In Absentia.

Sorry guys, the candles can wait.
I need this day to my self to quietly take care of a few things around the house. I need to sit in total silence and maybe play with our dog, Jackson. i need to walk to 7-11 and return the movie I rented last night. I may buy a Slurpee. I want to open the windows for a while until the rain comes. I want to make some dinner for Terri and the baby. I want to go through some of the recordings I have made through the years to see if I have enough stuff to make an album.

I'm going to call in a little after noon today. I am feeling the anxiety of 'doing something i shouldn't,' but then realizing that I am a grown man and have the choice.

I was going through a bunch of stuff on Saturday in my basement.

It is where I found the four track tapes I mentioned before. Two of the tapes I found were live recordings of the band MARCONI BEACH that I was in with Jon Bartlett of powerblessings and Jack Brown of The Advocate(he does movie reviews) and what ever that gypsy music thing he plays in is called. I see him around The Motherland walking his beagle all the time. You may remember MARCONI BEACH or not.
We were pretty good.
I had not visited these sounds in years and they took me back to when I moved back here from Boston in 1999.

The tapes I listened to are from the early and later incarnations from when Alex left for Seattle and John T. came in on drums.
I was imbibing at Hugo's one night a long time ago and during a conversation a young lady mentioned a band from the area that was considered 'Northampton's version of The Clash' which was very humbling. We even covered the song 'police and thieves' by the aforementioned band when we played our first show at a loft above Fresh Pasta.

I remember the bass line of the song was hard to get a wrap around but when it did, it sounded great.

These were very simple times. Long nights talking at John T. the drummers apartment, skating at Smith, sharing a table with strangers who became friends in the smoky air of Hugo's.

We would play shows at The Baystate, Northampton Bowl, Mystery Train and the old Flywheel.

We would play with bands like Pop*A*Wheelie, The Strippers, Surgeon's Photograph, Claudia Malibu, The Coopers The Inskirts and The Figments.

I remember playing at the old Mystery Train records and saying, 'were are we going to play?'
And someone saying, 'right where those huge,heavy record bins are.'

To which i replied,' who's going to move them for us?'

'We are, why?'

But the show was amazing.

I remember when we slowed one of our songs down and it really came into it's own. We all had that 'a-ha!' moment.

I remember John T. kicking my butt every time we played The Wu-Tang clan video game.

I remember how great it was playing at The Northampton Bowl and how spacious the room was.

I remember when we played The NMF at six o'clock at night while it was still light out.

I remember eating and clowning around with the guys at The Blue Bonnet before we'd play in John's living room at eleven a.m.

I remember practicing behind Thorne's when we were getting our sound together and some homeless maniac wanting to jam with the band on his harmonica.

I remember our fifth member-but not his name-and how he would add all of these crazy sounds to the bottom of our music.

I remember how great it was to be a part of something and to play in a band with my best friend in the world years after we had been in our first band together.

I remember the craziness of recording our demo at the old Slaughterhouse. It was funny going back to the Slaughterhouse in 2007 to record a video as a zombie and to see it was in some way, still a huge part of what happened around here.

I remember our last show at the Flywheel and how cold it was outside and when we packed everything up, it was over.

This was a grand chapter in my life and i'm so grateful to have been a part of it. I am happy that I was around The Happy Valley for the lean times of music in th late '90's. We were all that each other had and any band-even if they had completely different sounds-would share a stage and laughter.

And there was a lot of laughter.

photo: Acroprint model 125 time clock. Courtesy of J.D.Honigberg International Inc.

Oh, and by the way: Pop*A*Wheelie was one of the most underrated bands ever.