This week, I had a chance to meet up with some friends with whom I played about 20 years ago. I have stayed in closer contact with some than others, but the most recent encounter had more of that old band than I have seen in quite a while. We were called the Road Kill Ramblers and we had a heck of lot of fun for a couple of years back in the 1990’s. It was, in some respects, a chaotic affair – we changed keys indiscriminately and swapped instruments a lot too. Sometimes, that chaos drove me nuts. More often, though, it was a hoot and a half.
Play music long enough, you end up playing with a band. Play in bands long enough, and you build up a lot of memories. Sometimes, the memories exist only in the brains of the musicians, but in the last 20+ years, almost every band has photos, recordings, and videos or movies to preserve the memories.
The first efforts are almost always a little embarrassing. You thought you looked so good and sounded so good, and then decades later you look through the pictures, listen to the recordings and cringe.
Old band pictures are a consistent treat. 30 years ago, we were thinner and better looking – so why did we take such dumb looking pictures? Oh, yeah, the hair. There’s the smiling band picture, the serious band picture. There’s the woodsy background, the brick wall background, the barn wall background and the pasture background. There we are with instruments, without instruments, onstage, in the studio.
My personal favorite band picture of all time is the Allman Brothers on the Fillmore East album. They’re the epitome of scruffy southern rock heroes, lounging around a massive stack of road cases in front – what else – a brick wall. Over the years, I have staged numerous rock band photos surrounded by our amps and guitars. Of course, when you’re 14 and the beer cans you’re holding so casually aren’t even open, the photo lacks some cred.
No matter what bands you were in, if you did gigs, you have sweet memories of the gigs. Time tends to make each band sound better and better in your memories, but honestly, if the audience was enjoying the show, you were definitely good enough, and you are entitled to fond memories of those times.
If you played gigs, those band must have had rehearsals, and despite the hard work, rehearsals might linger sweetly in your memory. There must have been laughs, and great satisfaction as the band tackles a tough new song and emerges with a shining addition to the band’s repertoire. It’s likely there have been arguments, too, and some clashes, and maybe some hurt feelings. But time smooths out those rough patches and the result is a lot of fun times.
