Your Band Sucks Part 10

Because those are the people we are.

Epilogue: Staying Off the Bus.

After our second Asian tour I stayed in Tokyo and booked myself into a fancy hotel for two nights. It was exorbitant, even after I found a crazily discounted rate, and not in the slightest bit punk rock. But I couldn't resist going grand after the madness and bruisings of this tour. All of which started receding as the cabbie, dressed in a suit and white gloves, sprang from the right-side driver's seat and began Tetris-ing my gear and luggage into the minuscule trunk and backseat.

I settled in and gave him the name of my hotel. Soon we pa.s.sed the O-East, where we'd played the night before last, and a few moments after that we left behind the parts of s.h.i.+buya that light up like a pinball machine every night, garishly, blaringly, neon-soaked.

An overcast day in April, under a weak and tired sun. Only barely spring. Our friends here told us we'd just missed the cherry blossoms. But we always just miss the cherry blossoms, I thought. Combining touring and tourism never really works out.

The VIP wristband from yesterday's festival was still on my wrist, and my body was a catalog of ache and malady. Half of my back was balled up and crying: in your mid-forties, wearing heavy guitars night after night messes you up. My feet and calves still throbbed from all that bouncing up and down onstage. A small constellation of angry-looking blood blisters dotted my right forearm, friction welts from up-and-downing too hard on my guitar. I clicked my teeth together, testing, and felt jolts of pain. During the encore in Singapore-was that ten days ago?-I lunged toward Sooyoung's ba.s.s, trying to bite the strings, but missed, and my top front teeth smashed into the pickguard instead. They hurt like h.e.l.l the next morning, and I checked them in mirrors for the rest of the tour, convinced they'd start turning black, but they didn't. On top of everything, Jesus, was I fried. Exhausted and place-s.h.i.+fted. Returning to the hotel the night before around 4 a.m., I asked the desk attendant for my room key, by number, in approximate j.a.panese. Roku zero roku. But then unfathomably added s'il vous plat?

I lolled against the white lace draped across the backseat to watch the order and correctness of Tokyo rolling by. The harmony of a thoughtfully designed city, especially on a quiet Sunday. When we arrived at the hotel, the driver pushed his magic b.u.t.ton, and my door eased open. A small crowd of employees descended, all wearing suits. One asked the name on my reservation, two muscled the bags and guitars out of the car and onto a large luggage cart, and a fourth, speaking fluent unaccented English, escorted me in, through the entrance and into the teak-walled elevators that opened out into a grand vaulted s.p.a.ce of the lobby bar and indoor bamboo garden. This was the kind of hotel where, once you stepped into the lobby, all the noise of the day falls away, submerging you in a deep, delicious, calming hush, a very expensive quiet for which I'll forever be a sucker, and never more so than after the strung-out extremes of a tour like this one. Every detail here was so thought-out that in the hallways the ceiling fixtures cast perfectly symmetrical round pools of light on the carpet. Ridiculous. But I loved it. As it was ridiculous I could even be here-that fortune had smiled on me so brightly that I could come to Asia for a wholly improbable ongoing reunion of my teenage punk rock band, and afterward sleep two nights in such a setting.

Just after I arrived in my room, the doorbell chimed-the bellman, who neatly propped open the door and hauled in everything, starting with the duffel bags and merch boxes. When he set the guitar cases down, he made his joke, asking whether or not they contained machine guns.

No, I told him. Guitars. But sometimes they're as loud as machine guns.

It wasn't funny, but he laughed anyway. We both bowed, and he left, gently closing the door behind him.

I looked out over the city. So we'll do some shows in America this fall, I thought, and that'll be it. Orestes and I were still talking about a new band, but nothing was coming of it, and I couldn't pretend I was dying to start all over again. Not even with him.

Some leftover tour anxiety fluttered, and I walked across the carpet to where the bellman had perfectly stacked the guitar cases atop one another. At the festival someone had packed up both Les Pauls for me-another first-and I wanted to check.

Each guitar was fine, nestled perfectly into a fake red velvet interior. But something tightened in my throat.

Every now and then I looked at one of my guitars, still marveling: What a lovely thing. Though this time it wasn't that. It was more like: All the places we've been. Crazy.

I strummed the open strings on the black Les Paul with my index finger. The D-A-D-G-A-D tuning that Sooyoung first showed me in late 1988, which I'd used off and on ever since, and the chord resonated in the case and through the body, hanging in the air for a long time, which is exactly what you want from a Les Paul: Braaaaaaaannnnng.

