We Three Punks

Being in a band was, in a lot of ways, like being in a romantic relationship. Some bands are more casual and short lived, some are an on-again-off-again sort of thing, and some get you so infatuated that you feel as if you could never live without it. You find yourself making irrational promises that are impossible to keep, and you even cling to these promises throughout two and a half years of separation. That’s what I did as a missionary, anyway. I held a pinky promise that Aaron and I had made in July of 1999, that we would always play in a band together, as a serious commitment. During my mission, I prided myself on telling people that I had not left a steady girlfriend at home, and therefore did not have an issue with that kind of distraction, but had I been honest with myself, I would have realized that leaving a band at home (or in that case, in Brazil and North Carolina) was pretty much the same thing.

Another way that being in a band was like being in a relationship was that breakups could be messy. When Rash finally called it quits, it was a mutual decision among the three of us, but there were some hard feelings, at least on my part (and I addressed these in an earlier post about the final days of Rash). In addition to a band breakup, though, is the potential element of a band member getting kicked out of the band.

As I noted in the story about The Rasta Smurfs’ first practice, there were four of us in the band, Aaron, Spencer, Landon, and me. For a few reasons, of which I really can’t remember any specifically, Aaron, Spencer, and I decided that Landon needed to (euphemism alert!) pursue other projects outside of The Rasta Smurfs.

Actually, I can remember a reason that I felt this way, but I don’t think I expressed it specifically at the time. To me, the ideal band consisted of three, and only three, members. One guitar, one bass, and one drummer. Vocal duties could be shared, but any more than three just wasn’t right. The reason I felt this way was that I wanted to be just like my favorite band. What band was that?

[Ahem] Green Day.

I probably didn’t admit to it, because it would have felt too mainstream, but Green Day was always my favorite, and Green Day was a three-man band: BJ, Mike, and Tre’.

It didn’t matter to me that most of the music I listened to was made by groups of four or more, Green Day was the best and that’s who I wanted to be like. It worked out really well for The Rasta Smurfs/Cute Band Alert! that we ended up with just three of us in the band. I don’t know how we would have made the trip to Arizona with any more than that crammed in the front seat of Aaron’s car. And the bond that was created among us was something pretty special.

Wait, something is interrupting me. What’s that? You say that Green Day has a second guitar player who has now officially been made a fourth member of the band?  Huh. Well, hm, I don’t know how to respond to that, so I won’t. On with the narrative!

So the decision was made to let Landon go, and Spencer remembers that he volunteered, or we voted him, as the one to do it. I imagine Landon wasn’t thrilled about the decision, it’s never nice to feel like you are not wanted. And it seems like things were a little strained between us and Landon for a little while.

Somehow, though, over the following months, we patched things up with him to the point that I felt comfortable enough to ask him for a huge favor. Landon was a DJ at a local radio station run by Orem High School, and the show Landon did was a ska/punk night show. After we recorded our CD and had some copies of it available, I made the audacious move to ask Landon if he would be willing to play some of our music on the radio, and he agreed to do it.

I can’t decide if this was just a really classy thing on his part, or more of a classless thing on my part. Either way, hearing our music played over the (admittedly very limited) radio waves was something that thrilled us to no end.

Two Nights, Two Shows, One Campout

The passage of time is such a weird thing to think about. One of the most fascinating lines from the Book of Mormon is Jacob’s comment about this very thing, “the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream” (Jacob 7:26). To Jacob, I say, I hear ya, brother.

My point, by the way, is that it feels like it is very difficult to fit everything into a day that I would like to. Inevitably there will be four or five major things that I wanted to accomplish any given day that I just did not get around to doing. This was not a problem for me as an eighteen year old. In 24 hours I could accomplish everything. For example…

There was a cancer benefit thing scheduled for June 25th at Mountain View High School, and Rash was put on the agenda of entertainment for the evening, along with Provo’s popular comedian, Johnny B. At some point the members of Rash decided that we did not want to do this show, and so instead of telling the people in charge that we were canceling the performance, The Rasta Smurfs showed up and played instead.

