I may have told you about my percussionist, David Troen-Krasnow. I met Dave in my old band, Agent 13, which you may recall we discussed in your last lesson. Dave is a fine, fine musician, and he keeps “busy”, by which I mean he’s in at least two other bands in addition to playing with me, and he’s constantly looking for another one. Maybe he sleeps? Maybe.
In any case, one of the bands that Dave is in is called The Spearmint Sea – they’re kind of a Psychedelic Furs-type quartet, and I like them, because I grew up during the 70s and 80s and I like most musical genres besides opera (singing and classical music, not a fan) and country music (jingoism, bad clothing). And because I have a good deal of time on my hands and I believe in live music, I go to their gigs when I can, even though the venues are mostly ones I haven’t spent any appreciable time in since the first Bush administration.
And so, I found myself, a couple weeks ago, at the Middle East.
I used to do this. The Middle East, TT the Bear’s, the Rat, the Channel. We played them all. We endured the sticky beer floors, the cavalier approach to heating during the winter, the leather, the mohawks, the bad attitudes. It is very much its own thing, and I walked away from it without a second thought in 1993, after I got completely fed up with the preponderance of assholes. I doubt that’s changed, but an occasional visit can’t hurt, and this particular evening was memorable for at least two reasons.
The first was Looking Glass War, the band that played right before The Spearmint Sea. According to the show poster, LGW was the headliner, but did not play last, which confused me. It was this band’s first gig ever – they formed from the detritus of a number of other Boston bands, and they were very good, but the thing that mesmerized me was their lead singer, who was wearing a suit jacket without a shirt underneath, fastened by a single button. That button was like Chekhov’s gun – it was clear that he was going to unbutton it at some point during the show, and the performer in me was laying bets about how long it would be. (The answer, in case you’re wondering, was after song four, which is too late if you’ve got six-pack abs and too early if, like him, you don’t.)
The second reason was the audience. It was a good-sized crowd – the pandemic is over, apparently – but it was notable for being populated by the parents of some of the evening’s band members. Now, I remember when I was a wee sprite, with my actual hair and my rock’n’roll lifestyle, camping out in the green room with my band, waiting for our opportunity to induce deafness in our musical peers. If I were to look out into the audience, back in those days, the chances of my seeing somebody’s parents were no greater than discovering that my keyboard was made of cheese. My parents grew up listening to Bing Crosby. Not a mosh pit surfer, that man.
So there I was at the Middle East, marveling at the old people who were listening to the bands, and suddenly I realized: I’m one of those old people. My parents grew up listening to Bing Crosby; these parents grew up listening to, well, me. Every single one of these old farts was in a band. Every single one of these old farts played the Middle East. Hell, it may have been some of their vomit, preserved in the corner.
Back when we were rebels, we relied on the reassuring confidence that our parents hated our music. But now – well, how much of a rebel can you be when your parents like your band?