12:28 p.m. - 2009-04-22
These Kids Today
It's not within the Stevergo purview to impugn or malign the character of other people, no matter their untoward behavior or lack of consideration for others. No, Stevergo won't be disparaging Maria Taylor and her band as a bunch of snotty little arrogant rich kid fucks who think they're rock stars and are therefore entitled to treat people like dirt. Stevergo won't be criticising their performance as a bunch of nineteen-year-old emo posturing wrapped around some seriously dull, by-the-numbers songwriting.
No, Stevergo is all about presenting the facts and letting the reader draw her or his own conclusions. And here they are:
Oftentimes when we show up at the High Noon for Tuesday night Gomeroke, there is a band playing before us during the Happy Hour interval. Last night was such a night. I arrived at around ten to nine (we normally begin at nine-thirty) and lucked into a great parking spot. I ambled inside, greeted Swampy D and Tom and stood around for a couple minutes, listening to the band. They appeared to be nineteen years old, and earnest. The lead singer was a young woman, skinny and fairly attractive, while the drummer, bassist, lead guitarist and keyboardist were interchageable young men with hair, facial hair and clothes. And possibly glasses. They looked like they had met in one of their ILS classes at Hampshire College and decided to start a band. The Hampshire college part was speculation, since no one knew where they were from. For some reason, I imagined them being from Long Island, but if you asked them they would say New York City. Again, just speculation based on my immediate impression. The High Noon wasn't anywhere near full, but they did appear to have a following. There were maybe sixty-to-eighty enthusiastic audience members.
It's not unusual for the earlier acts, especially if they're from out of town, to go a little bit late, causing us to start a little late. This isn't a big deal, and we Gomers are pretty good at waiting patiently. The thing that's kind of annoying is when the early act is wrapping up and someone in the crowd yells, "Play some more!", and the person on stage with the mic says, "We'd like to, but there's another band." Now it's as though we, the "other band", are capriciously shortening their performance instead of just waiting around to start at something close to our scheduled time. Worse, mention of "another band" always elicits boos; we're getting booed before we even play, JUST FOR SHOWING UP.
So we waited around while Maria Taylor wrapped up, and to their credit, they vacated the stage in a pretty timely manner, which isn't always the case. I set up my drums in the usual manner, and avoided the green room, which tends to be really cluttered and crowded when there are bands from out of town. For this reason, I had no personal contact whatsoever with Maria Taylor's band, so I really couldn't say with any authority whether they're a bunch of entitled asshole trustafarians or not.
We began our first set a little behind schedule and focused on the business at hand: rock. Bringing the rock to every singer who would brave our stage, indiscriminately and always to the best of our collective abilities. It's rewarding and extremely hard work. Harder work than usual this set, for me at least. I realized I was sweating more profusely than usual, owing to the fact that I had forgotten to set up my on-stage fan, which I keep in the green room, which I had earlier avoided. During set break, I sought to remedy this.
By this time the earlier band had cleared out. Since I had had no personal contact with Maria Taylor and her band, I couldn't say with any authority whether they eat like a bunch of retarded monkeys on speed. But the evidence of the state of the green room would tend to support such a conclusion: discarded food, food remnants, food containers and spilled drinks seemingly covered every surface. There's a trash receptacle in the green room, but it's apparently invisible to rock stars. I reached into the little compartment at the base of the coffee table where my fan resides. Curiously, there was a shoe inside. Normally the contents of the compartment are my fan, a sudoku booklet and several discarded drumsticks, but no shoe. Perhaps Dave, one of the Gomers' more shoeless members, had put it there for safekeeping. I plugged my fan in onstage and forgot about it. In the green room there was talk amongst we Gomers about what kind of assholes could be so inconsiderate; perhaps they don't even know how to clean up after themselves because their nannies have always done so; it turns out they're from LA so that could explain a lot. Steve dutifully tidied up and in doing so noticed several new, individually wrapped cheeses. Each cheese had been torn open on one side but not eaten, apparently to contaminate and waste the cheese that the Maria Taylor band had insisted that the promoter provide. I can only guess at their motives, but I think when you're a rock star you're supposed to make a lot of frivolous demands and then leave a big mess that some lowly non-rock star will have to clean up. I think that's how it works with rock stars, and also three-year-olds.
After break, we played a solid, sturdy second set: singers sang, we played, Gordon helped me with cues, I tried my best not to fuck up the singers or the rest of the band. We promoted community and goodwill and recommended that patrons tip the bartender.
After we finished playing, we packed up our equipment, as is our custom. While putting my fan back, I again noted the shoe in the fan compartment. I asked Dave if it was his. It was, but, oddly, Dave had not placed it there. Also, oddly, the other shoe was nowhere to be found. NOW, I can't say with complete certainty that Maria Taylor and her band are a hostile, juvenile, and especially witless crowd of spoiled little stupid fucking brats. BUT, SOMEONE hid Dave's shoes, which were sitting in the green room, which, during our first set was briefly occupied only by Maria Taylor and her band.
It was the end of the night, nearly bar time, and Dave had one shoe. After several minutes of scouring every surface, nook and cranny, Dave's other shoe was finally found...in the trash can in the green room! So it turns out that trash receptacles aren't INVISIBLE to rock stars. It just turns out they're not for cleaning up after yourself, but for stuffing with OTHER PEOPLE'S BELONGINGS! While I'm loathe to accuse people I've never met personally of being a pack of mean, soulless emotional retards, all circumstances point to Maria Taylor and her band, working in concert or individually, throwing Dave's shoe in the trash. Dave was understandably upset.
Ultimately, though, I think we were all able to maintain perspective. Most of the human interaction we enjoy, individually or together as a band, is overwhelmingly positive. The occasional encounter with assholes (which Maria Taylor and her band MAY OR MAY NOT BE), by way of contrast, can serve to reinforce all the positive experiences.
So thank you, Maria Taylor and her band, for showing us the way! Enjoy the rest of your tour, and upon your return to LA, please consider staying the fuck there. I have a hunch it's exactly where you belong.
