14 May 2000 ~ Meeting the band...

I never met a band. My claims to fame are as follows:

*I once slept with a guy who got beat up by L.L. Cool J.

*I once got close enough to Tori Amos to take her picture, but somebody's hand is in the way of her face, and unless you're told it's Tori, you'd have no clue why I didn't just chuck such a bad picture.

*I once got very, very close to Audra McDonald. Peter and Tommy talked to her. I was too shy and just sort of gaped. She isn't a band anyway.

*I once saw Ani DiFranco sitting on a sidewalk in Binghamton and Aaron and I, not having the foggiest idea it was her, had a conversation that went something like this: "Gee, the Ani DiFranco concert was tonight, huh? Hm... I heard she hates guys..." "I guess I don't really know her music or anything, at least not very well, but I've heard the same thing..." "I'd fuck her and show her a thing or two that's good about guys!" Yeah. The girls on the sidewalk laughed hysterically, and only when I read the review in the newspaper the next day -- and saw the HUGE picture of Ani -- did I recognize whom Aaron and I had insulted. Duh.

That's it. EVERYBODY else has met a band. Don't EVEN tell me you haven't met a band, because I KNOW you have.

Matt met the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Steve met Boyz II Men. Susan's friends with the bass-guy from Cooter. I talk to this chick online, Jammie, who's met like, TONS of bands -- real ones that I've actually heard of. Me? I once slept with a guy who got beat up by L.L. Cool J.

I've been thinking about that for awhile, how sad and pathetic I am that I've never met a band. Welllll... Okay, okay, I have met bands. Local bands. I never heard them play anything, usually. I've seen them smoke a lot of weed, but I never saw any of them actually do anything, and I've seldom heard of any of them getting a gig. I suspect most of them will remain unknowns for a VERY long time.

I was thinking about all of this when I stepped off the bus in front of Washington Street the other day after work. I walked down Washington Street, hoping to meet a band. Who was I expecting? That like, Fred Durst would be standing there? Steven Tyler? Dave Matthews? Portishead? Depeche Mode? Barbra Streisand? I stopped into the tattoo parlor, hoping to meet a band. I saw some guys who looked like they SHOULD be in a band, but I don't really think they were. I walked into a little Bohemian card/gift shop called the Garland Gallery and met some lesbians, but, alas, no band. I went to Java Joe's. Nathan was working, and a girl named Corrine was sitting in the back, so at least I had companionship, even if I never had met a band.

(Once, I thought I saw Chrissy Hynde, the lead singer of the Pretenders, in Java Joe's. As a matter of fact, Chrissy was a regular. But it turned out not to be her after all...)

I sat with Corrine. Corrine and I talked. We dished. Ohhhh, the gossip that goes around Java Joe's! It never seems to have anything to do with me, but I always know the people it involves, and that's exactly how it should be. I listened intently. "So M dumped F because she found out that he'd screwed around with B -- they did like, everything except have sex, and I was there, so I know it's really true... But anyway, what M DOESN'T know is that F has also been sleeping with K!" (Yes, "David," you ought to know exactly whom I'm talking about...)

Gossip was all good. But I still wanted to meet a band. I told Corrine this.

"Well, why don't you come down to Cheers tomorrow night!? Yolk's playing!"

"Yolk? Really? I've never seen them."

A BAND!!!!!!!

Yolk. They're a local band. But if you called somebody in, oh, Syracuse or someplace, and said, "I saw Yolk," they'd know who you were talking about. Probably. Binghamton has had a few bands that have gotten fairly big. The only other one I can really think of is 607, and I think that they broke up. I never saw them, either. Anyway, so maybe they're not Chrissy Hynde or L.L. Cool J., but they're definitely a band, with like, actual CD's out.

So I went. The next night, I wore the coolest outfit I own: big sorta-punk tan Jnco's and a medium-slutty purple top. And hair clips -- cute little flowery ones that just make me want to vomit, but they do look good on me. I looked like a girl on her way to meet a band.

I walked to Clinton Street. I got disoriented and started heading the wrong way on Clinton Street. I FINALLY found Cheers, which is a sweet little bar on a sweet little corner quite near my house. I went in. I paid my cover. I was embraced by a guy named Bryan, who reminds me of a really worn-in overstuffed sofa from the mid-seventies. I've known him for awhile; he's a drug dealer, or was last time I knew, but he's a nice guy. And then, there was Corrine, looking fabulous and a little drunk. THEN, there was Miérgé, Brian Andrews, and Valerie, not to mention a half-dozen more people I'd seen around town but had never really met: a guy Aaron used to call "Child Molester," a couple people who work in the mall, you know -- people you'd stop and say hi to if you coincidentally saw them in a rest-stop in Miami, but probably not bother with otherwise.

