I will never forget and days I wish never happened.

 

July 17 is one of the few days I wish could be deleted from the calendar, or at least my memory. Sometimes it really sucks to have such a good memory where dates are concerned, because every year, July 17 shows up and, no matter what else is going on, for that day, or at least a large portion of it, I am an emotional wreck.

 

On Tuesday July 17, 2001 my father was killed in a single vehicle car accident in his neighborhood as he drove home from work. He had a diabetic attack behind the wheel and became disoriented, passing by his own home and driving the car to a dead end, where he lost consciousness with his foot still on the gas pedal. No one knows how long it took for the engine to overheat, catch fire and engulf the car, but I would guess the fire burned for an hour or more before the fire department was contacted. When I got a phone call that night from his second wife Kathy, I immediately thought she was calling to tell me that my grandfather had passed, as he had been in ill health. When she told me she had to tell me something about my dad, I knew it wasn’t good news; we barely spoke unless forced to in social situations, so I knew it had to be something cataclysmic for her to reach out to me.

And, cataclysmic it was.

It’s funny how I don’t remember the rest of that conversation beyond her telling me my dad was dead, agreeing to meet her in the morning to start ‘making arrangements’ and then getting off the phone. I don’t remember if I called my brother or if Kathy told me she was going to do that. What I do remember about that night as my mom made phone calls to her friends and family is that Greg Maddux pitched a complete game shutout for Atlanta against Tampa Bay. Even though I loathed interleague play (and I still do), I was thankful for baseball like never before because, in that moment, I could truly escape. I always loved baseball from a very young age, but that night, I understood how important and necessary it was as a means of escaping ‘real life.’

Every July 17 since, on that day, for those 24 hours, I am a man looking for an escape.

My relationship with my father was complicated, but it’s not an exaggeration to say every day something makes me think to myself, ‘I wonder what dad would’ve thought of that?’ That trigger is usually music or sports related, and it usually makes me smile. There is still a lot about that relationship that will forever remain unresolved, and that’s okay. He had his demons and his faults, and he handled things the best he knew how to at the time. It took me a long time to come to that realization and be at peace with it. 

I have written here before about how I didn’t speak to my father from April 12, 1996 until sometime in June of 1999. I was working in radio and he heard me on air and called me one night literally just as I was walking into my apartment, and I picked up without checking Caller ID.

That ‘chilly’ conversation broke the ice, and we eventually met for dinner a few times a year up until his death. I chose to forgive but not forget the reasons for our estrangement, so we were able to mend things as best we could. I spoke to him for the last time the Friday before his death and we agreed to meet for dinner the following Friday (July 20). Instead, that day was his wake, which meant my brother and I, along with his first wife Tara met dozens of people who knew my dad. Some I knew, some I only knew the names from conversation, but they all knew me. If you have ever been in that situation, I don’t have to tell you that it is exhausting.

That summer of 2001 was also the summer I became very well acquainted with vodka. Working in radio, coupled with emotional trauma I couldn’t really process meant I was drinking on a nightly basis for the first time in my life. It was something I knew I shouldn’t be doing, but I really didn’t care. Remember, this is before 9/11. Once that happened, it’s no wonder I quit my job in radio and when New Year’s Eve 2001 arrived, I quite unapologetically drank myself into oblivion.

I leaned on old friends and new friends to ‘get me through’ that time. Some of those friends I still talk to often, some I haven’t seen in years, but they all played a part in helping me, and I thank them for all they did.

Many years later on a July 17th afternoon, while I was in my annual emotional funk, I received news that a dear friend had passed away. That was when I began to wish that the calendar would just skip July 17th every year. As I mark the day, remembering my father and that dear friend, I know that no matter how much time passes, some wounds never heal, they simply scab over.

Whatever your own ‘July 17’ is, I hope you have an army of friends to help you through it, I hope you have an escape hatch nearby that you can use, however briefly, and I hope you know that the next day will be better.

Thank you for reading,

Barry