The Misunderstood Musician Part III

(In case you missed it, PART II is HERE and PART I is HERE.)

With all sweetness, friendliness and confidence I address Cheech and Chong, "Hey guys. So I am Trudy, the manager of Semicolons Make Tears..." Their chuckles interrupt my explanation. "Yah, funny, right? So listen, do I see Tom for the passes or do one of you guys have them for me?" The one on the right stands, enters the ticket booth, roots around in a cardboard box and the passes are handed over. Neither smiles nor speaks; it's all business; it seems as if I register as "enemy" on their "The Man" radar. Perhaps I poured on the sappy professionalism too thick with these balls-to-the-wall death core freaks. I underestimated their hidden hardcore-edness.

"By the way, I adore Fantomas' remake of The Godfather - fucking brilliant." This spirals us into a discussion of the album The Director’s Cut. With genuine childhood-like delight, I relay to them the first time I heard them do the Jurassic Park score, and although I am sincere, my aim is really to bring them into my fold - which I successfully do. By the time I walk away, I'm getting knucks all over the place, and then I go in for the kill.

"Awesome! So I have to go take care of some shit. Will you guys just make sure no one is coming in here that shouldn't? Got to get paid, ya know?"

"Totally Trudy, we are your dudes."

"Rad. Later."

I don't look at it as manipulation. Shit. I do love that Fantomas' album, and nothing I said was untrue. I believe you can connect with anyone on something. Hell, once I had a 45-minute conversation with a girl working the merch table about the highs and lows of that shitty reality show "The Hills". She and I still email.

The venue is rarely my problem. The problems usually have to do with the band (or the label)(or other bands). For instance, now I must coax Bruce away from the GTA and into more "indie rockish" clothing.

Standing over a religiously-concentrated Bruce, as he's assumed his usual legs-folded-underneath-him-hunched-over-eyes-making-love-with-the-bouncing-lights-from-the-big-screen-TV position, I begin my efforts. Yelling toward the tiny bathroom, "Hey Lowell, do you have any more kids' pants that Bruce can wear?" Bruce and I try hard not to snicker too loudly. I hit Bruce's shoulder out of bullying-camaraderie. Still in the toilet cave, a cocky Lowell whines, "You can't handle that I'm a fashion risk-taker".

"Whatever, I know a girl sent them to you." Lowell doesn't reply. "Ike told me. He says it's hot and heavy. Which city is this one from?"

Faintly, the figurative cock fallen from his mouth, Lowell embarrassingly offers, "Tokyo."

Bruce and I lose our shit laughing at Lowell's online dating past, present and future. There's always a new one, and she's always sending him shit (lucky bastard). He's strategic about keeping them on a cyber plane. He makes sure he's never speaking to one in a city we may be coming to next. He doesn't actually want to meet a girl in person. The digital romance of words and the occasional gift give him enough "love" to deal with, then physical needs are met via blow jobs from random groupies. It's a balance he's perfected. But let me be clear, he is retardedly serious about these online ladies; there is nothing insincere about his poetic and melancholy emails.

Again, faintly, Lowell replies, "Shut up."

Bruce pauses his game to really enjoy the ribbing, "What'd her ad say? 'Prefer hipster dufus but willing to take a skinny white dude who can fit these pants?" Bruce tries hard not to lose his composure, "So the text 'pants' has a hyperlink and it takes you to an online vintage retailer... and that's when you first fell in love with your tiny boy cords?" The laughter is raucous at this point, tears stream from my eyes, I can't breathe and a bit of pee trickles out.

Lowell, occasionally a self-aware good sport, comes, literally dancing, out of the bathroom. He dances all around us in his tight, blue bottoms, leaping, pausing to take rigid air-guitar poses, head-bangingly tossing his hair all around his smiling face. He does a few more fist pumps for good measure, stops, minorly defeated, he offers, "Ya, I'll change." Back into the tiny bathroom he struts, ready to say goodbye to his tiny Tokyo-love pants.

Bruce returns to killing prostitutes with machine guns. Ike has joined him. I look at my watch. I have to start weaning Bruce off of his distraction (and true passion) and into what he calls his "laughable high school marching band uniform that I despise".

"Dude, it's time."

Ike, the ever vocal proponent of labor, always fighting "management": "Why do you make him wear those dumb clothes?" His ego is drenched in irony as he wears his traditional stage get-up: short green running shorts with white piping, a hairy belly and a beard like a mountain man whose house is most likely made entirely of sticks, glued together by his own feces. I don't know if he's joking or not.

As many times as I have explained the label's parameters on image, no one understands my need to dictate fashion. It's hardly a job I relish. Fuck marketing; fuck image; fuck trends. I hate it more than they do. And it isn't as if their attire is contractually mandated by the label. That expectation safely hovers beneath the surface, made clear in subtle comments. I'm no idiot. I get that a "look" always accompanies music. The ultimate "I could give a shit about my clothing" band was Nirvana. Ironically their "look" spawned a clothing trend finally reaching to the middle-end ranks and racks of JC Penney. Every sub-genre of the underground music scene unintentionally promotes its own style: metal, Goth, punk. Punk fashion was meant to be the ultimate fuck you to fashion, anti-fashion, and now new born babies of second-generation corporate wealth, New Yorker faux-urbanites sport "The Clash" onesies and shit. Music is a lifestyle down to the last detail. Hell, I used to say if I wasn't wearing my beat up, cheap wrist watch, I wasn't representing myself properly. No doubt that awareness of the signals I was sending through material choices was directly influenced, if not caused by my musical interests. Any slightly aware person can't be aloof enough to ignore it. So I maintain an anti-social social consciousness by pushing another social consciousness, a consciousness always teetering on destroying the same music which is solely responsible for birthing that fashion trend. It's as complicated as Federalism, and I have no idea if this band pulls it off. All I know is, they don't feel like sell-outs and the label stays off their (and mine) backs - which, incidentally are clothed in well-worn second-hand t-shirts most of the time.

To Be Continued…