It's Been a Long Time (Since I Rock & Rolled)

One day my friend Donny called me with the idea that we should try to revive our failed music careers. I hadn't played the guitar in about five years and so I was pretty lukewarm on the idea.

Years earlier when I had finally moved out of my parent's house at the tender age of twenty, me and my friends were a pretty hopeless bunch of losers. I had dropped out of University and had no job experience beyond busing tables at a restaurant. About a day or two after moving out I felt an awful sensation where I was weak and my stomach hurt. It took about anther half a day for me to realize that it was hunger.

We were living in a basement suite in a house down by the railroad tracks in a suburb adjacent to the one where I had grown up. It was kind of a seedy neighbourhood and it was only a few months after we moved in that we were robbed and all my guitars and equipment got stolen. I never did play again after that until I got that call from Donny.

I finally agreed to a practice and went out and bought an old metal axe and an amp from a thrift shop. I went home to play and I was pretty terrible. I couldn't even hold some of the notes down cleanly. I persevered though and by the time I went over to Donny's I had recaptured a little of my old form.

Our practice space was the attic in Donny's three level apartment. His drums were set up and there was an extra amplifier for me so I didn't have to schlep mine over there. Our third band-mate was Ben, a good looking young lad from a rich family on the West side. He had hair that he had grown almost to his waist. Ben played base and keyboards, I played guitar and Donny was our drummer. Ben was a pretty decent musician and due to his influence we had put a few instrumental numbers together within a few weeks. We still didn't have a singer or any lyrics though.

Donny had a lot of connections in the Vancouver scene and before we knew it we were playing warehouse gigs and house parties. We also made what is perhaps the worst demo tape ever recorded. The backing music wasn't too bad but Donny's imitation of a punk rock singer was soooo awful. To this day I'm still kind of embarrassed that anyone heard that thing. Then, before we even had a singer we were booked to play at this huge club called Graceland for a comic book benefit that was going on there. To get ready for the show we had a couple of rushed practice sessions with this guy from Victoria who could sing pretty well, but he was just making the words up as he went along.

When the day of our big show arrived I was terrified. How could this go well? At least I had a good outfit. I was going to wear a black one piece woman's bathing suit on-stage with my hair slicked back like I was going to Sunday school. We were the opening band and so when the time came for our sound check we were low man on the totem pole. The sound guy seemed impatient and pissed off every time we asked him to change anything. I couldn't hear myself very well in my monitor and I asked him to turn it up but he just kept turning up the PA that was miked to my amp. By the time our sound check was done things were hopelessly fucked up. My guitar was so loud it drowned everything else out and when we started playing I couldn't hear anything any more except my guitar.

We limped through our set. It was so frustrating not being able to hear anyone that I became incredibly agitated. Thankfully we were so loud that people couldn't really tell what the fuck we were playing and everyone seemed to enjoy the show immensely, especially my bathing suit and they were all clapping us on the back going "good show!" afterwards.

Ben came up behind me. "Hey could you even here what I was playing?" I was talking to someone and didn't quite hear him. He hit me lightly on the back of the head with a rolled up tube of papers. I had been drinking since noon to get my nerve up for the show and I was in a really terrible mood because of how things had gone. Sometimes when I was really drunk back then, I would do terrible things and poor Ben was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I turned around and got him in a headlock. "There they go!" yelled the doorman enthusiastically (the same guy would later take off with all the door money that was supposed to go to the comic book). I thew Ben down on the ground and kicked him in the stomach, causing him to writhe in pain on the floor. I went outside and helped Donny load up the van.

"Where's Ben?"

I shrugged my shoulders sullenly.

We drove back to Donnny's place and he was glaring at me. When we got there he said "Could you even hear what I was playing!?" We argued for half an hour until I had had enough.

"Fuck this and fuck you Donny."

"What? Are you quitting?"

"Yes I'm quitting."

"Todd what are you going to do without this band? You have nothing going for you!"

"I'm going back to school in the summer."

"School!!?" he sounded like I had kicked him in the balls. "Look you don't have a job, you don't even have a girlfriend!"

"I'm temping and... Lauren."

"She's not really your girlfriend and besides Lauren's ugly."

"What do you mean she's ugly!?"

"She's sexy but, she's not very good looking."

"You just say that again you smug little fuck-head."

"What?"

"Fuck you."

I'm a pretty crappy fighter but Donny was even worse. By the time I backed off I was worried that I had killed him. He was lying on the floor his face a mass of blood and gore. That was the end of our band.