Our show wasn’t well received by the crowd. Everyone but around eight people left when we began playing. A lot of the people who were there were expecting Rash to play, and I tried my best to convince them that my new band, which I enjoyed being in more than Rash, was even more fun, but I wasn’t terribly persuasive.

After the show we cleaned up, took all our equipment to my house, went to 7-11 and bought some firewood, and then we drove up Provo Canyon to find a campsite to spend the night. The campsite next to us was occupied by a group of people who were enjoying large amounts of pot and alcohol, and they came over to our camp and talked with us. They were very friendly.

The next day, after we all slept less than three hours a piece, we hung out and then took all our equipment to another show. I’m not sure where this one was played, but we played with Chump, The Kindertones, Arrogant, and Magstatic. The crowd at this show was much more into our style of music and cried for an encore, but we had played our entire set list and didn’t have anything else to play. I wrote in my journal that I was excited to see the video of the show. I don’t know where that video could be now.

We didn’t know it, but this would be the last show we would play for over a month, and that because of a devastating accident that I will write more about next time.

Birth of the Smurfs

May 31st was the first practice of the Rasta Smurfs in the basement of my house. My dad called the room we practiced in “the production room.” This was probably because it was first conceived of as a room where he would produce artwork and photography (it is adjacent to his dark room where he could develop photos by hand from negatives). However, for the last few years of that decade, most of what was produced in that room was music and/or noise courtesy of me and my friends.

Over the years, Dad had come to really like Rash’s music, which was very much not punk rock. So when Aaron, Spencer, Landon, and I completed our first loud, punk-ridden practice, he told me that he didn’t enjoy it very much. That hurt my feelings a little, because this was a dream come true for me to be in a punk band. Much to his credit (and I cannot emphasize this enough) the music grew on him and eventually he made bumper stickers and business cards for us. I know I didn’t express my gratitude for his support as much as I should have.

The Rasta Smurfs’ first few songs included originals by Spencer, Aaron, and Landon, and a cover of The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love.” (By the way, when I told someone recently that as a kid I played drums in a punk band, her response was, “Oh, you mean like The Cure?” I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, “Well, we actually covered a Cure song, so yeah, sort of.”) The songs were loud, fast, and for the most part, silly. Initially, my favorite songs to play were two of Aaron’s songs, “I’m Sexy” and “Somebody Here Smells Funny.” The reason these two were my favorites was because of the drum parts, which switched from a rocksteady ska beat to a super fast punk beat throughout each song. Also, I thought both songs were really funny. Spencer’s “Someone’s Type” was really fun too, and I really loved the backup vocals I got to sing on it.

For some reason during this time I was desperately trying to find a second job, and I applied at a number of places, but did not end up getting many offers, and the offer I did get (at Hot Topic) I turned down. I guess I wanted to try to earn more money before my mission, or I wanted to stay busy, or something. Thinking back on this now, this desire seems utterly silly.

The Rasta Smurfs’ first gig was with Joel Pack’s band, Strange Itch, at a bar in Salt Lake City called Area 51. It was on June 15th, just slightly over two weeks after our first rehearsal. Why do I refer to it as Joel Pack’s band, you ask. Because that’s all that I remember about it, and the reason I remember this is that I was once in a class with Joel in middle school. He lip synced to a Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song for a project in that class.

My memories of the show at Area 51 center mostly on what happened before we played. Just before going on stage we went in the bathroom, stood in a circle with our arms around each others’ shoulders, and I said a prayer. This may well have been the most enthusiastically spoken prayer of my life, as we bounced up and down with excitement while I prayed and my voice raised two octaves as I closed it. I’m sure it was really profound too, though I don’t remember what I said. I imagine it was something like, “We are SO grateful to be here at this, um, place, and that we get to play music. Bless us to ROCK! and to have fun!”

I recorded in my journal that night that the crowd at Area 51 “accepted us.” I do not know what this means. I also noted that I was writing at 4:00 in the morning, so I shouldn’t expect me to have made much sense.