How many times had I heard the gentle rise and fade of that open chord on an unamplified Les Paul and thought, Wow. So beautiful. No song-no recording-ever truly captured the subtleties and colors of its overtones sounding in a quiet room.

Braaaaaaaannnnng.

This magic wand that could dispel all bad feelings, turn the air electric, fill every empty s.p.a.ce, be beautiful or brutal and every shade in between-and it all started with this unamplified, unadorned sound. A toddler would first play a parent's guitar like this: drawing a tiny, tentative finger across the open strings, amazed at the magic that follows.

Braaaaaaaannnnng.

IN MAY 2010 MY FRIENDS IN LCD SOUNDSYSTEM PLAYED FOUR sold-out shows at New York's Terminal 5. Everything about those nights was perfect. They were a hometown send-off before the band left on a long international tour. They'd just released This Is Happening and were absolutely on fire. The opening act, their labelmates Holy Ghost!, were friends with all of us, too. I went to every show. Each night the audience went bananas. Each night the afterparty went very late.

Backstage and VIP sections of rock clubs generally suck, but at these shows it was different. Not because it was decadent and everyone was crazy on drugs and f.u.c.king in the bathrooms and broom closets. Because it was all old friends. Many of whom were my favorite people. We'd all known each other forever. Our bands played together. We all dragged out our adolescence for as long as possible before growing up, late, together. Saw each other get married. Gathered, blotchy-faced and sobbing, to bury a close friend. Met their kids when they were born. The VIP section was filled with the people you most wanted to invite to the party-the crew with whom you wanted to end every late night-all jumping and cheering and singing along with the other people you most wanted to invite to the party, who were tearing it up onstage. The occasional actual celebrity who dropped by often looked around and quickly calculated that it wasn't worth staying, because they weren't among their kind.

All during that enchanting time of year in New York when daylight keeps lasting longer and each night the late sunsets and warm evenings still surprise.

Like I said. Everything about it was perfect.

The final show was on a Sunday night, and after the last encores and the balloon drop left us sweaty and wrung-out, and after we clicked our iPhone cameras at the commemorative cake backstage, and after we stayed to the end of whatever final afterparty, I went home and slept a few hours, woke up around eight, showered, gulped caffeine and cereal, threw on clean jeans, a white b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt, and a suit jacket, and rushed my worn-out, hungover a.s.s out the door for a nine-o'clock meeting. It was time to get back to that other world. All that had happened over the course of the previous week was already growing lovelier in memory as I dashed down flights of stairs. But I was trying to push it aside and release the PAUSE b.u.t.ton I'd pressed down again for a few lucky nights.

What came next never happens. Until it does.

Downstairs a bus idled at the curb. Then I saw Pat and Nick, the drummers from LCD Soundsystem and Holy Ghost!, finis.h.i.+ng predeparture cigarettes. Of course they're here, I thought: James from LCD lived in my building. Our eyes met, and they cracked up and started waving and hollering and pointing at the bus.

Get on.

Get on that bus.

Come on!

Get on!

Fine!

You know you're getting on the bus.

Come on!

You're going!

Let's go!

I cracked up, too, made sounds of excuses-reallybusy! toomuchwork! can'tgetaway!-and went over to slap hands and hug and wish them a great tour. Tonight was Montreal, they said, and-arching eyebrows toward James's window-they were already running a little late.

As was I. So I said goodbye and took off.

Nothing happening here was that important, I thought as I jogged toward the subway. But that wasn't why I was staying.

They probably didn't know how hard it was for me not to get on the bus that lovely May morning. Or how badly I hoped they were serious.

They probably didn't know how desperate I was not to lose the feeling of the past few days. That I'd do almost anything to hold on to it for a little bit longer.

The only sensible thing to do was walk away. Crank up the machinery of a more practical life, the one with far fewer highs and lows. If I got on that bus, I'd never, ever want to get off.

I kept running to the L train, sweating last night's booze into my jacket, swiped my way through the turnstile, lunged into a subway car crammed with cranky rush-hour commuters, and didn't look back.

I was forty-two, and married. You can't keep running away to join the circus.

THOUGH IF YOU'RE REALLY LUCKY, I THOUGHT, ALMOST TWO years later, seven thousand miles from home in a fancy hotel, you might get to visit it again, for a little while.

Braaaaaaaaaang.

This odd and lovely little world. Which saved me, and then broke my heart. The world I'd been so determined to forget.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

But, of course, I couldn't.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

Even though, no matter what I expected, it always let me down.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

I mean: Really. You motherf.u.c.kers. All of you. I wasted so much time.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

But listen to me, for just a little longer.

Before I walk away again, and probably forever, it's important that you know how grateful I was for this chance to return.

