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When I was 20 I started a band.
A year after graduating high school (I failed 9th grade, so I graduated late - like a champion) I moved in to my first apartment. I can still remember that first night where I sat in my bedroom window smoking cigarettes and looked at all the furniture I owned - a mattress sitting on the floor, a 5 year old beat-to-hell computer desk crafted from the finest particle board $30 could buy, and a 26 inch television that I got for $15 from a pawn shop. Throw my basic ass laptop that had a piece of plastic stuck in the fan and that was everything I owned. It was everything I always wanted. A place of my own to branch out.
A couple of months later I met a guy who would become one of my best friends for a brief time. Around this same time another one of my best friends gave me a DVD titled "Let Them Know: The Story of B.Y.O. And Youth Brigade". This one DVD changed my entire life. I watched it over and over and over. I then called my new acquaintance and asked him if he wanted to start a punk band. He said yes and we got hard at work figuring out a name, because, you know, priorities.
To be honest, we never figured out a name, we just kind of settled on one. After throwing ridiculous bullshit names back and forth like "Battlefield" and "Tommy Pickle's Pacifier" (we ran out of ideas and just got stupid with it) I blurted out "Murdered In A Record Shop" which got a resounding "yeah, sure".
That original guitarist would be fired before we played our first show, but that opened up the door to the guy who is now one of my favorite people on this planet. He and I have been making tunes together ever since.
That band will be celebrating its 10 year anniversary next month.
It's so fucking wild to think that it has been 10 years. All the shows, all the beer, all the music, all the arguments, all the fucking band members and tryouts (so many....I hate drummers), all the headaches, all the merch. Just, all of it. It's enough to make a guy existential as fuck.
I'm proud of us. I'm proud of the shows we've played and the music we've made. Hell, our very first show (which we fucking sucked during) we opened for a band I love called Blitzkid on their farewell tour. I found irony in that we were just starting while they were calling it quits, and I find it still ironic that we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary and Blitzkid has reformed and are now doing shows again. Our very next show, maybe a month later, was opening for one of my top 10 favorite bands Teenage Bottlerocket. You don't know nervous like trying to keep from geeking out at your favorite band while sitting in the green room backstage talking about dumb band shit. Such a wonderful show.
We kept playing for years. But, a few years ago we fired who was our then-third drummer due to being a fucking pain in the ass all the time. We had effectively jammed with about 10 different drummers and only held on to two for any measurable length of time. The cycle of "this guy has no rhythm" and "this guy doesn't grasp structure" and "this guy plays metal" was tiring. Me and my drop-dead sexy hetero life partner/guitarist decided to say "fuck drummers" and just became a "studio band" which is exactly what we needed to become. We were burnt out on the scene and trying out new members so we just said fuck it and packed up our full-stacks for good.
Well, now that we are at the ten-year mark we will be playing our very first "show" in five years. We're doing an acoustic stream playing some originals and some covers. I'm super excited for this, but a bit nervous because it's been so long since I've played in front of people.
At any rate, I'm stoked that I can celebrate this milestone with one of my favorite humans and it's going to be hella fun. Btw, I'm bringing "hella" back. You're welcome.
Ten years is a long time, and a lot has happened, but it has always been a great time and I'll treasure those memories to my grave.
Comments
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benny // whalefall
this is really cool, dude. i'm happy for you
cyberangel
10 years is a long time! Thank you for sharing such a cool story with the world :D
Let us know how we can listen in on the show!