Here's a typical shot from a typical place in a typical town called Brooklyn. I know...I'm not too thrilled with it either. However, my empty promises should soon be filled, as I have my DDX raring to go. So when all my chemicals have reached the same temperature (I'm assuming), I'll get to cooling them down to 20c together and I'll push that 3200 to 6400 and hopefully find a pot of something that's not gold yet is kind of funny yet I can't think of what to say at the other end.
I've been listening to Fear a lot lately. Even if not actively listening, their songs have been running through my head. Random lyrics jumping out at me:
My house smells just like a zoo, it's chock full of shit and puke.
Let's have a war, give guns to the queers.
Disciplinary correctional surgery.
I don't care about you, fuck you.
And so forth.
But aside from the thought provoking, insightful lyrics, I've been thinking about their actual music — their sound. Even though they were associated with the punk and hardcore scene, they didn't really sound like any other band. You can't say that they have a "punk" sound, or even a "hardcore" sound. They just are. They're just Fear.
But why write about this now?
All of these thoughts have gotten me to thinking about a friend of mine. It's easy to think about him. His picture (along with his bandmates) is stuck to my dry erase board by a magnet. His small nightstand lamp sits on a small stand next to my couch where it shares space with books, remote controls, and camera doings. The lamp hasn't worked in years, but I like having it there. Even without these tangible reminders, he'd still be on my mind. Even if it weren't almost 16 years since he hung himself, he'd still be on my mind.
Like me, he loved Fear. Like me, he also loved Black Sabbath, and a myriad of other bands spanning all genres and eras. We talked about the music we loved for hours on end. And it's only just recently that I realized that Fear had a completely unique sound for the scene they were in, and all I want to do is talk to him about it.
It's an unrequited conversation. It's one I have in my head while thinking about him, imagining standing around his driveway as the sun goes down, each of us clenching a beer, and singing the praises of Lee Ving. It's a conversation with the dead, but the dead don't talk back.
And I think of all the other things I should have said, not just about music, but maybe things I could have said that would have made this topic immaterial, and instead I could be writing about the great conversation I had with my living friend. But life ain't that way. Some rents you can never completely sew up. You just flatten them out and wear it as best you can.
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