...My first impression of Cheers was: this is where Java Kids go when they turn 21.

The band was awesome. They'd had an opening band, 40-odd Magnate, another local band, but all I'd ever seen them do was like, smoke pot. I'm not entirely convinced they count as a BAND, as in "I met a band!" Besides, I only saw them do one song, and I just couldn't get into it. Yolk, however, was awesome. "Rock," Corrine told me before they came on, "They play rock music. There's no other way to describe it. They don't sound like anybody else."

They sound like Dave Matthews if you locked Dave Matthews in a room with nothing but a CD player and a bunch of ska CDs, and then let Dave Matthews out to spend three months hanging out with somebody who rocked a little harder, like maybe Metallica or somebody. Even that's pushing it. They rocked. But they really don't sound like anybody else.

Wow. A real band!

About halfway through Yolk's first set, Corrine whispered, "We got invited!"

"Enh?"

"To the after-hours party..."

"ENH?"

"The after-hours party! With the bands? That girl right there invited me and said I could bring a friend. Just keep quiet about it, because last time, WAY too many people showed up. It's just gonna be you and me, okay?"

I think, at that point, I shrieked. I may have just sort of yelped, but I think it was more of a shriek. Not only was I gonna go to a party and meet a band, but I was one of an ELITE GROUP that was going to the party and meeting the band. I mean, they are a local band, so everybody knew them anyway, except me, but STILL! DAMN, I felt special! And I don't mean special as in, "Special Bus."

Well, Yolk took a break, during which a gross dude groped me and another gross dude pushed the first gross dude away and said I was with him, which I wasn't... At that point, Corrine, seeing I needed help, announced that she needed to change her shoes and did I want to come to her house with her to get them. Relieved, I went, missing quite a bit of the show in the process. But at least I was away from the gross dudes.

So Corrine got her shoes and we went back for our things, catching the last two songs, and then went to the... *gulp* after-hours party. Well, nobody was there yet, so the two of us walked down to the bridge and watched the duckys swimming by in the Chenango River.

When everybody arrived, we went upstairs. I walked up thinking, "damn, I'm cool" over and over. Here we were, at an after-hours party with, like, a REAL BAND, at a secret location (although I don't really think it was a WICKED secret location -- I think mostly I just wish it was a secret location), an elite twosome WALKING UP A FLIGHT OF STAIRS!!! Oh, how cool, how fucking fucking fucking FUCKING COOL! FUCK, we were cool!

Well, in all seriousness, the party was pretty lame. Some drama was going on and everybody congregated in somebody's bedroom with the door closed. Maybe they were arguing, maybe they were shooting up, who knew? But hardly anybody was standing around chugging beer and mingling and all. Only one guy from the band talked to me; the saxophone guy, whose name was Adam. Adam was nice. Adam was wicked cool. He had good hair and a Rage Against The Machine shirt. Adam was IN A BAND! If Adam remembered my name five minutes after he heard it, I'll eat a sock, and if Adam remembers my name NOW, I'll eat a PAIR of Peter's really smelly socks, but I was still on the verge of passing out from frenzied, joyous, gleeful hyperventilation. Gahd, I'm such a dork.

So, yeah, the party was lame. Everybody who wasn't doing some secret thing in the bedroom (orgy? satanic ritual? satanic orgy?) was out in the main room smoking weed. And blowing it in my face. I didn't mind, although stuff looked a little different and my clothes smelled pretty bad when Corrine and I left that night.

We left. Corrine drove me home. I'd met a band. If I hadn't been kinda buzzed from being in the room with all the joints, I would have jumped around and giggled. Pretty much all I could really do was drop into bed, though.

Today I went out and got one of Yolk's CD's. I met them, sort of. I might as well at least have their CD. Actually, it's REALLY good; I didn't just like them because they were a band -- they really are good. Someday, they oughta make it really big -- like, get played on radio stations and all...

I went to the mall today, ran into my store, and FINALLY got to yelp, "You guys! I MET A BAND!"

I can't tell you how good it feels.

Love,
~Helena*

"...a cup of tea is all I presently desire..." --Yolk