No. I am grateful this whole raggedy culture was ever possible-ever thinkable-in the first place.

How madly, and how unreasonably, I loved every minute.

Well, almost every minute.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

Even if I understood all along that the hardest thing about picking up a guitar is knowing that, one day, you'll have to put it down.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

When I'm seventy, I'll hear a s.n.a.t.c.h of some song, somewhere, and duck my head and smile. Not because I remember. Because I still know.

Braaaaaaaaaaang.

One last time. The chord dropped away to reveal pure sound: overtones mingling, vibration purring through wood.

Then there was no sound at all, and I closed and locked the case.

Acknowledgments.

The absolute worst thing about many records from the eighties and nineties was the interminably long "thanks to" lists. That said: Here's an interminably long etc., etc.

This book would not exist without my agent, Wayne Kabak, and its editor, Rick Kot, thanks to a different book idea that Wayne hatched and a subsequent lunch I had with Rick at which I shared said idea. But Rick proved more interested in my old band that was reuniting after twenty-one years, and some time after the main course told me, that's your book. This book would not exist without Orestes Morfin and Sooyoung Park, nonpareil touring and drinking companions and a h.e.l.l of a rhythm section. This book would not exist were it not for everyone who ever bought a record, saw a show, or uttered a kind word about any band I played in, and I am still awed and amazed that any single person ever did. On a lighter but equally important note, the t.i.tle of this book would not exist without Ed Fotheringham, singer of the Thrown Ups, who came up with the t.i.tle and lyrics for the song "Your Band Sucks."

I was enormously lucky to meet Linc Wheeler when I did. The journey to discovering the music that most excites you is even better if a close friend is with you every step of the way. Linc, you rock. Hopefully a few more people will know that now, too.

Tad Friend, an uncommonly stylish and wise writer, made this book immeasurably better with his detailed comments and suggestions. My brother, Neil Fine, was an invaluable sounding board and counselor throughout, never more than when he parachuted in for some last-minute editing that, basically, saved my sorry a.s.s. As always, his brilliant advice was dispensed quietly, absent any drama, and with a great deal of hilarity. I'd take a bullet for Neil, but I suspect what he really wants is for me to apologize that an earlier draft of this book incorrectly characterized his athletic ability at summer camp as sub par. I'm truly sorry about that, and rest a.s.sured, Neil, I still remember your outstanding sprint that kicked off Indian Head Camp's Rope Burn in the summer of 1978.

I have been in serious bands with many people, and not all of them appear herein. I am certain I am omitting many names but the following deserve a shout-out for being there, keeping company, and shaping and sharing these experiences: Bob Bannister, Lyle Hysen, Jenna Johnson, Jordan Mamone, Eamon Martin, Dave McGurgan, Gerald Menke, Doug Scharin, Kevin Shea, Eric Topolsky, and Jeff Winterberg. And the guitarist and ba.s.sist in Ribbons of Flesh: Roger White and Doug MacLehose.

There are many others with whom I've had long ongoing conversations about music-in person, via e-mail, on listservs in the nineties, and on Facebook and elsewhere today-or people whose writing helped crystallize how I understand music. Among them: Steve Albini, Mark Arm, Richard Baluyut, Nils Bernstein, Chris Brokaw, Joe Carducci, Paula Puhak Chang, Justin Chearno, Damon Che, Byron Coley, Ian Christe, Liz Clayton, Andee Connors, Gerard Cosloy, Ana Marie c.o.x, Scott DeSimon, Elizabeth Elmore, John Engle, Jayson Green, Joe Gross, Allan Horrocks, Steve Immerwahr, Jimmy Johnson, Katoman, Rob Lim, Rose Marshack, Bob Ma.s.sey, DJ McNany, Nick Milhiser, James Murphy, Dave Reid, Seth Sanders, Agostino Tilotta, Fred Weaver, Bob Weston, Nancy Whang, Ian Williams, Douglas Wolk, Kiki Yablon, and, of course, all the members of the secret society of Chugchanga.

The ragtag crew at WOBC ran a h.e.l.l of a radio station when I attended Oberlin, among them Martha Bayne, Jolene Callen, Rachel Maceiras, John McEntire, Jim Rippie, Bryan Smith, Steve Summers, Susannah Tartan, Will Winter, Zoe Zolbrod, and the late Rick Treffinger.

Things got heated between us and Barry Hogan for a while, but without him, b.i.t.c.h Magnet never would have reunited. Big thanks to him and the rest of the All Tomorrows Parties' crew that made performing at 2011's Nightmare Before Christmas such a delight, in particular Deborah Hogan and Shawn Kendrick. It is a source of some regret that some of Shaun's craziest road stories are unpublishable.

Those last b.i.t.c.h Magnet tours would not have happened, nor been as fabulous an experience, without the following people: Matthew Barnhart, Diego Castillo, Kitty Chew, Joffy Cruz, Dalse, Jeremy DeVine, George Gargan and Janice Li, Hiroki and the rest of the Kaikoo staff, Katoman, Kimi Lam, John Lee, Ana Paz Lopez, Jim Merlis, Sang Ah Nam and Kiwan Sung and 3rd Line b.u.t.terfly, Nisennenmondai, Alfie Palao, Jihong Park and the entire staff at Strange Fruit, smallgang and Former Utopia, Errol Tan, Tarsius, Peter Weening, Wilderness, the stage crew at s.h.i.+buya O-Nest, those who put on our show in Cologne, and everyone who came out to see us.

I didn't write much about record stores, but their centrality to this time and this kind of story is incalculable. I learned lots from the following. Some still exist, and should you be new to this music and curious to learn more, please direct your paychecks their way: Aquarius Records, Newbury Comics, Other Music, Pier Platters, Reckless, Sounds, Twisted Village, and Venus Records. And See Hear.

My parents, Alan Fine and Karen Fine, were forever far more supportive of my musical endeavors than I could ever have hoped, whether that meant showing up to see b.i.t.c.h Magnet play opening-band slots at the CBGB Record Canteen to letting us blast away in the bas.e.m.e.nt while, after a long day at work, they tried to eat dinner directly above us to, well, far too much else to recount here. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

A few musicians and denizens that I knew from this time aren't around anymore. The music and joy they created will long outlive them, but the world is lessened for losing the light they shone: Jon Cook, Michael Dahlquist, Hajji Majer, Letha Rodman Melchior, Jason n.o.ble, and Billy Ruane. Above all, Jerry Fuchs, from whom I learned so much, with whom I laughed so hard, and to whom I still have so much to say. It is impossible to convey my sadness to know that we'll never finish our conversation.

In the course of writing this book, I interviewed around sixty musicians, label heads, and booking agents. Some were subjected to innumerable follow-up questions, yet tolerated them with ridiculously good humor and in general showed themselves to be all-around excellent human beings. In particular: Lou Barlow, Boche Billions, Ken Brown, Joe Carducci, Clint Conley, Jeremy DeVine, Anne Eickelberg, Zachary Lipez, Juan MacLean, Rose Marshack, Doug McCombs, Roger Miller, Peter Prescott, and David Yow. Others provided particularly thought-provoking or clarity-inducing comments, even though none of their quotes made it into the book: Henry Bogdan, Rebecca Gates, Michael Gerald, Emily Rieman, and Steve Turner. Somewhat relatedly, anyone needing transcription services should carve Cynthia Colonna's name into their forearm. She's fast, accurate, delightful, and, in general, all kinds of awesome. Find her at cynthiacolonna.com.

Much of this book was written at The Writers Room, the sui generis oasis in lower Manhattan. For around a year beginning in February 2013, I depended to an embarra.s.sing degree upon its stillness, coziness, and quiet, and it never let me down. Huge thanks to Donna Brodie, Liz Sherman, and all the others that keep this s.p.a.ce going.

Aside from being plain delightful to spend each workday with, the staff at Inc. were remarkably tolerant of my mood swings and occasional missed meetings and last-minute days off as this book's final deadline loomed. It is important to note that all the stuff about the weirdness a.s.sociated with explaining your f.u.c.ked-up bands to people at work was all written before I met them. Over at Viking and Penguin, Candice Gianetti provided services far beyond and saved me from several stupid mistakes; Amelia Zalcman offered wise and judicious counsel; Daniel Lagin came up with the look and feel; Diego Nunez took care of a million little details; and Sharon Gonzalez made it all happen. I'm also fortunate to work with not one but two top-notch book publicists: Meredith Burks and Gretchen Crary.

Others who helped in ways large and small: Kurt Andersen and Anne Kreamer, Gary Hoenig and Betsy Carter, Russ Reid, Michael Weiss, and the crew with whom I want to end every late night. (You know who you are.) And last, but really first, my wife, Laurel Touby. She was there for every minute of a project that took almost four years to complete. Her patience with its demands was constant and astonis.h.i.+ng, even during its many crunch times. Her ferocious skills at the merch table during b.i.t.c.h Magnet's last round of tours helped our little circus survive until the next show, her editing pen made the final product better. Thank you, Laurel, for all of that and so much more. Had we not met, there would be no happy ending. I love you.

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